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'Cyberpunk 2077' delayed again by 3 weeks, fans annoyed but also concerned for overworked developers

The delay, per the company, is due to the need to ensure ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ runs well across nine different gaming platforms, including the upcoming PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, as well as Windows PCs

On Tuesday, October 27, CD Projekt Red announced that its highly anticipated RPG, ‘Cyberpunk 2077’, is being delayed once again. This flies in the face of CD Projekt Red assuring fans the last time, when the company had said that the game would definitely be released by November 19. On a Twitter post, the company informed that ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ will now arrive on December 10 simultaneously on a bunch of platforms.

The delay, per the company, is due to the need to ensure ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ runs well across nine different gaming platforms, including the upcoming PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, as well as Windows PCs. “The biggest challenge for us right now is shipping the game on the current-gen, next-gen, and PC at the same time, which requires us to prepare and test 9 versions of it,” CD Projekt Red wrote on Twitter. 

“We’re aware it might seem unrealistic when someone says that 21 days can make any difference in such a massive and complex game, but they really do,” the company added in its statement.

Fans, expectedly, are annoyed. The game has faced constant delays, causing fans to erupt into fits of outrage on social media on several occasions. But there is more than just fan-annoyance at play here. There is also a bigger question that is not often raised by gamers.

As video game reporter Jason Schreier, who works for Bloomberg News, noted on Twitter, “Cyberpunk 2077 getting a three-week delay is unusual but probably won't change much for the developers, many of whom were going to be crunching into December anyway for a post-launch patch. But I sure do hope reality is becoming clearer to those who tried to deny it.” Schreier added in the following tweet, “Look, a CDPR dev told me recently that they'd just clocked a 100-hour week. Another (former) dev just told me they saw some of their friends there and they looked ‘physically ill.’ So kindly gtfo with the ‘but but but I work long hours too’ responses.”

He isn’t the only one saying this. Other fans and gamers too expressed their concerns for the workers developing the game. “I'm as bummed about the Cyberpunk delay as anyone else but let's press F for those devs who were ALREADY BEING OVERWORKED and are getting 21 days added to their absolute hell,” wrote a Twitter user. Another Twitter user said, “Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed again. The crunch continues. Developers have been and will continue to be overworked. Luckily the internet is excited for the game, so everyone will defend CD Projekt Red just like they did a few weeks ago.” Another fan of the game said, “I have mixed feelings about the CDPR Cyberpunk delays. Yes, please delay the game to make it better. But the developers are still being overworked despite the delays, and that is absolutely terrible.”

That CD Projekt Red employees might be getting overworked is not conjecture. Bloomberg reported on September 30 that prior to its previous launch date, CD Projekt Red told employees that six-day work weeks would be mandatory. In fact, the report added that this was not the first time the gaming company had engaged in “crunch,” an industry term for excessive overtime in game development. In a leaked email, CD Projekt Red studio head Adam Badowski wrote, “Starting today, the entire [development] studio is in overdrive,” adding that this meant “your typical amount of work and one day of the weekend.” 

'Cyberpunk 2077' is an open-world, action-adventure story set in the fictional Night City, a megalopolis "obsessed with power, glamour and body modification". Players play as V, a mercenary outlaw going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality.