After Cyberpunk 2077 announced yet another delay, fans were angry. This game has been delayed numerous times and all of its lofty promises may seem like pipe dreams to even the most devout CD Projekt Red fan. Unfortunately, it seems that some fans have opted to take their frustration a step further, sending death threats to the developers.
Cyberpunk 2077 is easily one of the most highly anticipated games of the year, but with that high profile comes a lot of negativity as well. Fan expectations are set incredibly high, as manyfans can agree that the delay is frustrating, but death threats are completely uncalled for in this situation.
This news comes by way of Andrzej Zawadzki, the Lead Game Designer for Cyberpunk 2077. In his tweet, he calls out those fans that resorted to this lowly measure and pleads for others to take the high road instead. Others in the comment decry this sort of behavior too, but the ones sending the death threats are mysteriously absent.
Sending death threats to these developers is really adding insult to injury, as it was recently revealed that the Cyberpunk 2077 developers found out about the delay at the same time as everyone else. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, this decision was made by some higher ups, and an email went out to employees at the same time as the tweet announcing the delay went out to the public.
This also happens at a time when crunch culture in various game development studios is being brought to light, and CD Projekt Red has been at the forefront of the most recent accusations. Developers are working upwards of 100 hour weeks in order to get Cyberpunk 2077 ready in time for release, so the last thing they need is to be receiving death threats about a decision they had no part in making. Though this situation in particular is especially bad, there's really never an appropriate time to dole out death threats to anyone.
Unfortunately, these kinds of irrational outbursts from a subset of fans have the potential to undermine the frustration and legitimate grievances there are to be had with Cyberpunk 2077's development. Zawadzki does a good job of validating those that are upset before calling out the ones sending death threats, but it's still an issue nonetheless. Hopefully this trend of sending death threats any time something goes wrong ends soon, as it's both immature and potentially very harmful.
Cyberpunk 2077 releases December 10th for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions also in development.