It's been a very long road for the developers at CD Projekt RED and the work done on one of 2020's most anticipated titles, Cyberpunk 2077. Originally announced all the way back in 2012 with a slick CG trailer, CD Projekt RED would then take 4-5 years before even talking about the title again. New footage finally surfaced in 2018 and the hype from the fanbase began to build continually from there following each new announcement including a memorable appearance by Keanu Reeves at E3 2019. After numerous delays, Cyberpunk 2077 appears to finally be officially locked in to its November launch thanks to a recent Tweet from the studio.
Earlier today, the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account released a new image of Reeve's character, Johnny Silverhand, holding a gold disk in his hand. This is to signify that the game itself has finally gone gold, and will officially be arriving on November 19.
The term "going gold" has been used for quite a while within the industry, typically used to indicate the final milestone of the development process before software is released to the public. During this phase, development is officially over and the software is sent to manufacturing for mass-production. This also means that Cyberpunk 2077 is completely playable from start to finish with all content inside and digital versions of the game are sent over to the various online storefronts like Steam, Xbox Marketplace, and PlayStation Store. Still, the job isn't done for developers as they've presumably transitioned to the first few patches and updates that will arrive at and around launch.
While the news is no doubt exciting for fans, CD Projekt RED has been battling some adversity lately with the news breaking about mandatory crunch just in order to make it to the November release. While the company has seemingly said all the right things over the years about wanting to reduce the need for crunch and even stating that it wouldn't have to implement crunch for work on Cyberpunk 2077, much of that was unfortunately proven to be false recently.
In order to make its intended launch and to avoid another delay, the studio implemented a six day work week for its employees in order to squash the various bugs still lurking within the code. Studio head Adam Badowski released a statement regarding the news indicating that it was one of the hardest decisions he's ever made, though it was necessary to get the game ready in these final six weeks. While the news isn't great for developers, at least Poland has laws in place to protect workers, ensuring they'll get overtime pay. Not only that, CD Projekt RED does give 10% of the annual profit back to the team. It may not justify the work-life imbalance, but at least it's something.
Cyberpunk 2077 releases November 17 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with PS5, Stadia, and Xbox Series X/S support to follow.
MORE: Cyberpunk 2077's 'Seize the Day' Trailer is Slightly Ironic