This week finally brought Cyberpunk 2077 fans a bit of news, though it likely wasn't what most were expecting. Unfortunately, players will be waiting a bit longer to run around Night City, as the game is going to miss its original April release and instead arrive a few months later in September. However, the delay doesn't just impact the game's campaign. It appears other aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 are also getting bumped.
Earlier this week following the news of the delay, Michal Nowakowski who is CD Projekt RED’s SVP of Business Development as well as a member of the board, issued a statement regarding the multiplayer component of Cyberpunk 2077. Without saying too much, Nowakowski hinted at other events the studio has planned and is expecting after launch that is also causing the multiplayer delay. As such, the planned 2021 launch for the multiplayer mode now appears unlikely, which indicates that players shouldn't expect anything until 2022 at the earliest.
During the teleconference, Nowakowski also confirmed that the mysterious triple-A game the studio was working on in parallel to Cyberpunk is actually none other than the multiplayer component. Unfortunately, no additional details were provided but considering the studio has given the triple-A label to the multiplayer mode, it sounds like it's going to be a significant portion.
Given the expected release of Cyberpunk 2077 in September, and speaking of a series of events we expect to occur after that date, 2021 appears unlikely as a release date for the Cyberpunk multiplayer.
After the multiplayer's initial confirmation last September, not all fans were on board with the announcement. Some were worried that working on it in conjunction would take away resources and manpower from the single player side of the game, while others had concerns over possible microtransactions finally making their way into a CD Projekt RED game. However, following this set of news that the multiplayer is still a couple years away, it's quite unlikely that the single player side will be impacted at all.
While many fans would likely agree that the delay is ultimately a good thing for the quality of the game at launch, the news has also seemingly had an unforeseen consequence. Joint CEO Adam Kiciński confirmed that the studio would be instituting a necessary crunch period to push through the final stages of development. Kiciński did say that the studio did its best to limit these events and would be reasonable about the overtime work, but it is still an unfortunate situation to be in. In the end, it seems Cyberpunk 2077 is heading down a similar path the studio found itself in while trying to wrap up work on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Cyberpunk 2077 launches on September 17, 2020 for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
Source: cdprojekt.com