CD Projekt Red is confident Cyberpunk 2077 will "pass the test of time," and a large part of that is because things went so horribly wrong with the dystopian RPG's launch.
Speaking to The Mirror, CD Project Red's senior VP of technology Charles Tremblay takes an optimistic view of Cyberpunk 2077's journey to where we're at today – would things have eventually worked out the way they did if the team wasn't so motivated to turn a bad situation good?
"At the end side, if you think about it, if the success of the game would have been what we originally expected, would it be the same game that we're playing today? I don't think so," Tremblay says. "Which is weird when you think about it because of all the problems that we had, but then basically we ended up pushing so much energy in this game and I think now it's a much, much better game that it would not have probably been otherwise, so I'm pretty happy about the result. I think this game will pass the test of time."
The story of Cyberpunk 2077's launch is likely one you've heard many times before, though the gist is of a buggy mess that launched long before it was ready, leading to an unprecedented decision by Sony to yank it from the PlayStation store, and so much more. After a round of apologies, CDPR set about fixing the game and overhauling its systems while throwing in the odd new thing for good measure.
Cyberpunk 2077 slowly came to resemble what was promised over time, though what really took things to another level was the popular Edgerunners anime, and its themed in-game update. Not only did that put new players in the mood to check it out, but others who played it before also came back to see how things improved – and, thankfully, both sets of fans came away equally glowing with praise.
All of that already lifted the mood around Cyberpunk 2077, though the Phantom Liberty DLC sticking the landing certainly brought things to a nice end – read our Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty review for more on that. Onwards to Cyberpunk 2, then, and hopefully a happier launch.
