New report suggests CDPR staff knew Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't ready for release

A new report that details Cyberpunk 2077's "disastrous rollout" alleges that many CD Projekt Red staff were aware the game wasn't ready to be released.

Bloomberg ($/£) reports that a number of current and former CDPR staff "depict a development process marred by unchecked ambition, poor planning, and technical shortcomings", alleging the team was aware of the issues ahead of release. 

It further alleges that the 2018 E3 demo was "almost entirely fake".

"Interviews with more than 20 current and former CD Projekt staff, most of whom requested anonymity so as not to risk their careers, depict a development process marred by unchecked ambition, poor planning and technical shortcomings," Bloomberg reports.

"Employees, discussing the game’s creation for the first time, described a company that focused on marketing at the expense of development, and an unrealistic timeline that pressured some into working extensive overtime long before the final push."

As we summarised at the time, Cyberpunk 2077 suffered a fairly disastrous launch on both PS4 and Xbox One. After reassuring players that the game ran "surprisingly well" on last-gen platforms, CD Projekt Red leadership apologised for the bug-riddled launch of the game on both platforms, after players encountered numerous bugs, glitches, and visual downgrades. CD Projekt Red leadership said the cost of fixing Cyberpunk 2077 on these platforms was "irrelevant" compared to the hit their reputation has taken over the launch.

Consequently, Sony pulled Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store "until further notice" and began offering refunds to anyone that bought Cyberpunk 2077 on the PlayStation Store and wanted their money back. Microsoft subsequently added a warning to its Xbox storefront, too. 

In a tweet shared after Bloomberg's report was published, CDPR's Adam Badowski challenged many of the article's assertions, stating he wouldn't call talking with 20 people as "most of the 500-people staff" the company employed and insisted that missing features is "part of the creation process". He also stated that the company "owned up" to the old-gen console issues, and said, "we are proud of Cyberpunk 2077 as a game and artistic vision". The full rebuttal can be read below. 

To make matters worse, CD Projekt investors unhappy at the performance of Cyberpunk 2077 were contemplating legal action against the company and now, it seems a law firm in New York has gone ahead and filed a class-action lawsuit and filed for damages on behalf of CD Projekt investors.

While a couple of weeks back, during an emergency meeting, CDPR president Adam Kiciński said that it was "too early to judge" what would happened to the game's DLC and multiplayer mode, free DLC is coming to Cyberpunk 2077 in "early" 2021. 

Here are some new games coming in 2021 to get pumped for.