[ad_1]
In the wake of a statement addressing the messy state of Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox One and base PlayStation 4, CD Projekt held a board meeting yesterday to discuss the game’s release issues, revealing a bit more about the development process immediately ahead. of the game launch. And, perhaps not surprising, it seems that those last-gen versions arrived quite well.
The call began with a statement from CD Projekt President Adam Kiciński reaffirming the company’s commitment to fixing Cyberpunk on next-gen consoles with a patch within the next seven days, with more major updates in January and February. “We will do everything we can to show that we stand by our values,” Kiciński said. “We really hope that our efforts will allow us to rebuild the trust that we have lost.”
The opening statement also addressed why the game had launched so messily on next-gen consoles.
“After three delays, we as the board of directors were too focused on releasing the game. We underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues, we ignored the signs of the need for additional time to refine the game on the latest base consoles. generation. It was the wrong approach and contrary to our business philosophy. On top of that, during the campaign, we showed the game mainly on PC. This caused the loss of player confidence and the reputation that we have been building through much of our lives.”
Interestingly, this explanation seemed to conflict with comments from Senior Vice President of Business Development Michał Nowakowski later in the call, who said the focus on the PC version over next-gen consoles had been a cause, but that pressure to launch the game on time. it had not been a significant factor.
“I wouldn’t say we felt any external or internal pressure to pitch on the date other than normal pressure, which typically, you know, coincides with any pitch … but that wasn’t the cause.”
Kiciński also suggested that the Covid-19 pandemic had hampered the game’s development, as while internal testers could continue to work from home, external testers had to use test centers and couldn’t work unless they were there. “We had a certain decrease in the number of testers, but I would not point to that as a major source of problems,” he added.
Responding to a question as to why CD Projekt had not shown footage of the game running on next-gen consoles, Co-Founder and Joint CEO Marcin Iwiński explained that CD Projekt had been “updating the game on next-gen consoles until the last minute and We thought we would be on time. “
“Unfortunately, this resulted in turning it over to reviewers just one day before release. And that was definitely too late. We didn’t give the media a chance to review it properly … that wasn’t intentional, we were just fixing the game to the last moment “.
When asked why the poor performance of the game on next-gen consoles had not been flagged during the Sony and Microsoft certification processes, it appears that CD Projekt believed these issues would be fixed upon launch, and Nowakowski said the Failure was “definitely on our side.” rather than a failure of third party platforms.
“I can only assume they were telling us that we were going to fix things when they came out,” he said. “Obviously that didn’t go exactly as planned.”
So what will the game look like after all these patches and updates for next-gen consoles? Nowakowski said you can expect it to run flawlessly, major bugs will be removed, and you can expect improvements in both performance and graphical fidelity. CD Projekt reiterated that you shouldn’t expect next-gen Cyberpunk to work to the same standard as next-gen PCs or consoles, but “it will be a good, playable and stable game, with no glitches or glitches.” CD Projekt also considers issues such as NPC and AI behavior within the general bug category, suggesting that these areas will see improvements as well.
For those considering trying to get a refund for Cyberpunk 2077 (which CD Projekt suggested was an option in their statement yesterday), it appears this is operating through the platforms’ standard refund procedures. “Despite several articles I’ve seen that say things are shaping up just for us, it’s actually not true – these policies are in effect and have always been in effect; they are not specifically offered for us,” Nowakowski confirmed. “Our procedure here with Microsoft and Sony is no different than any other title released in any of those windows.” In the same call, CD Projekt also said that it did not want to encourage customers to seek a refund, which is actually sending some mixed messages.
Looking at the dev team’s schedule in the coming months, the team will take a break before focusing on patches until February. Although a date for the game’s multiplayer launch has not yet been confirmed, Kiciński said the team will have to “re-evaluate where we are” as they ended up in a situation that was not planned. The focus is currently on managing the release for a player, in terms of patches and communication. It seems CD Projekt is at least trying the latter, even if many fans won’t be happy with the answers. Although I am sure that the CD Projekt share price, which has dropped a bit in recent weeks, probably had something to do with this emergency meeting.
[ad_2]