CD PROJEKT RED is now in the final weeks of polishing up Cyberpunk 2077, with only about a month and a half left to go before the game's launch date on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
We all know that's when developers work extra hard in order to fix the final bugs and whatnot. Still, in May 2019 CD PROJEKT RED had promised it would try to minimize crunch compared to the past and be 'more humane' to its employees.
However, Bloomberg gathered from anonymous sources that Adam Badowski, Game Director for Cyberpunk 2077 at CD PROJEKT RED, sent out the following email to the entire team earlier this week. As you can read below, it basically mandates a (paid) extra day of work during the weekend.
Starting today, the entire (development) studio is in overdrive. [It's] your typical amount of work and one day of the weekend.
I take it upon myself to receive the full backlash for the decision. I know this is in direct opposition to what we’ve said about crunch. It’s also in direct opposition to what I personally grew to believe a while back -- that crunch should never be the answer. But we’ve extended all other possible means of navigating the situation.
Earlier this morning, Badowski shared a statement on Twitter responding to the aforementioned report.
These last 6 weeks are our final sprint on a project we've all spent much of our lives on. Something we care for deeply. The majority of the team understands that push, especially in light of the fact that we've just sent the game to cert and every day brings us visibly closer to shipping a game we want to be proud of. This is one of the hardest decisions I've had to make, but everyone is well compensated for every extra hour they put in. And, like in recent years, 10% of the annual profit our company generates in 2020 will be split directly among the team.
Clearly, CD PROJEKT RED executives do not wish to delay Cyberpunk 2077 a third time. The open world game was originally meant to launch on April 16th, as announced on Microsoft's E3 2019 stage, right after Keanu Reeves was revealed to be playing Johnny Silverhand. That date later became September 17th, and now it's November 19th - incidentally, also the release date of Sony's PlayStation 5 in Europe and many other countries.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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