As of 4 PM UTC on March 16th of 2020, CD Projekt Red has announced via its official Twitter page that its upcoming, open world role-playing shooterCyberpunk 2077is currently still set to release in September as planned. This announcement comes after news that, due to COVID-19, popularly termed the Coronavirus, employees of CD Projeckt Red would be working onCyberpunk 2077from home.
The post informed fans that, while adjusting to working remotely for an indeterminate amount of time is certainly a challenge, the team doesn’t believe thatCyberpunk’sproductionwill falter because of it. This comes at a time when many companies of multiple industries are announcing delays in their own projects due to COVID-19.
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In the world of television, production onStranger Things,The WalkingDead, andThe Witcherhas all stopped, being only a few massive names among multiple dozens of delayed programs. On the silver screen, large upcoming movies likeA Quiet Place 2,Fast 9, andNo Time to Diehave all had their releases delayed due to audiences staying away from theaters. In the gaming industry, large conferences like E3 and GDC have been cancelled along with a multitude of tournaments and other gatherings. In addition, there’s widespread speculation as to whether the upcomingPlayStation 5 and Xbox Series Xwill be released on time.
Cyberpunk 2077in particular hasalready been delayed once. The game, which was originally scheduled for April 16th of 2020, was delayed around five months to its current release date of September 17th. Ideally, this release date will be able to remain in place, though, like CD Projekt Red stated over Twitter, what’s most important right now is the health of the developer’s employees.
Hopefully, this will extend to emotional and mental health of CD Project Red’s employees as well. During the development ofThe Witcher 3, the CD Project Red earned somewhat of an infamous reputation surrounding crunch time, with the developer itself admitting that the conditions during the late stages of the game’s creation could have been more “humane.” While CD Project Red seems to beattempting to improve itselfin this regard, the complications of working from home risk worsening crunch.
It’s still early inCyberpunk 2077’sdevelopmentremotely, so the release date could still very well change. For now, gamers can only wait and see if this will be the case.
Cyberpunk 2077is slated for release on September 17th, 2020 on GeForce Now, PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One, with an Xbox Series X version also in development.
