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CD Projekt Red has delayed the release of Cyberpunk 2077 to September 17th, 2020.
In a statement shared via the studio’s social media channels, the developer said that while the game is “complete and playable […] there’s still work to be done”, so it was necessary to push the game back from its intended April release to Q3 2020.
“We are currently at a stage where the game is complete and playable, but there’s still work to be done,” wrote Marcin Iwinski and Adam Badowski in a joint statement. “Night City is massive – full of stories, content and places to visit, but due to the sheer scale and complexity of it all, we need more time to finish playtesting, fixing and polishing. We want Cyberpunk 2077 to be our crowning achievement for this generation and postponing launch will give us the precious months we need to make the game perfect.
“Expect more regular updates on progress as we get closer to the new release date.”
We have important news regarding Cyberpunk 2077’s release date we’d like to share with you today. pic.twitter.com/aWdtR0grYV
— CD PROJEKT RED (@CDPROJEKTRED) January 16, 2020
Yet despite the five-month extension, the developer admitted in an investor Q&A yesterday that the additional time will likely, and “unfortunately”, result in further “crunch”, the term given to developers required to work long days and substantial overtime in the run-up to release.
“To some degree, yes, to be honest,” Kiciński said when asked if staff would still be required to crunch (thanks, Eurogamer). “We try to limit crunch as much as possible but it is the final stage. We try to be reasonable in this regard, but yes. Unfortunately.”
“Why now? Why three months before release?” Kiciński added when asked why the decision to delay was taken now. “Well, we have been waiting and there always comes the moment to decision. We are constantly evaluating the game and we decided if we are to delay this is the right moment, and that with the decision to add five months we would be really sure that we can deliver what we had planned.
“Of course, it was a tough decision, but we and our team – which was informed minutes ago – think that this was a good decision and that having an extra five months will enable us to deliver a perfect game.”
Square Enix also announced this week it was delaying the release of its highly-anticipated Final Fantasy 7 remake, pushing it back to April 10th, 2020.
The original Japanese-language announcement on Twitter didn’t explain why the delay was necessary, but producer Yoshinori Kitase since explained on Square Enix’s website that they needed to delay the March 3rd scheduled release to “apply final polish and deliver [players] the best possible experience”.
