Cyberpunk 2077's original release date indicated it would launch in April 2020, about four years after it entered full development. But the game was met by numerous delays throughout the course of the year, pushing its launch back to December.
Each of these delays was said to be a case of fine-tuning the title. In January, optimize Cyberpunk for PS4 and Xbox One.
Cyberpunk 2077's delays resulted in eight months of further development on the game. But even with this extra time, the state of Cyberpunk 2077 upon release - especially on the aforementioned past-gen consoles - didn't live up to fan expectations. The game's tendency to buckle under its own weight, with bugs, glitches, and crashes, highlights why it is better to delay (and keep delaying) a title than to rush it out to market.
Cyberpunk 2077's Many Delays Seemingly Weren't Enough
A CDPR's reported employee crunching in an effort to rush the title's development to meet the already-delayed deadline. Even after Cyberpunk went gold, CDPR's development team was made to crunch on the day-one patch.
CDPR itted during a post-release board meeting that it was "focused on releasing the game," overlooking key problems with development and "underestimating the scale and complexity of its issues." From the players who purchased a broken title to the development team forced to labor under reported crunch conditions, no one benefited from Cyberpunk 2077's December release. Perhaps another, more significant delay or two could've prevented both the intense crunch and the disastrous launch.
Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto famously once said that "a delayed game is eventually good," but "a bad game is bad forever." In a follow-up interview with YouTuber TheJWittz, Miyamoto clarified the statement was meant to point out the regret felt when a subpar product leaves a studio. As its stock prices plummet and its fanbase continues to voice disapproval, CD Projekt Red has become perhaps the closest modern-day example of that quote's message, but Cyberpunk 2077's delays never made it to that "eventually."
Two more Cyberpunk 2077 faces an uphill battle for redemption.
