game news “It was cool to hate the game,” CD Projekt reflects on Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous launch
Michał Platkow-Gilewski, Vice President of Communications at CD Projekt Red, reflects on the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 and the difficult feedback from his community.
Michał Platkow-Gilewski, Vice President of Communications at CD Projekt Red (whose job it is to oversee the studio’s contact with gamers, media and influencers), spoke a few hours earlier in the GamesIndustry.biz columns about the difficult launch of Cyberpunk 2077 , suggesting that the game still deserves a better response than the one it received.
I think Cyberpunk was much better received when it was released and even the early reviews were positive. Then hating him became cool. We went from hero to zero very quickly.
It was the most difficult moment. We didn’t know what was going on. We knew the game was great, that we could improve it, that we needed to take our time and that we needed to rebuild some things.
“Personally, I wasn’t happy with the result. I was not expecting that‘ he then explained, adding: ‘I knew straight away that we had to come back. I liked the situation we were in. “I’m not talking about the peak of the hype, but two years before we had our community, we liked them, they liked us, it was great to work at CD Projekt Red.”
“It was difficult after the game was released”
Soon, the Phantom Liberty DLC could represent a new frontier of redemption for the Polish studio. Not content with paying for Keanu Reeves’ services in the original game, the developers of Cyberpunk 2077 have managed to recruit another hugely popular actor to play one of the main characters of their expansion: Idris Elba. To mark the occasion, all of the game’s main systems have been “refreshed or extensively updated,” the team announced. The DLC is scheduled for release on September 26th for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series.
It was difficult after the game released, but I knew we had the same people. The players are the same… We just need to improve our relationship. The only thing we can really do is deliver what we are capable of. I have a feeling we’ll be able to do that soon and hopefully it’ll be a fresh start for everyone.
Platkow-Gilewski also spoke about the development of CD Projekt, which became known for its crunch culture: “It is very difficult to change a company when you have something to deliver and you have a deadline. It’s not the best time for it. Everyone has been waiting for the release.”“. And to continue with statements imbued with a certain optimism for the future.
These changes would have happened anyway, but (the cyberpunk situation) was another motivation. It was an alarm signal to say: Let’s rebuild, restructure, rethink… What lessons can we learn from all of this? It’s not an easy fix.
It’s not like you can decide tomorrow to do something else. It’s a process that will probably take a long time, but I see that the company is acting differently than before. And nobody wants to repeat the mistakes made.
