The head of the studio of the Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red disputes the allegations that an E3 demo for the game was forged.
Adam Badowski gave insight via Twitter into making the game following an in-depth report by Bloomberg, which among other things claims that the E3 2018 demo was “almost completely false” according to anonymous members of the development team.
The sources of the website claim that the underlying gaming systems have not yet been coded or even finalized when Cyberpunk 2077 was shown behind closed doors to presses and other professionals in the industry in June 2018.
The developers said it had to be a “waste of months to make the game.”
Badowski tweeted a statement to address three claims from the article, starting with the accusation that the demos were forged.
“It’s hard for a trade show demo not to be a vision or a vertical cut two years before the game is sent, but that does not mean it is fake,” he said.
“Games are not made linear and look like the final product just a few months before launch. If you look at the demo now, it’s different, but that’s what the watermark is ‘going on for.’ looks and plays better than the demo ever was. ‘
He adds that ‘missing’ features ‘are part of the creation process’, and some have been omitted, or it works well as part of the final product.
Badowski also disputes that the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 was ‘disastrous’, as the article suggests, and pointed to the criticism it had received on a computer.
“As for the old generation consoles, yes, that’s a different case, but we’ve approved it and work very hard to eliminate errors (even on a computer – we know it’s not a perfect version either not) and we are proud of Cyberpunk 2077 as a game and artistic vision. ‘
Bloomberg notes that CD Projekt Red did not want to comment or participate before publication.
Although Cyberpunk 2077 gained notoriety, it soon suffered a setback after reports surfaced that the console versions were so plagued by technical issues that it was unplayable.
Complaints about the game have even prompted Sony to delist the game from the PlayStation Store, and Microsoft to offer full refunds. The studio is also facing a lawsuit due to the misrepresentation of the state of affairs to investors.
CD Project Red has repeatedly said it is working on corrections, with the next two months two big spots, and co-founder Marcin Iwiński again issued an apology via video last week.
In the video, Iwiński claims that tests did not show the major problems during development. Bloomberg reports that big mistakes are still being discovered when Cyberpunk went gold in October.
Engineers have apparently also warned management that games are too complex for Xbox One and PS4, in part because of visions of a busy science metropolis. But these warnings have been dismissed, with management pointing out what has been achieved with Witcher 3 on Microsoft and Sony’s devices.
The pandemic also played a role in the misery of the console edition; While the development team worked remotely and tested the game on their home computers, they could not access console development kits in the office and could not fully determine how it performed on Xbox and PlayStation.
The Bloomberg article, which is based on interviews with more than 20 current and former CD Project employees, claims that there were many signs that the game was struggling to reach a 2020 release.
Sources said that the development only started in earnest in late 2016 – despite the announcement of the game in 2012 – when CDP ‘mainly pressed the reset button’ and began to change many fundamental parts of the project.
When the company announced a release date of 16 April 2020 during the E3 2019, some members of the team believed it was too ambitious given the progress with the game at the time. 2022 was considered more likely.
In his statement, however, Badowski indicates that the feelings of more than 20 sources on this matter are not an indication of the full team of more than 500 people.
There were also stories about language barriers, with CD Project instructing that all meetings be held in English after the Polish studio hired several ex-fries from the US and Western Europe.
Bloomberg claims that this was not followed consistently, but Badowski disputes this again, adding that with 44 nationalities in the studio, there would have been situations where people spoke to each other in their mother tongue if there was no one else in the area.
“Everyone here speaks English during meetings, every email and announcement throughout the company is in English – all that is mandatory,” he wrote. “The rule of thumb is to switch to English if someone in an informal conversation does not speak a particular language.”
Jason Schreier, author of the report, noted on Twitter that Badowski in his statement does not pay direct attention to the demands of an unrealistic timeline or ‘cruel predicament’.
In the article, audio programmer Adrian Jakubiak claims that he struggled for up to 13 hours a day, five days a week.
There have been several reports of crackdowns on Cyberpunk 2077. Joint CEO Adam Kiciński confirmed in January 2020 that staff members already had to work ‘to some extent’ overtime.
In September, it was reported that the studio was making overtime mandatory – despite previous demands of a ‘non-mandatory crunch policy’ – to get the game ready for a launch in November. The match still slipped by three weeks by three weeks.
Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed three times last year, but Bloomberg sources claim that management said delays were not an option before 2020. Despite the seemingly unrealistic timeline, the studio wants to release before Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are launched or even announced. it could “double” at a later time with next-generation versions.
CD Projekt’s share price fell by 30% during December, partly due to the setback, but Bloomberg reports that it rose by 6% after Iwiński’s apology.
Despite the controversy, Cyberpunk 2077 sold more than 13 million copies worldwide in its first ten days