Cyberpunk 2077's Development Was Made Far Tougher By Work-From-Home Setup

Cyberpunk 2077 finally released today after numerous delays, with its original launch date set for back in April. COVID-19 has affected nearly every facet of game development this year as studios transitioned to a work-from-home setup. For CD Projekt Red, that seems to have been exceptionally true, as the Cyberpunk 2077 team had to spend far longer on routine tasks compared to when it operated in an office.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, co-CEO Adam Kiciński said that doing something like placing a character or object into the game could take hours because of the reduced communication between team members--it would take minutes when they were sitting next to each other.

Kiciński also mentioned that it was "painful" for the game's developers to have to crunch--the practice of working extremely long hours for an extended period of time as a game approaches releases-- though he hoped players would be understanding after seeing the final product.

That remains to be seen, but crunch doesn't often translate to better games. In the case of Cyberpunk 2077, it's still littered with major bugs across the PC and console versions, including full crashes. It was one of our biggest issues with the game in our Cyberpunk 2077 review. That review was conducted on PC, and though the console versions also seem rough, CD Projekt Red said a launch-day patch should help matters. After pre-installing the Xbox One version on an Xbox Series X yesterday, we didn't receive an additional patch today. It could be a while before more substantial updates fix the worst problems.

After initially being scheduled for April, Cyberpunk 2077 was then bumped all the way to September. This was then followed by a delay to November before its final day to December 10. It's currently available on Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Stadia, with Xbox Series X and PS5 versions coming next year as free upgrades.