CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski has addressed one of the most controversial decisions in the company’s history: the 2020 launch of Cyberpunk 2077. While acknowledging that releasing the game in that state was a mistake, Nowakowski says investors were not responsible for forcing the studio to meet the December release date.
The comments came during an interview with The Game Business. Nowakowski described the circumstances surrounding the launch as considerably more complicated than the idea that financial pressure from investors simply pushed the game out early.
CD Projekt Red says the Cyberpunk 2077 launch decision was a mistake
Cyberpunk 2077 launched on December 10, 2020, after multiple delays during development. CD Projekt Red had previously postponed the game to allow additional time for optimization across nine different platforms, according to an official company announcement.
The eventual release was followed by widespread criticism, particularly over performance and technical problems on the base PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions. Sony later removed Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store and offered refunds to eligible players, adding another major setback for the studio.
Looking back, Nowakowski did not attempt to defend the decision.
“The decision to launch was for sure wrong, period. There’s no denying it,”
he told The Game Business.
However, he rejected the idea that investors simply demanded that CD Projekt Red release the game regardless of its condition. According to Nowakowski, the situation involved several overlapping pressures during the COVID-19 pandemic, including an exhausted development team and growing expectations from outside the studio.
“There were people outside telling us we should launch, fans asking for it, but the team itself also wanted to push it out the door because it was really tiring at that moment in time,”
Nowakowski explained.
He added that
“there were no magical investors” t
elling CD Projekt Red that Cyberpunk 2077 had to launch. Instead, he characterized the situation as “much more complicated and psychological,” suggesting that the decision resulted from a combination of internal exhaustion, external expectations and the unusual circumstances surrounding development during the pandemic.
Despite the troubled launch, Cyberpunk 2077 eventually underwent years of updates and improvements. CD Projekt Red has since moved forward with a sequel while also developing The Witcher 4 and Project Hadar.
