Marcin Iwiński, co-founder of CD PROJEKT, came to twitter this afternoon to discuss the ongoing development for Cyberpunk 2077. In the 5 minute long video, Iwiński "owned up" to the console versions of Cyberpunk 2077 not meeting the quality standards that CD Projekt Red had originally set for the game. Iwiński spoke for the entire leadership team when making this statement, and asks that fans not criticize or blame the developers of the game, as they are all talented individuals who tried to make the best game in the time management gave to them.
Iwiński continues by giving a brief explanation on how the game's development looked from the inside, stating that the leadership team had vastly underestimated the process of scaling the game back down to base consoles, leading to the issues we see today. CD Projekt Red wanted to make the game as breathtaking as it could be on PC, and believed they could scale it back and preform well on base consoles. The main issue outlined by Iwiński was the in-game streaming system, which feeds game data and mechanics through the engine to display on screen. While not an issue on PC platforms, console platforms have a slight restriction on disc bandwidth, meaning because of how vastly packed the open world was, the in-game streaming system on older hardware was severely underperforming. All of this along with the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic are the reasons why Cyberpunk 2077's launch on base consoles is what it is.
Iwiński spoke to the future of Cyberpunk, which can be seen in the image above. The plan is to release two updates early this year to fix the main issues with performance across all systems, known as "Patch 1.1" and "Patch 1.2". Patch 1.1 is set to release later this month, while Patch 1.2 is set to release sometime in February. These patches are designed to fix a majority of the issues across all platforms while bringing console versions of the game to a much more playable state. While updates and improves will be added to the game afterward, the next key plan is to release the free DLC packs sometime after the 1.2 Patch. Cyberpunk 2077 ports for the Xbox Series X|S and PS5 have been scheduled to release in the second half of 2021 as of writing.
It will be some time before the next generation launch for Cyberpunk 2077, but with a roadmap of planned updates and fixes, content drops, and more, the future is looking a light brighter for fans of the game. For more on Cyberpunk 2077, be sure to check back to My Xbox And Me.