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Its a total mess; one that will continue to have wide-ranging implications for all the involved parties.
When you study the timeline, its clear that it didnt have to be this way.
CD Projekt Red, the Polish studio behindCyberpunk 2077, has a rarefied reputation in the games industry.
Here was a straight-up, unapologetic role-playing game based on a niche series of fantasy novels no less!
that still managed to sell nearly 30 million copies worldwide.
CD Projekt Red reveled in the financial bounty that comes with good buzz.
In total, the studiologged something like 8 million preorders before release.
When you watch that trailer now, its easy to see why the public got so frothy.
But as we got closer toCyberpunk 2077s release, cracks started to show.
Naturally, shortly after that Bloomberg report, CD Projekt Red delayed theCyberpunk 2077release date to December 10.
It was the third delay in the games life cycle: Initially, the company was targeting April 16.
That then moved to September 17, and then November 19, before the most recent setback.
This itself wasnt a huge cause for concern.
Games get delayed all the time, and the COVID pandemic has understandably disrupted development in countless studios.
By most accounts, the PC version ofCyberpunk 2077plays reasonably well.
The PS4 and Xbox ports?
(The softwarefares betteron the freshly released, and stillvery hard to findPlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.)
That brings us up to speed.
The future ofCyberpunk 2077remains uncertain.
The games industry is home to a number of comeback sagas.
But the flailing mismanagement evident in CD Projekt Reds top brass wont be forgotten so easily.
How quickly the tide has turned on one of the industrys feel-good outfits.
The moral here is eternal for any fandom: Incredible hype begets incredible disappointment.
They ought to start by taking a long look in the mirror before moving forward.
