Why Cyberpunk 2077 failed at launch

This guy apparently had a chance to talk to a producer for 10 minutes at some event, and here's his story on the development of the game.

Here's a shortcut:

development started in 2013 (they acquired the licence quietly in 2010)

the 1st teaser took 4 months to make

during its development at that time, devs were pulled to work on Witcher 3, and the work on CP resumed in 2017

when the work resumed, came the "too many cooks" era - development was chaotic and all over the place. It was assumed that the game, at this pace, would be ready in 2024

suddenly, a prospect of a hostile takeover by Activision Blizzard scared the board. Secondly, they wanted to release the game in 2020, because it's iconic (which was probably an excuse to release it earlier)

a faster release would sooner increase the stock price, making the takeover less attractive

all of a sudden, the devs had 3 years to complete the game, instead of the 5-8 they thought they had

only 20% of the ideas made it into the game

the suits were breathing down their necks. most of the features never made it into the game, even with Phantom Liberty

Now, what was actually planned for the game:

10 romance options, instead of 4. 4 male only, 3 female only, and 3 who went both ways

Megablock 10 was supposed to be a mini-city, where you'd do most of your stuff

a metro system, replaced with a fast travel system

wallrunning

megatowers

many explorable buildings

a flying car

different type of clothing would give different bonus for various ocasions

The full story is in the picture attached.

So here it is - it all went to shit because the suits panicked.
Also, Activision-Blizzard really is an impressive company - not only do they destroy the IPs they own, but they also make other companies' games worse.

Open world slop will always be open world slop.

Who cares?

so what you're saying is that everybody wearing a tie needs to be hung from a street lamp and this wouldn't be a problem anymore

Do you feel alright? In the head, I mean.

my tie detector levels are off the charts on this post, please get on the bus with everyone else sir

How can you run a company when you're this unstable.

Even more interesting - how do you grow a company so successful when you're this unstable.

a game in development for a decade turns out to have tons of missing content because it needed to actually release

Damn I am shocked.

Sure it's believable but I see no evidence. This guy talked with a dev for a whole ten minutes and got details on exactly how many romance paths were planned? Stuff like the NCART and wall-running are just common sense that anyone can guess, and the rest is completely unverifiable.

No mention either of the scrapped techie skill tree or weapon modifications.

>megatowers

like giant scrapyards?

anything in grand theft auto, cyberpunk 2077 had it

whao so they were aware they were about to make just a gta like...lame

This guy talked with a dev for a whole ten minutes and got details on exactly how many romance paths were planned?

Why not? It could've been a quick answer for "what have you guys planned innitially", or something.

A little bit, but if you want to copy, copy the best.

they promised too much and the expectations were too high because witcher 3 was well received, overall cyberpunk was a extremely mid game

Yeah? That's the big thing? Exactly ten romances, including which way they swing but no other details? But instead of that romances were made "DEI compliant", whatever the hell that's supposed to mean in this context? Why is this the thing they *lead* with? It seems both too comprehensive for a "solid ten minute" conversation, yet too sparse in detail to be really believable. And again, I would've expected the cut skills and more comprehensive weapon systems to be a far juicier bit of intel than "there were even more romances, anyway moving on". There are things we know that got cut that it would be interesting to have details on, but those aren't mentioned here.

A story about corporate interference is an easy sell but again it's not really telling us anything we either didn't already know or can never verify.

suddenly, a prospect of a hostile takeover by Activision Blizzard scared the board. Secondly, they wanted to release the game in 2020, because it's iconic (which was probably an excuse to release it earlier)

a faster release would sooner increase the stock price, making the takeover less attractive

Are suits actually fucking retarded?

it failed at launch because the game didn't run on most machines, not because it was missing features

I hate the interesting stuff like cyberpunk is done by smaller companies and the big companies like rockstar is doing boring shit like gta. I need more cyberpunk into my veins NOAW!!!

10 romance options

thats what I was expecting. Old CDPR was probably the best in the biz at having a good number of very attractive romance options. New CDPR is full of trannies and faggots so thats pretty much over.

even cyberpunk pioneer hated it because it was a gta like

Having your next release be almost an entire decade after Witcher 3 (2015) would be retarded and obviously the studio would want something out sooner. I’m not sure why they needed an extra 4 years to add shit like a few more romances, wall running and a not fast travel system either.

Ok and? Should i get angry every time a game has complications in development?

Orion better fucking Nuke what open world games should be otherwise Im gonna become a famous author

Gibson is eternally seething that a bunch of people ripped off his ideas but did it better and made way more money than him

sorry but I'm on gibson's side this time, I don't like cp2077

Corpos fresh out of their MBAs with no real world experience who have never had to work a single day in the real world and do not understand actual business have ruined everything. But they know better than you because they are White Collar and have degrees! And the more they destroy the companies they work at, the more valuable their peers at other companies view their resumes because that means they have real experience now!

from the perspective of the public, the game was developed in 8 years, but it was actually 3

Yeah, no way that game was made in three years.

People are still quoting this tweet as if Gibson didn't come around after the next trailer. And I say that as someone who agrees - cyberpunk should not be synonymous with "80s retrofuturism"

i don't know why they focused so fucking much on daytime and rednecks in the triailers, the game looks actually cool amd cyberpunk at night

remember when it was pitched as an RPG and then it became a bethesda GTA game

bethesda GTA game

this is such a good way of putting it
I never appreciated how much effort went into GTA of all things until I played cyberpunk and the open world was abysmal

Why Cyberpunk 2077 failed at launch

It was BUGGY.
The devs said it wasn't ready to be shipped out yet but the executives didn't give a fuck so they shat it out while it was buggy.

People didn't like buggy. That's why it failed at launch.

Probably just retarded marketers

This is revisionism. The game could have released with no bugs whatsoever and still been massively unfinished and caught flack for the marketing just making shit up and theorycrafting for half a decade

nobody gives a shit about features announced 5 years before release being dropped

if I don't care about it then nobody else cares about it

even the normiesphere mourns the game the original vertical slice portrayed, you're just wrong

Why are people taking a youtube comment as fact? Is it that easy to fuck with people on the internet nowadays?

The story was crap even with the addition of Keanu Reeves

might want to loosen your tie next time you post