CD Projekt Red recently announced a change in plans for the release of Cyberpunk 2077’s first expansion. In its recent earnings calls, the developer announced that the first expansion of its sci-fi action RPG will be pushed back to 2023.
The studio will reprioritize its content roadmap for the game to include more quality content while also placing greater emphasis on development team working conditions. The studio’s President, Adam Kicinski, revealed this during the studio’s earnings call on 14th April 2022. Kicinski said:
“We want to keep growing and operate more effectively – thus, we’ve set out to improve our development and communications processes while also placing greater emphasis on our team.”
“As part of the RED 2.0 transformation initiative, we’re gradually introducing our developers to the Agile work model. While much remains to be done, we can already see positive effects brought about by these changes,” Kicinski stated.
Since the initial release of the game in 2020, the studio had fully moved its focus on improving the game and releasing significant patches to resolve many issues plaguing the players.
The latest patch 1.5 included a list of massive changes that brought a considerable QOL improvements on all platforms and next-generation graphical updates for the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles. The game currently sits in a very good spot with all performance issues gone and almost all game breaking bugs and issues resolved.
The recent announcement also puts emphasis on maintaining the quality of the game and while also providing more time to the team on developing the content this year. Additionally the team will also provide extensive support this year which means a number of smaller patches will be coming this year fixing other issues with the game.
Many Cyberpunk fans weren’t happy with this announcement, as many cited that it’s almost 2 years since the launch of the game and no content update has shipped yet. Waiting another year for a new content update is too long for some.
Some also argued that rushing the DLC will put pressure on the dev team and result in a broken release like the initial launch. The extra time given towards developing the content would allow the studio to polish the game and present a stable expansion to the public.
Alongside the working on Cyberpunk 2077, the studio is also working on new Witcher content, including a rework of the game on Unreal Engine 5. Additional support for related mobile games and the next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Furthermore, they’ve teased that they’re working on “conceptual and research work” for a few original IPs planned for the studio.
