CD Projekt Red delays Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3 console upgrades to 2022

[Daniel Sims]

In brief: CD Projekt Red said major upgrades designed to bring Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 to current-gen consoles won't arrive until next year. This confirms previous suspicions and compounds the problems the company has faced since launching the former title.

In an update on its investor page and later from its Twitter account, CD Projekt Red made the announcement that its planned full current-generation upgrade of Cyberpunk 2077 for PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series consoles won't arrive until the first quarter of next year. A similar upgrade for The Witcher 3 is coming in the second quarter of 2022. Both were always planned to be free for current owners of each game.

Even before Cyberpunk 2077 was released, CDPR had confirmed it planned to initially launch the game for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, with full current-gen upgrades coming later. In September, the company said it was hopeful the upgrades for both games would arrive before the end of 2021, but couldn't guarantee it.

Remember this roadmap?

Cyberpunk 2077 was criticized partially because of its disappointing performance on PS4 and Xbox One, to the point where it was removed from the PlayStation Store for months, only being allowed back on after several patches. In 2020, the developer ended up refunding hundreds of thousands of copies. After returning to the PlayStation Store, Cyberpunk 2077 topped the charts for June 2021.

Cyberpunk's development was hit with multiple delays before release, initially planned for April of 2020, then September, and finally December. Despite the company promising it would avoid putting the development staff to work under crunch hours, this still ended up happening in the run-up to launch. After the controversial launch, a Bloomberg story in January analyzed what happened during development, in which CDPR staff members said Cyberpunk's original release timeline was unrealistic. Ironically, at least one staff member expected the game to be fully ready in 2022, which is when the current-gen update is now scheduled to arrive.

CDPR announced the current-gen Witcher 3 upgrade in September 2020. Developed externally by Saber Interactive, which handled Witcher 3's Nintendo Switch port, this upgrade is supposed to improve graphics with features like ray tracing, include all the DLC, and come with new retail editions for PS5 and Xbox Series. It will also include new DLC inspired by Netflix's Witcher series. The developer of a popular texture mod is collaborating on the official upgrade, which will also arrive on PC.

Recently, PEGI and ESRB ratings had appeared for the game on PS5 and Xbox Series, making many hopeful the upgrade would arrive sooner rather than later.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91858-cd-projekt-red-delays-cyberpunk-2077-witcher-3.html

 

[Soulburn74]

I"ll gladly take delays vs releasing it too early/not quite ready for production.......CP2077 should have been looked MUCH more favorably than it was due to it being release way too early..........

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I initially wasn't excited about Cyberpunk.

But I bought it anyway and downloaded it on release day. Started streaming immediately and some of my clips went viral.

I was playing on PC.

2080Ti with 32GB DDR4 and an Intel Core Extreme CPU.

Later that week I upgraded to a 3090 FTW3.

The reality is, anyone who downloaded this on the consoles was never going to have a good experience. This game has the best lighting effects I've seen thus far and the speed at which textures need to load necessitates nothing less than SSD along with a 2080 Super at a minimum.

I give the game a SOLID 5 STARS because I personally experienced very few bugs in my initial playthrough (Streetkid). I didn't experience bugs till my 2nd playthrough (Corpo).

Now that I've moved on to Far Cry, I may uninstall Cyberpunk because I don't feel like playing through a 3rd time to see the 3rd story (Nomad)

Cyberpunk is easily the best open world adventure game I've played and the writing was awesome.

Shame that you ain't playing it unless you have a $3000+ computer.

 

[Soulburn74]

I initially wasn't excited about Cyberpunk.

But I bought it anyway and downloaded it on release day. Started streaming immediately and some of my clips went viral.

I was playing on PC.

2080Ti with 32GB DDR4 and an Intel Core Extreme CPU.

Later that week I upgraded to a 3090 FTW3.

The reality is, anyone who downloaded this on the consoles was never going to have a good experience. This game has the best lighting effects I've seen thus far and the speed at which textures need to load necessitates nothing less than SSD along with a 2080 Super at a minimum.

I give the game a SOLID 5 STARS because I personally experienced very few bugs in my initial playthrough (Streetkid). I didn't experience bugs till my 2nd playthrough (Corpo).

Now that I've moved on to Far Cry, I may uninstall Cyberpunk because I don't feel like playing through a 3rd time to see the 3rd story (Nomad)

Cyberpunk is easily the best open world adventure game I've played and the writing was awesome.

Shame that you ain't playing it unless you have a $3000+ computer.

It truly is a masterpiece visually, and a great game, for those of us with proper rig to enjoy it properly!

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I"ll gladly take delays vs releasing it too early/not quite ready for production.......CP2077 should have been looked MUCH more favorably than it was due to it being release way too early..........

Cyberpunk NEVER should have been planned for PS4 or for Xbox One X.

Cyberpunk was NEVER going to work on those old, slow consoles and absolutely demands a $2000+ computer (GPU inflation adjustments) with an SSD.

Had Cyberpunk been released for PC only - or PS5 XBox SX...the negative reviews wouldn't have grounded it.

However, the console gamers realize the PC port was superior and they flood the Youtube videos looking for the uncensored, beautiful content they can't afford to play.