Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red has revealed that the game’s multiplayer mode was scrapped due to the game’s turbulent launch.
During an interview with Eurogamer, Philipp Weber (who was a senior quest designer and coordinator on Cyberpunk 2077) revealed how development shifted to focus on fixing what was there instead of adding new features.
“We really needed to look at what were the priorities for Cyberpunk [after it launched],” he said. “The priority was that the main experience will run for the people in a really good state, and essentially, the switch of priorities meant that other R&D projects had to go away. With Cyberpunk, we wanted to do many things at the same time, and we just needed to really focus and say, ‘Okay, what’s the important part? Yeah, we will make that part really good.’”
Cyberpunk 2077, which was recently confirmed to get a Game of the Year edition, was originally supposed to receive a multiplayer mode as DLC. This was postponed until at least 2022, however, and was later delayed even further with the possibility of cancellation until it eventually just disappeared from CD Projekt Red’s plans.
Cyberpunk 2077 was among the most anticipated games to be released in 2020 but a launch filled with glaring bugs and last-gen compatibility issues left many feeling sour.
The game itself scored quite highly on PC – IGN’s own review gave it 9/10 and said: “Cyberpunk 2077 kicks you into its beautiful and dazzlingly dense cityscape with few restrictions. It offers a staggering amount of choice in how to build your character, approach quests, and confront enemies, and your decisions can have a tangible and natural-feeling impact on both the world around you and the stories of the people who inhabit it.”
However, that wasn’t the case on console, as our own PS4 and Xbox One review gave the game 4/10. “The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions are simply not in an acceptable state, and it makes me sad to think that so many people are having their first Cyberpunk 2077 experience ruined this way – because when it works, it’s a fantastic RPG.”
It turns out that the developers themselves didn’t think the game was ready to ship, with some saying that they “expected the game to be ready in 2022” based on the progress they saw in 2019.
Nevertheless, the game was released in 2020, and while CD Projekt Red originally planned to add multiplayer at a later date, it looks as though they were left on the back foot, patching and fixing Cyberpunk for the following two years.
The Edgerunners Update was released in September as the final patch coming to last-gen consoles, with CD Projekt Red now focusing solely on its PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC versions of the game. This extends to Cyberpunk 2077’s big single-player expansion, which is expected to launch sometime in 2023.
Want to read more about Cyberpunk 2077? Check out the mod that adds Edgerunners’ cyberpsycho risk to the game as well as what to expect from the game’s upcoming official novel.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
