Earlier this week, a Polish video game insider claimed that the reason for Cyberpunk 2077’s delay was performance-related, as he claimed that the upcoming first-person open-world game’s release date was pushed back to the fall because it doesn’t run well on the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, with the latter console being the bigger issue.
CD Projekt Red has said that the reason for the delay has nothing to do with how the game runs on consoles, although they didn’t delve into exactly why the game’s release date was pushed back.
In response to the rumor surrounding Cyberpunk 2077’s delay, God of War director Cory Barlog said on his Twitter account that every game runs bad before its final push before gold.
EVERY game runs badly until you optimize for the hardware in the final push before gold.❤️ https://t.co/5uTQ14EfE5
— golrab of the frost (@corybarlog) January 22, 2020
God of War’s director later followed up the above statement with the following, as he explained why all games often look bad until they’re almost ready to be shipped.
“To me there is nothing shameful or nefarious about the game not running well in development. We all obviously want to release the smoothest/most bug free experience humanly possible. Sometimes we (mostly) succeed. Sometimes we don’t. But it is never because we did not try.
“This is due to the absolutely f***ing bananas level of complexity and moving pieces required to make really any game today. We are, more often than not, going on passion and belief that the vision of this buggy + duct taped together ‘thing’ is going to come together in the end.”
CD Projekt Red did respond to Barlog’s statement regarding AAA game development, saying that the God of War director “hit the nail on the head.”
Even though learning that a game’s release date has been pushed back is disappointing, in the end, it’s almost always for the best, as the developers are trying to ensure that players get a polished, bug-free experience at launch. Of course, this doesn’t always end up being the case, specifically with CD Projekt Red, as their last AAA release, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had quite a few bugs when it was released back in 2015.
Luckily, CD Projekt Red seems confident in their new September 17 release date, as the Poland-based developers have said that the game won’t be delayed again. So, we’ll see if they can live up to their promise. If they’re unable to, then that could mean their latest IP will be released at the beginning of the next generation, which is probably something that CDPR wants to avoid.
