Cyberpunk 2077's tumultuous release sheds some light as to the reasons for its protracted development schedule. First announced by CD Projekt Red in 2012, Cyberpunk 2077 entered full development in 2016 following the release of The Witcher 3's final piece of DLC. The game's full development process took it through four full years of active development as anticipation grew off of CD Projekt Red's previous success with the Witcher series. Development, however, wouldn't go off without a hitch.
CD Projekt Red's projected release date was originally set for April of 2020. However, in January, the first Cyberpunk 2077 delay was announced, as CDPR pushed the game out of its Spring release and right into the Fall window with a projected release in September of 2020. As development continued, Cyberpunk saw another delay announcement, sending it into November. One more delay for Cyberpunk 2077 was announced after the game had gone gold, putting its final release date to December 10th, 2020. Each delay served a long-term purpose in the development of CD Projekt Red's ambitious title.
Delays in game development come with the territory. A delay is usually needed to ensure the game can be released while maintaining a certain level of quality. This is done to prevent rushing the title out for release before it is ready. When a delay occurs, it is often done to work on lingering issues or to take extra time to fine-tune the project. Cyberpunk 2077 saw three full delays leading up to its release in an effort to elevate the quality of the title.
Cyberpunk 2077: Explaining Every Delay
Cyberpunk 2077's first delay took the game out of its projected April release date into September. CD Projekt Red said in a statement that the initial delay was done in an effort to "finish playtesting, fixing, and polishing" the highly anticipated title. CD Projekt Red also mentioned that while the game was "complete and playable", there was "still work to be done" in regards to the ambitious and immense world that is Cyberpunk's Night City.
The second delay that took Cyberpunk 2077 further into the year sent the game from September into a late Fall release in November. Cyberpunk 2077 being delayed into November was another case of fixing lingering problems. CD Projekt Red's announcement stated that the game was "finished both content and gameplay-wise", but that the company "needed to go through everything, balance game mechanics, and fix a lot of bugs". Both delays showed an early indicator that Night City and its sheer enormity required a lot of fine-tuning.
The final delay for Cyberpunk sent the title closer into the holiday season by pegging it to release on December 10th. Cyberpunk's development had begun to shift "towards almost being a next-gen title" through its four-year development cycle which led to CDPR facing the challenge of shipping a version for the game on both generations of hardware alongside the PC. The game itself had already gone gold by this point, but the added delay was aimed at working on and finishing a "Day 0 patch" for the game's launch.
Each delay of Cyberpunk 2077 was done to give the developers of the game much-needed time to work out some of its kinks. It became clear through its development that the scope of the project had begun to exceed the initial vision between the size of Night City, the world of Cyberpunk 2077, and the release spreading across numerous different generations of platforms. Cyberpunk 2077 entered a period of "crunch time" toward the final months of development in an effort to avoid another delay. With the state of the game's launch, another delay may have been what it needed.