Cyberpunk 2077 next-gen update to be released in the ‘second half’ of 2021

CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwiński appeared on a video today to apologize on behalf of the company and the management team for the Cyberpunk 2077 launch. Iwiński promises more updates. day will regularly come with free content, including the next promised free. Generation upgrade for PS5 and Xbox Series X, now targeting ‘second half of 2021’ CD Projekt has never revealed when a next generation upgrade for Cyberpunk 2077 will be released, other than that it will be released for free sometime in 2021. But now Iwiński confirms that players probably won’t see the update until the second half of the year.

As Iwiński says in the video, Cyberpunk 2077 was developed with the PC in mind first and foremost. This was reflected in IGN’s review of Cyberpunk 2077, where the PC experience was relatively smooth but almost unplayable on base PS4 and Xbox One systems.

Currently, console gamers, even those with PS5 and Xbox Series X systems, are playing a backward compatible version of the PS4 and Xbox One game.

Cyberpunk 2077’s performance issues on consoles are so prevalent that CDPR has opened an unprecedented refund policy, and companies like Sony have even removed digital versions of Cyberpunk from PlayStation Store. CDPR is also under investigation by the Consumer Protection Agency regarding the launch.

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Iwiński’s nearly five-minute video briefly touched on several questions about Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, including why there is such a gap between the PC and console versions of Cyberpunk 2077, and how it works. managed the revision copies.

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Below you’ll find CD PROJEKT co-founder’s personal explanation of what the days before Cyberpunk 2077 were like, sharing the studio’s take on what happened with the game. on older generation consoles. pic.twitter.com/XjdCKizewq

– Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) January 13, 2021

Regarding the introduction of Cyberpunk 2077 on consoles, especially older ones, Iwiński says that “things didn’t seem very difficult at first, while we knew the hardware game, in the end time has passed. proved that we underestimated the task. “

He says the main culprit was the in-game streaming system, which is “responsible for ‘feeding’ the engine with what you see onscreen, as well as the mechanics of the game.” Iwiński cites disk bandwidth performance on older systems as being unable to keep up with the packed city design.

Iwiński also claims that his internal tests “did not show many of the problems” faced by players and that each working day “saw significant improvements” in performance. But even then, Iwiński says the developers were working on optimizing the console version for the Day 0 patch until launch. This explains the delay between the release of the PC revision codes and the release of the console revision copies on December 8, according to Iwiński.

As with the start of 2021, CD Projekt will be pushing several patches regularly throughout the year. The first update will be released “in the next 10 days” and a larger “more meaningful update” will be released a few weeks later.

New CDPR roadmap. Source: CD project

There are still plans to release free DLC like The Witcher 3, but they may not target “early 2021” as planned as CDPR has changed its focus to “working on the most important fixes and updates” and the DLC will follow thereafter.

CD Projekt Red has faced several hurdles since Cyberpunk 2077 launched in December 2020. The company faces legal action for “twisting” Cyberpunk 2077 as a product and has had to deny rumors about its development issues. Despite these issues, Cyberpunk 2077 has sold over 13 million copies, despite refunds, and has recouped all of its development and marketing costs.

Matt TM Kim is a reporter for the IGN.