The current generation of consoles launched in late 2020. Weeks after both PlayStation and Xbox gave gamers new shiny toys to (if they could in a global pandemic) get their hands on the highly anticipated RPG Cyberpunk 2077 was released. Filled with bugs and nearly unplayable on last-gen consoles like Xbox One and PlayStation 4, the game’s poor state required developer CD Projekt Red to spend months of demanding post-launch work to deliver a semi-acceptable experience.
The game’s first story expansion drops the last generation altogether, a decision that will create a better overall experience for the DLC – but this is a line that should have been drawn in the sand at least three years ago.
Tactical Espionage Action — titled Phantom Liberty, the story expansion coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, and PC in 2023, V and Johnny Silverhand will be offering their surfaces to the new United States of America. CD Projekt Red calls it a spy thriller story, and with a Kojima-worthy name like Phantom Libertyit aims to bring a futuristic story about espionage in the murderous world of Night City.
Breathtaking actor Keanu Reeves has confirmed he will return to portray the digital ghost of the rocker past, Johnny Silverhand.
The decision to abandon the last generation makes sense for many reasons. We are two years into the lifecycle of the current generation of consoles and supporting the last generation will become less important as more gamers move to the latest hardware. Even with supply chain issues and rising prices due to inflation, games will eventually have to leave the PS4 and Xbox One behind. From a development point of view, earlier is always better.
cyberpunk like a game, in the grand scheme of things, was never intended for last-generation consoles. At launch, the PC version performed admirably, making the sprawling world and systems of CD Projekt sparkle, but PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game were broken in so many ways that Sony stopped selling the game on the PlayStation Store for months due to the terrible performance.
Remember that when CD Projekt Red announced a delay in front of Cyberpunk 2077 in October 2020, the announcement cited the wide range of platforms as the main reason: “The biggest challenge for us right now is shipping the game on the current generation, the next generation and the PC at the same time, for which we need to prepare and test 9 versions of it.” Maybe fewer versions would have been better from the start?
Ditch the last-gen and focus on the much better performing current-gen versions of Cyberpunk 2077 will give CD Projekt red to deliver a more consistent experience across the multiple versions as the new hardware can handle the load Phantom Liberty will ask them to handle it, unlike the last-gen consoles.
But this decision is probably not enough to save Cyberpunk 2077since CD Projekt Red is already working on bigger things.
Too little too late – In a YouTube thread commenting on the new expansion that fans hoped was the start of wonderful things for Cyberpunk 2077 were disappointed when the official game account replied that Phantom Liberty is the only planned expansion for the game.
In a 2021 earnings call for the company, CEO Adam Kiciński stated that people could expect even more post-release updates and expansions than The Witcher 3.
The development of Cyberpunk 2077 took longer than intended in many ways. In addition to multiple delays from the game’s release date, the launch failure demanded that the development team essentially restart full development and spend months pushing game-fixing updates. At the same time, promised post-launch content such as expansions and multiplayer have been put on hold or canceled outright.
The Witcher 3 received two major expansions, the last of which launched just over a year after the base game’s release. The development focus was then placed on: Cyberpunk 2077. if Phantom Liberty will be released in 2023, which is three years after the base game. During that time, CD Projekt Red has also struggled to deliver a promised current-generation version of The Witcher 3 and ramps up the next production witcher game.
In a financial report for the company’s first half of 2022, CD Projekt Red revealed a chart showing its current projects in development and what percentage of the company is working on each. While development is currently focused on the delivery of: Phantom Liberty, support for the base game has dropped to nearly 5 percent. Meanwhile, development of the next Witcher game has jumped to nearly 20 percent.
CD Projekt Red is ready to continue from Cyberpunk 2077the team has already spent more time on it than they ever wanted. Phantom Liberty will be a small consolation to players, one last mediocre gift.
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