As fans have begun to raise concerns about the crunch time going into effect to complete Cyberpunk 2077 ahead of its launch, CD Projekt Red studio head, Adam Badowski, responds to concerns about the team’s crunch period that was announced earlier today.
In an unexpected announcement, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher studio CD Projekt Red has told their employees that six-day work weeks will become mandatory, effectively immediately, in order to meet the requirements for launch ahead of the game’s highly anticipated launch on November 19th, 2020.
The mandatory six-day workweeks go against the reports that CD Projekt Red had stated that the studio wouldn’t be doing so, according to Bloomberg. It comes after a small report from Jason Schreier while he was still at Kotaku who sat down with studio co-founder Marcin Iwiński who told Schreier that the studio wants to “be more humane and treat people with respect.”
Due to the statement, it seems that CD Projekt Red would give their developers a chance to work without the mandatory crunch. However, that has changed as it has been revealed that CD Projekt Red will be entering a mandatory crunch, giving workers six-day work weeks, but in response, Adam Badowski, Studio Head at CD Projekt Red ended up responding to the concerns being raised by the community.
In an official statement on Twitter, Adam Badowski revealed that “a majority of the studio itself understands that push, especially in light of the fact that we’ve just sent the game to cert and every day brings us visibly closer to shipping a game we want to be proud of.”
To ease the burden and possible backlash of the crunch becoming mandatory, Badowski also revealed that things aren’t as bad as they might seem, stating that, “this is one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make, but everyone is well compensated for every extra hour they put in. And, like in recent years, 10% of the annual profit our company generates in 2020 will be split directly among the team.”
To put it lightly: If Cyberpunk 2077 matches the excitement of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, the game could very well sell over four million copies within the first two weeks of release.
Cyberpunk 2077 is set to launch on Nov. 19th, 2020, for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The title will be receiving next-gen upgrades on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X free of charge.
About the Writer(s):
Dustin is our native video game reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the borders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. You can find him over on Twitter or Facebook today.