Developer CD Projekt Red has explained why it chose to scrap its previously announced plans for a multiplayer mode in Cyberpunk 2077. Before the game’s launch, the Polish studio revealed that it had intentions to introduce a multiplayer mode to the game at a later stage, which would allow players to share some co-op adventures in Night City (or presumably try to kill each other). However, CDPR decided not to move forward with it after all due to the game’s turbulent launch.
Speaking to Eurogamer in a recent interview, senior quest designer Philipp Weber detailed that CD Projekt Red shifted its focus to fixing the underlying problems following the game’s rocky launch instead of building any new content. This can also be seen in the late arrival of the Phantom Liberty expansion, which will launch in 2023 – almost three years after the base game’s release.
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Weber talked about how the studio changed priorities after Cyberpunk 2077‘s release, stating:
““We really needed to look at what were the priorities for Cyberpunk [after it launched]. The priority was that the main experience will run for the people in a really good state, and essentially, the switch of priorities meant that other R&D projects had to go away. With Cyberpunk, we wanted to do many things at the same time, and we just needed to really focus and say, ‘Okay, what’s the important part? Yeah, we will make that part really good.’”
It’s not hard to admire CD Projekt Red’s ambitious plans to build new ideas upon Cyberpunk 2077 but as history dictated, the game’s launch was a notorious one, met with plenty of controversy and angry fans. Several patches have been released since then to amend the numerous performance and visual issues – and by most accounts, it’s a terrific experience now compared to launch – but some sacrifices had to be made and unfortunately, a multiplayer mode was one of them.
Cyberpunk 2077 is currently available for PS4, Xbox One and PC with free upgrades to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Eurogamer
