CD Projekt says it "became cool" to dislike Cyberpunk 2077 at launch

CD Projekt Red's vice president of PR Michał Platkow-Gilewski has defended Cyberpunk 2077's launch, saying it was "way better than it was received."

Cyberpunk 2077's launch on Xbox Series X|S was a tough ride for developer CD Projekt Red, due to the game's performance, most notably on Xbox One and PS4, and staff crunching. Now CD Projekt Red's vice president of PR, Michał Platkow-Gilewski, has spoken about the company's restructuring while also defending Cyberpunk 2077's launch.

CD Projekt Red went from "hero to zero really fast."

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Platkow-Gilewski discussed how it felt working for CD Projekt prior to the launch of Cyberpunk 2077. "Everything was awesome and amazing, before the release of Cyberpunk... it was the time of my life, but it was too good to be true. The game was shaping up to be amazing and we were all super hyped. But this hype surrounding us was a big pressure. Then there was the release, and it was not a fairytale anymore."

Platkow-Gilewski says that one of the biggest disappointments for him was knowing they had "let down the core fans," and so CD Projekt needed "to fix our relationship." That boiled down to a number of changes within the company, starting with a rework of the "pipelines on the dev side," new "decisions about how we work," and "how we are structured."

The negativity surrounding CD Projekt following the launch of Cyberpunk forced the company to rethink its work practices, especially due to it earning a crunch culture reputation." Platkow-Gilewski insists the "changes would have happened anyway, but [the Cyberpunk situation] was another motivation." When Platkow-Gilewski first joined CD Projekt, it had 120 people working there and he joined a marketing team of six, now the company employs over 1,000 members of staff, and marketing is made up of almost 100 people. "Cyberpunk took us a lot of time to deliver and we grew. We needed to rethink how we were working in bigger groups and make sure that everyone listens to each other," Platkow-Gilewski said.

"The biggest thing was standing up and saying 'we have to do it.' Yes, we were expecting a different launch for Cyberpunk, but now we have another chance in front of us. For me, as the person responsible for communication, I want to rebuild the connection with gamers, because we had people following us for years and they were disappointed. That's, for me, the biggest thing. We have to make the game for them."

Despite the setbacks at launch, however, Platkow-Gilewski insists Cberpunk 2077 wasn't quite as bad as it was made out to be. "I actually believe Cyberpunk on launch was way better than it was received, and even the first reviews were positive," Platkow-Gilewski said. "Then it became a cool thing not to like it. We went from hero to zero really fast. That was the tough moment. We didn't know what was happening. We knew that the game is great, yes we can improve it, yes we need to take time to do it, and we need to rebuild some stuff."

The entire interview is fantastic, so we recommend you go and check it out in full. For now, though, we'd love to know your thoughts on Cyberpunk 2077's current state, and if you're looking forward to Phantom Liberty in September. Drop a comment below and let us know!

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Written by Tom West

Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.