That would be nice – but I’m frankly just guessing, based on this:
Kraków-based branch of CD Projekt Red, established in 2013 and best known for The Witcher series, is about to expand significantly. This news has been revealed by John Mamais, the future head of CD Projekt Red’s Kraków studio, in a Q&A session put through by the studio itself. As claimed by Mamais, to truly make use of the potential of a project as ambitious as Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red will soon increase the number of employees to 500, and Kraków-based branch, now consisting of about 30 developers, will expand to about 100.
If they’re expanding the staff now then they’re probably not going to have the game done either this year or next. 2018 is the earliest, right? – I’ve never worked in a video game studio, mind you. I may be making bad assumptions. I’d love to be told that this is consistent with a Christmas 2017 release…
I listen to a LOT of gaming podcasts (sensible ones!) with industry contacts, and I would not put a Fall 2017 release out of the realm of possibility. They seem to have more irons in the fire than just Cyberpunk 2077. I would expect we will get more definite clues around E3.
I used to know a video game developer. I still have a quote of him saying: “Nothing fills me with dread more than seeing 6 foot high cardboard cutouts of Max Payne with the words ‘PS2 Version in 2001’ on them. How many other programmers can see their deadlines in the local mall.”
There is nothing that will slow an IT project down, short term, like adding lots and lots of people. Clients rarely understand this, management often doesn’t.
It would not surprise me if someone in the company is shooting for a completely impossible date.
True, but I’d be willing to bet that this is mostly artists and content producers. The real problem is going to be getting a consistent look and feel on the art, since as far as I know it’s still just going to be Night City, so everything needs to feel the same. So right now they’re in the ‘generate a crap-ton of art, etc., phase’ and someone will try to stitch it together later.