In a blogpost, CD Projekt Red announces a company restructure with a single goal in mind: the Polish developer wants to “work on multiple AAA-games and expansions in parallel”. Haven’t they learned from the Cyberpunk 2077 launch debacle at all?!
CD Projekt Red to restructure
The announcement comes mere days after the company released the second major Cyberpunk 2077 patch, a month later than scheduled. While the update fixed a lot of issues that plagued the game, it also exposed an ugly truth; Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t even close to finished at launch.
Despite years of development, the company’s undivided attention, many delays, and multiple post-launch patches, Cyberpunk 2077 still isn’t a polished, finished game.
That company now wants to divide it’s workforce and work on multiple AAA-games and expansions simultaneously.
We emphasize technological advancements and we want to set up versatile teams which combine various specializations and competences. These teams will be further assisted by a cross-projects group of experts, who – owing to their expertise – can contribute to key aspects of development. All these changes aim to enable us to work on multiple AAA games and expansions in parallel, starting in 2022
Let’s be clear here, I’m by no means trying to take a shit on CD Projekt Red or it’s restructure. Yeah, Cyberpunk 2077 was a hot (yet revolutionary) mess. But the Polish company still has a lot of goodwill to burn because of it’s track record.
Additionally, changing stuff up could very well fix the company’s problems. You know, given that whatever they did recently didn’t work out so great.
What I am saying is, that from my comfortable gaming chair at home, it seems like Cyberpunk 2077 has shown us that making just one AAA-game is already super hard! Making multiple, divided over several teams, would certainly make it even harder, right?
Silver lining
Whatever CD Projekt Red’s reasoning, I’m sure the company’s restructure makes sense for them. Maybe they’ve realized that games don’t have to have hundreds of hours of story, multiple life paths, and a breathtaking secondary character in the form of Keanu Reeves.
Smaller, dedicated teams might make the passion ooze out of the seems of a project like Cyberpunk 2077. Now, it’s just haphazardly applied glue that leaks from it.
Lastly, let’s give credit where credit is due. CD Project Red also basically promises to not lie about their games anymore. “Future marketing campaigns will be much shorter, with promotional content released closer to the actual release of the given game, presenting its operation on all supported hardware platforms.”
Whatever the case, from 2022, CD Projekt Red starts hiring more talent, implementing the restructure plans. Only time will tell if that was a good call or not.
Image credit: CD Projekt Red