CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 has been met with a fair number of delays at this point, including one announced only yesterday that pushes the anticipated cross-generation game’s release back into December 2020.
Less than a day later, developers working on the game say they’ve received threatening messages online over the studio’s decision to delay the game an additional 21 days. CD Projekt Red’s Andrzej Zawadski shared an example of one of the more “mild” threats sent to a Cyberpunk 2077 dev, which included threats against that developer’s family as well as against the individual themself.
“There were far, FAR worse. Every single one is being reported. We will not let it go through. Do not treat it lightly. Do not ignore it. It is serious,” tweeted Zawadzki, Cyberpunk 2077’s RPG design lead.
The game industry has an ugly history with threats of violence, but its important those threats aren’t ignored or written off as acceptable expressions of anger. As Zawadski says in his tweets, it’s important to treat those messages as the threats they are and there is absolutely no excuse for that kind of behavior, even if made in jest or as misguided hyperbole.
“I understand you’re feeling angry, disappointed, and want to voice your opinion about it,” reads another tweet from Zawadski, this one sent only hours after the delay was announced. “However, sending death threats to the developers is absolutely unacceptable and just wrong. We are people, just like you.”
CD Projekt Red announced Cyberpunk 2077’s delay yesterday in a social media statement (reportedly sent at the same moment staff were internally notified of the delay). According to that note from studio leadership, developing the multi-generational game for 9 total platforms, all due for a simultaneous release, has proven challenging at every turn, especially given the fact that dev teams are currently working from home due to the coronoavirus pandemic.
“We need to make sure everything works well and every version runs smoothly,” reads a portion of that statement. “We’re aware it might seem unrealistic when someone says that 21 days can make any difference in such a massive and complex game, but they really do.”
The delay, and now the death threats it triggered, also comes as members of the Cyberpunk 2077 dev team are crunching (some, reportedly, to the point of working 100-hour weeks) to get the game across a finish line that has just been moved even further away.