Cyberpunk 2077 - Page 10

One of the ways the company plans to do that, Iwiński said, is through a “non-obligatory crunch policy” that isn’t brand new but that the Warsaw-based CD Projekt Red plans to push harder. He wants to make it clear to Cyberpunk 2077’s developers that even when the studio asks them to work on nights and weekends, it’s not “mandatory.”

Of course, anyone who’s worked anywhere knows that a request from the boss doesn’t need to be “mandatory” for it to be something you have to do. When probed, Iwiński wouldn’t promise to limit crunch to certain periods or offer specific numbers, other than to say that he hoped making this public statement would help CD Projekt Red employees feel more comfortable telling their managers when they don’t want to put in extra hours. “I think this is the commitment we’re ready to make today, and we’ll be listening to people,” he said. “We definitely open a lot of lines of dialogue here, and we’d like to start with that.”

Perhaps they also wanted to preempt a potential story. After the publication of our Anthem investigation last month, which documented a turbulent development marked by mismanagement, crunch, and anxiety, four former CD Projekt Red employees reached out to tell me that they had seen similar problems in Warsaw. “I’ve felt that there are hundreds of parallels that could be drawn between the story of the rocky development of Anthem and the story of the rocky and even-more-rocky-to-become development of Cyberpunk 2077,” said one former CDPR employee in an e-mail. “At times, I’ve felt I could just replace the studio name and the game title, and it would all look so similar, almost identical.”

There have been rumors of financial trouble swirling within CD Projekt Red following the disappointing performance of last year’s Thronebreaker campaign for the studio’s virtual card game Gwent. Iwiński and Badowski denied the rumors. “We have a big war chest,” Iwiński said. There have also been signs that development on Cyberpunk 2077 might not be going smoothly. For example, as the employees who reached out told me, this year the company has told staff to work through Polish holidays, and that there will be mandated periods for vacation. Rather than take off whenever they’d like, CD Projekt Red’s developers have to limit their vacation to specific times in 2019. One period will be this summer, right after E3, while another will be in the winter.

CD Projekt Red hasn’t yet said when Cyberpunk 2077 will be out, but 2020 is a safe guess, which means that the next year will be pivotal not just for the quality of the game but for the quality of employees’ lives. It’s clear that not everything has gone smoothly, based on the testimonies I’ve heard from former employees and CD Projekt Red’s new vacation policy. We’ll see. By this time next year, we’ll have a better idea of just how serious Iwiński and Badowski were about wanting to be known for treating their developers humanely.

When pressed, the one specific promise they’d make was that Cyberpunk 2077's final hours will be less crunchy than the last game’s. “I think we can promise that it’ll be better than The Witcher’s finishing period,” Badowski said.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure story set in Night City, a megalopolis obsessed with power, glamour and body modification. You play as V, a mercenary outlaw going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality. You can customize your character’s cyberware, skillset and playstyle, and explore a vast city where the choices you make shape the story and the world around you.

Become a cyberpunk, an urban mercenary equipped with cybernetic enhancements and build your legend on the streets of Night City.

Enter the massive open world of Night City, a place that sets new standards in terms of visuals, complexity and depth.

Take the riskiest job of your life and go after a prototype implant that is the key to immortality.

https://www.gog.com/game/cyberpunk_2077
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1091500/Cyberpunk_2077/

On June 10 2019 06:31 hitthat wrote:
Guys, trailer is beutyfull and all. Also graphics is stylish and action is brutal.

But seriously - guy celebrating "we're rich" during car run and suddenly see his chump has been shot is a worst fucking cliche ever. Boss doing "you outlived your usefulness, you draw too much attention" is insanely tired cliche too. What has happened with good storytelling?

On June 10 2019 19:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Fucking amazing.

https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1137939405509804033