cyberpunk 2077 it was one of the most exciting game releases of all time. On top of The Witcher 3, beloved RPG creator CD Projekt Red built a beautiful, rich, and extremely cool-looking new open world, which seemingly promised to take the genre to new heights. However, Cyberpunk 2077 faced a rocky initial reception, with the looming release date of Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty hopefully marking the completion of the game’s long redemption arc. However, a CDPR developer says the original game was “better than it was received”, while reflecting on what the GOG and Witcher Remake developer can do to heal its relationship with its fans.
The best Cyberpunk 2077 mods have certainly helped the open-world sci-fi shooter since its release. Similarly, as we anticipate the release date for The Witcher 4 (as well as Phantom Liberty), there’s a lot more to look forward to from CDPR. CD Projekt Vice President of Communication Michał Platkow-Gilewski is optimistic about the future.
“These projects are at different stages,” says Platkow-Gilewski. “It’s not like we’re doing all of that at the same time at the same stage, because that would be a lot of work. We are thinking about the strategy for the coming years. We really care about our IPs, we want to develop them, we want to build games within them. But also, we want to make sure we stay focused all the time.”
Platkow-Gilewski also discusses the scale and scope of Phantom Liberty, and how CDPR sought out star Idris Elba to make the expansion feel as significant as the Keanu Reeves-starring base game.
“For us, an expansion should be visibly large,” he continues. “In the base game, we have Keanu, so we said, if we’re going to do something more meaningful, we need an actor who can [reflect that] and to show that this is not a small side quest, but a large part of the content that matters to us.
“For Phantom Liberty, which is more of a spy thriller, we needed someone to match. Idris is the next James Bond for me. He has this Bond vibe. When we talked about the character, Solomon Reed, we knew it would be perfect for him.”
Along with The Witcher Remake, a new Witcher game trilogy beginning with Witcher 4, and a still-mysterious new project codenamed Hadar, CDPR has also announced that a full-fledged sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, currently known as Cyberpunk 2077, is in the works. Project Orion. . However, Platkow-Gilewski says the developer needs to “fix our relationship” with the players first.
“When everything was amazing and amazing, before the release of Cyberpunk, it was the time of my life,” Platkow-Gilewski tells GamesIndustry.biz. “But it was too good to be true. The game was shaping up to be amazing and we were all very excited. But this hype around us was a great pressure. Then came the launch and it was no longer a fairy tale.
“After the launch it was difficult, but I knew we had the same people. The players are the same… we just have to fix our relationship. The only thing we can really do is deliver what we are capable of.”
However, Platkow-Gilewski also says that he feels that the original version of Cyberpunk 2077 was “better than what was received”.
“In fact, I think the release of Cyberpunk was much better than it was received, and even the early reviews were positive. So it became a cool thing that I didn’t like it. We go from hero to zero very quickly. We knew the game was great, yes we can improve it, yes we need to take the time to do it, and we need to rebuild some things.
“That took us a long time, but I don’t think we ever broke up. We always said ‘let’s do this’”.
While we wait for Phantom Liberty, you might want to try some of the other best cyberpunk games out there. You can also try the best FPS games for PC.