In a recent interview, CD Projekt Red CEO Adam Kicinski stated that the company’s upcoming RPG, Cyberpunk 2020, would have some online elements to it. This sparked fears that the company would be embracing a “games as service” model involving heavy use of DLC and microtransactions.
As anyone who’s been following the recent controversy surrounding Star Wars: Battle Front II knows, microtransactions and DLC have become dirty words among gamers. EA’s decision to create a “pay-to-win” system for its latest Star Wars shooter sparked such a backlash that EA temporarily suspended all microtransactions.
Though a relatively small studio, CD Projekt Red has earned a lot of goodwill in the gaming community for its Witcher series. In addition to being well-made games, the studio’s policy of providing a steady stream of free DLC, combined with fairly priced expansion packs for the Witcher III, has made it one of the more consumer-friendly companies in the industry.
That’s why so many people were concerned about the possibility of the company embracing a “games as service” model that many believe is nothing more than price-gouging. On Sunday, the CD Projekt Red team took to Twitter to make it clear that Cyberpunk 2020 would feature, among other things, “no bullshit.”
.@PrettyBadTweets Worry not. When thinking CP2077, think nothing less than TW3 — huge single player, open world, story-driven RPG. No hidden catch, you get what you pay for — no bullshit, just honest gaming like with Wild Hunt. We leave greed to others. — CD PROJEKT RED (@CDPROJEKTRED) November 19, 2017
The company’s commitment to a single-player game comes as a relief since many companies, such as EA, have basically declared single-player games dead. However, CD Projekt Red took things a step further by declaring that there would be no hidden catches and that gamers would “get what you pay for.” In a world where AAA games often release with multiple editions, season passes, and microtransactions, it is refreshing to a see a company committed to bucking that trend.
While the tweet did not mention EA, you may wonder if the “we leave greed to others” crack was a direct shot at the disaster surrounding Battlefront II‘s microtransactions.
goshgash on November 20th, 2017 at 11:26 UTC »
This is the game I was (or still am) playing when the battlefront fuzz started. I'm a Star Wars fan, but still being humbled by the sheer size of Witcher III, where I get the feeling of pride and accomplishment all the time for free, I canceled my preorder.
I paid like 30 bucks or so for the GOTY edition. And my god, this game is so fucking huge, 300 bucks would still be worth it. And the quantity doesn't come at the cost of quality, each quest is unique, with movie quality dialogs/cutscenes, a story line, twists and decisions. You'd expect some of the side quests ("witcher contracts") would follow some template like "kill this random generated monster in this randomly chosen dungeon", but nope. Every single quest adheres to this high standard. And there's still more of them than you can possibly do if your personal life doesn't revolve around gaming.
I'm like 70 hours into the game and just opening the local(!) map or the list of open quests tells me I haven't even scratched the surface.
So fuck you, EA. You are nothing in comparison.
AdamEthan94 on November 20th, 2017 at 04:34 UTC »
Never been a Witcher fan and wasnt a fan of the game itself either but I bought it anyway because it felt like I was buying an actual game like we used to ages ago. If that makes sense...
Drewberg11 on November 20th, 2017 at 03:50 UTC »
Excited. I really like them and the Witcher was a heck of a lot more game than almost anything else out there for your $60. And I'm sick of seeing the single player story driven games disappear. I'll support anything CD does and the same goes for the Wolfenstein games etc.