CD Projekt Red have officially confirmed that their next AAA title is actually Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer. It will be a standalone experience but it's not coming before 2022.
As you may have noticed by now, Cyberpunk 2077 has been officially delayed to September 2020, which is certainly disappointing to many excited fans but hey, a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad as one smart man once said.
Anyway, CD Projekt Red held a conference call with shareholders Q&A following the delay news. There's a lot of new details about the promotion of the game and why did the studio pick September 2020 as the release date but the most interesting part was about CD Projekt Red's mysterious AAA title that has been mentioned in previous conference calls.
CD Projekt Red confirmed that their mysterious AAA title is actually Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer. Yes, you read that right, it's not the next Witcher game or a brand new IP, instead, it is a standalone multiplayer experience set in Night City. It will be released once all Cyberpunk 2077 expansions are out, not before.
This will come as a disappointment to many fans of The Witcher franchise, who probably expected a new Witcher game once CD Projekt Red are done with Cyberpunk 2077. This is probably still the case, and a new Witcher game could be the studio's next project after Cyberpunk but there's a lot of work to be done on V's adventure before they even start discussing monsters and magic again.
Here are some of the main points from CD Projekt Red's conference call (thanks GoinXwell1 ):
It was a unanimous decision from all board members, project managers and senior devs to delay Cyberpunk to September 17th.
They feel confident that it's going to be the actual release date, since they built in some buffers according to themselves and releasing a AAA game in the middle of the summer is just weird.
Crunch is sadly something they haven't fully eliminated, but it's less than during Witcher 3's development.
CDPR's mystery AAA title they have been talking about to shareholders since 2016 is Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer. It's likely a standalone experience and singleplayer Cyberpunk will be fully released, expansions and all, before the multiplayer will be out.
The multiplayer will likely not be out before 2022.
The hands-on preview will be "soon, but not February soon".
They will likely be at E3/Gamescom again for more promotions.
This one is not exactly confirmed, but one person in the conference call asked how many updates they have planned and mentioned that at least 3 tangible showcases between now and release are necessary to be deemed regular updates.
CheckingIsMyPriority on September 7th, 2020 at 15:22 UTC »
Btw this is old news from January 17th 2020.
But still many, many people don't know about this.
Nomad_V on September 7th, 2020 at 14:25 UTC »
We got a full year to enjoy CP2077, we’ll be fine. I’m really wondering what it will be like though, is it just some matchmaking thing? Is it a looter shooter like destiny or BL or division? Is it some sort of hide and seek game mode like the assassins creed multiplayer? Because this is both an RPG and a shooter and I’m not sure of any games in that category that aren’t a looter shooter
Edit: also what are the possibilities of the multiplayer experience being linked to our single player character? I honestly doubt it but it is a possibility depending on what they’re trying to achieve
cabrelbeuk on September 7th, 2020 at 14:15 UTC »
Well it's good news. Confirming solo experience and especially DLCs for solo will be free of any micro transaction crap and won't be parasited with features which doesn't fit with the solo experience.