The highly anticipated video game starring Keanu Reeves is finally here #Breaking112
The game was originally due in April but experienced a series of delays that left fans wondering when they would get their hands on the title.
CNN Business played Cyberpunk ahead of its launch and talked to CD Projekt Red about the delays — as well as how the studio plans to make its money back.
So Cyberpunk needs strong sales to make back that budget and turn a profit. The title costs $60 and is available on Google Stadia, Xbox One and PS4. It will arrive on next-gen consoles next year.
“The immense buzz around the new title is promising,” said Joost van Dreunen, founder of video game investment firm New Breukelen.
He expects Cyberpunk will sell about 18 million copies — which would be less than the sales for Projekt Red’s last “Witcher” title, but still “more than enough to run a profit on the project.”
Players of Cyberpunk 2077 role-play as a nomad, a street kid or a corporate employee who journeys around Night City completing quests in a world dominated by corporations.
As the pandemic spread, most of CD Projekt Red employees shifted to working from home. Because the studio has employees in areas the pandemic hit early, including China, Japan and Korea, the company had a jump on taking precautions like moving office equipment to people’s homes.
“At first, it was chaotic,” said Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, the game’s quest director.
A few staff members were infected with Covid-19, but fortunately they recovered fully, said Nowakowski. He declined to say how many Covid cases there were in total but described them as “isolated” and “not sizable.”
Nowakowski was upbeat, however: “It was launched maybe a little earlier than should be, but it still helped with brand awareness,” he said. “And the pre-orders were running anyway, so I definitely wouldn’t say any money was lost.”
In Nowakowski’s view, the depictions are “nothing that will be controversial, to be perfectly honest. There’s nothing that should shake people up, in my personal opinion.”
Tomaszkiewicz, the quest director, said employees “still get surprised” by how the public receives their games.
“I think I speak for most people at the office here, because we’re all super excited to see what how people will react,” he said. “Will they have the same impressions as we imagined they would when they will play through our content?”
