Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed numerous times by CD Projekt Red, and for the most part, the community has taken the delays well, preferring a polished release over a rushed, bug-riddled experience. However, now, as reported by Bloomberg, the game studio CD Projekt Red has gone into overdrive for the final pre-release crunch.
Part of this final stretch is that CD Projekt Red has informed employees that 6-day weeks are now mandatory -- something the studio has previously promised wouldn't be asked of its employees.
https://t.co/Ie5W0O7iiv pic.twitter.com/IJBZ3IIT6mSeptember 30, 2020
Adam Badowski, the studio's head responded to Bloomberg and tweeted, acknowledging that this goes against the studio's earlier promises. He promises that all the over hours are paid out per Polish law, and that ten percent of the annual profits will be split through the team.
It's not an unusual practice to see a game studio enter crunch mode in the weeks leading up to the launch, and it's a move that doesn't come as much of a surprise. Over the last few weeks there has been an increasing amount of concern among the public whether CD Projekt Red would meet the November 19 launch.
In that respect, it's almost impressive that the studio is managing 'only' a 6-week crunch time, as many game launches have much longer and intensive final stretches, which are known to take a heavy toll on team members.
That being said, I can also understand that CD Projekt Red is hesitant for the alternative: yet another delay. A couple extra weeks would normally be manageable, but it would push the game's launch too close to the holidays -- and no matter how much a game is tested in-house, it will always have a few issues after launch -- and it would be quite unpopular to expect a significant portion of the team to work during the holidays to fix the first batch of issues.