A developer Q&A where details on Cyberpunk 2077, E3 2020, ESRB and PEGI Ratings, Review Copies, and a brief timeline of the future of CD PROJEKT RED and both the Witcher and Cyberpunk franchises are going to be discussed in today’s Cyberpunk 2077 News video!

In a recent meeting with journalists, CD PROJEKT’s Adam Kicinski took the opportunity to highlight some standout points about Cyberpunk, CD PROJEKT Red and their future plans.

First, he mentions that Cyberpunk is still on-track for a September release and has now been submitted to age rating agencies in PEGI and ESRB. This will be the first-time people outside of the studio will get a chance to play the game, and this process of giving the game a rating typically takes around a month. Whilst the copy of the game being sent out is not the final version, it is complete enough to be sent out to third parties, at least for a rating designation. Just like with The Witcher series CDPR are aiming for a mature or 18+ rating for Cyberpunk 2077.

Echoing this sentiment, Adam Badowski took to twitter to mention that they were pushing the game for its ratings, that as they continue to playtest and debug, and 2077 is looking better and better every day.
Kicinski mentions that the game is huge and that with the new deadline there is more breathing room to operate. He also mentions that there is much less work after hours, although some do still work quite hard.

Preorder wise, Cyberpunk 2077 has sold more preorders than The Witcher 3 assuming the same period of time.

Kicinski also mentions that reviewers will get a specially protected version of the game a few weeks before it’s premiere and that the embargo will last up until the weekend before the release date. No details on at what capacity review copies are being issued, but as it stands right now that is still quite far away.

In a statement about E3 2020 and the state of the world Kicinski mentions that if events are canceled, they will show things through the power of the internet. With E3 2020 now being cancelled, this means that digital content drops during the same time windows as what they had initially planned for E3 2020 is likely.

When it comes to the marketing of Cyberpunk, Vice President Piotr Nielubowicz mentions that this will be heavily weighted in the few weeks before release.

When it comes to The Witcher, Kicinski mentions that there would be no Witcher 4 and that that particular arc would remain a trilogy. At the same time, he mentions that they do still want to do Witcher games, and their settlement with Andre Sapkowski confirms this.

Adam Kicinski also mentions that after the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, that they want to do a little more in the studio and produce 2 to 3 games at a time, but it will take a couple of years before they are ready for this.
Elaborating he mentions that the company wants to have two large teams that produce games.

As for the near future the largest team in CDPR will be implementing the online multiplayer Cyberpunk game, the next big team will be responsible for Cyberpunk DLC, and the third team will be dealing with the next single AAA game, which they have a concept for. The third team would be the smallest from the outset but would grow as the project advances.

The timeline would look as follows. Cyberpunk 2077 releases, then DLC and expansions would come next, followed by the Multiplayer element in 2022. After this there would be a 4 to 5-year dev cycle where the next Triple A RPG would release.

Now although not explicitly stated the assumption here is that this will be a new game in the Witcher universe. Badowski has also taken to Twitter to mention that The Witcher is still on their minds but they are not ready to talk about any other projects. Furthermore, they have talked about the dual franchise model of The Witcher and Cyberpunk going forward, with a potential staggering of releases of these two franchises, but keep in mind it has yet to be confirmed.

I also want to mention that there are a few scam sites trying to piggyback off the hype of Cyberpunk 2077, so be very cautious about this. Early keys are not being issued, and although this site looks legit it is not so just be wary.