CD Projekt has officially denied statements from someone who claimed to be a Cyberpunk 2077 developer and said, among other things, that a major overhaul of the game is in the works and could be ready for release sometime in June. The supposed developer wrote that a significant chunk of the game's code has already been rewritten and that large portions of "cut content" will be returned.
"You'd be amazed by how much is already done. That 'cut content so people finish the main quest' talk was all bulls***," the post says. "Most apartments with 'Closed (locked)' indications used to be lootable, we've scrapped 50,000+ lines of dialogue and I believe the June update will bring a whole lot of cut content back into the game."
The claims were sweeping and entirely unverified, but they carried an air of legitimacy in part due to earlier statements by senior level designer Miles Tost, who said in October 2020 that "cutting features and scope is a very normal part of development."
"Of course we iterate and change stuff and of course we also will have ideas that sound great on paper but then doesn't end up working out well in the game with all the other features," Tost said at the time. "I understand, this is disappointing for everyone when it happens and also difficult to understand without all the context of development environment, but in this case I just kindly ask you for your trust."
The post originally appeared a few weeks ago on GameFAQs, but didn't seem to pick up traction until it was reposted to Reddit earlier this week, where it attracted more than 1,700 comments. CD Projekt implicitly addressed the "cut content" claim yesterday after the release of a mod that enabled a new, fully-voiced romance option for male characters, telling Eurogamer that the unused voice lines were recorded only "so we could avoid missing something by mistake that would require future recordings."
Today's statement is more forceful, and as CD Projekt itself said, unusual: "Normally we don't comment on rumors but this time we wanted to make an exception as this story is simply not true."
Normally we don't comment on rumors but this time we wanted to make an exception as this story is simply not true.https://t.co/JuOTY2qJbMJanuary 6, 2021
It's a very broad denial, and there's no refutation of any specific allegations made in the post, which also includes claims of executive incompetence and criticism of Keanu Reeves' portrayal of Johnny Silverhand. That may be at least in part because of possible legal action arising from the botched launch of the game, which has no doubt left the studio feeling very cautious about what it says publicly. Still, the fact that CD Projekt felt compelled to respond at all is remarkable in its own right, and indicative of the pressure the studio is facing to turn things around.
I've reached out to CD Projekt for more information and will update if I receive a reply.
