After numerous delays, Cyberpunk 2077 will finally release on December 10. However, that won't be the end of the line of CD Projekt Red's upcoming first-person action-adventure title, as the team intends to follow the game's release with a season of free and paid DLC. Alongside the DLC, the team is also developing a separate multiplayer spin-off title, the most recent update for which happened in January with the announcement of a 2022 release date.
On Wednesday this week, CD Projekt Red shared their Q3 earnings call to their shareholders, during the question and answer portion for which, they were asked several questions regarding the DLC and multiplayer portions of their upcoming blockbuster.
NEWS
In their latest third quarter earnings call this week, CD Projekt Red offered an update on their planned story DLC for Cyberpunk 2077 , per a report from VGC news . President and joint-CEO Adam Kiciński said, when asked about when DLC will be announced and the season pass will go on sale:
“The initial plan was to do it before release, but after the recent delay, we decided to wait for the release to provide gamers with the game and then start talking about future projects. So, after release.”
Despite having previously said in January that Cyberpunk's multiplayer spin-off game would be coming in 2022, when asked if this release date still held true, Kiciński said "we haven't announced any date so far" . He went on to say they expect to share information about Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer in Q1 2021.
Kiciński reiterated that Cyberpunk's multiplayer was its own separate property and not an add-on to the story-focussed title.
“It’s a separate dedicated production, a big production. And we plan — we think about it as a standalone product. Obviously, it’s not entirely standalone as it comes from the universe of Cyberpunk and is very much related to the concept of single-player Cyberpunk”.
WHAT THIS MEANS
It's clear that the team at CD Projekt Red is planning for a big future for their new Cyberpunk 2077 IP, likely intending to turn it into their next big franchise following the critical and financial success of their previous Witcher franchise.
It's already been previously confirmed that Cyberpunk will feature at least the same amount of DLC as The Witcher 3 , meaning season pass holders will receive a minimum of two story expansions. This strategy amounted in The Witcher 3 having around 30 hours of gameplay and 16 additional other places with its DLC.
The decision to make Cyberpunk multiplayer its own title is an interesting one, but the assignment of the project to its own dedicated team with a two year development seems to indicate the project is intended to be a large scale production to hold players for a significant period of time.
Cyberpunk 2077 is set to release December 10, 2020 on PS4, Xbox One and PC and will be playable via backwards compatibility on PS5 and Xbox Series X with a full next-gen upgrade to come for free in 2021.