The PlayStation 4 version of Cyberpunk 2077 was such a mess at launch that Sony actually pulled the game from digital storefronts and CD Projekt Red offered players refunds. That remains unheard of. The event had more in common with a product recall than a conventional launch of a blockbuster game. The Polish RPG studio’s joint-CEO believes it’s still dealing with the reputational fallout from the bungled release.
“I’m not 100 percent convinced we went through the full redemption arc,” Michał Nowakowski, who joined CDPR back in 2005, recently told Edge magazine (via Gamesradar). “I’m convinced that we lost the faith of some people indefinitely, and that’s a fair thing. But I do hope we will be able to make it back—if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next.”
That might come as a surprise to fans who felt like Phantom Liberty, Cyberpunk 2077‘s massive 2023 expansion, already marked the end of the company’s redemption journey. Or any of the game’s other subsequent updates, for that matter. If the bug-filled, feature-incomplete launch of the sci-fi open-world game did a major number on CDPR’s reputation for delivering on a game at launch, the ongoing support for Cyberpunk 2077 proved the studio is still the master of post-release single-player follow-up support.
The Witcher 4 doesn’t yet have a release date, with late 2027 sounding like the earliest fans might expect the latest adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s series of fantasy novels, though even that feels somewhat optimistic. And given what Nowakowski called the “heartbreaking” time at CDPR following the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, it’s safe to assume the company won’t be releasing The Witcher 4 until it’s absolutely confident it’s ready to go (it will also probably be a cross-gen release at this rate).
Maybe that’s part of why The Witcher 3 is getting one more surprise expansion in 2027. Songs of the Past won’t just be bridging the events between the 2015 release and its upcoming sequel, it’ll also be buying CDPR some extra time to deliver on the promise of The Witcher 4. And if it can nail that launch, then maybe it will have rebuilt what Nowakowski calls the studio’s “biggest asset”: its reputation and player trust.