Gaming | September 8, 2023
A peculiar piece of information has emerged from CD Projekt RED’s presentation of its financial results for the first half of 2023. The Polish studio stated that Phantom Liberty, set to premiere in September, will be the only expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, and they have no plans to continue working on this game.
This was asserted by Adam Kiciński, the company’s CEO, who confirmed that there will be no other DLCs dedicated to Cyberpunk 2077. This decision supposedly stems from technical considerations and is not related to the game’s disastrous launch at the end of 2020.
When asked what sales figures for Phantom Liberty would be needed to convince them to create more expansions for Cyberpunk 2077, the executive was decisive. “The decision has already been made. As we announced, we won’t be making a second or third expansion; this is the only expansion for the game. It has nothing to do with how satisfied we are with the sales; rather, it’s a technical decision. This is the last time we work with the REDEngine. In the foreseeable future, we will be working with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, and this was one of the reasons behind our decision,” he stated.
So, after Phantom Liberty, farewell to Cyberpunk 2077.
For those who may not know, the reference to REDEngine corresponds to the proprietary game engine historically used by the Polish studio in its games. This will soon be retired and replaced by Unreal Engine 5. In October 2022, the company announced that Project Canis Majoris, a new game in The Witcher universe—developed by third parties and independent of the upcoming trilogy known as Project Polaris—will use Epic Games’ technology.
The fact that CD Projekt Red does not plan to expand Cyberpunk 2077 beyond what Phantom Liberty offers does not mean they are abandoning this intellectual property entirely. Last year, the company announced the development of a sequel, although they avoided providing further details. For now, all we know is that the initiative is internally known as Project Orion, and based on Kiciński’s comments, it seems likely that its development will use Unreal Engine 5.
That said, the plans for extending the Cyberpunk universe beyond the original video game still generate uncertainty. Keep in mind that while some of the team responsible for Cyberpunk 2077 will continue to provide support for Phantom Liberty after its release, other team members will move on to work on Polaris, the aforementioned Witcher trilogy that CD Projekt aims to release in full over a span of 6 years.
Additionally, a portion of the Cyberpunk 2077 developers will focus on Hadar, a new intellectual property about which the Poles have not yet revealed much. And let’s not forget that in July, the company initiated a gradual layoff process that, according to Kiciński, will be completed during the first quarter of 2024.
As mentioned earlier, Cyberpunk 2077 is no longer the disaster it was at its launch. The game has matured through updates and offers a genuinely interesting experience. In fact, by October 2022, it had already sold more than 20 million copies and averaged 1 million daily players on Steam.
But it’s clear that the initial fiasco has left a mark. CD Projekt RED maintains that many of the criticisms against the game were unfair. However, the fact that Phantom Liberty is only coming to last-generation consoles and not to the PS4 and Xbox One makes it clear that the company does not want to stumble twice over the same stone.
Phantom Liberty will be the last we see of Cyberpunk 2077 as it is. Perhaps one day, the Poles will return to this intellectual property to expand the franchise, but it’s clear that it’s not a priority today. And it seems it won’t be in the short or medium term.
