Cyberpunk 2077's online portion no longer standalone
"We will be enhancing our single-player games with online experiences."
CD Projekt's big online Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer portion will no longer be launched as a standalone release.
The developer announced the change yesterday in a conference call held following the company's big strategy update, where it briefed investors on how it will continue both Cyberpunk and Witcher franchises over the next few years.
Yesterday's strategy update vaguely mentioned "reconsidered" multiplayer plans for Cyberpunk 2077, which CD Projekt boss Adam Kiciński was then asked to clarify.
"Regarding online, we are changing our approach, so we want to have online in our future games, definitely, but step-by-step," Kiciński said (thanks, VGC). "So, we are working on specific features enhancing our single-player [games], but we are not working on releasing the next game [as] a big online experience. So, we will be enhancing our single-player games with online experiences.
"The only change is that we continue to work on it not as a main production line but as a supportive production line together with our single-player productions," Kiciński continued. "But we believe that our ideas, once they will be revealed, will be very exciting for gamers as an extra experience in our world which fits our single-player games."
In January 2020, CD Projekt said Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer likely wouldn't arrive until at least 2022, as it would be a "AAA release we're working on in parallel".
A multiplayer component for Cyberpunk 2077 was first mooted all the way back in 2013, but it wasn't until 2019 that CD Projekt made it official.
As for what Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer will look like, details are thin on the ground. In reference to microtransactions in the main single-player game, CD Projekt previously said these would only exist in the game's multiplayer portion.
Yesterday, CD Projekt said it would reorganise itself to develop multiple AAA projects at same time and begin promoting them much closer to release, in response to Cyberpunk 2077's troubled launch.