Cyberpunk 2077 – is the Xbox One S having trouble keeping up? (pic: CD Projekt)

Rumours suggest the reason for Cyberpunk 2077’s five-month delay is it didn’t run well enough on current gen consoles, especially Xbox One.

It may be the fashion so far this year, but a five-month delay for any game is a big deal – especially for a game that developer CD Projekt claim is already ‘complete and playable’.

The reason given at the time was that they simply wanted to make sure the game is as polished as possible, which is perfectly reasonable, but an insider named Borys Niespielak claims there’s a more specific reason: they’re having trouble getting it to run properly on current gen consoles.



When it was first teased many assumed Cyberpunk 2077 was a next gen game but it’s only ever been formally announced for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC; with CD Projekt suggesting that Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 versions are ‘doable’ but not a priority.


Speaking in a recent podcast (in Polish) Niespielak suggests that the base Xbox One – the least powerful of the current gen consoles – is a particular problem and current performance is ‘extremely unsatisfactory’.

Translations of the podcast on Discord, via altchar.com, suggest that the main storyline of the game was finished three months ago but that side missions are still being worked on.

The main story campaign is said to be shorter than The Witcher 3 but more replayable on a second or third run.

Niespielak also claims that the game will run on PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility, as may be the case for all or most PlayStation 4 titles this year.

We’ve contacted CD Projekt to see if they would confirm or deny the rumours, but they’ve said they have nothing to add on the subject of the delay.

Unrelated to Cyberpunk 2077, Niespielak also touched on the much rumoured new Witcher game, which is believed to star Ciri as the main character.

He suggests that at one time it was intended to be a PlayStation exclusive, but since then he’s heard no more information about the project, which he claims definitely was in development at one point.

Since CD Projekt signed a new deal for the rights to The Witcher franchise over Christmas it’s possible they may have altered their plans as a result.

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