CD Projekt Red delay The Witcher 3's next-gen update
Cyberpunk 2077's next-gen console update is delayed too
The update adding raytracing and other mod cons to The Witcher 3 will not launch this year, developers CD Projekt Red announced today. They've been fancying up their fantasy RPG for the latest console generation, and those 'next-gen' additions are headed to PC in a patch too. But not this year. Instead, look to be blinded by the light in spring 2022. They've also delayed the next-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077 for consoles.
"Based on recommendations supplied by teams supervising the development of both games, we decided to postpone their releases until 2022," CDPR said in today's announcement. They now plan to release the next-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077 in 2022 by the end of March, with The Witcher 3's update following sometime from April to the end of June.
When CDPR announced The Witcher 3's next-gen upgrade in September 2020, they said it "will feature a range of visual and technical improvements — including ray tracing and faster loading times — across the base game, both expansions, and all extra content." We now know it'll also include free DLC inspired by Netflix's Witcher show, like outfits. And while that's mostly intended to bring the game to new consoles, it'll hit PC as a free update.
As for Cyberpunk's next-gen update, I think that only concerns PS5 and Xbox Xeriex X cos the game's hardly old, it just didn't properly come out on them yet—and the current PC version sure looks better than the PS4 and Xbone editions.
"Apologies for the extended wait, but we want to make it right," the company said today about the delays. After they pissed away an astonishing amount of good will with the bungled launch of Cyberpunk 2077, yeah, that's a sensible stance to take.
Cyberpunk 2077 would never live up to the hype. It couldn't. No game could. But forget people's hopes of what it might be, Cyberpunk's farcical bugginess meant it failed to be the game it was trying to be. That's the metric I judge it against. I enjoyed a whole lot of my time in Night City but even I, an ardent admirer of Deadly Premonition, reached a point where I decided to stop playing until it was patched up.