Cyberpunk 2077 studio deny rumour about 'cut content' returning

CD Projekt Red have denied claims made by a supposed anonymous member of the Cyberpunk 2077 development team, which included the claim that they're planning a huge No Man's Sky-esque "comeback" revamp in June. The alleged insider's post has been copied & pasted around forums and recapped in videos for several weeks, probably because it gave fans hope for the game's future while also giving rubberneckers plenty of drama to gawk at. Last night, CDPR declared it "simply not true."

CDPR said on Twitter, "Normally we don't comment on rumors but this time we wanted to make an exception as this story is simply not true."

Their tweet pointed to a GameFAQs post which said it was reposting another forum post from someone who claimed to be an anonymous Cyberpunk developer. It's been passed around a bit, y'see.

"CDPR hurt themselves to keep investors safe and sound," the post said. "Now devs are hearing plans of a 'No Man's Sky' style comeback due to late June. The first two patches should come out mid-March, despite what's been said by top execs. There will be major departures from the studio in the coming months. Dev morale is on an all time down and Sony is roasting our asses due to the gigantic volume of refund requests."

The post also made claims about huge swathes of the game being cut, including a "huge underground part of the city". It added, "Most apartments with "Closed (locked)" indications used to be lootable, we've scrapped 50,000+ lines of dialogue and I believe the June update will bring a whole lot of cut content back into the game." And it had a lot of chat about what was changed or went wrong, including changing Johnny Silverhand's voice actor to Keanu Reeves.

In short, the post gave hope to people who want CDPR to overhaul and expand the game with patches, and ammunition to those raging against their decisions. I guess CDPR got sick of it all. And given that lawyers are trying to get a class-action lawsuit going among investors, they're probably quite keen to get the rumour mill under control.

Sure, I'd like to see CDPR overhaul and expand Cyberpunk 2077. Despite its technical and design problems, I've really enjoyed my time in Night City with my new cyberpals (up past 100 hours now, Steam says, though that includes a whole lot of time in Photo Mode). I was one of the folks calling Cyberpunk one of our favourite games of 2020. And no doubt something went well wonky with the making of the game. But rather than get invested in rumours and hopes, I'll wait to see CDPR actually do.