Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Game delays are the new day one patch

Lisa Marie Segarra
By

Cyberpunk 2077 is delayed. So is Watch Dogs: Legion, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Marvel’s Avengers, and Doom Eternal.

Cyberpunk 2077 developer and publisher CD Projekt Red announced on January 6 that it will move the game’s launch from April to September 2020. It’s never fun for players to hear a game is delayed, especially when years have passed since the game’s first teaser trailer.

Recommended Videos

Yet delays can be a good thing. They show developers realize when a release needs more time and, rather than rushing it along and patching it later, they’re taking it seriously.

Cyberpunk 2077 review
Image used with permission by copyright holder

CD Projekt Red expressed that sentiment in its announcement, saying, “We are currently at a stage where the game is complete and playable, but there’s still work to be done.” That statement, from co-founder Marcin Iwiński and head of studio Adam Badowski, made clear the extra time would be used for “playtesting, fixing and polishing.”

Related

In the end, gamers are likely to have a better experience — even if that means waiting longer. Rushed projects are also more prone to developer crunch, which entails long hours and poor working conditions for the people who make games.

However, while pushing a game’s release date doesn’t mean crunch won’t happen, straining for an unfeasible timeline certainly isn’t a solution either. In fact, CD Projekt Red co-CEO Adam Kicinski said in a Q&A this week that he expects the team will work extra hours as production enters its final stages. Though not unexpected, it’s disappointing.

Delays are becoming a more popular option than half-baked releases with day one patches. After all, nothing kills anticipation like ripping off the plastic of a new game only watch a progress bar on the television and waiting to play a game as intended — or at least closer to the way it was intended. Pushing a game out too quickly turns players into playtesters, who can find game-busting bugs and issues before they’re patched.

As fans commiserate the extra wait, they should be able to find solace once a genuinely complete and well-crafted game is out. Especially when it comes to a high concept undertaking, like Cyberpunk 2077 hopes to be. Execution is everything. Fans will be critical of every detail, which CD Projekt Red knows well. The Witcher 3, despite its popularity, saw a backlash because the game’s graphics (though gorgeous) didn’t always live up to early trailers.

The emotional response to news Cyberpunk 2077’s delay is proof gamers have high expectations. Come September, we’ll get to see if the wait was worth it.

Updated on January 17, 2020: Added information on work hour expectations post delay.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Lisa Marie Segarra
Lisa Marie Segarra
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Lisa Marie Segarra is the Gaming Section at Digital Trends. She's previously covered tech and gaming at Fortune Magazine and…
What’s new in April 2024: 8 upcoming games to keep on your radar
Many of the characters in Sand Land.

April 2024 will likely be one of the quieter months of the year in terms of new game releases, but it is also poised to be a very fulfilling one. Harold Halibut, a game over a decade in the making, will finally launch. Akira Toriyama’s underappreciated Sand Land will finally get a video game adaptation just over a month after its creator's passing. RPG fans will be thriving with a new SaGa game and the long-awaited spiritual successor to Suikoden. It's also quite a heavy re-release month, with remasters of Gigantic and Braid and multiplatform ports of two Xbox Game Studios titles also coming out.

In some ways, April’s release lineup is emblematic of 2024’s as a whole. Many of the games are a bit niche, but they will be extremely fulfilling for the players anticipating them. The following eight games are new releases, mostly coming in the back half of the month, that are worth looking out for in particular.
Children of the Sun (April 9)

Read more
If you’re looking for a great new Switch game, you’ll dig Pepper Grinder
A giant beetle stands in Pepper Grinder.

Look, it’s been a busy time for video game enthusiasts. Rather than easing out of a busy holiday season, the first three months of 2024 have been filled with enormous, high-profile RPGs that can eat up an upwards of 60 hours each. I’m tired. You’re tired. Don’t you just want to play something short and sweet at this point?

If the answer to that question is “yes,” then you’re in luck. Pepper Grinder, the latest release from publisher Devolver Digital, is out today and it's the perfect change of pace for anyone exhausted from playing long RPGs for months. And it helps that it’s a fun little platformer with a unique hook, too. Actually, “hook” isn’t exactly the right word here. I should say “drill.”

Read more
As the internet raged, game developers at GDC screamed for change
The Moscone Center's North Hall is covered in GDC signage.

For a certain subset of angry gamers planted behind their keyboards, March 18 was just another day in the digital outrage mines.

The video game industry was weeks into its latest “controversy,” this one aimed at a small consulting team called Sweet Baby Inc. The company, which provides writing support for some of the industry’s biggest studios, had become a target for a small but loud group of players over the course of a few months. Their gripe? Sweet Baby Inc was forcing diversity into games through its industry-standard services, which include cultural consulting for studios looking to add more authentic representation into titles like Alan Wake 2. Some spent that Wednesday continuing to rage on sites like X (formerly Twitter) over the nebulous threat of “wokeness” in games, just as they had been for weeks.

Read more