Cyberpunk 2077 is still in deep development, expect more changes before launch

Yesterday was quite exciting for RPG fans as CD Projekt Red showed off Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay publicly for the first time. The 48-minute private demo that was shown at E3 is now live for everyone to see. The extensive gameplay reveal, coupled with news that the game is playable from start to finish, might lead you to believe that the game is close to being finished but according to CD Projekt Red warns against raising expectations.

A hidden message was included in the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay walkthrough, which has since been transcribed by the community. The message notes that while finally showing off Cyberpunk 2077 is a huge step for the studio, the game is still “deep in development” with a lot of the mechanics still being playtested.

Here is the full message as transcribed by Divinus:

“Did you like what you saw? Because for us, the fact that we're finally showing you Cyberpunk 2077 is HUGE. Please go to our forums, Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and do tell what you think. Is the game world how you imagined? Do you see what we meant by ‘immersion' when we talked about CP2077 being an FPP RPG? How does our vision of ‘cyberpunk by day' make you feel? We really want to know.

Aside from that, we think we owe you a few words of explanation on why we're showing you this gameplay now, some time after industry professionals and media saw it at E3 and Gamescom.

Each time we discussed the idea of showing the game to you (and we discussed this idea a lot), we were ending up in this ‘we're not 100% sure' limbo. Why? Because (for most people), when a game dev shows gameplay footage from their game, it means that this is how the game is going to look or play like. It's not the case here. Cyberpunk 2077 is deep in development. We have a lot of design ideas, a lot of mechanics being playtested, but we don't know what we'll end up with at launch. This makes publishing videos like what you just saw risky—we don't want gamers saying ‘But in that previous video that gun was shooting differently', or ‘Why did you change the interface?' Change is inherent to game development and there's a ton of things being modified each day. Our fear was (and kind of still is) that you'll think what you just saw is how Cyberpunk 2077 will look like 1:1.

What gave us that extra confidence to show you a work in progress game? Good initial feedback from people who are accustomed to see games at various stages of development. What they told us (and they told us they really liked what they saw) gave us the boost we needed to show the current version of Cyberpunk 2077 to the most passionate and insightful audience—you.

So… here's what Cyberpunk 2077 looks like today (or rather looked like when we recorded the video). We sincerely hope you liked it.
Again, thank you for your patience and all the thoughts you shared with us.

Yours,
CD PROJEKT RED”

Developers behind the game have also stated that many of the assets and mechanics we saw in the gameplay reveal may end up being modified before launch. This includes gunplay, car physics, the game's UI etc. Cyberpunk 2077 is still being playtested, so while we know what the game looks like currently, much of it could change by the time launch comes around.

KitGuru Says: Given that we saw such an extensive gameplay reveal last night, I was hoping that development was further along than we initially expected. It turns out, that is not the case, so prepare to continue waiting for the final game. Right now, I'd put my money on a 2020 release. Did you guys enjoy the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay reveal? Is there anything you hope to see changed before launch?

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