oh...

Well that sucks.

What a year to be alive for a gamer in 2020. We have big news on blockbuster games nearly every week and it almost feels as though no year of gaming has ever topped the one we are about to undergo. (Or at least that claim is accurate if all of the rumors I've heard about carry any remote weight to them.) However I feel it safe to say that if there was one title, ahead of the masses, that promised to colour this year in an undeniable shade of it's own; one game that promised to sneak onto shelves early in the year and reshape the discussions around gaming coming into the next generation, it was CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077. That is why it's with a particular lump in my throat that I've had to digest yesterday's news: That Cyberpunk 2077 would be delayed by 5 months until September.

I can't pretend I didn't have nightmares about this scenario. For the biggest game of the year to launch outside of the typical gaming month (and an exact week before my Birthday, by-the-by) seemed incredible and a little unrealistic. Heck, if I'm riding the 'unrealistic' train, I don't even think this new launch date sounds all that achievable, but I suppose if the team picked it then they know what they're doing. (I mean, they clearly didn't when they picked the first date, but I'm sure they've got a handle on things now.) I can't help but groan when I think about the deluge of games that are going to clutter up September and October and am positively melancholy at imaging Cyberpunk joining that lot. (God knows what all the Devs who usually occupy that release slot are thinking. They're probably in the middle of posting their hate mail to CDPR's head office.)

Let me be abundantly clear, I'm not upset at the decision to ensure that the game is finished and complete before the final shipping. For those that are, I would direct you to the sage wisdom imparted by one of the pioneers of this industry, Shigeru Miyamoto, "A delayed game is eventually good, a rushed game is forever bad." Those words are undeniably true and sear red hot at this exact moment in time. I lament the fact that early announcements like Cyberpunk's worked to whip up a fervour of excitement before kicking you in the crotch and stringing you along for another few months. It feels like a decidedly marketing-based move that emanates with the stench of corporate deception. Everyone was surprised when CDPR said this game would make April, and this delay (3 months before launch, mind you!) makes it seem like they never planned to make that date either, and that sews a little mistrust that I don't think was ever there before between CDPR and fans.

To illustrate what I mean (through words) let me take you back to September 2013, the release date for Grand Theft Auto V. Or, should I say, 2012 the original release date. (Oh Jesus, I just looked at what the current date is. I need to go vomit quick.) When this title was first announced on Nov 2nd 2011, alongside a beautiful trailer to the tune of 'Ogden's Nut gone flake',  it wouldn't be along until the general populace got a release date to fuel their excitement. It would come out soon, surprisingly soon, within a year in fact. People were positively buzzing with anticipation and Rockstar fed off of that excitement by drip feeding information in the months to come. We would only have three introductory videos to introduce each protagonist alongside a gameplay trailer to show up the title that would consume the next decade of our lives. There was no talk about the online features which Rockstar promised would be 'grand'. As we drew closer to launch, concern began to amount as people realized; we hadn't seen the promised 'Online trailer' and there was only a few weeks until launch, what was going on? It wasn't long until Rockstar announced that the title would be delayed until September the following year, breaking hearts and setting us all back to square one.

But surely that is just the way things play out, right? Delays happen all the time in development and no one can accurately see them coming, can they? Well, yes and no. Game development in particular is an incredibly difficult beast to get to grips with due to the everchanging state of the medium, it's why I find the Bennet Foddy analogy of "It's like building on wet concrete" to be so apt. Gaming evolves far more rapidly than any of other entertainment medium and so it's almost impossible to give something as definitive as a release date without drawing a line in the sand and promising not to cross it. It's how projects remain sanitized and it allows for release dates to be drawn up for the benefit of investors and fans.

There is, however, a little marketing twist to this whole routine for, you see, there is a certain amount of spin that goes towards every game announcement. Apart for the reveal, the most important piece of information that any company can give is the release date. It is the one thing that everyone waits for, and so it's important to get it right. In that vein, there are a set of rules that should be followed. One of which being that the release should be far enough away to allow for the advertising machine to get going but not so far off that people put it from their minds entirely. (A good rule of thumb; make the release within a year.) That is the reason why some titles will announce their release dates early even when they have no intention of hitting that date, like with GTA V. Is this the case with Cyberpunk? I don't know, but it would make sense.

That April release date was always a little weird considering that every major release is usually tilted to hit that pre-holiday season crowd. (For reasons that I've gone over in a previous blog.) Of course, some bigger titles can completely ignore such things as tradition, if their word of mouth transcends usual game marketing, however it still feels like shooting oneself in the foot to not aim for the most lucrative time of year. Sure, it means that they'll have to go up against the yearly big hitters, but is Cyberpunk really in danger of losing out to any of them? With everything that I've discussed, consider this; what if this September release was their intent all along? They only had Keanu Reeves for a brief, highly classified, E3 visit, and what better way would there be to announce their upcoming game than to have a legendary Hollywood star do it? But September 2020 was just over a year on from E3 2019 and the higher ups knew that would cause fans to put the game out of their immediate cone of vision, so they made a more palatable April announcement only to sweep that rug out from under us.

Perhaps what I've written so far comes across as a bit of a conspiracy theory, and I suppose it is in a way, but we know these strategies have been used by companys before so isn't it fair to assume that they would be again? I know that CDPR have facilitated a lot of good will over the years, and I respect them too, I just find it a bitter pill to swallow to think that they didn't realize that this game would have to be delayed until the new year. I know this is a huge studio and all, but that just rings false to my ears. Whatever the case may be- Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed by 5 months and now the first half of 2020 is just that much more unbearable. Let's all just collectively hope we make it long enough to finally get our hands on the game.