If there’s one game that role-playing fans are looking forward to, that’s Cyberpunk 2077. First announced in 2012, this is to be CD Projekt Red’s first foray into the sci-fi genre, after the Polish company delighted gamers worldwide in 2015 with its RPG masterpiece The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Cyberpunk 2077’s sci-fi setting, though, will be far removed from the meadows and European castles of The Witcher’s fantasy world, and will instead offer a dark role-playing experience set in a dystopian future world.
It’s a pity then, that after all these years in development all we’ve seen of the game is a teaser trailer which came out back in 2013. This is a pretty good-looking trailer for the game, though, and does suggest the game could feature a Blade Runner-style plot in which special police units are attempting to take down rogue androids causing trouble in Night City.
This Night City is Cyberpunk 2077’s setting, and will likely be a huge, sprawling playground filled with interesting things to see and do, much like the fantasy world of Temeria was in The Witcher games.
However, surprisingly enough, Cyberpunk 2077 has already caused controversy despite the fact that the game has no release date yet. This occurred back in April 2017, when the Polish outfit announced that it would be copyrighting the word “cyberpunk”.
This had some people up in arms, at is appeared that this would restrict other game creators when it came to making cyberpunk-themed video games (which is worth remembering is a much-loved genre of science fiction) even if the whole thing turned out to be a case of too much ado about nothing though.
In the cyberpunk controversy, CD Projekt (the publisher behind developer CD Projekt Red), stated that “we’ve already invested a lot of hard work and resources making it the best game we can”, something which suggests development on the sci-fi RPG is well underway now.
Actually, the Polish company might be ready to start talking about Cyberpunk 2077 much more from now on, as the game’s Twitter account suddenly came to life earlier this month with one short, cryptic message…
*beep*
— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) January 10, 2018
The thing is, could the game actually be launching this year? This is not entirely out of the question, as Polish website GRYOnline recently revealed that CD Projekt Red will be showing more of the game at this year’s E3 in June as reported on PC Gamer, and that Cyberpunk 2077 will actually be playable in Los Angeles this year. Also, another source claims Sony got a tech demo of the game in December, meaning the game’s development might be more advanced than many people think.
And it’s not that far-fetched to think that Cyberpunk 2077 could be released in late 2018, as some major, high-profile games have been announced and released in the same year in the past. Such was the case of Fallout 4 in 2015, which was announced at the E3 show that year and hit shelves in the fall.
Of course, we must also remember that game makers CD Projekt Red have stated the game is coming “when it’s ready”, so a late 2018 release of Cyberpunk 2077 might still be considered an optimistic bet. Here’s hoping, though, that even if Cyberpunk 2077 does not ship this year that we get a good preview of the game at E3 2018, and finally a release date for what undoubtedly is one of the most eagerly-awaited video games of the decade.