CD Projekt RED Assures: The Witcher IV Will Not Experience the Launch Problems of Cyberpunk 2077

Today, Cyberpunk 2077 is often remembered as one of the games that managed to redeem itself over time thanks to the numerous updates and improvements received after its launch. However, the title's debut in 2020 was accompanied by many criticisms related to technical problems, unstable performance, and lack of polish, especially on certain platforms. That very experience pushed CD Projekt RED to profoundly change its way of working for future projects.

During a panel at Digital Dragons, lead technical writer Jaroslaw Rucinski and senior technical writer Adrian Fulneczek explained how the studio analyzed the causes of the issues that plagued Cyberpunk 2077. According to what the two developers shared, one of the main difficulties was the management of internal documentation during the game's production.

During the development of Cyberpunk 2077, over 8,000 pages of documents were created using Confluence. Subsequently, the team decided to move everything to a cloud version of the tool, but this operation ended up further fragmenting the available material. Over time, maintaining the documentation ceased to be considered a priority, complicating navigation for the various teams among the information.

CD Projekt RED, the experience gained from Cyberpunk 2077, and the work ahead for The Witcher IV

The difficulties did not only concern CD Projekt RED's internal studios but also the international partners involved in the development. According to Fulneczek, the lack of effective document management made it more challenging to understand the processes, systems, and technical decisions shared among the various working groups.

After the problematic launch of Cyberpunk 2077, the Polish studio decided to integrate documentation directly into the production process. Today, no element can advance to the next stage of development without being properly documented.

CD Projekt RED has also chosen to make internal knowledge accessible to all teams working on the various projects of the company. This way, information is no longer isolated within single departments but can be shared across different productions. The goal is to avoid duplications of work and allow the entire studio to benefit from the solutions found during the development of the various games. Currently, neither Cyberpunk 2 nor The Witcher IV has an official release date.