It hasn’t been the best week for CD Projekt. An investors call revealed that the company missed its first-quarter profit goals, despite the deadline being just months after the release of Cyberpunk 2077. This, of course, suggests the game didn't perform as well as expected - so much so the company hasn’t actually revealed the sales figures. One reason for this is the continued delisting of Cyberpunk on the PlayStation Store, and Sony is remaining tight-lipped on when it can return.
However, despite the launch period clearly not going as intended, it appears that plans for Cyberpunk 2077’s multiplayer are going ahead. At least that can be interpreted from a job listing, which seeks a gameplay designer with experience in “narrative, multiplayer and/or shooter” titles. The listing goes on to say the chosen candidate will be working on “the best multiplatform AAA RPGs”.
Of the games in CDPR’s library, Cyberpunk best fits the description of something that could be turned into a “narrative, multiplayer, shooter” title. And of course, it’s worth remembering that the game was always meant to have a multiplayer mode, which then became a separate release. Reports in March however said that this approach had been “reconsidered”, so it remains to be seen what form this could take.
However, it’s worth remembering that the company announced a new strategy this year - one that involved bringing multiplayer to all of its franchises. With this in mind, it’s also possible that there’s Witcher inspired multiplayer game in the works, especially considering its boom in sales after the release of the Netflix show.
When Cyberpunk 2077 was actually set to have online, news of that wasn’t expected until 2022. We’re likely in for a long wait to find out whatever this new project really is.
Besides, CDPR has another headache to contend with: its stolen source code. Back in February, the company suffered a cyber attack, with a hacker group getting their hands on source code for Cyberpunk 2077 and an unreleased version of The Witcher 3. Originally, this went up for auction, but recent reports suggest the group will make it available to the public.