On September 23rd, fans and developers gathered in London
to celebrate the upcoming launch of Phantom Liberty, the highly
anticipated expansion to Cyberpunk 2077. The whole venue had been converted
into a club straight out of Night City,
guests showed up in costume, live bands performed music from the game, and even the star of Phantom Liberty
himself, Idris Elba, made an appearance. [crowd cheering] Looking at all this, it's
hard to believe that things weren't always this way for Cyberpunk. [Review] “Cyberpunk 2077 is phenomenally buggy...” [Review] “...constant overbearing glitches...” [Review] “This game is unfinished.” It's no secret that Cyberpunk 2077
had a rough launch. Despite that, it sold millions,
but not without the burden of a tarnished reputation
of a beloved studio. [Marcin Iwiński] We treat this entire situation very seriously, and are working hard to make it right. [Jake] And now, developer CD Projekt RED is on the verge of fulfilling its biggest promise yet. to redeem Cyberpunk. With only a few days
before Phantom Liberty's release, we decided to pack our bags and fly
to Warsaw, Poland, to talk to the team directly about the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, Phantom Liberty, and the lessons
they learned along the way. [Paweł] Not everybody had a clear
picture of where are we? What's happening? [Igor] It was really difficult at times. [Jakub] It was a tough release,
let’s be honest. It was tough. [Jake] Most importantly, we wanted to know what
redemption looks like for CD Projekt RED. [Adam] You cannot just put a spell
on people and tell them ‘okay, believe’. [Dominika] It's like step by step, we try to regain that trust. I am waiting for the fans, to see what they say because this is
the most important thing for us. [Sebastian] We can call it ‘redemption’ because it’s easy. I think it's more complex than that. CD Projekt RED is a huge deal in Poland. It's one of the largest companies
in the country and is considered a point of pride
among many of its people. [Barack Obama] “The video game developed here in Poland
that's won fans the world over -- The Witcher.” However, what really put CD Projekt RED on the map
was The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. While other major game publishers
were starting to catch wind of the live service model and trying to find new ways
to monetize games, CD Projekt RED doubled down
on its single player RPGs. For many, myself included,
The Witcher 3 was a breath of fresh air. It went on to sell millions, and garnered
universal acclaim from fans and critics. [Host] “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is one of the best
video games ever made.” [Host] “That’s what it said on the front page
of GameSpot.com when I woke up this morning. ” However, this story starts well
before the release of The Witcher 3. On January 10th, 2013, the team released a teaser
for their next ambitious project based on a niche tabletop
RPG: Cyberpunk 2077. There was a lot of interest
right from the get go, but with the success of The Witcher 3,
expectations continued to rise. All the while, CD Projekt RED was staffing up in
order to match their own lofty ambitions. [Jake] So, we’ve made it to Warsaw.
We are on our way to the CD Projekt RED office, to see the launch of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty. [Michał] So, here we are. So you enter the place with those two great statues
of Geralt, of course, and V, and all the awards that they had
and [magazine] covers. Here we are, this is localization. Localization for CD Projekt RED
is obviously the thing that was always big. Remember Baldur's Gate, the first one? It was actually the first game in Poland
to be localized to that scale with really actors
that everyone in Poland knew. And here's gameplay. We had a bunch of
initiatives [for Phantom Liberty] where everyone was invited
to play the game, see what it's like and
give their feedback. We have some social gatherings
from time to time. Every two months or so. Oh, this is my team. [shouting] Where’s the ball? Łukasz is one of the top basketball players. at least of the communications team. I don't know about everyone else. [Łukasz] Top? Top of the bottom. [Łukasz] This is our motion capture system. We've got 104 cameras. Both the base game and the
EP 1 were shot here. All of the gameplay is done here. Cinematics we shoot here, so those are more complex shoots
because we have to sort of like create a physical environment
for the actors to interact with. [Jake] I've done a lot of studio
visits over my career, but I've never had this much access. Sections of the office dedicated
to the forthcoming Witcher title were off limits, but beyond that,
we were able to wander the halls, chat with devs in the break room
and get a feel for the atmosphere. Chris even snuck away for a bit to film
all of the office dogs. [Michal] ...and his name is Geralt. The funny thing about it is that it was not [his current owners] who
gave the name to the dog. [Jake] That’s what we heard. [Michal] Yeah, yeah. So they bought him, and his name was Geralt, which was like as if he was meant to be their dog. Because how would anyone name
a dog Geralt and then sell him to people who work
for CD Projekt RED? [Jake] I think we got all the
footage we need actually. [Michal] Yeah, you can go! That’s fine. After the tour, with 12 hours to launch, it was finally time to sit down
with some of the folks behind Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty. [Jake] Just generally, how
does the atmosphere feel like today compared to 2020? [Jakub] It was a tough release, let’s be honest. You’re probably talking
with multiple colleagues of mine and you hear pretty much the same story.
It was tough. Most of the crew
was actually working from home, so I think it was easier to cope
with that, you know, staying at home. But, but yeah, it was it was an empty office, like a dead
office for months actually. I think after the release we did everything we could, like
literally everything we could. We invested a lot of effort
in going into it with the 1.5 next-gen release where we actually diverted
a massive part of the team to just like fixing the game. And I'll be very honest with you
and say that making the team work on that game and fix it was really the hardest thing ever to motivate the team to put more
effort was a really hard thing because everyone was so
devastated after the release. [Sebastian] Actually, I put so much heart
into the main game of Cyberpunk. And to be honest, still, so far it is the game
that I've put the most of myself into it. So I have a huge sentiment. [Jake] When Cyberpunk 2077 initially launched, how do you encourage people?
Because I imagine that was a tough time. [Adam] It was a super tough time and uh, and you cannot
just put a spell on people and tell them ‘okay, believe’. People were lost, they had a lot of different
thoughts about things and we had to use all, all our strengths to, uh, to motivate people as a team,
to motivate particular single [people]. But one thing was super clear
that we would like to improve things. We are not abandoning this IP, it’s great. I can't say that we
had one methodology one idea how to motivate
the team after the release. The concepts make people believe that
the transformation is not phony. It's real. The organization has changed drastically. I mean, a very good way. And of course it was initiated
by the release of Cyberpunk 2077. We stopped, and we
had a lot of conversations about what to do, why and uh, and how to improve things. [Paweł] In the base game, we had this situation. We call it silos, right? So we have art silos, we had narrative silos
and code silos, for example. And in each of those,
those were like a few departments
that were working on their own part and not really
looking outside their silos, not communicating
very well between each other and that's definitely something
we fixed in Phantom Liberty. There is much more communication.
Right now we have strike teams working on the quests. So it's not like the quest is made
by a Quest Designer and he's just ordering stuff, like ‘I need an asset here’,
‘I need a character’, ‘I need a car’ and, and those teams are just figuring out
what exactly he wants. Right now, they are working one team. [Adam] So the people know what my colleague is doing and how does it affect me and my part. We try to get rid of ‘my’, ‘yours’
from the communications. [Jake] During our interviews,
one word kept coming up. Agile. The idea was to
flatten communication, making it much easier for
different teams to interact. Rather than keep all the artists,
designers and programmers together, the company created ‘strike teams’
that consisted of developers from
different departments. [Igor] Right now, the way we work, we have those agile strike teams,
which is one or two specialists from each discipline
working together and this is a team. So each of those teams is capable
of delivering any part of the game, like fully, everything within it. [Paweł] There are meetings where you have
an environmental artist, concept artist, cinematic animator, quest designer, level
designer, etc., VFX artist, lighting artist
and they all work as a team and they talk all the time,
they review it every day they meet every week
for a larger review. They play the game together to discuss it. So everybody in the team knows exactly
what's needed. They come up with ideas, they discuss it,
they validate those ideas internally, right? So, I mean, this location
and how much it cost, it will be, VFX, lighting artist, environmental artist
can contribute and tell what's what's doable, what's not. So it's much more [...] everybody has more knowledge. [Michał] It’s basically several people
from different disciplines figuring out not just their own work, but their mutual tasks
that they need to do to finish. [Karolina] And to give credit
where credit is due, you're mentioning mostly content teams. There’s many tech teams, programmers, tech QA. [Michał] There’s QA, of course. [Karolina] There’s different kinds
of programming. You know, there’s rendering,
there’s core. And those people are doing
God's work you know. [Paweł] You need to see the big picture. How the work you do, the model
you create, the concept you create, the district you're designing, how it works in the bigger context
of the whole product. Every milestone we have,
the whole studio stops working and for three days
they're playing the game from the beginning to the end. But it's
really, really worth it to just understand the bigger picture and know what exactly
where your part kicks in. [Karolina] So what's specific to ‘agile’,
or the form that we adopted is incremental
improvements and iterations. So when you, when you do iteration,
then you can, you can earlier you can detect earlier
when something is not good, you know. [Jakub] I think
the most important thing is iteration. I think quality equals iteration. So if you can have multiple cycles quicker, you are not waiting, like, weeks to see iterative process from one team
so your team can see it and say ‘it's rubbish, let's fix it’. I think it was a lesson we learned the base game
that having just like independent teams create a silo system that, you know, it's
not it's not making any easier really. [Igor ] The production framework allows those people to talk every day
and just give other feedback and one-up each other, and support
each other’s ideas. It’s just invaluable. Like for creative work, I think
this is the only way to go right now, really. [Karolina] We are not perfect. We are in the process of [...] of getting better. And I ate a cupcake. Restructuring
is only half the battle, though, and probably the easier one at that. After Cyberpunk 2077’s release,
CD Projekt RED had a PR nightmare on its hands. The game was so buggy
it was removed from the PlayStation store. Players were demanding refunds and
it was getting thrashed by the community. CD Projekt RED had to do the impossible:
regain the trust of its players. This is where the communications
and technical support team stepped up. When it comes to triple-A game
development, typically these teams act as an
intermediary between devs and players. They take massive amounts of feedback
from the community, distill it, find the underlying issues
and share it with the development team. [Karolina] For us, releases are
action mode and we act. We have experience with players
reactions and understanding sometimes what like on the surface
level is the symptom let’s say, and what it might mean underneath. And then translating it
into development language and then tracking the issues and cooperating with many, many,
many other teams to act about the things
that we know, the data that we gather. We are not completely psychic, you know sometimes
it's really important to players. Sometimes there are very big discussions
about what this thing that actually does, or what it means. [Joao] Of course sometimes we are
able to predict some of this stuff. They're going to be like
they're more a little bit maybe more sensitive
or like a bit of like a hot topic. So like, you know, when we changed
like the system requirements, there was like
a lot of discussion on that. How do we translate that to players,
so they understand why are we doing
that thing that we're doing, not just like,
‘oh, here are the new requirements ‘if you don't meet the
requirements, I'm sorry’. There is like a little bit
of like sort of predicting what's going to be like,
what do we need to communicate or how do we communicate this
and what could potentially cause a little bit of
like sort of a backlash from players if they don't fully understand
why we're doing those things. There's also this component of like
being reactive, and it’s like ‘okay, this is a problem’.
Like how do we communicate this? How do we explain this? So yeah, it's a little bit of both. [Dominika] Step by step, we try to regain that trust. Stuff like answering the DMs, right? And like actually acknowledging
like what's up and with the community what their feelings are,
what the emotions are, what suggestions
maybe they have or concerns. This is stuff that we also bring back
to conversations with devs and so on. [Alicja] There's some things, some issues
that are super important for our community and maybe developers
think that it's like a minor thing, but us hearing what community is saying, we,
we try to push for it to be changed. [Alicja on stream] Now let’s go quickly over some changes to the UI that I know a
lot of our community will be excited for. Our community really wanted
to have a walk button on PC they can, Just to be able to walk around
Night City take in all the views chill and maybe record
some nice videos. It was possible on consoles
but there was no button for it on PC and our developers
like they didn't really understand why would they need it? It's faster
to just run to places right? But we were pushing for that
because we were getting so many messages about it
and they finally did it. A lot of that feedback
not only informed updates and patches, but Phantom Liberty as a whole. From gameplay design to art direction, the team used all that
feedback and criticism both externally and internally,
to rethink some of the game's core ideas. [Jakub] We learned a lot making the base game. You know, it was a different art style than what we did in the past with The Witcher, so we were learning along the way
‘what is our cyberpunk’, because there are many,
many perspectives of what cyberpunk is. There's a different cyberpunk
for Blade Runner, for Ghost in the Shell. You know, you can name all those amazing titles in pop culture
that already had their own perspective on cyberpunk. So working the base game, we were
trying to create our own take on cyberpunk. [Gabe] When we arrived at
the theme of the spy thriller and all of the potential
with the kind of narrative moments and the tension that you can imagine
in the genre that was kind of our inspiration and it also lended to gameplay
things that also was like this. Like, okay, there's really a lot of fun
we can have with that. And I would say definitely
from a high level vision was that I didn't want anything to be kind of
on an island by its own. I wanted everything to have this kind
of poetic tie in, even from gigs, to just exploration stuff,
like it all tied in. And you know, in a way you do that
as you try to bring, you know, metaphors and examples. And then as more and more kind of examples
came to fruition in the game, it just got all the more solid
in everyone's mind. And so you, you see this over time, it's it's fun to see,
but you see this like velocity, almost, that just increases as it gets more
and more baked in everyone's head. [Igor] When we started doing
base Cyberpunk, everything was new for us, new lore, new mechanics,
first person, weapons, guns, a different tone than The
Witcher, a lot of things to work out by yourself,
finding the proper genre. We had to just make all those mistakes
and make all those good things and you know, like learn from this
and then we could apply that here. [Jakub] Based on those experiences in the base
game, we slightly tweaked the art process because cyberpunk is all about noise. And noise is actually a great thing in the image
because it makes the image pop, it makes the image very energetic,
very shouty. Right? But when you play
the game, that puts a bit of a pressure on the player
to actually see the world, you know, see where he needs to go and understand
the world to be immersed. So what we tried to do in
Phantom Liberty, we try to make the world
to be a little bit more, I guess, immersive
by controlling the noise. These creative and structural changes can be seen and felt in Phantom Liberty. Everything feels cohesive,
and has a sense of purpose. This sentiment was also reflected
in most of the reviews, but it’s important to remember that the reviews are only a
tiny slice of the audience. The real test for CD Projekt RED
will be the players. [Gabriela] After the update 2.0 rolled out, I was watching some streams and you know, the streamers were sitting there,
you know, happy with how it's looking. You know, they're saying they're super
excited for Phantom Liberty. And this was already something
that was just making me so happy. And that's why I’m
anxious for the release, because, like, in the end, we just want them
to be the happiest with this. [Igor] On Thursday or Friday, we were trying to discuss work stuff and we were both just like
‘I’m too anxious to talk about anything’. We knew it should be fine,
and that like we are confident in what we did but you know, it’s always the reception
[that matters] It was actually just before the reviews, right? [Gabe] It was.
[Igor] It was a few hours before the reviews dropped. [Gabe] We literally scheduled a meeting,
and I can’t say what it’s about, it’s top secret stuff, and we’re like ‘okay, so the agenda [...]’ you know what? We can’t do this right now’. [Gabe] We can’t focus.
[Igor] We were too shaky. [Jake] We were talking to Gabe,
and I was asking ‘Do you feel a weight off
your shoulders?’ And he's like,
‘Give it two weeks, maybe a month.’ [Jakub] Exactly! Trust me, I feel the same way. You know, just
I remember the previous release. and the fall. So now maybe it's the PTSD thing. Probably there's a massive PTSD [thing],
where we're quite conservative. Even now, not celebrating just yet. Before we join the team
for the launch of Phantom Liberty, there’s something we
need to clear up. CD Projekt RED is doing a
‘rolling release’ for consoles, and a universal release for PC. This means Phantom Liberty
on PlayStation and Xbox will release at midnight local time -- in fact [by this point]
it’s already out in Australia and New Zealand. The PC version will drop at
12am Greenwich Mean Time globally. This means everyone playing on PC
will get access at the same time. This release is what everyone
is gearing up for. [Jake] How is Geralt part of this?
What does Geralt do? [Alicja] He's our emotional support. [Jake] Okay. [Jake] How are you feeling? [Alicja] Good. Excited about the launch. Can't wait to see
how people feel about the game. I mean, at least in Poland, because
it's already launched in so many places, right? [Paweł] It's exciting. It’s exciting, it's crazy. It's our first release, like proper release Like proper release [for a while]. last proper ones. The last proper one that I remember was [The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt] Blood and Wine. Like where we were actually in the studio. [Alicja] It’s crazy on Twitch right now, and it's really surprising
that a lot of people are actually starting the game
from the beginning. Just to slowly get to
Phantom Liberty, not just jumping right into the expansion. [Dominika] We had so [much stuff
to do] during the day. So right now, it's just a little bit of,
you know, um. Peace. Before we actually jump
into a lot of people starting to play the game and,
you know, reacting to it. [Jake] Are you nervous at all? Or just kind of like [...] [Paweł] Me? Not really. Like I remember
when I worked with the community team, I feel like they're the most nervous just
before a launch because it's this moment where, you know, you're
you're just going to push out all the communication,
it’s going to go to people, and you're going to see instant reactions, and people are going to start
downloading the game, like saying their first, you know, opinions,
what they think about it. You feel the excitement,
you feel the energy. For me, it's always just coming here
and actually being being with everybody. [Jake] Yeah. [Paweł] The social connection to the the whole group and
actually being in this and like, laughing together, talking,
anticipating what's to come. It's exciting. [Alicja] I think the biggest
misconception is that there's like this big red button that we push at the given hour
and then it launches everything. So it's still not like that. Everything is set up like a lot earlier. By our release team
and all of the other teams and we just waiting for the hour
that is set up and then it launches. And also we have to wait to make sure
because sometimes some things can go wrong, obviously. [Jake] As Alicja just said,
there is no proverbial red button. Instead, there's a man in his laptop. More specifically, Artur. He's the one doing final checks
before pushing out Phantom Liberty to GOG, Steam and Epic Games. [Jake] You’re about 3 minutes away from launch?
[Artur] About 3 minutes-ish, yeah. Okay. That’s the big red button? Does it do the sound? [Ola] Yes, it does.
[Artur] It does the sound! [Artur] No, but this sounds like a failure.
[Ola] I know, because this is [...] [Ola] It’s a no button.
[Artur] It's a no button from the quiz. [Alicja] Guys, can we edit the sound [in the documentary]?
[Ola] Yes, just [...] [Jake] What sound would we edit in? [Dominika] No, it doesn't actually look like this. [Dominika] This is not what launch looks like.
[Artur] No. [Artur] Okay. Wow. Yeah. So this is happening. [Jake] It’s, uh, five seconds?
[Artur] It's, it's pretty cool. Alright. I’m going to go with GOG first because that one takes...and
bada-bing-bada-boom. No turning back now at this point. Okay, this one goes live.
This one goes live. And...this bad boy [...] So Steam is spinny wheelie, uh [...] spinny wheelie. So. [Jake] But it's live on GOG, Epic Games Store?
[Artur] Yes. [Artur] Waiting for Steam to process [...] [...] and go. [cheering] [Alicja] And now we post. [Marta] And now we click! [Michał] Back to work, please!
[laughter] Speech! [Radek] Who is going to speak? You? [Michał] Thank you, everyone. Like, it was a quite long ride. We started with some of you
more than ten years ago with a small announcement
and then a cool trailer, and then the ball starts rolling
and it grew and grew over the years and then we could start
and it was amazing. And then it was a little bit bumpy. And here we are again, standing proud, sending press releases [Marta] Just like every other day.
[Radek] Ten more seconds, don’t blow it! [Michał] Cheers guys. [everybody cheers] It's pretty easy to get swept up in the hype and excitement
when a new game releases. So much so that it's easy to forget that the people on the other side of the
screen are just that: people. Some are just as excited,
if not more excited than the fans. Most are nervous, anxious and tired. [Sebastian] We can call it ‘redemption’
because it's easy. I think it's more complex than that. We didn't change the story
you remember at the beginning We didn't change the story. [Paweł] We were looking at it not through
the amount of bugs that were in the game, but we were looking at the release
to the things we wanted to put in the experience, what it is, right, how
we how we thought it will be perceived, right? The story, the emotions, you know, the all the things
that we developed for the game. So that's what we wanted to see. [Artur] I feel like the true test of whether
this is a redemption arc, or whether that is anything related to this,
is always going to be by the players. So until the players
get the game in their hands and they're going to tell us that,
‘hey guys, this is good’. ‘You did good’. Then
I guess this is the redemption arc. The redemption arc is not something
that we impose upon ourselves. This is actually something
that the players give us feedback on. So if the players are happy,
we're more than happy. [Igor] In the end, the game is for the people. And you know, what we do is
for the players, at least what I'm doing is for them to feel some emotions and,
you know, maybe like expand their worldview a little bit, and it's up for them to judge really. [Jakub] But I hope that the players,
the world will finally, I think, perceive that we really have
like a very honest intentions and we pushed the maximum, you know, we could. [Adam] I wouldn't create, uh, a legend about our own story, our own job. If people feel and perceive it
as a redemption story, it's great. It's great. Redemption is not a narrative CD Projekt RED gets to decide. It's the community. It's up to the players. That's the story that's being told
right now in real time by the reception of Phantom Liberty and the hundreds
of thousands of fans that are playing it, sharing their excitement
and making it part of their lives. The narrative we can actually see. But that is still only a facet
of the larger story. On one side, it's about the games
and players who are playing it. On the other, it's the passion
of the people who are making it. But then there's CD Projekt RED
itself as a company, as an entity made up of hundreds
upon hundreds of people. If there's anything I've learned
from this experience, it's that game development is a complex, messy
and unpredictable process But even still, CD Projekt RED is a company and even in a year of redemption and success, it wasn't without its woes of layoffs. The redemption arc,
whether it's No Man's Sky, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, or Cyberpunk
always revolves around the game. It makes sense. The game is the culmination of everything. That's what the company is working towards. That's what the devs are building and that's what the public
eventually gets to see. But redemption is complicated,
deeply personal, and a fundamentally human journey. To put that narrative
on a team of hundreds, some who poured everything they had into it, some who left
after a rigorous development cycle and some who are let go,
feels like an oversimplification. [Igor] I'm really happy today because, like,
we went through it and I'm really super proud of Phantom Liberty
and what we have achieved. But also I can't help feeling a little bit
melancholic, let's say, of like maybe a little bit of a loss really,
because... [Jake] You’re moving on from Cyberpunk?
[Igor] Yeah. It's over now. I mean, it was really fun, also really difficult at times. And now it's gone. It's
out there in the world. It doesn't belong to us anymore. It belongs to everyone now, and in a way it's both sad
and somehow fulfilling and like, you know, I am feeling this sense of completion. [Jakub] I'm extremely proud of every single studio member, and I think we did
everything we possibly could to fix the game,
to bring exactly what we hoped this game could be. And I guess the
the current flow of reviews I think is giving the team
the proper closure. I would say the proper closure to not only the Phantom Liberty
but I guess the whole project. [Sebastian] And I believe it's also a good lesson for us.
[Paweł] It is. [Sebastian] For the future and uh... It’s matter of how fast you
get up and move forward. How do you open this s***? [Radek] Does anybody know
if cider expires or not because... No, no, it’s all good. We made these like two years ago
for an event. Like, is this good? [Jake] How's the cider?
Does it taste expired? There was concern about that. [Ola] I just...this isn’t mine, this is his.
I don’t like cider so I [crosstalk] [Jake] Okay, Yeah. [Marta] Cider is made from fermented apples...
[Carolin] Apples are the best export of Poland.
[Ola] It tastes expired. [Jake] Oh, really? [Ola] It was spoiled to begin with.
[Carolin] I have heard so multiple times. [Jake] Okay.
[Maciej] It’s fermented, so... [Marta] It was fermented from the very beginning... [Radek] Okay guys, so I just did a
quick Google search. [Radek] ‘Can cider expire?’ [Radek] So, cider does have a best
before date, meaning there is an optimal consumption period. [Radek] However, it does not have
an expiration date. [Ola] Well, this one doesn’t. [Jake] All right. [Marta] Yeah, it’s already fermented.
[Jake] Everyone’s safe.
