Cyberpunk 2077 CEO says botched launch was “complicated and psychological” with no “magical investors telling us” to release

Cyberpunk 2077 Johnny Silverhand standing in Dogtown

Published:

2 September 2026

Last Updated: 2 September 2026

By:

CD Projekt Red’s launch of Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most infamous bungles in video game history. While the game has seen a significant redemption since release, the game launched in a horrendous state on all platforms.

As CDPR continues work on Cyberpunk 2 and The Witcher 4, CEO Michał Nowakowski admits that the studio is still reeling from the massive controversy of Cyberpunk 2077. After all, trust is easily lost, but not so easily gained.

In a new conversation with The Game Business, Nowakowski said that releasing the game in that state “was for sure wrong”. While the CEO admits that the studio shouldn’t have released the game in that state, they also add that there were a number of factors that pressured the studio to launch the game unfinished.

Nowakowski adds that the COVID pandemic “was a factor” which caused the development team to become “exhausted in a different way” than a typical dev period. The CEO claimed that working on the game had become “really tiring” and devs “wanted to push it out the door”.

Alongside the development team‘s tiredness, Nowakowski explained that there were “people outside telling us we should launch”, claiming that fans were pushing the studio further to launch the game as soon as possible.

With that said, the CEO pushed back against the years-long rumours that the team was pushed by investors. “There were no magical investors telling us, ‘You have to get this out.’… It was much more complicated and psychological.”

Nevertheless, the CEO regrets cracking and pushing Cyberpunk 2077 to release. “The decision to launch was for sure wrong, period. There is no denying it,” the CEO told the outlet.

As CD Projekt Red continues its work on The Witcher and Cyberpunk franchises, the studio is now met with more wariness than prior to Cyberpunk’s launch. To this day, there is still trepidation and worry, and with years into their next game launch, it might take a long time to fully regain that lost trust.

Nowakowski has stated in the past that the RPG studio has not managed to claw back its reputation prior to Cyberpunk’s release. While the studio is praised for initiatives like the upcoming The Witcher 3: Remastered–which is launching as a free update for all prior owners–the CEO is worried that they might never return to the reputation they used to have.

About The Author

Lewis White

Lewis White is a veteran games journalist with over a decade in the field. Starting with beloved Xbox website ICXM/XboxMAD, Lewis became the Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser before becoming the Editor in Chief of StealthOptional and Gfinityesports. Lewis later jumped to By Gamers For Gamers where he jumped to become EIC of VideoGamer and the host of the New VideoGamer Podcast prior to the website’s acquisition.

Over the years, Lewis has also seen long-form investigative pieces published in outlets such as Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, Retro Gamer, Nintendo Life, and EDGE. Now, as the Editor in Chief of FRVR Blog, Lewis strives to bring the same level of quality journalism with interview-led content to the site in both written and audio form with the FRVR Podcast.

With a First Degree BA Hons in Games Journalism and Public Relations, Lewis has been a stable part of the British games press for over a decade, and has frequently displayed his love of Halo, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and other games pretty much everywhere he’s worked. And FRVR is no different.

See author's posts