Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red started to enforce six-day workweeks this Monday, backing out of its original promise to not force employees to "crunch."
CD Projekt Red made its promise over a year ago in an interview with Kotaku, but a new Bloomberg report reveals the developer is not only breaking its promise by enforcing a new work standard but that some staff has already been working nights and weekends for more than a year.
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Cyberpunk 2077 sticks to launch date
In an email to Bloomberg, CD Projekt Red studio head Adam Badowski wrote, “Starting today, the entire (development) studio is in overdrive.” Badowski explains that employees would have to commit to “your typical amount of work and one day of the weekend.” He said the additional workday would be paid, but it's unclear whether employees are getting paid overtime wages.
“I take it upon myself to receive the full backlash for the decision,” Badowski wrote. “I know this is in direct opposition to what we’ve said about crunch. It’s also in direct opposition to what I personally grew to believe a while back -- that crunch should never be the answer. But we’ve extended all other possible means of navigating the situation.”
Cyberpunk 2077 is a self-published game so what's stopping CD Projekt from delaying the game for just a couple of weeks? Two weeks could buy employees ten free weekends, more than enough to cover the forced six-day work time frame.
Unless there's something else tying CD Projekt to a November 19 release date for Cyberpunk 2077 (apart from pride), many people are more than willing to wait so the devs can spend more time with their families.
