Excerpts from a conference call with CD Projekt RED were making the rounds last night, concerning the studio’s next-gen plans for Cyberpunk 2077. The sci-fi RPG will be backwards compatible for both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. CD Projekt will unleash a “more robust” next-gen update at a later date, which owners of the game will gain access to free of charge.
This morning, the team shared all of the above itself in a public post on Twitter, making its intentions very clear. See the tweet in question linked below:
We are happy to confirm that Cyberpunk 2077 will be backwards compatible with both next-gen consoles! Your PS4 copy of the game will work on PS5 on launch day. Anyone who buys the game on Xbox One will be able to play their copy on Xbox Series X when the console launches too!
— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) June 19, 2020
A subsequent post reveals that a later update will take “full advantage of the next-gen hardware.” Owners of the game on current-gen consoles will receive said upgrade for free.
In the aforementioned conference call, studio President Adam Kicinski noted that Cyberpunk 2077 will “look better” on next-gen from the jump. With regards to further improvements down the line, he explained, “at some point we’re going to have a more robust update for the for the next-gens, which we’re planning to give free of charge to anybody who purchases the PS4 or Xbox One version…”
This seems to fall in line with how both Sony and Microsoft are handling next-gen updates for current-gen titles. Essentially, such decisions, in terms of whether an update is free, will be left to a game publisher’s discretion. Evidently, CD Projekt RED is opting to offer players next-gen enhancements for no extra cost.
Details of this nature are surfacing in wake of Cyberpunk 2077’s recent delay out of its September release window. The title will now hit stores later this year on November 19th.
[Source: Cyberpunk 2077 on Twitter, Gematsu]
