Cyberpunk 2077 Dev Was Ignored By His Landlord Over Disastrous Launch
Stop me if you've heard this one before: Cyberpunk 2077 was a mess when it first launched. Whether it was the missing features or the numerous bugs, many felt that CD Projekt Red had failed to deliver the game that it promised.
Turns out, the devs had more to contend with than frustrated gamers online. Speaking at DICE, game director Gabe Amatangelo says that the controversy bled into his real life, to the point where even his landlord was on his case about fixing the game.
According to Amatangelo, whose DICE talk was reported on by Game Developer, people he would see in his day-to-day life began to treat him differently when Cyberpunk 2077 launched. He first found this to be the case when he needed his landlord to send someone out to repair his showerhead. After "weeks" of not getting a response, he went to confront his landlord in person, who simply told him: "I bought Cyberpunk. I have a PlayStation 4." He was then asked when the PlayStation port of Cyberpunk 2077 would be fixed.
In another instance, Amatangelo - who is a native English speaker living in Poland - went to get a coffee from a barrister he would typically speak with in Polish. However, once the game had launched, this also changed.
"She never spoke English with me, this was the first time," says Amatangelo. "She was like 'CD Projekt. What happened?'"
At this time, Amatangelo says that there was often a feeling of "despair" at the studio, as CD Projekt Red's reputation was at an all-time low. It's not surprising, since the negative feedback wasn't just coming from fans online, but also from people the devs would interact with as part of their daily routine.
Of course, the gaming community's attitude towards Cyberpunk 2077 and, by extension, CD Projekt Red has improved significantly over the past few years. Various patches brought the game more in line with what was promised, and perhaps most importantly, improved the performance enough to get the game back on the PlayStation storefront. Last year,
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