(WARNING:
Everything I say take it with a grain of salt, this is just my opinion based on basically reading tea leaves of the news surrounding the game based on publicly available information.)
So, what's this about?
I've been following the news throughout year, ever since the release and I've posted here already once about the Job search done in summer time ( https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...iplayer-is-still-coming-announcement.11088878 )
Since then, there's not been too many news about multiplayer, outside of what Tyler McVicker had said in his video where there's references about cyberpunk_multi being found in game files:
There's some interesting language in most recent interview with Adam Kiciński, who said:
“We are hard at work on the next-gen version of Cyberpunk, scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2022, alongside another major update for all platforms.”
Technically the next-gen version IS for the large part the next-gen update (altering game code to enable features that next gen can utilize along with the other improvements impacting every system) so there's not really good purpose to separate the two, so this could be talking indirectly about other project that is to arrive with the close distance to the next gen release. Also another major update doesn't seem like it refers to 1.5 but something else to come.
Now, if you watch what Rockstar did upon GTA 5 release (who's success CDPR has been very keen to imitate), the GTA 5 was released September 2013 and GTA Online was released October 2013, with a few weeks gap from release, and especially with covid going on would likely be within 1-2 month period)
There's also something very interesting in the most recent investors call:
There's question about the lack of openness about the future of the franchise, and the response is basically "we'll see what'll happen when the 1.5 is released, we'll then take a look what direction the game will be taken", which seems to indicate there's "something" about to come, which'll be a dividing factor between players and the studio isn't sure what kind of reaction will the playerbase have with the initial re-release of the game and see which direction to the take game toward, whether it be more multiplayer focused due to the initial interest, or keep the multiplayer simple like the PvP aspect, and then keep working for expansions and content within the game.
Previously there was also mention that they don't want to clarify which franchise is going to be first to receive the initial multiplayer functionality, which could mean 3 things:
1. Witcher 3 next gen release has multiplayer elements in it
2. Molasses Flood is making multiplayer game (likely for Witcher franchise) since it wouldn't make sense to compete with Cybepunk Online
3. Cyberpunk 2077 is going to receive multiplayer, but they don't want gigantic media craze about what's to come and speculation before anything has come out
Lets go these step-by-step:
1. Witcher 3 getting multiplayer components
I think this is the least possible option, simply because there was never a single mention about it, and all the talks about next gen release have been purely about taking advantage of things like ray tracing.
It would also take quite big production to create all these events and areas and rewards for already existing title. It's a possibility, but unless they've really planned this like years ahead, I doubt it's really possible. However, this would make up to the loss in winter sales, getting a huge chunk of players to join up to the game, and then releasing multiplayer components would kinda make sense to capitalize on large playerbase.
2. Molasses Flood is making multiplayer game
I think this is 2nd most likely option, they've been recently acquired company that's currently working on a game to strengthen either Witcher/Cyberpunk franchise. These people have previous work with isometric game The Flame In The Flood and 3rd person view game Drake Hollow (already has co-op), games that would feel very natural with multiplayer elements in them.
It's likely there's going to be Witcher title based on their skillset and assets and thus could perhaps come earlier than Cyberpunk's Online feature. Since Witcher 4 development isn't even started it'd be smart to try to develop a game that would fill a gap left in developing the next game somewhere in 2024-2025.
It's hard to say how far they are with development, but if you look the past, The flame in the flood was released in 2016 and Drake Hollow 2020, meaning similar project would likely fit the window of 2024, which would strengthen (likely) Witcher franchise before I'd assume 2026 Witcher 4's release.
So yeah, it's not that likely but maybe it's an adaptation of their previous work which could be released faster.
3. Cyberpunk 2077 going to receive multiplayer
The most evidence points to this. There was recruitment for online components (shown in the link in start) in summer, there was plans for next gen to release 2nd half of 2021. Q3 is always the worst season for CDPR (as stated by investors call) which means that they really wanted to make a big punch in Q4, now that Q4 release has been delayed later, with also skipping patch 1.4.
So what could've happened there? Previous investor calls there was mentions about having works with multiplayer staff and "we are in the process of switching things" which was referencing how staff is going to be changing far less from bug fixing to next gen and "other projects".
Counter arguments... I know what many people are going to say. "How can they release multiplayer when single player is in such state?"
Well, most issues currently exist in the open world aspect of the game. The police AI system which many feel is incomplete from what it was marketed even in the game. There's NPC's that disappear the second you look away if they get panicked etc...
BUT the game runs EXTREMELY WELL in isolated instances, like the first mission The Rescue, where you're completely isolated from the complex open world game outside with the traffic and randomly spawning NPC's. The game is ready to handle NPC'less combat in isolated arenas, which could make PvP battle arenas a likely first addition, with not that much need to make the online service heavy with micro-transactions and loot systems.
So all this in mind, if I had to place my money on something, Cyberpunk 2077's online functionality is likely coming out next year with the 1.5 or soon after. I don't see a good reason why not to, the core game is functional outside of open world, which is not necessary for PvP game, and PvE even could be constructed from areas which don't rely on police or randomly generated NPC's, like the helicopter attack on Arasaka Tower.
There was brief mention (I'll have to look it up) in some investor call mentioning that some functionalities impacting multiplayer also impact single player, which of course could be the 3rd person perspective of other players must seeing your character, and likely have 3rd person view available for 1.5, which could still be only temporary like in Fallout 3-4 if I remember correctly, where you could press middle mouse button and see your character in otherwise first person view...
Lets talk about the work being done so far. In (I'll have to look up this part again) some of the most recent investor calls, there was brief mention about multiplayer being in works 2 years (now being 2.5 years after half year later), making there to be plenty of time for this project, so it's not really a new thing that needs to be build from scratch.
Games like PUBG took approximately 1 year with the staff of 35 to 70 people to make, and it's only been vaguely mentioned that there's a "small team" working for multiplayer aspect of the game, so it's likely that CDPR is in somewhere within that range of 35-70 people working for this elements, especially at this moment in time.
With nearly 4 months still remaining to the end of Q1 2022 this means approximately 3 years of work, even with the initial team of 10-20 members, and only recently expanding that group, it's still far enough time for making this possible.
Also CDPR has experience with multiplayer functionality already, including matchmaking algorithms and ranking thanks to work done in Gwent.
Of course everything is prone to change, things could be delayed and nobody wants to promise features that could be delayed, and thus why the most recent investors call wasn't keen to further briefing about the plans for the game, since the lack of certainty to get the multiplayer (if my theory is right) to arrive either in 1.5 or month later.
For marketing perspective, and avoiding community backlash, I think it would make sense to keep these 2 closely tied while also focusing marketing material for the DLC's that the 1.5 is going to bring (because the huge lack of existing DLC, the skipping of 1.4 could be a marketing trick to shove single player content into same patch, making it seem far less like CDPR isn't caring about single player perspective... especially if Cyberpunk Online is announced to be delayed from 1.5 initial release, but hold it close enough to not lose sales.
But what do you think? Is it too early to speculate? What kind of initial multiplayer are you expecting? Do you also think it's not going to be open world related, or do you hope for less competitive and more team working oriented multiplayer?
Oh and there's more important caveat which I forgot to mention, but I think it's rather crucial. The timing.
Releasing next gen without multiplayer in sight is likely going to have similar effect as the initial release did. It's going to be one-two months busy time, and then the playerbase would gradually shrink.
If they released multiplayer along with the sales, especially 1 month later, where people had time to finish single player, there would be good opportunity to invite these players to the multiplayer functionalities.
Otherwise the next option would be with the release of first expansion, which means delayed it by at least half a year... Q4 of 2022.
(I know I probably had like 100 miss-spellings and typos, didn't really have long time to write this.)
Everything I say take it with a grain of salt, this is just my opinion based on basically reading tea leaves of the news surrounding the game based on publicly available information.)
So, what's this about?
I've been following the news throughout year, ever since the release and I've posted here already once about the Job search done in summer time ( https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...iplayer-is-still-coming-announcement.11088878 )
Since then, there's not been too many news about multiplayer, outside of what Tyler McVicker had said in his video where there's references about cyberpunk_multi being found in game files:
There's some interesting language in most recent interview with Adam Kiciński, who said:
“We are hard at work on the next-gen version of Cyberpunk, scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2022, alongside another major update for all platforms.”
Technically the next-gen version IS for the large part the next-gen update (altering game code to enable features that next gen can utilize along with the other improvements impacting every system) so there's not really good purpose to separate the two, so this could be talking indirectly about other project that is to arrive with the close distance to the next gen release. Also another major update doesn't seem like it refers to 1.5 but something else to come.
Now, if you watch what Rockstar did upon GTA 5 release (who's success CDPR has been very keen to imitate), the GTA 5 was released September 2013 and GTA Online was released October 2013, with a few weeks gap from release, and especially with covid going on would likely be within 1-2 month period)
There's also something very interesting in the most recent investors call:
There's question about the lack of openness about the future of the franchise, and the response is basically "we'll see what'll happen when the 1.5 is released, we'll then take a look what direction the game will be taken", which seems to indicate there's "something" about to come, which'll be a dividing factor between players and the studio isn't sure what kind of reaction will the playerbase have with the initial re-release of the game and see which direction to the take game toward, whether it be more multiplayer focused due to the initial interest, or keep the multiplayer simple like the PvP aspect, and then keep working for expansions and content within the game.
Previously there was also mention that they don't want to clarify which franchise is going to be first to receive the initial multiplayer functionality, which could mean 3 things:
1. Witcher 3 next gen release has multiplayer elements in it
2. Molasses Flood is making multiplayer game (likely for Witcher franchise) since it wouldn't make sense to compete with Cybepunk Online
3. Cyberpunk 2077 is going to receive multiplayer, but they don't want gigantic media craze about what's to come and speculation before anything has come out
Lets go these step-by-step:
1. Witcher 3 getting multiplayer components
I think this is the least possible option, simply because there was never a single mention about it, and all the talks about next gen release have been purely about taking advantage of things like ray tracing.
It would also take quite big production to create all these events and areas and rewards for already existing title. It's a possibility, but unless they've really planned this like years ahead, I doubt it's really possible. However, this would make up to the loss in winter sales, getting a huge chunk of players to join up to the game, and then releasing multiplayer components would kinda make sense to capitalize on large playerbase.
2. Molasses Flood is making multiplayer game
I think this is 2nd most likely option, they've been recently acquired company that's currently working on a game to strengthen either Witcher/Cyberpunk franchise. These people have previous work with isometric game The Flame In The Flood and 3rd person view game Drake Hollow (already has co-op), games that would feel very natural with multiplayer elements in them.
It's likely there's going to be Witcher title based on their skillset and assets and thus could perhaps come earlier than Cyberpunk's Online feature. Since Witcher 4 development isn't even started it'd be smart to try to develop a game that would fill a gap left in developing the next game somewhere in 2024-2025.
It's hard to say how far they are with development, but if you look the past, The flame in the flood was released in 2016 and Drake Hollow 2020, meaning similar project would likely fit the window of 2024, which would strengthen (likely) Witcher franchise before I'd assume 2026 Witcher 4's release.
So yeah, it's not that likely but maybe it's an adaptation of their previous work which could be released faster.
3. Cyberpunk 2077 going to receive multiplayer
The most evidence points to this. There was recruitment for online components (shown in the link in start) in summer, there was plans for next gen to release 2nd half of 2021. Q3 is always the worst season for CDPR (as stated by investors call) which means that they really wanted to make a big punch in Q4, now that Q4 release has been delayed later, with also skipping patch 1.4.
So what could've happened there? Previous investor calls there was mentions about having works with multiplayer staff and "we are in the process of switching things" which was referencing how staff is going to be changing far less from bug fixing to next gen and "other projects".
Counter arguments... I know what many people are going to say. "How can they release multiplayer when single player is in such state?"
Well, most issues currently exist in the open world aspect of the game. The police AI system which many feel is incomplete from what it was marketed even in the game. There's NPC's that disappear the second you look away if they get panicked etc...
BUT the game runs EXTREMELY WELL in isolated instances, like the first mission The Rescue, where you're completely isolated from the complex open world game outside with the traffic and randomly spawning NPC's. The game is ready to handle NPC'less combat in isolated arenas, which could make PvP battle arenas a likely first addition, with not that much need to make the online service heavy with micro-transactions and loot systems.
So all this in mind, if I had to place my money on something, Cyberpunk 2077's online functionality is likely coming out next year with the 1.5 or soon after. I don't see a good reason why not to, the core game is functional outside of open world, which is not necessary for PvP game, and PvE even could be constructed from areas which don't rely on police or randomly generated NPC's, like the helicopter attack on Arasaka Tower.
There was brief mention (I'll have to look it up) in some investor call mentioning that some functionalities impacting multiplayer also impact single player, which of course could be the 3rd person perspective of other players must seeing your character, and likely have 3rd person view available for 1.5, which could still be only temporary like in Fallout 3-4 if I remember correctly, where you could press middle mouse button and see your character in otherwise first person view...
Lets talk about the work being done so far. In (I'll have to look up this part again) some of the most recent investor calls, there was brief mention about multiplayer being in works 2 years (now being 2.5 years after half year later), making there to be plenty of time for this project, so it's not really a new thing that needs to be build from scratch.
Games like PUBG took approximately 1 year with the staff of 35 to 70 people to make, and it's only been vaguely mentioned that there's a "small team" working for multiplayer aspect of the game, so it's likely that CDPR is in somewhere within that range of 35-70 people working for this elements, especially at this moment in time.
With nearly 4 months still remaining to the end of Q1 2022 this means approximately 3 years of work, even with the initial team of 10-20 members, and only recently expanding that group, it's still far enough time for making this possible.
Also CDPR has experience with multiplayer functionality already, including matchmaking algorithms and ranking thanks to work done in Gwent.
Of course everything is prone to change, things could be delayed and nobody wants to promise features that could be delayed, and thus why the most recent investors call wasn't keen to further briefing about the plans for the game, since the lack of certainty to get the multiplayer (if my theory is right) to arrive either in 1.5 or month later.
For marketing perspective, and avoiding community backlash, I think it would make sense to keep these 2 closely tied while also focusing marketing material for the DLC's that the 1.5 is going to bring (because the huge lack of existing DLC, the skipping of 1.4 could be a marketing trick to shove single player content into same patch, making it seem far less like CDPR isn't caring about single player perspective... especially if Cyberpunk Online is announced to be delayed from 1.5 initial release, but hold it close enough to not lose sales.
But what do you think? Is it too early to speculate? What kind of initial multiplayer are you expecting? Do you also think it's not going to be open world related, or do you hope for less competitive and more team working oriented multiplayer?
Oh and there's more important caveat which I forgot to mention, but I think it's rather crucial. The timing.
Releasing next gen without multiplayer in sight is likely going to have similar effect as the initial release did. It's going to be one-two months busy time, and then the playerbase would gradually shrink.
If they released multiplayer along with the sales, especially 1 month later, where people had time to finish single player, there would be good opportunity to invite these players to the multiplayer functionalities.
Otherwise the next option would be with the release of first expansion, which means delayed it by at least half a year... Q4 of 2022.
(I know I probably had like 100 miss-spellings and typos, didn't really have long time to write this.)
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