Recently, foreign media pcgamer released an article saying that "Cyberpunk 2077", which has reversed its decline in 2023, seems to have gone through a three-year early access phase (Early Access hereinafter referred to as EA).
Cyberpunk 2077 has changed dramatically since its catastrophic release in 2020. According to the authors, although the game never claims to be a popular EA distribution, it feels like it has been in the EA phase all along. The author believes that like most EA games, Cyberpunk 2077 didn't live up to its ideal state until it received a transformative 2.0 update - the EA phase transitioned to fullness.
The post-launch model of 2077 is also somewhat similar to other EA games, CDPR has invested a lot of resources and manpower in it over the past three years, the game has generated revenue for CD Projekt, and the Red team continues to develop the game. The main difference between the two is that CD Projekt's reputation was tarnished due to the poor state in which 2077 was released, but on the bright side, 2077 benefited from the all-out hype at the time, recovering its development costs almost immediately.
The author said that he had always doubted that the 2077 team had considered launching an EA version, as the game was too expensive to develop, had a long development cycle, had too much uncertainty for CD Projekt, and had many challenges with multi-platform distribution. The authors suggest that if developers had been foresight at the time, companies might have been more open to EA ideas now.
The author also mentions Baldur's Gate 3, an EA version of the game that was released in the same year that 2077 was released, noting that CDPR could have taken inspiration from it at the time. While Night City is a single, continuous map, there are lessons to be learned from it. For example, the first chapter of 2077 takes place in the lockdown of Watson, and Baldur's Gate 3 has a similar closed area in the early EA mode.
The authors believe that the EA phase of 2077 will alleviate the enormous pressure of the game's pre-launch sprints by allowing players to move around in a more bounded and smaller area.
Looking ahead, it's unclear whether CDPR will conduct a cost/benefit analysis for The Witcher 4 and other projects. EA mode does have its own challenges, and it's not the only way to release a game, but the developer can't afford to go through Cyberpunk 2077 again when it launches.