Cyberpunk 2077 is possibly the most anticipated game of the 2020. The game is under development by CD Projekt Red (CDPR), the company has garnered a lot of good will from their previous works, mostly The Witcher trilogy, for being content heavy with large DLCs instead of small and numerous microtransactions.
Recently, the company has gotten some push back after a Reddit post about microtransaction system for the multiplayer mode. The post is a google translation of a post on Gry-Online, the website and post are in Polish. The original post is a summary of a financial call within CD Projekt.
During the latest financial conference call from CD Projekt, it was revealed that the multiplayer mode in Cyberpunk 2077 is at an early stage of creation. We also learned that it is planned to implement a well thought-out micropayment system.
Claimed the Reddit post. Later is cites CEO Adam Kiciński promising that players will get their value out of the purchases. This drew some ire from people, whom were citing a previous tweet from CDPR to Pretty Good Gaming.
CDPR has taken multiple jabs at other publishers for their heavy monetisation, making this current statement feel like it is coming out of left field. Other people are expressing fear that CDPR will go the route that EA took with Battlefront 2 or Take-Two Interactive has with GTA Online. An official translation has come out, which, along with other things, changes the message, making the notation of microtransactions or a micropayment system for Cyberpunk 2077 less certain.
Cyberpunk 2077 would not be the first game from CDPR to have microtransactions, that would go to the free to play card game Gwent. CDPR’s plan for Cyberpunk 2077 is to release the single player game and then DLCs with some possibly being free. Currently, there are no concrete details on the game’s multiplayer mode. Speculation for the multiplayer ranges from a stand alone mode like GTA Online, a separate game like Fortnite Battle Royale, or something akin to what you would expect in Battlefield or Call of Duty.
CDPR has pointed out that they never explicitly claimed that microtransaction will be in the game, but rather a micro-payment system. This does open the door to a battle pass system or a subscription service similar to Fallout First for Fallout 76. As well, it does add the idea of possible multiplayer DLC similar to what we would expect for the single player mode.
Over monetization is a problem for some games, but CDPR has a good record of meaty games and DLCs, as well as a long record of consumer-friendly practices. Currently, CDPR is focusing on the single player experience and has confirmed that, outside the collector edition, there will not be any pre-order, exclusive content, or microtransactions for Cyberpunk 2077 single player and the multiplayer mode has currently not moved far past conceptualization.