When Cyberpunk 2077 was initially released three years ago in 2020, all hopes seemed to be lost for CD Projekt Red because of its horrendously disastrous launch. The game was full of annoying bugs and issues that had the power to completely ruin the players’ experience.
However, 2023 saw CDPR make one of the most impressive comebacks that the video game industry has ever witnessed, thanks to the excellent releases of an update 2.0 for the base game and the DLC, Phantom Liberty, that followed it.
Of course, this huge success and feat could not have been achieved without some extraordinary efforts, and it turns out that CD Projekt Red actually had to spend more than $120 million to save the reputation of its supposed magnum opus, Cyberpunk 2077.
It Was Not Cheap to Bring Cyberpunk 2077 Back to Life
It goes without saying that it is definitely not an easy job to breathe life back into a dead video game that people stopped caring about so quickly. The same was the case with CD Projekt Red trying to turn Cyberpunk 2077 into the iconic title that it was hoping it would have been from the very beginning.
Naturally, along with countless hours of effort and hustle, it was not exactly cheap for CDPR to save Cyberpunk‘s reputation and image, especially considering how horribly it was tarnished at launch.
Also Read: Phantom Liberty and Cyberpunk 2077 Shoot to the Top of the Steam Charts
Another thing that a developer has to ensure with a video game as ambitious as Cyberpunk 2077 is to get people looking forward to more content from that universe. Fortunately, the game came back in full swing with its critically and commercially successful expansion, Phantom Liberty, which is pretty huge in size and could genuinely stand on its own as somewhat of a separate title.
To put things into perspective and get a little technical with numbers, it cost CD Projekt Red more than $60 million to develop the DLC, followed by an additional $21 million to market it.
Considering how the total cost that it took to finalise Phantom Liberty was about half of the huge amount that was put into the initial Cyberpunk 2077, it really shows how dedicated CD Projekt Red was to ensuring the franchise’s success. Another aspect that greatly added to CDPR’s Cyberpunk expense was the number of patches that it had to release to fix the various issues that the base game brought with it at launch.
Blood, Sweat, and Money: A Cyberpunk 2077 Success Story
All of these aspects played their respective parts in making Cyberpunk 2077 one of the most popular video games of the year. It is clear that CD Projekt Red recognises the potential of the Cyberpunk world and refuses to give up on it, although some of the initial issues still exist. Both the Phantom Liberty expansion and the massive update 2.0 were released just last month in September, and both were extremely well-received by the masses.
Also Read: Beware Cyberpunk 2077 Fans, It Is Easy to Fail Phantom Liberty at the Very Beginning of the DLC
Sure, pumping out constant updates for such a huge game and creating a DLC as massive as Phantom Liberty requires large amounts of money, but at the end, it was all worth it because both Cyberpunk 2077 and its DLC soared to the top of the Steam Charts. CD Project Red hosted an investor’s presentation yesterday on October 5, during which it shared exactly how much it cost to make Phantom Liberty.
According to CDPR, just the “direct production expenditures” cost zl275 million, followed by extensive “marketing campaign costs” that cost zl95 million.
To put the amounts into perspective, that is equivalent to around $63 million and $21 million, respectively, adding up to a total of $84 million. That is just $3 million short of the amount that went into the base Cyberpunk 2077, which was $174 million. Additionally, CDPR also spent $142 million to market the original title, which is much higher than the marketing costs that went into Phantom Liberty.
Moreover, CDPR also shared that it spent zl178 million ($40 million) to give Cyberpunk 2077 a boost for next-gen consoles and to develop the massive update 2.0. Which means that CDPR spent around $125 million in total to save Cyberpunk from falling into complete oblivion.
Do you think spending more than $120 million on Cyberpunk 2077 was worth it? Let us know in the comments!
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