Update: Kicinski's remarks about minimizing Crunch's impact on the studio immediately provoked a backlash, and he apologized in an email sent to employees obtained by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

"I did not want to comment on the crunch, but I did nonetheless. As a matter of fact, it is only now, as the stress surrounding the decision to delay and the call itself is dissipating, that I am reminded of the extent of my comments."

"I have nothing to defend. What I said was not even regrettable, it was downright bad. For that, I sincerely and sincerely apologize."

Kicinski also called on employees who wanted to speak with him directly to chat with him in person or online. Presumably, this tight situation continues.

Original article

In May 2019, CD Projekt promised a "more humane" approach to the Cyberpunk 2077 crunch, and a "non-mandatory crunch policy" that, while not eliminating the crunch, would at least curb the excesses of the death march Adopting this approach, CD Projekt Red co-CEO Marcin Iwiński reaffirmed it a month later, saying, "We want to make sure that people don't feel guilty about leaving early if they have to, in case we have to ask some people to stay."

Of course, reality changed as the opening date approached, and leaving early became mandatory: studio head Adam Budowski said in a September e-mail that employees would have to juggle "a normal workload and one weekend day," in a Twitter follow-up message, Budowsky said the crunch mandate was "one of the hardest decisions" he had ever had to make, but added that employees are "well compensated for every extra hour they put in."

Yesterday's postponement of "Cyberpunk 2077" from November 19 to December 10 is reportedly already a dire situation for at least some employees, as the gaming crunch has recently ended a 100-hour work week for Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier employees who told Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier that they had just finished a 100-hour workweek, sparking speculation that it could get even worse. After all, three weeks is not enough time to complete something, and it is reasonable to assume that developers will have to work hard to get something done within that time frame.

However, Adam Kisinski, co-CEO of CD Projekt, said in a conference call with investors following the delay announcement that the studio's workload "isn't that bad, it's just that we've been working a lot harder.

"Of course it's a story that has been picked up by the media, and some people are crunching hard, but the majority of the team is not crunching at all because they have finished their work," Kiciński said.

"It's mostly Q&A and engineers and programmers, but not too heavily. Of course, it will be extended a bit, but we've had feedback from the team and they're happy with the three-week extension.

Kiciński said on the same conference call for investors that "Cyberpunk 2077" is "ready for PC" and is running well on next-generation consoles, but noted that problems with the PS4 and Xbox One versions are the main reason for the delay. He also said that the new release date of December 10 is "firm," but admitted that the new launch date "may not be comfortable, but we are confident."