Those VR treadmills look awfully suspicious…
First reported by Wccftech, earlier this morning a Reddit user by the name of u/Server16ark released a photo that was supposedly taken at a Chinese press event for CD Projekt Red’s highly-anticipated action-adventure RPG Cyberpunk 2077. In it we see a host of official Cyberpunk branding and merchandise as well as two omnidirectional VR treadmills located towards the back left of the image.
Though the photo isn’t the best quality, you can clearly make out a pair of KAT Walk Mini professional VR treadmills, currently available for around $2,999 each, in the background. It’s an interesting discovery considering the company has been fairly vocal regarding its decision to skip VR.
“We tried. We were thinking about VR but, yeah, we’re not doing anything with VR. We got the VR dev kits but….” said CD Projekt Red’s John Mamais back in February 2020 while speaking to OnMSFT. “Some things would work in VR but, I think, it’s not really viable yet. You’re not making a lot of money in VR yet. It’s very experimental and niche, yeah. I would like to. I like VR but we’re not doing anything with it yet.”
Still, it’s clear the company was at one point considering the use of VR technology, so it’s not ridiculous to think they could have once again approached the idea later on in the development cycle. While I highly doubt we’ll be seeing official VR support for the full game, there’s always the chance of a standalone companion experience à la Call of Duty: Jackal Assault. Perhaps we’re looking at an exclusive spin-off experience designed specifically for Chinese audiences.
Last week the developer surprised fans with yet another delay, this time pushing the release from September 17th to November 19th. According to an official statement, “Cyberpunk 2077 is finished, both content and gameplay-wise.” CD Projekt Red claims this final delay is to ensure that each game mechanic is properly balanced and any remaining bugs are fixed.
“But with such an abundance of content and complex systems interweaving with each other, we need to properly go through everything, balance game mechanics, and fix a lot of bugs,” stated CD Projekt Red Co-Founder Marcin Iwiński and Head of Studio Adam Badowski. “‘Ready when it’s done’ is not just a phrase we say because it sounds right, it’s something we live by even when we know we’ll take the heat for it.”
Cyberpunk 2077 is scheduled to launch November 19th on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Google Stadia, PS5, and Xbox Series X.
Image Credit: CD Projekt Red / Server16ark via Reddit
