What went wrong with Cyberpunk 2077? Interviews with more than 20 current and former CD Projekt staff paint a complex picture. Unchecked ambition, technical woes, unrealistic deadlines, and above all, one belief: "We made The Witcher 3 -- it'll work out." bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Devs at CD Projekt said despite promises that crunch would not be mandatory, they felt pressured to work overtime on and off for years. I can't share all the stories, but here's one on the record that may help explain why it's been infuriating to see people downplay CDPR's crunch 
Anthem's developers talked about "BioWare magic" -- an unwavering belief that with enough hard work and crunch, their games would come together. CD Projekt was similar. When asked about unrealistic deadlines, directors would say they'd be fine. They made The Witcher 3, after all
Some tidbits that were cut from the piece:
- Veteran devs from other companies were shocked at CDPR's free-for-all production. One example: if someone needed a shader, they'd make it, with no pipeline in place to determine whether someone had already made one w/ the same function
- Veteran devs from other companies were shocked at CDPR's free-for-all production. One example: if someone needed a shader, they'd make it, with no pipeline in place to determine whether someone had already made one w/ the same function
- One CDPR developer told their manager that they didn't want to work overtime, as their CEO had said would be OK. Fine, their manager said, but one of their other coworkers would just have to work extra hours to make up for them. Several other developers shared similar stories
- A few non-Polish staffers shared stories about coworkers using Polish in front of them, which violated company rules. Made them feel ostracized, they said... were their coworkers talking shit about them? Combined with crunch and low salaries, this led quite a few expats to quit
- Last year, when CDPR explained that it shares 10% of profits with staff, gamers and pundits assumed the devs would get rich. Adrian Jakubiak said he made around $400/month when he started as a tester in 2015. In 2018, as a junior programmer, he said he was making ~$700/month
- If you're wondering just how much Cyberpunk 2077 changed over the past decade: well, up until 2016, it was a third-person game. Features that were originally envisioned (wall-running, flying cars, car ambushes) were cut along the way (not atypical in game development)
- And if you're wondering why the police system in Cyberpunk 2077 is so janky: well, it was all done at the last minute. As is evident by the final product, it was unclear to some of the team why they were trying to make both an RPG and a GTA with a fraction of Rockstar's staff
In conclusion: Cyberpunk was announced eight years ago, but development didn't really start until 2016. In 2018, they had little but a (mostly) fake demo. Most of the staff knew and openly said it wouldn't be ready for release in 2020. But management believed in CD Projekt Magic
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