Cyberpunk 2077 players stand behind CDPR after anti-Russian content found in-game

Despite the excitement and buzz around Cyberpunk 2077 as of late, thanks to the massive 2.0 update and the release of the Phantom Liberty DLC, the recently reported issue of anti-Russian rhetoric getting into the game via the update has somewhat tarnished the positives for developer CD Projekt Red.

The discovery of certain derogatory terms in the 2.0 update led to CDPR issuing a statement via IGN that featured an apology for the Ukrainian localization of the update whilst also highlighting that the words were not written by CDPR staff and do not represent their values. The devs also took to the Russian social media sites Telegram and VK to further this message. Screenshots highlighting some of the rhetoric found in the new update were initially posted to the CD Projekt Red forums.

The fan response to this has been pretty positive in favor of CDPR, with a good deal of fans vocalizing their support for the company on Reddit. People on Reddit are speculating that it was the localization team that went off-script and decided to add these anti-Russian remarks into the game. Reddit user PixelBoom defended CDPR with the following post:

Another comment by Reddit user kBazilio offers a viewpoint from a Russian player of the game,

To reiterate, it is not certain who added these changes to the game. At the moment, the above comments are based on speculation, not substantial evidence.

This is certainly a difficult position for the CD Projekt Red team to be put in, particularly if it truly had no idea as to the changes that were made. It still raises questions as to how these changes could have made it through to the final release of the 2.0 update, and we’ll hopefully find out soon who is behind the messages.