Whistleblower Claims Cyberpunk 2077 Bugs Are The Result Of Its QA Team Scamming CDPR
The launch of Cyberpunk 2077 was undeniably a disaster. It was released with so many game-breaking bugs, especially on console, that Sony even pulled the game from the PlayStation Store. CD Projekt Red issued a host of hotfixes and apologies, but the damage was done. Quality Assurance (QA) was partly blamed at the time for the state of the game and it was noted that major issues did not come up in testing. No one truly believed the developer’s statement as the game was bursting with bugs. Nevertheless, there may now be some kernel of truth to the developer’s past statements and apologies. YouTuber Upper Echelon Gamers claims to have received a report that places the blame of Cyberpunk 2077’s state squarely on the shoulders of Quantic Labs.
Upper Echelon Gamers has purportedly received a 72-page report from a whistleblower. The report supposedly includes “testing file[s], Quantic Labs human resources paperwork, workflow charts. Upper Echelon Gamers stated, “I believe the source to be real. They have provided extensive evidence to support that fact and have made serious claims about the quality of QA activities at Quantic Lab.”
Quantic Labs is a Romanian quality assurance company that was founded in 2006. The report argues that Quantic Labs lied about the size of the team working on Cyberpunk 2077 in order to retain its contract with CDPR. Furthermore, those working on the game were “junior” staff but Quantic Lab made it appear as if they were comprised of senior staff. The head of the project themself only had roughly one year of experience. Quantic Labs did eventually hire more staff, but these employees received just a few weeks of training. Employees who had already been working on QA were distracted from their work as they aided the new employees.
Upper Echelon Gamers has purportedly received a 72-page report from a whistleblower. The report supposedly includes “testing file[s], Quantic Labs human resources paperwork, workflow charts. Upper Echelon Gamers stated, “I believe the source to be real. They have provided extensive evidence to support that fact and have made serious claims about the quality of QA activities at Quantic Lab.”
Quantic Labs is a Romanian quality assurance company that was founded in 2006. The report argues that Quantic Labs lied about the size of the team working on Cyberpunk 2077 in order to retain its contract with CDPR. Furthermore, those working on the game were “junior” staff but Quantic Lab made it appear as if they were comprised of senior staff. The head of the project themself only had roughly one year of experience. Quantic Labs did eventually hire more staff, but these employees received just a few weeks of training. Employees who had already been working on QA were distracted from their work as they aided the new employees.
The biggest issue with QA was the reporting process. Quantic Lab employees needed to report a certain quota of bugs each day. This led to them reporting an overwhelming number of insignificant bugs that ultimately took attention away from the much bigger issues. Upper Echelon Gamers stated, “[Eventually] Quantic Lab was instructed specifically to stop sending through low priority bug finds and to focus on bigger issues. But the damage was already done and CD Projekt Red was already very unhappy.”
Neither CDPR nor Quantic Labs have made a statement. Content Creator LegacyKillaHD insists that their CDPR sources refute the report. They noted, “Quantic's QA role was minimal with much of the issues being on CDPR's own mismanagement.” CDPR reportedly knew about the bugs but did not have time to address them.
We are personally unable to confirm the veracity of the report Upper Echelon Gamers purportedly received. Nevertheless, it is intriguing and partly tracks with some previous statements made by CDPR. Regardless, it is important to remember that even if Quantic Labs is partly to blame for the quality of Cyberpunk 2077, CDPR had a responsibility to follow-up with the company and keep them accountable.
Top image courtesy of CDPR
Neither CDPR nor Quantic Labs have made a statement. Content Creator LegacyKillaHD insists that their CDPR sources refute the report. They noted, “Quantic's QA role was minimal with much of the issues being on CDPR's own mismanagement.” CDPR reportedly knew about the bugs but did not have time to address them.
We are personally unable to confirm the veracity of the report Upper Echelon Gamers purportedly received. Nevertheless, it is intriguing and partly tracks with some previous statements made by CDPR. Regardless, it is important to remember that even if Quantic Labs is partly to blame for the quality of Cyberpunk 2077, CDPR had a responsibility to follow-up with the company and keep them accountable.
Top image courtesy of CDPR
