‘Cyberpunk 2077’ sales surpass 20 million copies in less than two years

The string of good news for the developers of “Cyberpunk 2077” continues as CD Projekt Red announced a major milestone on Wednesday. In under two years, 20 million copies of the game had been sold worldwide.

“Over 20 million cyberpunks have been roaming the streets of Night City – partying with Jackie and getting to know Johnny, driving around with Panam and diving with Judy, hanging out with River and listening to Kerry’s songs,” the “Cyberpunk 2077” studio said in a Twitter post. “Thank you and we hope to see you all in the Afterlife!”

Shipping 20 million copies in less than two years is an impressive achievement for any game. But it is even more notable for “Cyberpunk 2077,” considering its first year was marred with a bug-filled launch and widespread demand for refunds, especially among PS4 and Xbox One players.

The chaotic launch of “Cyberpunk 2077” in December 2020 led to the delay of CD Projekt Red's post-launch plans. Instead of releasing DLCs and expansions in the following year, the studio spent the rest of 2021 rolling out updates and fixes to address the game’s performance and stability issues. The free next-generation upgrade for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, originally expected in 2021, was also not released until earlier this year.

As CD Projekt Red was scrambling to fix the game while working on post-launch content updates, it was also hit with a ransomware attack in February 2021. The hackers reportedly gained access to the company’s employee data and source codes for various games. The developer, however, started seeing much better days in the last few weeks.

The concurrent player records of “Cyberpunk 2077” started increasing throughout September. It is worth noting that the game was simultaneously played by more than 1 million players on launch day, but the numbers rapidly plunged after the game’s issues were brought to light.

Since the start of September, though, the “Cyberpunk 2077” concurrent players have started climbing up. As of Sept. 15, SteamDB data shows the game saw more than 136,000 concurrent players -- the highest since January 2021. And just last Sept. 21, CD Projekt Red said 1 million players -- “both new and returning” -- had accessed the game each day that week.