When it made its debut at E3 a few months ago, CD Projekt Red‘s Cyberpunk 2077 was looking to be a game-changer in the industry. So it shouldn’t be a total surprise when the developer revealed that this expectation is exactly what it was going for with the forthcoming project.
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In the upcoming issue of EDGE Magazine, quest designer Patrick Mills explained just how much of a game-changer the team is looking to make the game, even with the challenges that come with getting that.
“One of the things about this company has always been we want to show the game industry how to do things,” Mills explained. “We want to change the game industry. We want to say, ‘We can do things differently, we don’t have to do things that way.’ It’s in our motto: ‘We are rebels,’ right?”
But it’s not just with gameplay. Mills talked about how storytelling will go a long way, especially when it comes to political topics without any sort of stalls getting in the way. Expect a lot of honesty in this regard.
“So when you’ve got other studios saying, ‘Oh, no no no, there’s nothing political here’, we say, ‘Yeah, there is.’ It’s not necessarily what you’re expecting, and we’re not going to talk about exactly what we’re going to say- it’s for you to decide when you play it. But Cyberpunk is relevant to today, extremely so. To pretend like it’s not? Come on. Mike [Pondsmith, Cyberpunk 2020 creator] wouldn’t let us. Mike would throw a fit if we tried to say, ‘This is just about cool hairstyles and cool guns, that’s all.’”
CD Projekt Red has proven in the past that it doesn’t hold back with its content — just ask anyone that went through The Witcher III: Wild Hunt in its entirety and marveled at its design. So Cyberpunk 2077 following suit (and even branching out in its own special way) should be expected.
The only question now is if the team finds the right tone with its storytelling. It’s understood that risks need to be taken, but how far is too far? Mills didn’t say, but we’re confident that CD Projekt Red will find the proper tone and truly make Cyberpunk stand out. So the real question now is when we’ll be able to experience it.
Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t currently have a release date, or even confirmed platforms. But hopefully we’ll know more once E3 2019 rolls around, and see if the game is destined for current platforms or possibly being saved for next-gen.
