Looking forward to cyborg monkeys in Cyberpunk 2077? Augmented fighting roosters? Bears with mantis blades? Well, you apparently won’t find any in the upcoming ambitious cyberpunk RPG from CD Projekt Red.
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Speaking recently to oultet JeuxActu, Maciej Pietras, lead cinematic animator on the game, revealed that the entirety of Cybperunk 2077 takes place in the game’s urban setting, Night City, and that beyond some dogs and cats, players will not encounter any animals.
“The whole game will take place in the city of Night City,” said Pietras when asked about whether the game is confined to just urban location. “It’s a huge metropolis that you can explore. Regarding animals, you will find cats and dogs, but that will be all.”
Now it’s unclear whether Pietras is referring to just dynamic wildlife or all animals in general. For example, at different points of the game will we see animals with tight, scripted behavior? And that’s only dogs and cats that we will see dynamically roam the city? It’s not exactly clear. Seems odd that there wouldn’t be any rats or birds though.
Unfortunately, Pietras doesn’t plunge into any specifics, but from the sounds of it, the futuristic Night City has eradicated the rat problem that plagues every modern, real-life city. And apparently all the neon lights have killed of the pigeon population.
Elsewhere in the Interview, Pietras was asked about the game’s world size, to which he responded with the answer CD Projekt Red has rolled out previously: that’s hard to put a number to the game’s map size because Night City is more about verticality than expansiveness.
“Measuring the size of the open world of Cyberpunk 2077 is difficult,” said Pietras. “To compare it to The Witcher 3, let’s say that the world of the latter was very vast in its length. It was an open world made of very large natural landscapes. Going from point A to point B took a lot of time, because you were riding, but also because it was a game that stretched horizontally. The world of Cyberpunk 2077 is above all a vertical world, with buildings everywhere, and in this, it is difficult for us to establish a metric comparison.”
The animator continued:
“In the demo, you saw the main character waking up in his apartment, looking out his window and seeing a living world. To go out, take the elevator, you can see that there are several floors in a building. the game will allow you to enter many buildings, knowing that everything was done by hand, because we believe that quality comes first through manual creation, nothing is procedural in our world. It is in this that the city of Night City will be vast to go, thanks to this verticality.”
Cyberpunk 2077’s world sounds ambitious, and given that the game really seems to be going for immersion, I’m surprised to hear it’s so limited on the wildlife front. I know it takes place in a futuristic city, but no vermin or birds seems odd and goes against the game’s immersive quality.
Cyberpunk 2077 is in development for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and possibly next-gen systems. A release date has yet to be divulged.
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