One of the key developers at CD Projekt Red who will work on the forthcoming sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 has said that they would like the sci-fi series to evolve in the same way that The Witcher did. When the original The Witcher launched back in 2007, it flew under the radar quite a bit. Even though this first game was quite acclaimed at the time, CD Projekt Red didn’t really hit its stride with the franchise until 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which is widely considered one of the best games of all time. In this same way, one member of CDPR now hopes to see the Cyberpunk franchise only grow and improve with what comes next.
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Speaking to PC Gamer, CD Projekt Red narrative director Igor Sarzyński said that those within the studio still see Cyberpunk 2077 as a first effort. Although the RPG has gone on to be quite popular after continued updates and the release of its Phantom Liberty expansion, Sarzyński still believes there’s a ton of room for growth, especially as CDPR becomes more comfortable with this world. As such, “Cyberpunk 2” is a game that Sarzyński hopes will create “total immersion” for players.
“Consider The Witcher games and how much they changed with each installment. We want a similar evolution here,” Sarzyński said of the future sequel. “Cyberpunk 2077 was our first venture into a futuristic sci-fi world with a ton of new gameplay mechanics, narrative tone, themes, and art direction. Some of the stuff worked almost right out of the box, such as the art, city design, music, interactive scene system, playstyles. Other aspects took more time to get right, like character progression, NPC interactivity, and optimization. That’s natural; it’s impossible to nail everything on your first try. Now with all the game elements iterated and working well, we’ll focus on connecting them even tighter and creating a coherent, total immersion experience.”
Currently, very little is known about Cyberpunk 2077’s sequel other than the fact that it’s in the works. With Phantom Liberty now released, CD Projekt Red will likely begin to gear up more heavily to work on Project Orion (the Cyberpunk follow-up’s codename) in the years to come. Outside of this sequel, though, CDPR has a variety of other games in the works as well. These include a new mainline Witcher game (Project Polaris), a remake of the first The Witcher, a new Witcher game with multiplayer elements (Project Sirius), and a wholly new IP (Project Hadar) that remains shrouded in mystery.
