Cyberpunk 2077 was announced back in 2012, but The Witcher 3 has been CD Projekt Red’s focus since its release. We don’t know much about Cyberpunk 2077 right now, but it was announced that CD Projekt Red would be at E3 to show us an “all new RPG,” and we can truly expect that RPG to be Cyberpunk 2077. I want to go through some interview snippets, trailers, and social media reveals to piece together what we can expect to see this year from CD Projekt Red’s newest project.
I’m extremely excited about getting more information regarding Cyberpunk 2077. I’m a huge fan of everything CD Projekt Red has done over the years. All of The Witcher games are great and GWENT is remarkably fun. I have yet to be disappointed with the amount of polish that has gone into all of the games I listed here. It’s because of this that I think we’re still quite far from the release of this game, but the larger reveal is sure to set a high expectation among fans just judging from the amount of excitement that the original teaser trailer garnered.
When Will Cyberpunk 2077 Release?
CD Projekt RED has always been of the state of mind that leans toward releasing a game when they feel it’s finished. The Witcher 3 was in development for quite some time and Cyberpunk 2077 was originally revealed in 2012 (6 years ago). I am hoping for a surprise announcement of fall 2018, but I know that’s reaching quite a bit. I fully expect this to be out in 2019 or possibly even 2020.
CD Projekt Red did mention in a financial earnings meeting that the game was far along but still a ways off. CD Projekt Red’s president states, “The project is very ambitious,” pointing out that each of CD Projekt’s games has been more successful than the last. “The ambitions are very voracious, so we would like to devote a lot of attention to Cyber, a lot of effort, and quite some time. So we still need some time before the game is ready.” This tells me that now that The Witcher 3 is finished, and development will be ramping up for this project specifically and it will be the focus of the studio moving forward. I expect to hear more about the development, gameplay mechanics, and setting at E3 but I will speculate on those things later.
The Scale of Cyberpunk 2077 and Multiplayer Integration
CD Projekt Red applied for government grants that hint at some of the things we could see applied to this game as a finished project. According to gamesindustry.biz the studio was awarded 7 million dollars in grants and plans to use them towards research into seamless multiplayer, and city creation. One of the research topics includes working on “cities of great scale based on the principles of artificial intelligence and automation.” This says a lot about what’s in the works for this title but also leaves us with a ton of questions.
If this is true then Cyberpunk 2077 would be CD Projekt Red’s first multiplayer game and integrating it with the single player aspects of the game could be very interesting to see. I assume the studio will jump ahead of this and multiplayer will surely be detailed at E3 and, given the studio’s reputation, I assume this entire game can be played solo if you so choose to. The Witcher always had so many smaller games integrated in to the larger game as a whole so I could see some multiplayer aspects integrated in a competitive sense to some smaller mini games within Cyberpunk 2077. I just don’t see a co-op or fully PVP multiplayer mode in this game. I imagine it will be a natural part of the world and will integrate seamlessly within single player as an optional way to play the game. In fact, CD Projekt Red tweeted out regarding the game being marked as a “games as a service” model saying:
CD Projekt Red also mentioned that Cyberpunk 2077 is “far bigger than anything else that CD Projekt Red has done before.” This is quite alarming seeing as to how The Witcher 3 may well be the largest open world game I’ve ever played. The RPGs they produce are typically very large and dynamic. The Witcher 3 had side quests that were as long and deep as an entire game. I spent hundreds of hours with Geralt in The Witcher 3 and it’s one of my favorite worlds to explore. Cyberpunk 2077 is a completely new setting and I imagine I will spend hundreds of hours in this game as well.
The Setting
Cyberpunk 2077 will take place in, you guessed it, year 2077. Similar to The Witcher series, the idea for the game comes from a source book, this one is titled Night City (Cyberpunk 2020) written by Colin Fisk. The teaser trailer that was initially shown at the reveal of the game gives us a pretty good idea of what the studio is aiming for in terms of look and feel. If the trailer from 2012 was any indication of what the final product will look like, then I think that we’re in for a treat.
Outside of this we don’t really know much at all, so this is where I am going to speculate a bit. I expect this game to be very accurate and close to what we see in the Cyberpunk book mentioned above and the board game titled Cyberpunk, created by Mike Pondersmith. Cyberpunk 2077 is expected to take place in a city following a war of corporations according to a video interview with Mike Pondersmith himself who is working closely with the developers of the game. I anticipate a very dark and bleak story with some off the wall aspects to it. I do expect the game to be colorful and the cyberpunk setting to provide players with a ton of options in terms of combat and weaponry. RPG mechanics should be full force here and CD Projekt Red will put their own unique twist on everything, just as they did with The Witcher series. The possibilities for a title like this are endless and I think there is no better team to take this on than CD Projekt Red.
Gameplay Mechanics and Speculation
This is what I’m really looking forward to seeing at E3. I imagine this being a shooter, now there are a few questions that I have and hopefully they’ll be answered at E3. Are we going to get a first person or third person shooter? Will there be a lot of Melee combat? Will there be vehicles and unique ways to traverse the open world?
I think that this will be a third person shooter. CD Projekt Red is big on character development and it’s much more difficult to connect with the main character of an RPG with literally hundreds of hours of gameplay from a first person point of view. At least this is the case for me and may not be the case for everyone. I know that we all play games differently and therefore we all connect with them differently. In third person shooters, I’m personally much more connected to the main character and therefore will be further interested in their back story and it will vastly change how I approach the game. I’m envisioning a Mass Effect type of shooter approach in terms of moment to moment combat. This will help keep things interesting throughout the duration of the game and will fit the resume of the studio developing it.
Lets talk about vehicles for a moment. This is allegedly a very large open world game in a Cyberpunk universe so there is bound to be some sort of transportation to get around. The approach that the developers take here will very interesting. I expect this to be a big part of the game with players taking ownership in their mode of transportation, whatever that may be. There are many different ways to approach the traversal of a large open world in a Cyberpunk setting so I think we will have several options here.
Overall, Cyberpunk 2077 is an ambitious project that is being taken on by one of the best game development studios in the industry. E3 is a great opportunity for CD Projekt Red to show off aspects of this game that will appeal to a hardcore audience, but also appeal to a more broad audience. There is nothing else coming out that will mimic this setting, and this is not a game following Battle Royale or micro transaction trends. It is something truly unique that will stand on its own and stand out from the crowded E3 showing consisting of a slew of new games. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of my most anticipated games so I truly look forward to seeing what the game has to offer in just a few days.
