The acclaimed buzz garnered by CD Projekt Red’s last venture, (2016’s The Witcher 3) transitioned pretty seamlessly into anticipation for their next one, Cyberpunk 2077, despite the lack of information regarding what sort of title it’s going to be exactly. Thankfully, as we inch closer toward the announcement of an official release date, the legendary studio has become a little more generous with details about the project.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a dystopian open-world roleplaying game set in a fictional metropolis called Night City. The game will be able to be played from either first or third person. CD Projekt Red will utilize REDengine 4, an upgraded version of the engine employed for The Witcher 3 and the game will most likely be released some time in 2019.
Recently, Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the tabletop game that inspired 2077, spoke with Gamereactor to shed some light on the unique class system developed by the team, of which he also serves as creative consultant. Here’s what he had to say:
“They’re all going to be there, but I can tell you’re gonna find some surprises about how we’ve done it and I think you’re really going to like it. There’s a lot of subtlety going on. The vision is pretty close to what I had in my head years ago. When they did the CGI trailer, I looked at it and said: ‘Oh my god, that’s like perfect’.”
The trailer Pondsmith is referencing dropped all the way back in January of 2013, and was the recipient of several awards including an award for best trailer at Machinima’s 2013 Inside Gaming awards. It’s reassuring to know that Pondsmith shares the same enthusiastic confidence as the rest of the community in response to the project, considering Andrzej Sapkowski’s disparaging remarks toward the Witcher video game series, a franchise he thought took too many liberties when adapting his novels.
It has been confirmed by Pondsmith that Cyberpunk 2077 will feature many of the RPG elements familiar to fans of the genre with some interesting modifications. For example, here are some of the classes that will be included in the game: Rockerboys, Nomads, Hackers, and journalist. It’s a fun spin on the class system, where attributes come in the form of music and charisma as opposed to melee and spell casting.
Earlier this year, an unidentified hacker (potentially hackers) got a hold of internal files belonging to CD Projekt Red and threatened to release them if their demands were not met. Thankfully, this won’t affect the release date of the project as according to the studio, the files obtained by the individuals aren’t representative of the game in its current state. Even still, the studio urged its fans to steer clear of these leaked images should they reach the internet, for the benefit of their enjoyment of the game, going on to promise more substantial details about Cyberpunk would be officially released in the near future.
This is a big undertaking with over 100 developers, and a $7 million production budget. All indications suggest Cyberpunk 2077 to be a game changer on par with the WItcher 3 and we can’t wait to see it hit PS4, Xbox, and PC, optimistically in early 2019.
