Cyberpunk game director talks about big changes in the studio’s next games

CD Projekt Red has had its ups and downs when it comes to game development.

The studio is known for one of the best games in the world, The Witcher 3, but the launch of its other big IP, Cyberpunk 2077, was fraught with problems.

It was so broken at launch that it was removed from several storefronts, but it has come incredibly far since then.

The latest DLC, Phantom Liberty, received a whopping 89 rating on aggregate review site Metacritic, and fans are ecstatic with how the game turned out.

Part of the reason for the game’s teething problems is that CD Projekt Red updated its internal RPG engine for the development of Cyberpunk 2077.

Switching to a first-person view, developers strapped GoPros to their bodies to understand how to recreate the most immersive point of view.

One of Cyberpunk’s main themes involves what it means to be human, especially when you’re trading parts of your body for new technology.

By allowing players to only occasionally glimpse their newly formed bodies, the changes have more impact and force you to face these ideas more directly.

The team spent over a year filming the footage and creating character backgrounds from it, meticulously planning the protagonist’s appearance.

This is just one of the things CDPR spent its $7 million (£6 million) government research grant on alongside multiplayer and creating Cyberpunk’s iconic city.

When developing Cyberpunk, CDPR took apart The Witcher 3’s engine and rebuilt it in a long development process.

That’s why it was so surprising when the studio announced it would be abandoning it in favor of Unreal Engine 5 for the next entries in The Witcher and Cyberpunk series.

We had the opportunity to speak with associate game director Pawel Sasko at Gamescom Latam to discuss why these changes were made.

Sasko tells us: “Every time we almost start from scratch.

“We transfer the knowledge of how the toolkit works, what works when it comes to the structural construction of the game – it’s the institutional knowledge that’s in the minds of your people.

“So all these things could be moved from engine to engine, engine to engine.”

By using Unreal Engine, CDPR is able to recruit talent from around the world without retraining them on the studio’s proprietary engine.

Sasko tells us: “Some technology will advance. It’s a question of exactly what you can do.

“I can’t go into more detail because I’ll have to go into the design of our future games, which I can’t do.”

Sasko explains that using Unreal allows the team to purchase assets from the marketplace for prototypes, so that time and energy aren’t spent creating things before the team knows exactly what they want to do.

The final version will only use original assets, but the marketplace is perfect for helping developers easily visualize what the final product will look like.

It seems that despite using another company’s engine, CDPR is still full of surprises when it comes to how they will use it.

If you want to read more about CDPR, check out the free Witcher 3 update.

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