CD Projekt Red Co-Founder Talks 'Changing Directions' During ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Development

Now that more “Cyberpunk 2077” gameplay details have been revealed, particularly during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2018 last week, developers have also opened up about other aspects that affected the title’s development, such as the need to change direction from time to time.

First, it is important to note that there was a five-year gap between “Cyberpunk 2077's” first cinematic reveal (2013) and the time when developers unveiled a live gameplay demo that reportedly ran for almost an hour at E3 2018. And this period gave rumors the chance to spread and have fans speculating on why “Cyberpunk 2077’s” development was taking this much time.

One of the rumored reasons for the lengthy development of “Cyberpunk 2077” is the necessity to change the direction of the game’s development. And in a recent interview with Kotaku Splitscreen, CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwiński opened up about the decisions they had to face in the earlier years of “Cyberpunk 2077” development.

“What does it mean to change direction, reboots? It is a creative process which is based on iteration,” Iwiński explained. “If we don’t like something, we have no problem saying, ‘OK, we have to redo this part.’ It can mean we are throwing away six months of work, and there were bits and pieces happening like that.”

When pressed to admit if CD Projekt Red ever had to reboot the entire “Cyberpunk 2077” production, Iwiński maintained that it was not the case and that they were merely “changing directions” as they look for “the substance of the game.”

Meanwhile, there were also previous rumors that CD Projekt Red began the production of “Cyberpunk 2077” simultaneously with “The Witcher 3.” This is quite astounding for an independent studio that develops and self-publishes its IPs especially if it is as big as "The Witcher" series and "Cyberpunk 2077."

In the same interview, Iwiński confirmed that they attempted to develop two major titles at the same time but implied that they later realized it was too much for an independent studio to handle. He also revealed that CD Projekt Red was taking on the “The Witcher 3” and its DLC “Blood and Wine” at once while a “smaller team” was also working on the “Cyberpunk 2077” pre-production.

Though this strategy fell out later, Iwiński maintained that the pre-production efforts for “Cyberpunk 2077” did not go to waste. “We had a very solid pre-production so we were not rushing things. There was a lot of thinking about the world and the concepts and whatnot. So this helped them accelerate much faster once we had the teams free after ‘The Witcher 3,'" he added.

“Cyberpunk 2077” is based on Mike Pondsmith’s “Cyberpunk 2020” pen-and-paper RPG and does not have a release date yet.