Over five years later, there’s something about Cyberpunk 2077 that hits different. Maybe it’s because Mike Pondsmith’s world of unchecked capitalism and rampant consumerism is more relevant than ever. Of course, it’s also because the current iteration is the result of years of extensive post-launch support.
Those who played the base game will remember that it delivered on the story front that fell behind in several key gameplay areas. Following a significant revamp and the release of Phantom Liberty, it’s now the studio’s primary earner with over 35 million sales. However, it was a long journey fraught with hard lessons. What were some of the most important?
Lead quest designer Paweł Sasko, who’s currently working on Project Orion/Cyberpunk 2 as an associate game director, told us, “Creatively, we learned the importance of focus and discipline. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 works best when its systems, narrative, and themes all reinforce each other, rather than competing for attention, or even openly working against each other.”
Sasko also believes that the team could have been “smarter” when it came to “elements of ludonarrative dissonance.” After implanting the Relic, V starts seeing Johnny Silverhand (played by Keanu Reeves), but it’s also shortening their lifespan, making them weaker, which feels a bit off considering how much more powerful they become.
“V is dying, vomiting blood, and coughing, but role-playing game progression makes them more powerful with every finished quest. We used this to strengthen the narrative and feeling of loss, as every step V takes brings the inevitability of terminal illness closer, no matter how powerful you feel. We used that tension as well as we could, but could have focused on it earlier.”
On a technical front, the team learned “how critical a strong, scalable foundation is. Many of the improvements players see today were only possible because we reworked core systems instead of layering fixes on top — sometimes ripping the guts out and redoing it is the only way. Ambition needs to go hand in hand with technical possibilities, and limitations need to be respected and used as a stimulus to make smarter design decisions.”
However, above all else, “alignment” was the biggest lesson learned after all these years. “Clear ownership, better cross-team communication, and more realistic planning made a huge difference, and you saw the results of the changes we made internally in Phantom Liberty,” said Sasko. Despite the hit to its reputation and exposure of practices like crunch, 2077’s controversial launch ultimately served as a net positive for CD Projekt RED.
“Cyberpunk forced us to grow up as a studio; we have redone or iterated most of our procedures, and grew a habit of constantly optimizing and refining that process.”
As for Cyberpunk 2, it takes place in a new city that feels like “Chicago gone wrong,” per Pondsmith. It doesn’t have a release date, but CD Projekt RED is slowly scaling its teams, with more than 450 developers set to eventually work on the sequel by 2027 end.
