A new job listing for the position of Lead Network Engineer at CD Projekt RED indicates that the in-development sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 might include some multiplayer aspects. The job listing directly refers to Cyberpunk 2, with the description of the position noting that the person in the role would be in charge of designing and implementing online systems for the title.
“CD Projekt RED is currently seeking a Lead Network Engineer to join our team working on Cyberpunk 2, the next mainline Cyberpunk 2077 game,” wrote the company in describing the position. “As a Lead Network Engineer, you and your team will play a pivotal role in designing and implementing the network architecture and online systems. You will lead and manage a team of talented engineers, working collaboratively to ensure seamless and robust online systems.”
Among the responsibilities of the Lead Network Engineer to ensure that players get low-latency and high-performance online experiences, which would also indicate some sort of real-time multiplayer game mode. There are also mentions of matchmaking systems, latency, bandwidth usage and server performance. These multiplayer features might not be silo-ed off into a separate mode either, with another responsibility being to integrate network features with other gameplay aspects.
The fact that the job listing is relatively new would also indicate that the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel is still fairly early in development. The studio had announced just last month that the team working on the sequel, as well as the team working on The Witcher 4, have been steadily growing. In an H1 report, CD Projekt RED noted that Cyberpunk 2’s development team had grown from 96 as of April 30 to 116 as of July 31.
“Our recruitment efforts have significantly sped up over the last three months and as a result the total number of talented developers working across our projects has grown by 10% reaching almost 800 people,” said joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski in a presentation to investors. “This growth was primarily driven by our two largest development teams.”
“The Witcher 4 team grew to over 440 developers while the Cyberpunk 2 project which transitioned into pre-production recently in Q2 as you may remember added 20 new team members. We anticipate further gradual growth in our total developer headcount by the end of the year, particularly for the teams working on projects in the most advanced stages of production.”
While the development of Cyberpunk 2 has been an open secret, CD Projekt RED itself has noted that the game won’t necessarily be called that. Rather, PR manager Ola Sondej said that the name was to indicate that it would be a new release in the franchise. For some additional context, the sequel is internally referred to as Project Orion.
As for what we can expect from the game when it finally comes out, senior writer and coordinator at CD Projekt RED, Magda Zych, noted that it doesn’t even necessarily have to take place in Night City. She noted that these types of stories could take place anywhere, since its anti-capitalist themes are fairly universal.
