Cyberpunk game director speaks out about major changes to the studio’s upcoming games

CD Projekt Red has had 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, and yet the launch of its other big IP, Cyberpunk 2077, was littered with problems.

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

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

Part of the reason for the game’s teething problems is that CD Projekt Red upgraded its in-house 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 more immersive viewpoint.

One of Cyberpunk’s main themes surrounds what it means to be human, particularly when you are swapping out your body parts for new tech.

By only allowing players to 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 shooting the footage and creating character rigs from it, meticulously planning how the protagonist should look.

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

When developing Cyberpunk, CDPR stripped down the engine from The Witcher 3, and rebuilt it in a long development process.

This is why it was so surprising when the studio announced that it would abandon it in favour of Unreal Engine 5 for the next entries in The Witcher and Cyberpunk series.

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

Sasko tells us: “Every time, we have almost started from scratch.

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

“So all of those things could be moved from engine to engine to engine to engine.”

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

Sasko tells us: “Some technology will move forward. It’s a matter of exactly what you can do. 

“I cannot go into more detail because I will have to go into the design of our future games, which I cannot 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 on creating things before the team knows exactly what it wants to do.

The final build will only use original assets, but the marketplace is perfect for helping developers easily visualise what the end 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 Witcher 3 free update.