CD Projekt Red’s sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 is mostly a bit of a mystery, and it likely will be for a while yet given that they’re currently full steam ahead on The Witcher 4. We know Anna Megill, who worked on Control and the upcoming Fable game, is attached as lead writer, and that the team wants to deal with some big topics, but there’s been nothing like plot details shared so far. At the very least, Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith shared some tidbits about it at Digital Dragons, namely to do with the game’s map.
Pondsmith explained that with the sequel, he’s “not as involved directly,” but he does get to look at the scripts of the game. “Last week I was wandering around talking to different departments, and seeing what they had, ‘Oh look, this is the new cyberware, what do you think?’ ‘Oh yeah, that’s pretty good, that works here.’”
In terms of things he shared about the game itself, Pondsmith explained that he “spent a lot of time talking to one of the environment guys, and he was explaining how the new place… because there’s another city that we visit, and I’m not telling you anymore than that, but there’s another city that we visit. Night City is still there.” He went on to say, “I remember looking at it and going, ‘I understand the feel that you’re going for, and this really does work, it doesn’t feel like Blade Runner, it feels more like Chicago gone wrong’. And I said, ‘yeah, I can see this working’.”
I’m going to assume that he probably isn’t even meant to say as much as he’s said here, but he’s also the literal creator of the world of Cyberpunk, I think we can cut him some slack.
Based on Pondsmith’s comments, we’ll be able to roam around Night City once more alongside this new, Chicago-like city. Smart thinking, honestly. I know people complained about how Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom just used the same map again, but if you ask me it expanded and changed it in some pretty interesting ways.
The Yakuza series repeatedly used the same locations too, not only working well as asset flips, but as a narrative tool too. I don’t even like Cyberpunk 2077 all that much, but I’d still be curious to see how Night City changes between games. I’m sure we’ll get some idea of what the RPG will be like in, hmm, at least seven years? Yeah, that sounds about right.
