CD Projekt Announces Cyberpunk 2077

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By Guild McCommunist

CD Projekt, the developers behind The Witcher franchise, have announced and released the teaser trailer for their new game, Cyberpunk 2077.

The game follows the Maximum Force Tactical Division (MAX-TC), nicknamed the "Psycho Squad", a special law enforcement division tasked with taking down those who have overused implants and substances. These psychos have augmented themselves to the point of rebelling against their own organic self, as well as all organic beings around them.

The trailer shows off the police firing on a woman psycho after her rampage, and the Psycho Squad coming in to finish her off. Later, it appears, she actually joins the Psycho Squad.

CD Projekt has also stated that the game will be released in 2015 the earliest, as well as hinting a 2014 release date for The Witcher 3. More info can be found at the source.

No consoles were announced for the title, but presumably it will be for the next generation.

Source

Cyberpunk 2077

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Cyberpunk 2077 will have multiplayer

By Robert Purchese
None of The Witcher games have yet had multiplayer, but CD Projekt Red's futuristic RPG Cyberpunk 2077 will.

"It will be a story-based RPG experience with amazing single-player playthroughs, but we're going to add multiplayer features," CDPR managing director Adam Badowski told me.

Whether there will be any multiplayer in The Witcher 3, we don't yet know. "We're thinking about something" was all Adam Badowski said.

Rumors began about multiplayer when CDPR advertised for a Multiplayer Programmer last year. The studio then attempted to brush off the attention by saying it was exploring all possible angles for its games.

Badowski told me that Cyberpunk 2077, like The Witcher 3, will also be an open world game - albeit in a very different setting. "The first and most important environment for Cyberpunk is the city, obviously," he said. "But not only the city: you can expect some more environments in the Cyberpunk game. We want to start in the Night City, which is cool. And yes it will be an open world game as well."

Unlike The Witcher 3, however, Cyberpunk 2077 won't revolve around a pre-defined hero. This means there will be more freedom to the open world, to who you are and to what you can do. In The Witcher 3, for example, hero Geralt can't massacre civilians because that wouldn't adhere to The Witcher fiction.

"We'll have different situation in Cyberpunk," said Badowski. "Cyberpunk will have different character classes."

Having different character classes and no pre-defined hero loosens constraints on multiplayer, too. When I asked Badowski if there would ever be a Witcher MMO, he dismissed the idea with a chuckle. Simply, it wouldn't make fiction-sense to have 10 white-haired Geralts running around.

Cyberpunk 2077 is still a very long way off, and the team that's building it is still being established. One of the reasons the game was announced so far in advance of its 2015 release date - and with an eye-catching CGI trailer - was to attract development talent to the team.

The renowned Witcher team at CD Projekt Red is separate, although I'm sure resources will be pooled if and when the need arises. There's also another team at CDPR of Red Engine developers, QA specialists and technical support. The staff count at the Polish studio numbers 150, and the bulk of that - and the studio's focus - is on The Witcher 3, due 2014.

Eventually the Cyberpunk 2077 team will be the same size as The Witcher 3 team, said Badowski, but he doesn't want CDPR to be bigger than 200 employees. Also, the Cyberpunk 2077 team is "smaller right now" because it needs to be. "We don't want to grow too big on the prototyping stage because it's much easier to manage," Badowski told me.

"It's the crucial moment for Cyberpunk," he explained, "because we have tonnes of ideas and we need to have the perfect direction and we have to be in-line with the global vision of the game.

"We need to have precise, good, well-organized strike teams for that. The guys are working together brainstorming a lot, so a smaller team is better. And then we will go out to full production speed."

Cyberpunk 2077 will be a PC and next-gen consoles game just like The Witcher 3. Those next-gen consoles haven't been specified in Cyberpunk's case, but we know for definite that The Witcher 3 will be on PS4, and we can expect both games to also be on the next Xbox.

It's a big step for the previously PC-led studio, both in terms of production capabilities and the audience it reaches out to. "I don't think that the gaming world is split between PC and consoles," Badowski shrugged. "I'm a console player and I was a PC player and ... I don't want to be treated as stupid or less smart than a PC player. It's not like that. We definitely want to bring mature and ambitious gaming experience to the wider audience."

CD Projekt Red has its hands full, then, but Badowski said the studio was also "working on some prototypes" presumably for other games. "But again, sorry for that Robert - it's too early [to tell you what they are]," he apologized.

"We have some prototypes and we'll see if we can deliver something cool to the players. But every studio should have good R&D, especially independent studios. It's good to know what you may do in the future."

But, he concluded, "We have two leading projects, and they are the two hearts of our company."

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Cyberpunk 2077 "will be a true RPG game, says CD Projekt RED

By Patrick Carlson

While still just a hope and a whisper in the minds of genre fans, Cyberpunk 2077 is set to stay true to its RPG roots, according to a new interview with developer CD Projekt RED CEO Marcin Iwinski. He tells IGN the game's sci-fi setting takes its role-playing cues from the Polish studio's much-celebrated Witcher series.

Now, I'm not sure who on planet Earth would imagine a game based on Mike Pondsmith's original pen-and-paper Cyberpunk RPG without the role-playing, but it's obviously an idea Iwinski feels he has to respond to in this new interview.

"People have been asking me if Cyberpunk 2077 will have multiplayer or if it will be a straight-up shooter, and I tell them to relax, because it will be a true RPG game," Iwinski says. "We are known for storytelling, and big game worlds, and so we’re taking all what we've learned from previous three Witcher games, as well as the open-world aspect, and applying it to Cyberpunk 2077. So yes, it is an all-out RPG game, but we're looking at having a lot of new game play elements that I cannot talk about yet. One thing I can say for sure is that it is definitely NOT a multiplayer shooter."

That's not to say Cyberpunk's Night City wouldn't be a great place to stage a multiplayer shooter. But I suspect the team behind The Witcher have different plans, even if we did hear talk last year of Cyberpunk 2077 including some kind of "multiplayer features."

Role-playing, a branching narrative, and meaningful character development are burnt into the DNA of the first two Witcher games, and I expect the same from the The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt when it releases later this year. A cyberpunk game with a similar attention to detail? Sign me up.

Hat tip, CVG.

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CD Projekt RED Overhauling Dev Tools Before Official Work Begins

By Mo Mozuch

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of those titles that gamers are going crazy for, even though a lot hasn’t happened with the game yet.

Developer CD Projekt RED, best known for it's work with The Witcher franchise, is gearing up to begin serious production.

According to one team member who spoke with iDigitalTimes at PAX East 2016, enthusiasm for the project is making it easy to say goodbye to The Witcher franchise and it's hero, Geralt, who will see his final adventure in the release of the upcoming Blood And Wine DLC.

“To be honest, the politically correct answer is yes, it is sad [to finish Geralt’s story]. But the truth is that everyone is so insanely pumped about working on the next project, Cyberpunk 2077 ,” said Jose Teixeira, a visual effects artist for CD Projekt RED. “We could’ve made a million expansions for The Witcher because there’s so many stories in that world but everyone is crazy excited about Cyberpunk 2077. ”

Cyberpunk 2077 is very, very early in it's development cycle and CD Projekt RED hasn’t said much about what fans can expect. Although the little bits of info they have shared have been met with a huge response that Teixeira says is unlike the trajectory of The Witcher franchise.

“There is a difference between how games like this reach a general audience. With The Witcher it was a snowball effect and there was this core of hardcore gamers that knew about The Witcher and they passed the word along. It was a very slow process,” he said. “With Cyberpunk 2077 all they did was this little mood trailer and it just went insane. It was like an avalanche of interest immediately. It clicks with people instantly and it does the exact same thing with me.”

In order to deliver on the already high expectations for the game, CD Projekt RED is first going to improve the software used in-house to make the game. Teixeira explained that developing The Witcher 3 was such a long and involved process that the team kept notes along the way of the tools they want to make things easier.

“The most important thing that’s happening at the moment is that the programmers are taking the feedback we gave them from working on The Witcher. As cliche as it sounds it was a big learning experience,” he said, explaining that by the end of the development everyone had a list of features they wanted for new dev tools. “The programmers are updating our software quite drastically.”

This includes a brand new visual effects editor, which Teixeira is very excited about. He admits that he’s got a little more enthusiasm for the upcoming project than he did for The Witcher 3. For him, Cyberpunk 2077 represents a chance to explore a genre he finds more interesting.

“I immensely appreciate medieval fantasy games,” he said. “ But I don’t know what it is about Cyberpunk 2077 but it just clicks. There’s something about this game that just clicks with me and I’m really happy to be working on it.”

Cyberpunk 2077 is scheduled for release sometime in the next four years, so don’t hold your breath for any big announcements in the near future.

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Here's your first real look at Cyberpunk 2077

We’ve known about Cyberpunk 2077 for years and years at this point. CD Projekt Red first announced the game way back in 2012, but it wasn’t long after that reveal that The Witcher 3 began taking up most of the studio’s attention. In 2013, CD Projekt Red delivered the first teaser trailer for the game, but ever since then, there hasn’t been whole lot to satiate eager gamers.

Source

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Are you excited for Cyberpunk 2077? You should be, but you should also temper that excitement if you’re a PC gamer. Odds are you will need to upgrade your hardware to play this game.

Cyberpunk 2077 E3 Demo Ran on a Fairly Powerful PC

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Cyberpunk 2077 News - Alienware "Leak", Aesthetic Changes & Game Design Listing!

In today's Cyberpunk 2077 and Cyberpunk 2077 News video we have a cryptic tweet sent out by CD PROJEKT RED and Cyberpunk 2077 and some clarification and debunking about it, a new game design job listing from CD PROJEKT RED, an Alienware training event and a potential 2077 leak of sorts, some Cyberpunk forum answers including aesthetic and design changes, and some Countdown the the dark future details highlighting a cataclysmic event in the lore of Cyberpunk.

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CD Projekt Red talks Cyberpunk 2077 crunch, vows to be 'more humane' to developers