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2017/05

Here’s The Latest Information And Rumors Regarding Cyberpunk 2077

There’s a lot of excitement behind CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077. Some of the best information about the upcoming project has been from various job listings, which has revealed potential features that could wind up in the game and future events regarding the sci-fi RPG.

Notice: All of the information below should be taken with a grain of salt and may or may not turn up in Cyberpunk 2077. This information comes from CD Projekt Red’s job listings, Glixel and a Totalcon 2017 attendee that met Mike Pondsmith, who is behind the upcoming sci-fi RPG.

Job Listings

Firstly, let’s take a look at the job listings for Cyberpunk 2077. These listings can offer up quite a bit of information prior to major announcements and/or smaller events. However, they do not ensure that a specific feature or more will make it into a game, but we will look over the most plausible content featured in the job listings, which includes: Environment Artist, Senior Engine Programmer and Senior Animation Programmer.

Starting with the former, the Environment Artist job post highlights physicalized objects and destruction models. This means that a form of destructible environments and movable objects are more than likely to appear around Night City, but the real question is how much will be destructive and how many physics based items will players be able to interact with? While we ponder on that you can read the job listing below.

“CD PROJEKT RED in Krakow is looking for an Environment Artist to work on Cyberpunk 2077. The Environment Artist will take responsibility for creating wide range of photorealistic environments in futuristic settings, covering also physicalized objects and destruction models.”

Next up comes the Senior Engine Programmer. This position sees optimization as an importance. In other words this means that the REDengine 4 will be tested thoroughly on different PC setups, and platforms like PS4 and Xbox One to see how well Cyberpunk runs. You can read the job listing below.

“As a Senior Engine Programmer you will be responsible for designing, implementing, optimizing and maintaining parts of our in-house engine both for the PC and the new generation of consoles (PS4, Xbox One). Person on this position will be cooperating with other engine programmers and Director Game Programming in order to create technical solutions meeting desired requirements.”

I should note that this next part is not official, but seeing how the game is scheduled to come out either late 2018 through 2021, the game could technically bypass the PS4 and Xbox One and instead focus on their more high-end iterations like the PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio. For example, Bungie did this later into the lifespan of Destiny with the Rise of Iron expansion, which is only for PS4 and Xbox One and not for PS3 and Xbox 360.

The next job listing is just me being a rude boy here, but I thought it was rather funny that CDPR put this in, however the Senior Animation Programmer sees said position focusing on character facial animations, movement and combat, as well as cut-scenes. Hmm… didn’t a certain AAA game that came out March of 2017 suffer from poor animations that were done by unqualified participants? You know what, I can’t remember so instead you can read the listing for the Senior AP:

“DAILY RESPONSIBILITIES IN A NUTSHELL. Focusing especially on the characters: their facial animations, movement, locomotion, combat, etc. as well as cutscenes, camera and the like.”

Gangs and Daft Cyberpunks

It wouldn’t quite be a cyberpunk title if it didn’t feature punks in a cyber world, eh? Well, the original tabletop game and universe featured a list of gang members, one of the gangs that make an appearance quite often are the Boostergangs — more information on them and others can be found on the official wikia. We just might see the ruthless, territorial daft-minded cyberpunks in the game, and if other gangs follow suit reputation points may be a thing like in other Sci-Fi games like Destiny and Warframe with syndicate groups.

Combat Zones

This is just speculation, but Combat Zones in the Cyberpunk realm are lawless “No Go” areas of the Urban Sprawl. The law is non-existent in this region and sees very little sane people traversing through aside from gangs looking to stir up pure chaos. This heavily controlled gang area that is not recommended to lurk around could be where the seamless multiplayer could step in. The Combat Zones could also stand as a hub for PvP or just unsafe areas around the Urban Sprawl in the single-player mode. Of course, this is all just speculation based on the Cyberpunk lore, so take with some salt.

Totalcon 2018

Over on the official Cyberpunk 2077 forum board, a certain user who killed one of the PC’s neo-NAZI rockerboy characters on a train at the Totalcon 2017 event, named The Cybersmily, witnessed Mike Pondsmith do a Q&A and noted that…

“I wasn’t able to get into any games that Mike was running. His son Cody was running Witcher there as well which I wasn’t able to get in either. Not much of a report so far I know. Mike did a 30 minute Q&A which turned into more of a discuss of how cyberpunk real life has turned into. He talk a little bit about working with CD Projekt Red team. Gave absolutely no details about what they are doing, where the game is, what’s been done so far. He only commented about how impressed he was with what he was seeing.”

You are probably thinking “that’s not anything useful!?” Actually that’s very good information right there. Pondsmith is very specific when it comes to others handling the Cyberpunk realm that he created. He told Glixel that a lot of people want to do a game adaptation but change it way too much, as noted below.

“Pondsmith says that since its release, Cyberpunk has been under option almost constantly for a video game adaptation. “The closest we got was a mobile game,” he says, “but they wanted to change it way, way, way too much.” CDPR are the first to see it through.”

So to see him happy as of 2017 of CDPR’s progress means a lot and that it is exactly or near his imagination of the Cyberpunk world that he made. This now leads to Totalcon 2018, which is set to kick off on February 22-25th, 2018. Pondsmith has showed up three times to said event and could possibly show up for a fourth time and speak of Cyberpunk 2077 again. Sadly, only time will tell if he will do so.

Cyberpunk 2077 is set to come out with the new tabletop game; both are set to debut when they are ready. For more information on Totalcon 2018 you can hit up totalcon.com.

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