Cyberpunk 2077‘s sequel–known as Project Orion–is currently in development at CD Projekt Red’s new Boston-based studio, and the developer is hoping the new locale will give the sequel a more authentically American flair.
“I think Cyberpunk is obviously a uniquely American story,” acting executive producer Dan Hernberg explained in a recent episode of the AnsweRED podcast. “It’s got a lot of like, punk energy, and [the tabletop game] was written by an American, so it just seems right to do it in America.”
The first game–along with its highly praised DLC, Phantom Liberty–was developed at CD Projekt Red’s studio in Wrocław, Poland. This apparently led to some unforeseen complications when it came to creating Night City, which is canonically located in California and is essentially a futuristic version of Los Angeles. One example of the game’s setting getting lost in translation is an issue referred to internally as “the manhole debacle.”
“There was this post [on Reddit] with the guy saying that there is this immersion-breaking bug in Cyberpunk, and the bug was about the fact that the covers for manholes for a sewer were the manholes that you use normally in Europe, in Germany, for a pavement,” associate game director Paweł Sasko said on the podcast. “Those are not manholes that you normally cover in America on the streets.”
“When you go to America, there’s things like [fire] hydrants, where they are placed and how they look like,” Sasko continued. “The street lights, the positions of that, the trash bins, right? They’re in the front of the house, right by the street. In Poland, in Europe, you don’t see it almost anywhere. There’s so much nuance. Dan, when we talk about it, he calls it ‘the Americana.'”
Hernberg then added, “Our curbs are different, our color is different on all of our signs. Everything’s just slightly different. It doesn’t break immersion, but it’s just that little thing where you’re like, ‘Well, maybe this wasn’t made by people who live here or people who fully understand all of American culture.’ I also think that [the studio] being in America, it allows us to have those cultural touchpoints with the larger American, you know, kind of influence with Hollywood. Obviously, Cyberpunk 2077 took place in LA, and so there’s just kind of all these cultural touchpoints and things that we can kind of interact with, whether that’s from music or story or just different parts of America that are interesting to explore.”
But Project Orion isn’t entirely made in America–CD Projekt Red’s Vancouver studio is also pitching in on the sequel, and Hernberg says the Canadian studio is currently working on some “really cool stuff” for the upcoming game.
The game is currently in the early stages of development, so there’s no telling when players can expect to get their hands on the sequel, but the good news is they won’t have to wait for the next entry in The Witcher series to release first, as the new Boston studio was created specifically to allow CD Projekt Red to work on both Project Orion and the next Witcher game simultaneously. CD Projekt Red has also stated that it’s working to increase the pace of its game launches, so hopefully, players won’t have to wait too long to return to Night City.
