Cyberpunk 2077 E3 2019 Interviews

CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 was at the forefront of this year’s E3 with its new trailer, a press-exclusive gameplay demo, and of course, Keanu Reeves. And while we already had a chance to check out a bunch of Cyberpunk 2077 coverage, we can now also watch and read several fairly informative interviews. First, here’s PlayStation Access talking to Mike Pondsmith, the original creator of Cyberpunk 2020:

Then, there’s this Shacknews interview with Miles Tost, CD Projekt’s level designer:

And this BBC interview with Keanu Reeves:

And here’s GameSpot talking to Miles Tost about CD Projekt’s surprising collaboration with Keanu Reeves:

You may also be interested in Eurogamer’s interview with Paweł Sasko, CD Projekt’s lead quest designer:

What role does Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Silverhand character play in the game?

Sasko: It’s such an important role, he’s in the game from almost the beginning to the very, very end. He’s one of the core arcs of the story.

If you look at the CGI trailer – which is an actual quest in the game, though in first-person – V does a deal to get this chip and it looks a fairly simple job but there’s way more layers below. It turns out there’s some connection between Johnny Silverhand and this chip. Now, in Cyberpunk 2020, Johnny died. He was blasted, killed by Adam Smasher. But now he’s back as this digital ghost. And I don’t want to tell you more because it will spoil the story!

One of the reasons a release next April feels surprisingly soon is it rules out a simultaneous launch on next-gen consoles – will that come later?

Sasko: Right now we’re focusing on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One but obviously in the future we’d probably like to have Cyberpunk 2077 on the next platforms. But that’s really a matter for the future, to be honest. Right now we’re focusing on these.

One of the things we learned with The Witcher 3 was, you should not delay working on the console versions, ever. So at all times we have a version running for everything. And of course, the high-end version we’re showing running it is completely different to the consoles, the current-gen is starting to get old. So there’s some things which won’t look as crisp. But the important thing to us is it will be fluid, it will play on your machine. There are limitations for any given hardware, that’s a natural thing. But we’ll do everything we can to squeeze as much as we can.

As well as this PC Gamer interview with the man:

How big a part does cyberspace play? Is it a location you can explore or is it more a story thing?

So as you saw in the demo, the cyberspace is like a dark, dangerous place. You need the assistance of multiple netrunners. Those people that were there in cyberspace, they were with you. They were your cover. They were helping out, making sure that nothing is getting you. Basically the cyberspace in our game is this extremely dark, grim place from the past. It’s a past that has been divided by the black wall. And you saw what happened when Alt hit the wall at the end. And so that’s cyberspace in the game. And as a player you need a special support from others to help you get there. But then you can explore the way you saw. Now, on top of that, the whole cyberspace has this usable layer.

As a Netrunner, I can get into the net and access the networks of the soldiers, of the guards, of the Animals, and hack them. And use the quick hack to make the game explode, make the guy suicide, all kinds of things to mess around with the cyberware tool. So that’s also a way you can access cyberspace, just in a different way. It’s a more secure, safe level. And also, on top of that, you have normal internet. But the internet in Cyberpunk, it’s a completely different thing. This game is based on 2020. Everything there is very retro. It’s very ingrained in the ’80s. So if you take the internet that existed at that time, that was mostly controlled by the army and so on, and scale that up to ’77, keeping all the crazyness, basically our internet in Cyberpunk is controlled by corporations and the army. It’s not that everyone can have their own blog. It’s not like that. There are pages you can browse, but they’re controlled by the big corporations. But that said, the network is not for normal people, and all Netrunners can access it and only the best ones can go deep into cyberspace.