cd projekt red interview

The Pawel Sasko Interview: Redemption Arcs, Deconstructing Cyberpunk, & CDPR’s Future!

I got the chance to ask Pawel Sasko some of my biggest questions about his work on Cyberpunk and CDPR alongside his life, upbringing, work, aspirations, influences, and passion!

I hope you guys enjoy.

Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro
4:28 – Pawel’s younger years, upbringing, & video games
9:02 – How Pawel started writing
11:50 – What are Pawel’s movie, book, game inspirations?
23:42 – Pawel’s biggest Cyberpunk influences
32:05 – Career path & CD PROJEKT being the only option
46:17 – With Pondsmith’s expansive universe, how did CDPR know what to pull and what to leave behind?
58:15 – What did Cyberpunk 2077’s base game creation look like?
1:05:58 – How does your Master’s Degree in Psychology influence your game design decisions?
1:09:53 – How did Phantom Liberty’s story change based on feedback from the base game’s story?
1:17:50 – How will Unreal Engine & The NA talent pool influence Cyberpunk Orion?
1:23:15 – Pawel’s message to the CDPR and Cyberpunk community

💥 NEW Cyberpunk 2077 2023 Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0QcYX4-SbI&list=PL4oIv9QY_YATB4FzSVcYqex6ylWyEo3j0

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Cyberpunk 2077 News – Exclusive Developer Interview, Pacifica Lore & Netrunner 2077!

An exclusive interview with Miles Tost at the Cyberpunk 2077 Community Podcast a couple days ago, some new screenshots of Night City, some Pacifica Lore, a new CDPR collaboration as well as a new hub I want you guys to check out to quench your Cyberpunk 2077 thirst all in today’s Cyberpunk 2077 news update!

First up we have the Cyberpunk 2077 Community Podcast’s exclusive interview with Miles Tost, senior level designer at CDPR. Overall it was a really good time talking to Miles before, during and after the show, he was super chill, friendly and expressive in his answers.

Going over some of the more stand-out points we have a very interesting tidbit about the Witcher vs Cyberpunk. In the Witcher he got to the point in development and through memory where he knew most if not all the outcomes of quests, locations of loot and collectibles and just a feel for everything in the world. With CYberpunk Miles mentions that there are things all the time that he stumbles upon that are new to him, and that he finds more organically.

Now this is pretty crazy because if a high up level designer feels like there is exploration available to him, I wonder how many different outcomes, situations, real time events, are going to be presented to the player at all times.

Miles mentions that out of everything, that CDPR has really nailed the Cyberpunk atmosphere. He has particular praise for not only the visuals, but also the sound design, including the ambient noises of Night City and recommends that a good pair of headphones are a must. Although you can swim, the game is not about water exploration and it only services the believability of the world. If you were to jump into the water and get hit with a black screen and reverted to a checkpoint that would harm immersion.

If you go on a rampage and start shooting civilians, Miles mentions that the apex of the NCPD the psycho squad will come to stop you before you create tooi much destruction. Although you will not be able to go cyberpsycho, you will get branded as a cyberpsycho and you will be hunted down like any other Cyberpsycho.

Environmental destruction which was shown off in most of the demos so far is still very much a part of the game, and Miles mentions that he believes its been tuned up even more to make combat feel more reactive and engaging.

Enemies will be able to utilize the same abilities that the player can use on them, with the example being getting hacked as well as both kerenzikov and sandevistan time altering augments.

The typical mini-games of racing, hacking and the shooting range have been revealed, but Miles held some of this close to the chest to not spoil it, which might mean that there are even more mini-games than what have been publicly mentioned thus far.

The whole map of Night City does open up after the prologue but expect some areas to have high tiered enemies and bigger challenges similarly to The Witcher.

There are some more details here so as always I recommend you check out the Podcast in it’s entirety before we got shut-down by NetWatch. Link in the description for all the developer goodness.

Moving on we have some new details on the district of Pacifica, the Combat Zone of Night City.

“Pacifica was supposed to be Nigh City’s money making vacation resort – a true paradise catering to corporate employees and tourists alike with it’s golden sandy beaches, luxurious hotels and unmatched entertainment. Until it all went to hell that is.

The dream came to a painfully abrupt end after uncertainty struck the global economy and corporate investors pulled their funding for the project. Construction work stopped, leaving most buildings unfinished, forever to remain the hulking concrete and steel shells they were at the time. Instead of teeming with tourists, the district is now overrun by poverty, violence and gangs.

It’s here that Voodooboys, a techno-mystical group of netrunners, chose to set up their base of operations. Originating from the Haitian community that settled in Night City after their homeland was ravaged by climate disaster, they took it upon themselves to protect the local community, forsaken and left to fend for themselves by the NCPD.”

Moving on I wanted to feature a new community website called Netrunner2077. This is a community cyberpunk 2077 hub that I think you guys are going to really enjoy. I’ve been following this project behind the scenes for a while now, and Ani HVX who has created this site has put in a ton of work featuring lore, news, fan content and everything you could want within the realm of Cyberpunk 2077. Me and the rest of the community podcast guys also play a role in the Black Wall section where you can find our creator pages in an official capacity in collaboration with Netrunner2077.

Podcast w/Miles Tost! – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLsSAMCCrV0&list=PL4oIv9QY_YAQcsz4r3qWWNRCEd-qXO1Ix

netrunner2077.net / com

Cyberpunk 2077 News – Arasaka Waterfront Image & Geralt Easter Egg?

A hidden image in some new Cyberpunk 2077 promotional statue images, as well as some new pictures of the 800 dollar statue itself, a hint which gives us some insight into a possible Geralt of Rivia Easter Egg, a podcast featuring developer details, More info on a New character we mentioned in the past & more will be showcased in today’s Cyberpunk 2077 news!

First up check out this new wallpaper tweeted out by CD PROJEKT RED. It shows Arasaka forces sieging a metro station stop, with V and his buddy in the foreground tuning out the white noise. Now I’ve showcased this before, when it was on the cover of PCGamer but now you can have this as a wallpaper. The size of the map has seemed to increase since the intial 2018 E3 trailer, notably in the north and the south. Also check out the Arasaka riot troops that we saw in the 4AM Grimes music video.

Next up we have a new promotional image from Sideshow, which is making high quality statues of Silverhand and V for Cyberpunk 2077. In this image, we see what appears to be an in-game screenshot of the Arasaka Waterfront. This is a location that seems to be dominated by Arasaka in the north of the map near Watson according to the metro map we have seen in the past.

Speaking of the statue this promotional ad is for, check out this new image of Sideshows Male and Female V with the Yaiba Kusanagi. Preorders of this come with a nice little Spiderbot statue, but at 800 dollars for the combo of both male and female v, this is most definitely for the most hardcore collectors.

Next we have a podcast featuring CDPR developers, Miles Tost and Philip Webber about the development of Cyberpunk and how things have changed since shifting to remote work.

First Miles and Philip mention that in shifting from office to home, there was a massive IT delivery service where over night hundreds of cars brought PCs to peoples homes, and that they could start work 2 hours after it was brought home.

The way they work on the game and assets haven’t changed much. They use a VPN to connect to the main data server and can download the stuff they want. If parts of the game get changed, members can check in to that content and others will notice.

Nearly every hour the system directly transforms the development version into the playable version of the game.

Miles Tost mentions that that some changes are really small and mentions an elevator bug where it did not stop where it was supposed to.
The fact that they are isolated means that they can no longer visit media offices with preview builds. They actually carried the game with a specific PC in a code locked briefcase, and the hard drive and the game was also password protected.

Moving on we have some updates to the IMDB page for Cyberpunk 2077, where information is typically fact checked to a certain standard before its posted. Recently some changes were made where it now shows Jacek Rozenek as being rumored to voice geralt in the game. Obviously Dock Cockle voiced Geralt in the English Witcher games and Rozenek was Geralts voice in the polish versions, so maybe there’s the potential for a polish easter egg here, or he’s doing the polish dubbing of a separate character.

Not only this but we have mentioned Doctor Paradox in a prior episode and made note that this was not a character I thought was in the lore. I did some more research and stumbled upon this countdown to the dark future episode where doctor paradox was mentioned as a big conspiracy media character.
In the dark future episode it mentions that “one of the longest running underground screamsheets before the 4th corporate war hit, doctor paradox’s mysteries printed or displayed as a collection of barely coherent rantings, post-modern poetry, and purposefully disturbing images designed to shake up the masses.
By 2020 Doctor Paradox began heavily promoting conspiracy theories, including a government plot to turn everyone into zombies with the help of an insane AI.

We also have some new Cyberpunk Red minis. Now as you know Mike Pondsmith will be in Cyberpunk 2077, and despite many thinking he is Dexter Deshawn this is not the case. With that being said we have a huge hint into what he could play, as RTalsorian revealed a Maximum Mike Cyberpunk red minature.

This is a big big hint of what Pondsmith’s role will be in game, as Rtalsorian and CDPR try to streamline the lore and characters between mediums.
The description of Mike is as follows “One of the old survivors of the NCPD still on the job, Maximum Mike tries to play by the book, enforcing the law and rooting out corruption. But he knows the law has its limits, so he’ll do what he has to to protect the innocent. When facing down the cities worst, his cyber-mastiff, max is always at his side.

This might put a pin in Mike lending his voice to his original character morgan blackhand as well.