SUMMARY
- Cyberpunk 2077 lets players choose a lifepath as a backstory for the main character V, which determines several aspects of the game including the first few quests.
- However, beyond the quests, the lifepaths only affect some of the choices in the game but nothing else.
A new development update about the upcoming title Cyberpunk 2, which is codenamed Orion, has come to light. It is believed that the upcoming title may feature grander branching storylines. These will be determined by the player’s starting life path, which was Street Kid, Corpo, and Nomad in Cyberpunk 2077.
The narrative director of CD Projekt Red, Philipp Weber, during a recent podcast, shed some light on what their upcoming project Cyberpunk 2 will include.
Cyberpunk 2 focuses on life path stories
Philipp Weber recently appeared on the Answered Podcast, wherein the CD Projekt Red narrative director revealed that the Life Paths’ lack of influence in the majority of Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the major things that the studio wants to improve in future titles. Although he revealed that he is currently working on the next mainline Witcher game, codenamed Polaris, the sequel to Cyberpunk is still in the conceptual stages of development.
“I do think there are things with, for example, the life paths, that kind of gives you a promise as being able to play more different kinds of characters,” he said. “I think this is a thing where, in the future, that’s as an example something we would like to improve. Since I do think we gave a promise there that maybe in the end we did not really sell.”
The current game, Cyberpunk 2077’s opening changes are majorly based on the life path chosen, however, within just an hour the three are seen merging into the one main story. Although the game does have feature branching paths and varied choices of its own, the impact of life paths seems to be limited to occasional additional dialogue options.
Philipp added, “The game begins with this very specific thing, you can be a Nomad, a Corpo, a Street Kid, but then it sometimes goes away a little bit. We move it all together. Then sometimes you can do it. As a quest designer, I think in retrospect we can see the old topic, given more experience, given more time, I think maybe we would make it a bit less muddled than we did it there.”
The lead quest designer for Polaris, Błażej Augustynek, who has also worked on Cyberpunk 2077, also expressed his opinion that the starting life path is not too necessary to the game’s main story. “I think with the lifepaths, it’s the life that you leave as V,” he said.
The second episode of our AnsweRED Podcast is here! 🎮🔥
Hosts @Skalemba and @pawelburza are joined by Lead Quest Designer Błażej Augustynek and Narrative Director @PhiWeber to talk about great quests and how to make them.
Tune into an insightful discussion about designing… pic.twitter.com/9HclVQNiU1
— CD PROJEKT RED (@CDPROJEKTRED) December 21, 2023
“So whatever you used to do, there’s a clear moment where it all crumbles, right? And you start a new life with Jackie. Obviously, we would like it to matter more, but I think the way it plays our right now, it’s like you come from a certain kind of life. And that life has ended”.
Błażej further shares how that is now in the past and players are now living this new life which, ends in the prologue. Then the players have to deal with the consequences of that.
Cyberpunk 2 release date
Very little information is known about Cyberpunk’s upcoming sequel, Cyberpunk 2 or Cyberpunk Orion. The sequel was first announced on October 4, 2022, with ‘Orion’ as a codename for the project. As Phillip revealed the title is still in its still in the conceptual stages of development.
Orion is a codename for our next Cyberpunk game, which will take the Cyberpunk franchise further and continue harnessing the potential of this dark future universe. pic.twitter.com/JoVbCf6jYZ
— CD PROJEKT RED (@CDPROJEKTRED) October 4, 2022
Recently Cyberpunk 2077 received its much-awaited first-ever expansion Phantom Liberty. Reports suggest that post the release of the Phantom Liberty expansion, the core team behind Cyberpunk 2077 was expected to move to Boston. Here they were to set up a new hub of the North American CDPR branch.
It is expected that in 2024, the Boston team, along with the Vancouver and Warsaw teams will start development on the sequel. Thus it is still too early to say when the game will actually release. Nonetheless, the developers will try to avoid what happened with Cyberpunk 2077’s turbulent launch.