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Cyberpunk 2077 Follow-up, codenamed Project Orion, grows in strength at CD PROJEKT RED North America

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
cyberpunk2077-keanu-reeves.gif

CD PROJEKT RED has announced several high-profile additions to the team working on Project Orion — the anticipated follow-up to Cyberpunk 2077 being headed up by the US and Canada-based CD PROJEKT RED North America.

Project Orion is currently in the early stages of development, with studio veterans previously involved in Cyberpunk 2077 and its spy-thriller Phantom Liberty expansion spearheading the project, including Gabriel Amatangelo (Game Director), Paweł Sasko (Associate Game Director), Igor Sarzyński (Creative Director), Andrzej Stopa (Cinematic Director), Kacper Niepokólczycki (Environment Art Director), Sarah Grümmer (Acting Lead Quest Designer) and Kacper Kościeński (Engineering Director). This group is now part of a larger team based in the newly created CDPR studio in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Joining them at this location are industry professionals with years of experience and a variety of well-known and impressive AAA projects:
  • Dan Hernberg is joining the team as Executive Producer. Dan has previously worked as Head of Production at Amazon Games, Head of Production and Product Management at Panic Button, and Lead Product Manager at Blizzard Entertainment — and contributed to such titles as New World, Apex Legends, and Diablo III, among others.
  • Ryan Barnard’s past credits include Game Director at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft, as well as Gameplay Director at Hitman developer IO Interactive. He will be contributing his skillset as Design Director.
  • Alan Villani is entering the Project Orion team as Engineering Director, having previously lent his technical expertise as VP of Technology on various WB Game products, including technical direction on several Mortal Kombat titles.
  • Anna Megill is an award-winning game writer and author with 20 years’ experience in video games. She joins Project Orion as Lead Writer on the heels of narrative contributions to such titles as Control (Remedy), Dishonored: Death of The Outsider (Arkane), Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (Ubisoft Massive), Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet), and the upcoming Fable (Playground Games).
  • Alexander Freed will further bolster the writing for Project Orion. The New York Times bestselling novelist, narrative designer, and comic book writer with over 15 years of game writing experience has previously worked as Lead Writer at BioWare on, among other titles, Star Wars: The Old Republic. He has also written and consulted for various major studios, including DICE, Obsidian Entertainment, Wizards of the Coast, and 20th Century Fox's games division FoxNext.
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press.cdprojektred.com

Cyberpunk 2077 Follow-up, codenamed Project Orion, grows in strength at CD PROJEKT RED North America - CD PROJEKT RED Press Center

CD PROJEKT RED has announced several high-profile additions to the team working on Project Orion — the anticipated follow-up to Cyberpunk 2077 being headed up by the US and Canada-based CD PROJEKT RED North America.
press.cdprojektred.com press.cdprojektred.com
 
Hugare

Hugare

Member
Thick Thighs Save Lives said:
Joining them at this location are industry professionals with years of experience and a variety of well-known and impressive AAA projects:
  • Dan Hernberg is joining the team as Executive Producer. Dan has previously worked as Head of Production at Amazon Games, Head of Production and Product Management at Panic Button, and Lead Product Manager at Blizzard Entertainment — and contributed to such titles as New World, Apex Legends, and Diablo III, among others.
  • Ryan Barnard’s past credits include Game Director at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft, as well as Gameplay Director at Hitman developer IO Interactive. He will be contributing his skillset as Design Director.
  • Alan Villani is entering the Project Orion team as Engineering Director, having previously lent his technical expertise as VP of Technology on various WB Game products, including technical direction on several Mortal Kombat titles.
  • Anna Megill is an award-winning game writer and author with 20 years’ experience in video games. She joins Project Orion as Lead Writer on the heels of narrative contributions to such titles as Control (Remedy), Dishonored: Death of The Outsider (Arkane), Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (Ubisoft Massive), Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet), and the upcoming Fable (Playground Games).
  • Alexander Freed will further bolster the writing for Project Orion. The New York Times bestselling novelist, narrative designer, and comic book writer with over 15 years of game writing experience has previously worked as Lead Writer at BioWare on, among other titles, Star Wars: The Old Republic. He has also written and consulted for various major studios, including DICE, Obsidian Entertainment, Wizards of the Coast, and 20th Century Fox's games division FoxNext.
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The writers seem great. The others, eh, not so much.

Hopefuly CDPR will be able to keep that "euro" touch even on the american studio

ungalo said:
The track record of Anna Megill is...not very good. I don't know how she became lead writer on such a big game where writing is crucial.
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Nonsense. She contributed in Control, which was excellent. Death of the Outsider was also really good.

GW 2 was MMO trash, but very successful, and cant say anything about Avatar 'cause I didnt play it
 
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Kurotri

Kurotri

Member
ungalo said:
The track record of Anna Megill is...not very good. I don't know how she became lead writer on such a big game where writing is crucial.
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Yeah, this worries me. On the other hand, she somehow had a hand in Control, which I loved to bits, so I guess we'll see.
 
ProtoByte

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
ungalo said:
The track record of Anna Megill is...not very good. I don't know how she became lead writer on such a big game where writing is crucial.
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Neither writer is blowing my socks off. Unironically though, I think having a more American team helps.
 
U

ungalo

Member
Hugare said:
She contributed in Control, which was excellent. Death of the Outsider was also really good.
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kinda disagree and hard disagree, in any case i think those are very minor projects compared to something huge like Cyberpunk, it's a big step up for her

edit : although she also worked on Fable, we don't know how it turned out yet
 
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Raven77

Raven77

Member
Dr.D00p said:
Far more interested in this than another Witcher, whose setting is a complete turn off, for me.
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THANK YOU! I like the Witcher games but the setting / game world are bland, boring, and oddly depressing.

It's the game world equivalent of shopping at Marshals.
 
DaciaJC

DaciaJC

Gold Member
Far more interested in another Witcher than this, whose setting is a complete turn off, for me.
 
Dazraell

Dazraell

Member
Kerotan said:
Now that I think about it they'll probably do a cyber sequel first before a Witcher 4.
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Actually, both are developed simultaneously. The Witcher 4 is developed in Poland and is already on full production, while Cyberpunk's sequel just entered early development and is in development at their North America team in Boston. So out of these two, Witcher 4 will most probably be released first
 
Bkdk

Bkdk

Member
Hopefully ryan can help them to make the level design of the missions a lot better, the recent hitmans do have some pretty fun levels. one of the weakest part of cp2077 is it's rather restricted level design in many main story missions. Also they really need to bring in a team specializes in extremely robust character customization tools. hire some top girl char modders might help. no comment on the other additions, doubt cdpr really need them.
 
killatopak

killatopak

Gold Member
Phew!

I was one of those day 1 buyers and stuck to the game despite a lot of (valid) criticism about it.

Really happy about its continued existence.
 
R

RyRy93

Member
Whatever happened to CD Projekt Black? Never heard about them since their work on the first game was binned
 
TastyPastry

TastyPastry

Member
i like cyberpunk 2077 but the writing honestly wasn't amazing and hiring the writer of avatar for the sequel doesn't fill me with much confidence in that regard but i guess it's better than hiring sweet baby inc
 
S

SneakersSO

Member
After not having played it, I spent 5 weeks playing all of Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty in the 2.1 update.

Its one of my favorite games of all time. I couldn't be more excited for Project Orion.
 
M

mortal

Banned
  • No cross-gen support hampering the scope of the game
  • More player choice regarding impactful RPG gameplay and branching life paths from the jump.
  • More reactive and unique NPC AI outside of quests.
Although I did mostly enjoy 2.0 and Phantom Liberty, those are the primary things I found lacking in CP2077 that I would like to see addressed in the sequel.
 
Dazraell

Dazraell

Member
RyRy93 said:
Whatever happened to CD Projekt Black? Never heard about them since their work on the first game was binned
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Don't quote me on that but I believe "Black" label was used for their porting studio which handled porting Saints Row 2 to PC. To put it lightly, that port was a huge flop and CD Projekt never tried to do any more projects like this
 
EDMIX

EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
That is a fucking solid team. A few key people from Massive from Ubisoft will do wonders for this game in terms of how that lay out functional features.

If CDPR will actually fund them properly and staff it up for it to be a complete thing day 1, remains to be seen.

I'll believe it when I see it as a real finished thing day 1 (not year 3 as some fucking GaaS, Early access type shit)

So they have a lot to prove atm.
 
WitchHunter

WitchHunter

Banned
Just make sure the polish guys remain at the center of creative decisions and it doesn't hurt if more people are let near the cauldron. And I hope they can go vertical, but I have a fear it will be lateral movement in terms of quality and new ideas. Hope I'm wrong.
 
Toots

Toots

Gold Member
One of the few devs i trust with my eyes closed, especially after they made cyberpunk the new comeback king, through perseverance and hard work, dethroning Corey Feldman in the process.

The artists there who got screwed by the managers/marketing people and their money oriented minds, did not give up, they kept working and finally could deliver something close to their original vision, for the pleasure of everyone.
Hats off to them for keeping true to themselves.
 
U

ungalo

Member
existensmaximum said:
The writing in the first game was quite different from and above anything I've seen in many years (except for the DLC which was shit). These names and their track records really don't sound promising to me...
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why do you think the DLC was shit ?

I think it was still high quality but there's something that's bothering me, i can't quite put my finger on it.
 
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Boralf

Boralf

Member
DaciaJC said:
Far more interested in another Witcher than this, whose setting is a complete turn off, for me.
Click to expand...
THANK YOU! I like the Cyberpunk games but the setting / game world are bland, boring, and oddly depressing.

It's the game world equivalent of shopping at Marshals.
 
existensmaximum

existensmaximum

Member
ungalo said:
why do you think the DLC was shit ?

I think it was still high quality but there's something that's bothering me, i can't quite put my finger on it.
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I felt it had too little cool futuristic cyberpunky vibe/atmosphere and more of a generic stereotypical action game vibe.
As soon as you include the president and the military, I lose all interest. It felt almost a bit dude-bro at times..
 
W

Woggleman

Member
They need to knock it out of the park from day one on this. If they make the same mistake as last time there will be no redemption arc.
 
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