Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty was released only last month, but CD Projekt is already looking to the future of the brand. A few months ago, a sequel to the game, codenamed Project Orion, was announced, but nothing else was revealed. CD Projekt creative director Adam Badowski revealed some new details about the progress of the Cyberpunk sequel during a recent investor presentation (via Video Games Chronicle) . While the company seems to have some big plans, it looks like Project Orion won’t be released for quite some time as it’s currently in the concept phase.
This project is currently in the concept design stage and will be developed by the team of veterans who were responsible for refining Cyberpunk 2077 and designing Phantom Liberty . We will be working in North American locations, Vancouver and Boston, the team leadership is already there. By the end of 2024, we will be working with teams of several dozen people, and ultimately half of the developers will work in the northern United States and the other half outside Poland.
– said Badowski
Lessons from Cyberpunk 2077
It will be interesting to see when the game finally releases and what lessons CD Projekt draws from the launch of Cyberpunk 2077. The original game released in 2020 after years of hype. While everything seemed promising at first, the game was completely broken. The PC version was closer to what CD Projekt had dreamed of, but the console releases were a mess, especially the PS4 and Xbox One versions. Things got so bad that the company landed itself in legal trouble, and the game was withdrawn from the PlayStation Store for several months.
Currently, Cyberpunk 2077 is in much better shape. Over the last three years, the game has received a ton of updates that have fixed many of the game’s biggest issues. Not only has the base game been improved, but the Phantom Liberty DLC has been very well received. Despite the DLC’s critical and commercial success, CD Projekt will not be making any more add-ons. The publisher has decided to move away from the current Red Engine and will begin using the Unreal Engine in future games, possibly including Project Orion. Since CD Projekt is ready to switch to another engine, no additional expansions will be released for the current game. This may be disappointing for some fans, but many others prefer an entirely new game instead.
Hope for the future
Let’s hope the quality of the Phantom Liberty bodes well for Project Orion upon its release! CD Projekt probably has no intention of repeating the mistakes from the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 or dealing with the same consequences. Of course, some players may still be hesitant to purchase the game on launch day.
Are you excited about the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 ? Do you think the next game will be better than the last one?
