Cyberpunk 2077, that’s what went wrong with the design, according to a developer

Level designer Miles Tost explained what he thought went wrong with the game design to Cyberpunk 2077 moviea mistake That CD Projekt Red no longer wants to repeat it with future games. Tost started working on Cyberpunk 2077 in 2016, after leaving The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt behind, and immediately found himself facing quite a challenge. Although they were both RPGs, they couldn’t be more different, and CD Projekt Red wanted to jump ahead in terms of player freedom. So Tost had to create levels that supported every playstyle, from the most brutal and straightforward to pure stealth, with everything in between.

According to Tost, it was a crazy challenge, but at the same time motivating. Of course, we all know how it ended: when it was released in 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 turned out to be an unfinished game riddled with technical problems. In particular, it lacked making the different gameplay styles meaningful and made exploration unsatisfying.

splatter After the patch, the game regained some ground, but there is no doubt that a lot of things went wrong and the project did not satisfy many gamers.

Toast returned to the topic during his talk at GDC 2023 Titled: “What Cyberpunk 2077 Taught Us About Nonlinear Level Design,” directly addressing the biggest problems the developers faced, which are impossible to deny (so much so that he even joked about them during the event).

According to Tost, level design, which is his area of ​​expertise, has paradoxically not been successful because of one of the Polish studio’s strengths, which is the desire to always tell strong stories: “We’re proud to be storytellers and we didn’t want to stop players.” The least wary enjoy the story.” This created each level an unmissable public path, useful for players with low stats. The problem was that these paths were often so obvious that players chose them regardless, overpowering different playstyles. This is exactly one of the most criticized gameplay flaws, in fact.

According to Tost, CD Projekt Red will improve from this point of view, referring to certain models, the first of which Arkan Studios With the Dishonored series, which does a great job of rewarding different playstyles and finding alternative routes, Cyberpunk 2077’s levels seem to create bounty-filled bottlenecks, making the player feel like their choices are useless.

Then Toast explained three Principles to be followed To design levels for multiple playstyles: it must give a perception of distance, i.e. the paths must be farther apart and give the player the idea that his choices matter to something; I must be seen as aloof and exclusive by the player, so that he can regard it as private and focus more on the experience; They must be validated, i.e. treated as private in order to improve the player’s options, and give him unique content as rewards.

For the rest, we remind you that Cyberpunk 2077 is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S.