Spoiler Warning: This text options minor spoilers of an enemy which seems in a late recreation mission of Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty growth.
Beloved fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings might not be an apparent inspiration for dystopian role-playing recreation Cyberpunk 2077, nevertheless it influenced developer CD Projekt Crimson regardless.
Chatting with IGN at GDC 2024, affiliate recreation director Paweł Sasko additional defined CD Projekt Crimson’s philosophy of designing particular quests with sure genres or themes in thoughts. It has used this idea on a grander scale beforehand, like imagining The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as a horror recreation to create the Hearts of Stone growth, or seeing Cyberpunk 2077 within the espionage style to create the Phantom Liberty growth as a complete.
It was on this chunk of recent story content material that CD Projekt Crimson carried out this philosophy on a extra intricate degree, nonetheless, and it pulled from myriad standard works to take action, together with The Lord of the Rings. Sasko referenced Considerably Broken, a quest late within the Phantom Liberty growth, and the large spider-like robotic monster known as Cerberus the participant should escape.
“Coming into the Bunker was like coming into the layer of a monster,” he mentioned. “And even that scene when Cerberus reveals up, it type of bears resemblance to the second when Shelob seems in The Lord of the Rings, when she hangs over you, this looming form of a shadow.”
Simply as Shelob skulks across the darkish cave whereas stalking Frodo in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Cerberus may be seen doing the identical at the hours of darkness subterranean bunker the place the participant finds themselves in Considerably Broken. The mission may be seen within the gameplay video under, which incorporates full spoilers for your entire mission, however the Cerberus scene comes on the 15 minute mark.
“So that is what we began doing, as a result of if you outline a style theme and people guiding rules on your content material, it is a lot simpler to information your designers about what they’re speculated to do. And there is so many choices they’re making themselves. It is not administrators or leads who’re doing it, it is designers who’re making these choices day-after-day.”
Phantom Liberty arrived alongside the game-changing Replace 2.0, which utterly revamped Cyberpunk 2077 with options corresponding to a brand new perk system and improved AI. It additionally introduced closure to an Elon Musk fan idea, a reference to the late racing legend Ken Block, and weird additions to the sport’s greatest thriller. Replace 2.1 later added a full metro system, romantic associate hangouts, new automobiles, and extra.
In our 9/10 assessment of the sport, IGN mentioned: “Cyberpunk 2077 throws you into a phenomenal, dense cityscape and presents a staggering quantity of flexibility in the way you select to take it from there.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll discuss The Witcher all day.