Former Cyberpunk 2077 Developer Lends Insight On The Challenges Of Storytelling

From the same team that created the award-winning and critically-acclaimed The Witcher series comes their next greatest endeavor, CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077. So far, they’ve kept mum on the contents of the story and characters, only having shown concept images of characters. Without context however, no one knows the significance of these faces, so fans are left eagerly awaiting the next teaser. With that being said, there won’t be a sliver for a long while. However, there’s a former Cyberpunk 2077 developer, Ryan Pergent, that lends some insight on the challenging side of creating for CDPR.

After leaving the CD Projekt Red team, Pergent took to his personal blog to confess on the less than savory aspects of creating a story. Suffice to say, the studio gave him plenty of reason to leave and a lot of it stemmed from in-house. Pergent splits his confession into several parts, but the most telling is what he had to say here:

The team I inherit of contains almost all the positions you can find in the studio. Designers, 3D artists, Cinematic Animators, Gameplay Animators, Writers, and Coders. The job is thrilling. The most challenging part: the Writers hate the design. I obviously can’t talk about the specificities, as the game hasn’t come out yet, but Writers straight up hate it. The most striking example is a meeting where all the Leads and Directors, including Adam, are gathered.

In here, the Lead writer openly expresses his issues with the concept, echoing the opinion of his team. I keep it straight and manage to defend the idea with the promise that I won’t disappoint them. And I don’t. I rewrite the design almost entirely and come up with a better version that satisfy everyone, including the Writers. Before that, I had nightmares involving them. For real.”

Understanding that there are challenges that come with the job, there was still a huge lack in incentive and compensation, overwhelming stress, and the gap in communication – all of which prompted his departure. At some point, Pergent felt like if he can’t stand up for himself now, what hope does he have at doing it later? The former Cyberpunk 2077 developer did reveal that the overall design of the game wasn’t the problem.

Unfortunately, I can’t answer your question about the design that Writers had trouble with. Just to be clear, it’s not the ‘design of Cyberpunk’ that they hated, just the one slice I am talking about here.”

Aside from Pergent’s experience with CD Projekt Red and the development team, there’s no fear of a losing an epic story, but there’s some food for thought on the nitty gritty within the video game industry. With that being said, we hope he finds more success and happiness in his future.

What do you think about this former Cyberpunk 2077 developer’s experience with the acclaimed studio?  After reading through his experience, do you believe CDPR should take a look at their hierarchy or simply keep on? Let us know what you think in the comments section below or start a conversation on DFTG Facebook page. To stay up to date on gaming news as it happens, follow us on Twitter! Here’s some of our latest:

 

Hoi Duong2131 Posts

Hoi is an elusive figure at DFTG, whose favorite past-times include chillin' in the Fade, reading manga, watching anime, collecting novelty items, and gaming.

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