Cyberpunk 2077 will take place in Night City, a bustling West Coast metropolis with a seedy underbelly and the well-fought title of “worse place to live in America” by the mid-21st century. Populated by sinister corporations and gangs ranging from Haitian hackers to Yakuza mobsters, CD Projekt Red aims to bring Night City to life with a diverse cast of characters and large world map.
But just how large is Night City going to be in Cyberpunk 2077? While fans can simply crunch the numbers, looking at Night City’s size when compared to some of the other biggest maps in gaming may be the best way to figure out just what they can expect when Cyberpunk hits the shelves in December.
Night City v Los Santos
Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City rests on a game map which is believed to be roughly 4 kilometers across and 6 kilometers in length, making the game world around 24 square kilometers in total. However, not all of that area is land, and a decent chunk of the western area of the map is taken up by water.
Grand Theft Auto 5’s map is a good comparison for a few reasons. Unlike many other open-world games, GTA 5’s map is built for cars, which means it can be used to give a more accurate idea of just how long it will take to traverse Night City than some other games. Like Night City, Los Santos also has a bay which takes up a roughly equivalent portion of the same map, making it easier to compare the two game worlds.
GTA 5’s map has been calculated to be around 48.7 square miles, or 126 square kilometers, dwarfing Night City in terms of area. With the water taken out, GTA 5 is actually around 81 kilometers squared by some estimates, a decrease of about 35%. Assuming Night City’s water takes up a similar amount of the map, the game’s land area would take up roughly 16 square kilometers. Assuming most game maps have some areas which cannot be traversed, however, the full measurement of 24 square kilometers may be more useful for the sake of comparison to other games.
While Grand Theft Auto is built for high-speed car chases, Cyberpunk 2077 may have something different in mind. Cyberpunk will include cars, but the developers have spoken about the idea that, while Cyberpunk 2077’s map will be relatively small, the game will have a lot of vertical space which is hard to factor into these sorts of equations. Many of the buildings in Night City will have multiple floors which players can explore, and with so many skyscrapers downtown this could significantly add to the actual size of Cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk v Skyrim and Red Dead 2
Fans who are worried that Night City may be smaller than expected can also compare it to a few other games to get a better sense of their bearings. While small compared to GTA 5, Cyberpunk is perhaps better understood when compared to some other open-world, first-person RPGs. Skyrim’s full map is about 7 kilometers across and roughly 5.5 kilometers in height. Overall, this means the map is around 38.5 kilometers squared, about 60% larger than Night City. Again, however, this is unable to factor in the considerably vertical space Night City likely takes up.
Fans hoping for a huge, sprawling world from Cyberpunk 2077 may be disappointed. The game is far smaller than the map in games like Red Dead Redemption 2, with Red Dead’s 75 square kilometer map over three times larger than Night City in area. However, between skyscrapers, dense city centers, back-alleys, bars, and hidden underground areas, Night City’s depth could be key to creating the illusion that Cyberpunk’s world is far larger than it actually is.
Cyberpunk 2077 launches on December 10 for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One. PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions are in development.