Cyberpunk 2077 will have a smaller map than The Witcher 3, CD Projekt RED producer Richard Borzymowski confirmed at Gamescom 2019. The news is unlikely to be surprising or disappointing to fans, however. Cyberpunk 2077 is set in a single city, Night City, while The Witcher 3 was spread across multiple regions and several cities. Borzymowski explains that Cyberpunk may be smaller in terms of "square kilometers," but players will hardly notice due to Night City's density.
Imagine taking the world of The Witcher 3 and all of its rich content, and then "deleting the wilderness between" is how Borzymowski describes it. Speaking to Games Radar at Gamescom 2019, Borzymowski goes so far as calling Night city a "protagonist" of Cyberpunk 2077 because the city is packed "full of life." Suffice it to say, to have open spaces in Night City would be antithetical to what CD Projekt RED is trying to make with Night City.
Comparisons between Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 are inevitable since the latter is widely considered the Game of the Year for 2015. It's even considered the Game of the Year for 2016 by some, too, due to the release of its Blood and Wine expansion. Cyberpunk 2077 has a lot to live up to and "Map Size" is one of those metrics by which all open-world games are ultimately measured.
Fair or not, Cyberpunk 2077 will be compared to The Witcher 3 in this and many other ways. The Witcher 3's map may have had many fields and wide-open spaces, but those areas had their own unique value. Geralt belonged to that wilderness in ways that he'd never connect to the towns, cities, and habitats lining the countryside. While Cyberpunk 2077 may be denser, it will have to show how those dense spaces have value. That they aren't filled with NPCs and junk that otherwise don't serve a purpose.
Cyberpunk 2077 remains one of the most highly anticipated games that have been currently announced. Instead of a fantasy epic like The Witcher series offered, Cyberpunk 2077 goes in the opposite direction. It portrays a futuristic dark reflection of the modern world, with all of its grit and grime magnified. The result is Night City, a sprawling cityscape filled with towering skyscrapers, dark alleys, and an incredibly diverse range of people spread throughout.
Cyberpunk 2077 releases April 16, 2020, on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Games Radar