Since CD Projekt RED announced at its Summer Conference that one of its next two AAA+ titles would be a role-playing game based upon Michael Pondsmith's Cyberpunk 2020 pen and paper game, very little information has been forthcoming on the project. CD Projeckt RED did mention that its exploration of this universe would not simply be a re-skinned game based upon the foundation of The Witcher 2 and also released a character rendering to provide some insight into the art style of the game, but there is still a lot that is unknown about Cyberpunk.

To help shed some light on what gamers can expect, CD Projekt RED Community Manager, Marcin Momot, took to the internet to answer some questions from the community.

When asked about the inspiration for Cyberpunk, Momot referenced the usual suspects of the genre, such as the Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell movies. From the video game world, CD Projekt RED also is an admirer of System Shock's "interesting approach to gameplay" and the "first part of Deus Ex." While Cyberpunk's game story will have global implications, the focus of the story will take place in Night City, California, the main venue from the non-digital version of the game.

Momot emphasized that, similar to the The Witcher 2, the story would be aimed toward a mature audience. However, unlike The Witcher series, Cyberpunk will have a non-linear open world for players to explore, which could present a challenge if CD Projekt RED integrates the cause and effect choice system used in its previous RPGs.

For those players that were not happy with The Witcher 2's lack of player customization, never fear. Cyberpunk will be true to its pen and paper roots:

In Cyberpunk, each character role will offer a set of special skills that will impact your stats in many different ways. That’s where the challenge kicks in, we want to create a game where character customization will be strongly tied with the plot. Now going from that, we believe that we can make a game where, with many different role choices, you will get a very strong, engaging story, just like it was with The Witcher...

We definitely want to give players way more freedom with customization of the main protagonist then they had with Geralt in The Witcher series. We are planning on letting them change their statistics, equipment, implants and much more.

The idea of a true open world sci-fi RPG with a fully customizable character sounds very promising, but let's hope that CD Projekt RED will also utilize the strong narrative thread that made The Witcher series so successful.

Source: CD Projekt RED