Cyberpunk 2077’s design had one key flaw, says developer

techradar.com:

Cyberpunk 2077 developer and level designer Miles Tost has given his best assessment of what exactly went wrong with the level design in CD Projekt Red’s sci-fi RPG. 

In a panel at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Tost took the opportunity to offer observations as to his own level design philosophy as well as his account of where the team could have done better with Cyberpunk 2077. Tost made it clear that “we pride ourselves on being storytellers, and we didn’t want to stop a player’s lack of foresight from [preventing them] enjoying the narrative” (via IGN(opens in new tab)).  

What this amounted to in practice, however, was the existence of a “generic path”, available to anyone who didn’t spec their character in a particular direction. This path was often obvious and, therefore, encouraged players to gravitate towards it instead of finding their own path based on their bespoke playstyle. 

When speaking of what he learned from this mistake, he concluded that “we need to treat paths as special [because] this is what creates value in the choices players make.” He also remarked that Cyberpunk 2077 was often filled with bottlenecks which served to undermine the sense of player agency offered by the game. 

Tost also touched on the ambition at the heart of Cyberpunk 2077. The game aimed to be a “gigantic leap forward” for CD Projekt Red. “As insane as it sounded, it also sounded f*cking awesome, and boy we were up to the challenge.” 

Tost used his panel, entitled “What Cyberpunk 2077 Taught Us About Non-Linear Level Design”, to illustrate his three-pronged approach to level design. A great level must have the “perception of distance” between the different paths on offer, a feeling of exclusivity for each given path, and,