CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2 is years away from release, but fans are still eagerly awaiting the upcoming sequel. As it turns out, a significant number of fans are also actively working on the game with half of the game’s quest team consisting of modders.
Right now, Cyberpunk 2 is still in pre-production with the game’s concepts continually evolving within CDPR’s new Boston studio. While the game appears to be taking the same first-person-only stance as the original, we have no idea what the game’s narrative hook will be.
With that said, Cyberpunk 2 associate game director and former quest design lead on Cyberpunk 2077 confirmed in a recent livestream that much of the new game’s quest team consists of modders from previous CDPR games.
Sasko explained that modding is still “a foot-in-the-door technique, and a gateway into game dev”. While Cyberpunk 2 is moving from RedEngine to Unreal Engine 5, modders showed how to make content that fits the world and vibe of the RPG franchise, which was invaluable to CDPR’s new studio.
“You can see and you can learn how things are made—how things can be built,” Sasko continued. “We actually hired so many modders [for Cyberpunk 2]. I would say, at this point, half of the quest team is all former modders.”
Sasko explained that these modders aren’t just from Cyberpunk 2077, but prior games as well. “They were are modders before of The Witcher 3, Witcher 2, you know, before we hired them and they’re part of our company, and it’s a wonderful way to actually start your career and really learn and see how to actually built those things.”
For CDPR, this is why modding is so important with the studio hoping to continue supporting modders into the future. If their games support modding and help create new generations of modders, then they’ve in turn created the next generation of CDPR developers as well.
“That’s just another thing that really excited me,” he said. “That we can keep kind of pushing this thing and make it more available for more players.”
The Witcher and Cyberpunk games are not games that require mods to be enjoyed, but modders have created some truly spectacular experiences for both. (I’m proud to announce myself as a strong lover of The Witcher 3 cloaks mods which give Geralt unparalleled pizzaz).
With that said, mods bring additional longevity to pretty much every game that supports modding, and Cyberpunk specifically has hugely benefitted from the work of modders. From new missions to perks and skill tree reworks, it’s understandable why many only play CDPR’s iconic RPG with mods enabled, and hiring those incredible creators is a great step towards creating an unforgettable sequel.
