Update: Mike Pondsmith has come forward to clear some confusion about the timeline changes. While he does say some changes “will affect the timeline,” they won’t be creating a new one. Hence, Cyberpunk 2077 is set in the same timeline. The article has been edited to more accurately represent Pondsmith’s statement.
The messaging from CD Projekt RED seems confused since the developer itself has been calling it a “parallel timeline.” Here’s a quote from the following video:
Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t only set 50-years after the source material but it also takes place in a parallel timeline.
So next time, before virtue signalling publications like Dualshockers accuse SegmentNext, Game Rant, and Daily Star of spreading incorrect information and fake news, they should dig a bit more into the story. Isn’t that our job?
Original Story: Cyberpunk 2077 is a direct continuation of Cyberpunk 2020, according to Mike Pondsmith. Speaking at PAX West, Pondsmith confirmed that many changes are made to the world and story of Cyberpunk 2077.
Although he couldn’t confirm the changes due to obvious reasons. When asked about how the world has evolved since 2020, Pondsmith said that while he can not talk about it in detail, there are differences in the timeline.
Let’s say that at this point, we plan to continue the timeline and you will see the things that you saw in 2020, but they will somewhat be changed. And that will affect both the timeline and also the fact that cellphones went from the size of the brick to the size your thump, and than again to the size of a brick. So you are going to see some shifts in technology.
What he means to say is that technology we’ll experience in the game won’t be exactly the way it was portrayed in the world of Cyberpunk 2020. Such changes were expected to be made, even The Witcher isn’t the direct continuation of its books.
Speaking of the world of Cyberpunk, CD PR mentioned that the game is not about saving the world, its main focus is going to be the quests.
The way that we develop side quests is very often by looking at the main story; after we’ve written out and sketched out the main story we find the characters that maybe we want to spend more time with, themes, or even bits of old main story that aren’t getting used anymore.
And for us, our rule for side quests is that the story has to be something that you’ve never seen before, there’s gotta be something in this story that’s different. It’s never gonna feel like, ‘Go here, do that’. It’s you go there and do that and then something happens.
The 48-minute gameplay footage gave us our first look at Night City, a city that shows what might the future hold for the United States. Cyberpunk 2077 is still a long way from release but it should arrive in the next two years on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
While everything sounds great as far as story and gameplay go, some aspects of the game are surrounded by controversy. Some want to see more gender options in the game while others are mad over an inappropriate joke CD PR Twitter made.
