10 Theories And Predictions For Cyberpunk 2
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VOICE OVER: Aaron Brown
WRITTEN BY: Caitlin Johnson
Dive into the speculative world of Cyberpunk 2 as we explore potential platforms, gameplay mechanics, and exciting theories about CD Projekt Red's upcoming sequel to Cyberpunk 2077! Our exploration covers everything from the confirmed Unreal 5 engine to potential multiplayer modes, intriguing plot possibilities, character returns, and innovative gameplay mechanics that could revolutionize the Cyberpunk universe!
10 Theories & Predictions for Cyberpunk 2
Caitlin Johnson
Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re theorizing what might appear in CD Projekt Red’s confirmed sequel to “Cyberpunk 2077”.
Unreal 5
Some of the only tangible information we have about the next “Cyberpunk” game is that CDPR is going to be using Unreal 5. “2077” used REDengine 4, the latest version of the studio’s proprietary engine. It’s a hugely powerful engine with support for detailed environments, some of the best character animations ever seen in a game, and of course, beautiful lighting even if you don’t have ray tracing turned on. But “2077” had so many technical issues that it’s easy to see why CDPR would make the call to retire its own engine and work with Epic Games. This hopefully means that there will be fewer technical issues with its future releases, and that developers can collaborate with Epic to iron out the kinks.
Multiplayer
Something else we’ve actually had confirmed by CDPR is that its future games are going to have multiplayer components. “2077” was supposed to have a multiplayer component until it was eventually cancelled, but studio leads have also said that they want to incorporate multiplayer into future titles. This doesn’t just mean “Cyberpunk” but also the next “Witcher” games, and there’s no information on what form this would take. Maybe it’ll be a competitive multiplayer mode, or maybe it’ll be more collaborative, like “GTA Online”. Since CDPR already draws so much inspiration from Rockstar, this makes sense, but we really hope multiplayer doesn’t get in the way of its single-player experiences.
Setting
We’re now into the realm of speculation and theorizing about where the next game might be set. Night City is the obvious choice, being the TTRPG’s most iconic setting, but it’s not the only location. Other California cities like LA and San Francisco are also important in the world. It’s also possible that we move further afield, to cities like Hong Kong and Tokyo, which also have their own complex lore in the world of “Cyberpunk”. But not every RPG needs to constantly move its setting; most of the “Like a Dragon” games make liberal use of Kamurocho, making it deeper with each new release and only recently adding new regions to the series. So, we COULD see Night City continue, but made even bigger with the addition of new, internal spaces.
Plot
We have no idea what the plot would be, though some speculate that we’ll be heading a decade into the future at least. This would be interesting since it enables CDPR to build new lore without being beholden to the long history of the world in the TTRPG. On the other hand, though, could we potentially get a prequel? People loved it when “GTA” went back in time to give us “Vice City”, and “Red Dead 2” is a prequel even more beloved than the original. Could we go back decades and see crucial events like the Corpo Wars actually play out? This way, CDPR wouldn’t have to account for players having drastically different endings in the first game. At the same time, people generally like the story moving forward, but it could move away from themes like AI to the TTRPG’s other big topics, like nuclear war.
Characters
Prequel or sequel, there are plenty of characters we could see come back. Johnny Silverhand likely wouldn’t return for a sequel set in the future considering the vastly different endings for him, and the same goes for V. But other figures like Rogue and some of the nomads could come back or be seen at an earlier point in time, along with the various fixers V gets side quests from. We still want to see plenty of new characters, of course, and it could be tricky to account for the different endings available for each of the romance options, for instance. Still, other studios – notably, BioWare – have done it before in their RPGs, and CDPR is nothing if not ambitious, so we’re sure fan-favorite characters will be reincorporated in interesting ways.
Prologues
This is something we’d love to be expanded. “Cyberpunk 2077” did have three prologues, but each was only about thirty minutes long and V ultimately ends up pretty much being a street kid regardless of how you start the game. We’d love to see longer, deeper prologues that have a bigger effect on later events than just a few dialogue options. Again, this is something BioWare has done before, but only with “Dragon Age: Origins” – after that, it was largely abandoned, despite being a phenomenal way to begin an RPG. If the prologues had wider consequences and were maybe an hour to two hours long, that would be a great way to reintroduce people to the world.
Classes
Just like V is always basically a street kid, they’re also always basically a solo, which is the TTRPG’s name for combat-focused mercenaries. You can break the game by investing enough in the quick-hacking skill, and the skill tree has been reworked numerous times, but we’d love to see a more complex class system. Though some RPG makers, like Obsidian and Bethesda, don’t always have classes you choose at the beginning and instead let you specialise in the areas you want without locking off others, it’s still fun to make that choice to commit to one class at the beginning. There were also some playstyles from the TTRPG that never made it into the first game, like the Rockerboy role. Yes, Johnny’s a Rockerboy technically, but in terms of his gameplay, he’s still essentially a solo as well.
Cyberware with Consequences
In the TTRPG, cyberware has a “Humanity Cost” to install, and the more cyberware you install, the lower your humanity. When it reaches zero you enter cyberpsychosis, which means you lose control of your character, and they become an NPC. Cyberpsychos featured heavily in “Cyberpunk 2077”, but V can’t ever become one no matter how many implants they get. We want a sequel to have genuine consequences for installing too much cyberware, so that cyberware has positive and negative consequences that make you really weigh up whether it’s worth it to get those fancy new arms. It would be a great way to get people to engage with the gameplay, increasing the number of ways there are to actually play.
Ciri
Will we see Ciri in the next “Cyberpunk” game? Plenty of people hope so, and that’s all thanks to an Easter egg in “The Witcher 3”. While asking Ciri about her travels through time and space, she reveals that she visited a world that sounds suspiciously like Night City. Many thought we might get a Ciri cameo in the first game, but that didn’t happen – we were stuck with cameos from Hideo Kojima and Grimes. We also know almost nothing about the new “Witcher” games, though few would be disappointed if at least one of them had Ciri as the main, playable character instead of Geralt. Could we see her original visit to Night City? Or could she return there on purpose? Hopefully, we’ll find out before the end of this decade.
Release
Since we know almost nothing about the game, we also know almost nothing about when it will release. It took eight years from “Cyberpunk 2077” being announced in 2012 to the game launching, and another two years or so for it to achieve its full potential. With this in mind, we may be looking at the 2030s for the next game, unless using Unreal 5 expedites the process. We’re also almost certainly looking at it releasing across consoles whenever this does happen, but who knows what consoles they will be. PlayStation 6? Xbox 720? Nintendo Switch 3? Or a brand-new platform that doesn’t even exist yet? We don’t know that, either, nor do we know what the game will be called – but it probably WON’T be called “Cyberpunk 2078” or “Cyberpunk 2”.
Let us know in the comments what you think CDPR should do with the game to make it your dream sequel.
Caitlin Johnson
Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re theorizing what might appear in CD Projekt Red’s confirmed sequel to “Cyberpunk 2077”.
Unreal 5
Some of the only tangible information we have about the next “Cyberpunk” game is that CDPR is going to be using Unreal 5. “2077” used REDengine 4, the latest version of the studio’s proprietary engine. It’s a hugely powerful engine with support for detailed environments, some of the best character animations ever seen in a game, and of course, beautiful lighting even if you don’t have ray tracing turned on. But “2077” had so many technical issues that it’s easy to see why CDPR would make the call to retire its own engine and work with Epic Games. This hopefully means that there will be fewer technical issues with its future releases, and that developers can collaborate with Epic to iron out the kinks.
Multiplayer
Something else we’ve actually had confirmed by CDPR is that its future games are going to have multiplayer components. “2077” was supposed to have a multiplayer component until it was eventually cancelled, but studio leads have also said that they want to incorporate multiplayer into future titles. This doesn’t just mean “Cyberpunk” but also the next “Witcher” games, and there’s no information on what form this would take. Maybe it’ll be a competitive multiplayer mode, or maybe it’ll be more collaborative, like “GTA Online”. Since CDPR already draws so much inspiration from Rockstar, this makes sense, but we really hope multiplayer doesn’t get in the way of its single-player experiences.
Setting
We’re now into the realm of speculation and theorizing about where the next game might be set. Night City is the obvious choice, being the TTRPG’s most iconic setting, but it’s not the only location. Other California cities like LA and San Francisco are also important in the world. It’s also possible that we move further afield, to cities like Hong Kong and Tokyo, which also have their own complex lore in the world of “Cyberpunk”. But not every RPG needs to constantly move its setting; most of the “Like a Dragon” games make liberal use of Kamurocho, making it deeper with each new release and only recently adding new regions to the series. So, we COULD see Night City continue, but made even bigger with the addition of new, internal spaces.
Plot
We have no idea what the plot would be, though some speculate that we’ll be heading a decade into the future at least. This would be interesting since it enables CDPR to build new lore without being beholden to the long history of the world in the TTRPG. On the other hand, though, could we potentially get a prequel? People loved it when “GTA” went back in time to give us “Vice City”, and “Red Dead 2” is a prequel even more beloved than the original. Could we go back decades and see crucial events like the Corpo Wars actually play out? This way, CDPR wouldn’t have to account for players having drastically different endings in the first game. At the same time, people generally like the story moving forward, but it could move away from themes like AI to the TTRPG’s other big topics, like nuclear war.
Characters
Prequel or sequel, there are plenty of characters we could see come back. Johnny Silverhand likely wouldn’t return for a sequel set in the future considering the vastly different endings for him, and the same goes for V. But other figures like Rogue and some of the nomads could come back or be seen at an earlier point in time, along with the various fixers V gets side quests from. We still want to see plenty of new characters, of course, and it could be tricky to account for the different endings available for each of the romance options, for instance. Still, other studios – notably, BioWare – have done it before in their RPGs, and CDPR is nothing if not ambitious, so we’re sure fan-favorite characters will be reincorporated in interesting ways.
Prologues
This is something we’d love to be expanded. “Cyberpunk 2077” did have three prologues, but each was only about thirty minutes long and V ultimately ends up pretty much being a street kid regardless of how you start the game. We’d love to see longer, deeper prologues that have a bigger effect on later events than just a few dialogue options. Again, this is something BioWare has done before, but only with “Dragon Age: Origins” – after that, it was largely abandoned, despite being a phenomenal way to begin an RPG. If the prologues had wider consequences and were maybe an hour to two hours long, that would be a great way to reintroduce people to the world.
Classes
Just like V is always basically a street kid, they’re also always basically a solo, which is the TTRPG’s name for combat-focused mercenaries. You can break the game by investing enough in the quick-hacking skill, and the skill tree has been reworked numerous times, but we’d love to see a more complex class system. Though some RPG makers, like Obsidian and Bethesda, don’t always have classes you choose at the beginning and instead let you specialise in the areas you want without locking off others, it’s still fun to make that choice to commit to one class at the beginning. There were also some playstyles from the TTRPG that never made it into the first game, like the Rockerboy role. Yes, Johnny’s a Rockerboy technically, but in terms of his gameplay, he’s still essentially a solo as well.
Cyberware with Consequences
In the TTRPG, cyberware has a “Humanity Cost” to install, and the more cyberware you install, the lower your humanity. When it reaches zero you enter cyberpsychosis, which means you lose control of your character, and they become an NPC. Cyberpsychos featured heavily in “Cyberpunk 2077”, but V can’t ever become one no matter how many implants they get. We want a sequel to have genuine consequences for installing too much cyberware, so that cyberware has positive and negative consequences that make you really weigh up whether it’s worth it to get those fancy new arms. It would be a great way to get people to engage with the gameplay, increasing the number of ways there are to actually play.
Ciri
Will we see Ciri in the next “Cyberpunk” game? Plenty of people hope so, and that’s all thanks to an Easter egg in “The Witcher 3”. While asking Ciri about her travels through time and space, she reveals that she visited a world that sounds suspiciously like Night City. Many thought we might get a Ciri cameo in the first game, but that didn’t happen – we were stuck with cameos from Hideo Kojima and Grimes. We also know almost nothing about the new “Witcher” games, though few would be disappointed if at least one of them had Ciri as the main, playable character instead of Geralt. Could we see her original visit to Night City? Or could she return there on purpose? Hopefully, we’ll find out before the end of this decade.
Release
Since we know almost nothing about the game, we also know almost nothing about when it will release. It took eight years from “Cyberpunk 2077” being announced in 2012 to the game launching, and another two years or so for it to achieve its full potential. With this in mind, we may be looking at the 2030s for the next game, unless using Unreal 5 expedites the process. We’re also almost certainly looking at it releasing across consoles whenever this does happen, but who knows what consoles they will be. PlayStation 6? Xbox 720? Nintendo Switch 3? Or a brand-new platform that doesn’t even exist yet? We don’t know that, either, nor do we know what the game will be called – but it probably WON’T be called “Cyberpunk 2078” or “Cyberpunk 2”.
Let us know in the comments what you think CDPR should do with the game to make it your dream sequel.
