Cyberpunk 2077’s sequel will enter development in 2024

CD Projekt has confirmed that the sequel to 2020’s Cyberpunk 2077, codenamed Project Orion, will enter its development phase in 2024.

The details:

• In its recent Q1 2023 earnings conference call, the studio confirmed that the project's research and development phase would begin early next year, following the completion of Cyberpunk's DLC, Phantom Liberty. Some of the company's expenses in recent years have already been related to the title's development, and CD Projekt also stated that it expects a significant increase in costs as development progresses.
• Project Orion was first revealed during the company's Group Strategy Update in October 2022, stating that it will "take the Cyberpunk franchise further and continue harnessing the potential of this dark future universe," though it has not been referred to as a sequel, rather as the next game in the series.
• The title will be developed by CD Projekt Red North America, a newly formed studio based in Boston. The team includes members of the company's Vancouver studio and key Cyberpunk 2077 developers from other locations, such as lead quest designer Paweł Sasko. Using the first game's development as a reference point, CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz estimated that the game's production will involve between 350 and 500 developers.

More upcoming games:

• Raf Grassetti, the former art director for God of War Ragnarök, has joined Netflix Games to work on its AAA project with Halo veteran Joseph Staten, former Coalition Technical Director Jerry Edsall, and ex-Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny.
• According to a few job listings, ZeniMax Online Studios' upcoming MMO IP could be an open-world action RPG that will be released across all major platforms. It's possible that the game will be built with Unreal Engine 5.