Cyberpunk 2077 taught CD Projekt to be less subtle with player choices in Phantom Liberty
Player feedback on Cyberpunk 2077 led CD Projekt to change how it handled choice and consequence in Phantom Liberty.
This is according to the game’s quest director Pawel Sasko, who has discussed the effect the reception to the base game’s story had on that of its expansion during a recent interview with YouTuber TheNeonArcade (thanks PCGamesN). Acknowledging that, in terms of both gameplay and storytelling, the studio “knew that players were, like, unhappy with certain things”, Sasko explained that it adopted a different approach in terms of making people aware of how they were influencing the world around them in Phantom Liberty.
The quest director identified the need to more clearly “telegraph” the consequences of choices as “one of the really big conclusions and important conclusions from Cyberpunk”. “We were so subtle in places in Cyberpunk that players didn’t realise (certain choices and consequences were playing out),” Sasko said, citing the fact that some different branches were only noticed by those who’d put around “200 hours or 1000 hours” into the game because CD Projekt wasn’t “telegraphing clearly enough.”