Q+A : MAX PEARS

Level designer, Cyberpunk 2077

How does open quest design affect level design? When there are so many ways to approach any given mission, how does that change the way you design a playspace?

It’s one of the most freeing projects I’ve worked on in terms of just pure creativity, but also definitely an overwhelming one when you think about looking at a blank screen. But that fluidity of choice, whether that be your cyberware, your abilities, your perks, your guns, how you play, all of these really open up the space for us. So we’re thinking about how all of these intertwine, because sometimes you’re not going to just stick to one playstyle either. Really thinking about how we adapt the levels to give you that choice has been one of the biggest challenges for us as LDs, and also one of the most rewarding. It all comes down to constantly testing, playing it through in as many different ways as we can and seeing how it plays out.

So where does that process begin? Do you start by thinking about the story you’re telling, where you are in the city, or the abilities the players are going to use?

We have nine LDs in total, five here and four in Krakow, and we’re so close with many other teams. Whether it be our quest team, gameplay team, environment, art, story, there are tons of amazing people that go into making such a huge project like this. And it’s about communication – understanding what’s available for us as LDs, that’s what helps make our levels so exciting. It’s like: okay, what can a netrunner do? What can we hack to distract or what can we hack to explode? Thinking about a player who wants to go in guns blazing is about thinking where the cover is for that player. What kind of enemies are they going to encounter to make them move forward or push back? All of these questions come into it. But yeah, it’s firstly about understanding what the point of that mission is. What’s the story, and how do we tell it? Secondly, it’s about what’s available to us in terms of mechanics and obviously communicating with art on making it look much better and how all that ties into the previous elements.

At the same time it has to function as a realistic city, too, albeit a futuristic one. How much artistic licence does that give you?

It is a tough one to balance for sure. But luckily for us, we have that foundation of the tabletop game so we can learn how Mike Pondsmith originally envisioned it to be, and how we can play with that. And then we’re thinking about how the future has changed. Now it’s not necessarily our future, the world we’re living in. But it is a path that we could go down if things take a bad turn. And understanding we have that freedom because at CD Projekt Red we really want to leave our mark on this genre. There are so many amazing pieces of work that have been part of the genre, but we want to make sure that this is our stamp on how we envision – along with Mike Pondsmith, obviously – cyberpunk.

How does the world-building process differ from The Witcher III?

It’s definitely very different, when you think about The Witcher and the different kind of places you can visit – Skellige, Novigrad – while here everything takes place within Night City.

For us, it’s about making sure that each kind of sub-district has its own vibe. And also understanding how the city is built. Last year we showed you Pacifica and how that is desolate compared to Watson. And that’s because cities need funding, and due to corruption and other factors, funding for that part of the city stopped. So it’s elements like that, and also how a city layers itself because it’s such a dense place. It’s not going to spread out compared to The Witcher. It’s about building up, as I’m sure you’ll have noticed when you’re driving through, you have all these different roads and buildings and alleys piled on top of one another. We definitely look around for architecture experience – we have urban planners, who help us plan out the city and how it should feel like a real city as well as allowing those gameplay opportunities.

Is the tabletop game a constant reference point? Yeah, it’s been a huge inspiration. A lot of us have the guidebook on our desks. I’ve played the tabletop [game] through. And it’s always something that we come back to, to help us. Obviously there are slight deviations from it. But it is something we do refer to to make sure that we understand, because it’s such a solid foundation. There’s a reason the book’s, like, [gestures] that thick, you know, because it has so much information for us to digest. And the amount of options that you have when you play a tabletop game inspired us to give players a similar amount of options to play with in Cyberpunk.

You mentioned making your mark on the cyberpunk genre, but we imagine it’s true of the open-world genre, too. Is there a degree of competition there – not just with other sandbox games, but also with yourselves?

Definitely. I mean, there’s no bad blood or ill will towards any other studios or any other games because everyone in this industry moves the medium forward together. But especially coming from The Witcher III, which was such a huge success with such a great world that people spent hours exploring, it’s very much a competition and a different understanding within ourselves as a team. We’ve set the benchmark already in one previous game, and we’re trying to always do the same. So it’s about always going through and trying to make things better, but it’s also understanding that there is a difference and asking how we push those differences to being a benefit. But yeah, we’re always trying to make genre-defining and groundbreaking games.

We’ve talked about trying to cater to different playstyles and builds, and including as many interactive elements as possible. That must create headaches for the technical team. Do they ever ask you to tone it down a bit?

Yeah, I mean, I just put it all in a spam folder, right? The emails never reach me. [Laughs] No, it’s obviously a constant discussion about rules, regulations, how to make things work for the tech. But we’ve got some really incredible minds working on it, which makes my job easier. And like I say, communication’s key. We just make sure we’re constantly talking.

Plenty of open-world games aim to wow the player from the off, only to fail to sustain that standard for their duration. Can the rest of Night City really support this level of detail and dynamism, this many distractions? “Any open-world game has struggled with maintaining that,” level designer Max Pears says, “but it’s something we’ve kept in mind throughout, as we’re designing the city and the events to keep them at a quality standard. It’s definitely tough but we’re constantly pushing to make sure that feeling of amazement continues all the way through”