CD Projekt Red Announces Partnership with PvP-Focused Studio for Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projekt Red is still hard at work on Cyberpunk 2077, their next triple-A franchise and probably the biggest game of 20XX. The game isn’t nearly as mysterious as it was ages and ages ago, but one question that has largely remained unexplored is the issue of multiplayer. We already know that the game isn’t going to launch with multiplayer, but early reports in 2016 indicated that the game would have “seamless multiplayer”, that was described:

“Comprehensive technology enables the creation of unique gameplay for many players, taking into account the search of opponents, session management, replication facilities, and support of a variety of game modes along with a unique set of dedicated tools.”

We haven’t heard much anything about those plans specifically, but recently we got an indication that CD Projekt Red is still working on multiplayer, by announcing that they would be partnering long-term with another studio, Digital Scapes, which calls itself “a video game development studio specializing in bespoke PvP gameplay for AAA PC and console titles.”

Digital Scapes, in the likely situation you haven’t heard of them, worked together with Techland to create the competitive PvP game for Dying Light, Be The Zombie. And while CD Projekt Red has not clarified what exactly they plan to do with Digital Scapes, they do point out that they specialize in triple-A multiplayer games, which means that it’s very likely they’ll be working with something in that capacity.

It’s not terribly unusual for games to have external studios work on their multiplayer modes, especially if those modes vary wildly from the way the main game plays: as an extremely random example, Bioshock 2’s underrated multiplayer mode was developed by Digital Extremes.

As for what this actually tells us about this theoretical mode? Very little. But I have to imagine CD Projekt Red will be willing to discuss the issue in the near future, so we’ll have to hold our breaths and see.