Cyberpunk 2077 augments its team with Dying Light's PvP crew
Don't get too excited yet, though
CD Projekt Red today announced an interesting partnership today with small studio Digital Scapes, with initial plans for them to work on upcoming mega-budget immersive sim Cyberpunk 2077. Digital Scapes recently made some waves through their work on Dying Light's surprisingly entertaining asymmetrical PvP mode while Techland focused on the single-player side of the game.
Tempting as that sounds, the announcement says that Digital Scapes will "closely cooperate with CD Projekt Red on creating and optimising technological solutions for use in the development of Cyberpunk 2077". Delightfully vague - that doesn't mean a possible multiplayer bonus mode is entirely off the cards, but don't go getting your hopes up - it's interesting to speculate on, though.
As well as their work on Dying Light's multiplayer, Digital Scapes are notable for their work on R&D, telemetry and analytics, according to an older version of their now-updated company blurb - stuff that would undoubtedly be useful for a game as complex as Cyberpunk 2077. Internal testing will only tell you so much through reports but good telemetry can tell you an enormous amount about players - this video from excellent YouTube channel "AI And Games" goes into the process of gathering and deciphering player information.
Multiplayer is still an outside possibility, however, and an external crew handling it would make sense. In an interview with CD Projekt Red's Patrick Mills at E3, Eurogamer did get him to admit that possible multiplayer was "in R&D", but the studio were still focusing on Cyberpunk 2077 as a single-player experience.
So far, CD Projekt Red have managed to keep a tight lid of their game. Even after demoing it at E3, they kept the game out of the public's view until the end of August and their surprise release of the gameplay walkthrough video above. I could speculate until the cows come home on this particular partnership, but could just as easily be blindsided by a bonus feature (or nothing at all) when the game launches.
As for the big picture on what's happening with Cyberpunk 2077, check out Dave Irwin's all-encompassing Wot We Know guide to the game.