Asymmetric mercenary leaderboards? Co-op heists? A full-blown GTA Online-style live-service component? The multiplayer possibilities for a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel are easy to imagine, even if they’re hard to implement. A new job posting at CD Projekt Red suggests the studio is at least flirting with some sort of online component for its next sci-fi open-world RPG. It’s a small and noncommittal data point that’s nevertheless part of a larger trend.
“Lead your team to develop and optimize multiplayer systems, including matchmaking, and address challenges related to latency, bandwidth usage, and server performance,” reads part of the job description, first spotted by IGN, for a new engineering role at CDPR’s Boston-based satellite studio leading development on Cyberpunk 2. That ambition gestures toward plans the studio originally had for adding multiplayer to the first game. Plans for that content were later set aside or abandoned as CDPR rushed to prioritize the stability and long-term viability of Cyberpunk 2077 after a disastrous 2020 launch.
Will history repeat itself, or is multiplayer coming to the world of Cyberpunk for real this time? With the big-budget blockbuster still in pre-production as CDPR focuses on The Witcher 4, it’s impossible to say. But it’s clear the Poland-based company has been looking to experiment with multiplayer for some time now. CDPR told investors it was looking to bring “online gameplay” to more of its franchises in a strategy briefing four years ago, and co-CEO Michał Nowakowski told Reuters last year the team was “considering” bringing multiplayer to the next Cyberpunk.
CDPR has also already confirmed at least one multiplayer project: a Witcher spin-off codenamed Project Sirius. That game has been in prolonged development at what used to be called The Molasses Flood, with layoffs, departures, and design pivots reportedly all taking their toll. The studio was officially absorbed into the rest of CDPR earlier this year. “Overall, it shows a very bright future for Project Sirius (aka ‘the multiplayer Witcher game,’ of which I was the Design Director for three years),” Molasses Flood co-founder Damian Isla wrote upon leaving back in March. “It’s going to be an amazing game, one for the books, and I cannot wait until the rest of the world learns about what we’ve been working on.”
One does not simply pivot to making an online multiplayer game any more than one simply walks into Mordor. CDPR’s own struggles with going from the third-person perspective of Witcher 3 to the first-person Cyberpunk 2077 speak to the tech and design difficulties inherent in taking on new development challenges. But it would be cool to see what CDPR can achieve if it takes that next leap. It ultimately worked out in the end for the studio’s last game, even if it took an extra three years after it came out.
