It is evident that there are enormous differences between The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt RED has been able to hook thousands of players with totally opposite experiences set in two radically different fantasy and sci-fi contexts. However, here we want to focus solely on the narrative and the way the Polish team designed the cinematics to tell the adventure of Geralt of Rivia and V‘s journey through Night City. After all, the decision to develop the sci-fi RPG in first person gave rise to a good handful of difficulties when it came to creating immersive scenes.

Luke Dale, the actor who brought Hans Capon to life in the Kingdom Come: Deliverance saga, had the opportunity to visit CD Projekt RED‘s offices in person to chat with some of the professionals who worked on The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. One of them is Maciej Pietras, animation director, who highlighted the particularities relating to the design of first-person scenes. “I don’t think we were pioneers in it. I remember that when I started, I was the head of animation on cinematics, and we had that moment of asking ourselves: how do you make a first-person scene? And I remember I opened YouTube, we started searching for something like, ‘first-person cinematics’ and there wasn’t a lot,” he explains in the conversation with Dale.

“I think, from the beginning, we knew there were reasons why nobody was making an open-world RPG with first-person scenes without cuts. We didn’t know exactly what it would entail… We learned it on the go [laughs].” Basically, CD Projekt RED realized that designing a cinematic in a “controlled” space in The Witcher 3 gave greater command of the situation and the details that appear in the scene. However, this work had to be approached in a completely different way in Cyberpunk 2077; which meant facing challenges that had never come up when developing the Geralt of Rivia game.

And this detail did not go unnoticed among other professionals in the video game industry. “After the game launched, we had friends from other companies who, after seeing some of the more complicated scenes we had in the game, asked us very directly: ‘Guys, are you crazy?'” continues Pietras in his chat with Dale. “Because it’s a crazy way to approach the narrative, but it’s how you get that immersion.”

The Need to Think Beyond the Main Scene

To understand the dilemmas that CD Projekt RED members faced with Cyberpunk 2077, Pietras compares the design of The Witcher 3‘s cinematics with directing a stage play. “In a way, you have a stage in which many things can happen, or not. We want the player to have their attention focused on something they’re looking at; we want specific actions to occur within that specific frame. Meanwhile, other things are stopped,” explains the animation director. “In Cyberpunk 2077, you enter a scene and the characters were already there. If you go to Afterlife, Rogue is sitting at her bar and she’s waiting for you because it’s a mission. But she’s not doing anything; there are people coming in and out, she’s in a conversation and the player can interact at any moment.”

Translating this concept into development implies performing work that is not limited solely to designing the events that will occur within the main scene. Basically, CD Projekt RED had to “predict” the way in which an interaction with a cinematic would be initiated, make sure its conclusion connected in the “most fluid way possible” to the gameplay experience, and plan what would happen “when the player leaves the scene.” “So we weren’t thinking only about the cinematic, but we also had to think about [what happened] before and after.”

“And you also use any kind of ‘trick.’ Because, as happens in movies or in video games where there are camera cuts, you can tell the story using any means that are necessary. So you make cuts,” continues the professional. “And that kind of trick is a way of telling stories. But, in Cyberpunk 2077, we realized that there are no shortcuts. There are no half-measures. Everything must be done exactly the way you want it to be done to tell this story.”

Be that as it may, CD Projekt RED finally managed to apply that philosophy of designing a scene without thinking only about what would happen within the cinematic. And the result has received good ratings from players, as many agree that the sci-fi RPG has imbued an additional sense of immersion into the experience thanks to that first-person approach; a perspective that, if there are no surprises along the way, could return for the future sequel.

Source: 3djuegos