New details about CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077 continue to emerge following impressions and previews from last month. One such interesting detail comes from Spider’s Web which spoke to lead quest designer Pawel Sasko. As it turns out, you can finish the game without completing the main quest.
Sasko notes the difference in design from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. “We built the Cyberpunk structure based on the conclusions we drew from The Witcher 3. The Witcher had the main stem of history and side threads departing from it, and this was our main structure, which we call the ear. So in Cyberpunk’s structure we have this wheat spike, which serves as its center, the main storyline with different subplots surrounding it, which can be triggered in various ways.
“Those subplots allow us to do something that we have never done before – they change the main plot of the game and they are doing that in such a way that you may not even finish the main plot, but still finish the game and get a completely different epilogue than the player with a different Life Path who made different choices, met different characters and formed relationships with them.”
Your Life Path will also influence how certain characters like Jackie are encountered, with circumstances differing depending on whether you’re a Nomad or Corporate. “This is a bit of a butterfly effect. This is one example where right at the very beginning your choice defines what your world will look like in the game.” Of course, some quests will be exclusive to different Life Paths, lending even more variety to how the game plays out.
Cyberpunk 2077 is out on November 19th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. It will be playable on Xbox Series X and PS5 from day one but full next-gen versions are planned for next year. Stay tuned for more updates especially with CD Projekt RED planning another Night City Wire for the coming days.