It looks like CD Projekt RED is getting ready to further expand Cyberpunk 2077 into new forms of media. According to a report by Deadline, a film adaptation of the title is being produced by Paramount Pictures, with Lorenzo di Bonaventura attached to the project as one of its producers. CD Projekt RED is also slated to be involved with the film.
No details about the project have been revealed yet, aside from the report noting that Paramount has expressed an interest in producing more video game adaptations. The company is currently slated to release Street Fighter, which it co-produced with Legendary, on October 16th. A Call of Duty film is also in development with Peter Berg serving as director and co-writer alongside Taylor Sheridan.
Cyberpunk 2077 – based on the classic tabletop RPG series Cyberpunk 2020 – is set in Night City and tells the story of a young merc named V who gets caught in grand conspiracies that involve massive entities like a Japanese megacorporation. The core narrative revolves around V finding themselves on the brink of death, only being kept alive thanks to a “Relic” inserted into their mental implant that also happens to include the consciousness of a long-dead rebel, Johnny Silverhand.
Originally released in 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 saw a few rocky months before opinion on it shifted to being positive thanks to CD Projekt RED’s work with post-launch updates. The title has gone on to be incredibly successful, and back in July, co-CEO of the studio Michał Nowakowski revealed that it had sold 40 million copies so far. The title would see a DLC that further expanded on its story and introduced new locations and characters – Phantom Liberty – in 2023. The DLC sold 15 million copies.
Celebrating the third anniversary of the DLC, designer Paweł Sasko discussed the challenges behind the development of the base game and how the team had to switch things up when it was time to make Phantom Liberty.
“For Phantom Liberty we moved toward multidisciplinary content teams, our pods, where designers, writers, cinematics, art, audio, QA and many other disciplines could work on the same piece of content together. It took a long time to learn how to work this way, but once it started clicking, I could feel the difference.”
Sasko also expressed the belief that the ultimately successful launch of Phantom Liberty doesn’t necessarily erase the negativity surrounding the launch of Cyberpunk 2077.
“I do not think Phantom Liberty erases the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, and I would never want to tell our story that way. When I stood with Gabe Amatangelo at The Game Awards in 2023 to accept Best Ongoing Game, I thought about all the developers who kept putting their hearts into Cyberpunk and about all of you who stayed with us, came back, or decided to give the game another chance.”
In the meantime, CD Projekt RED is working on a number of projects, including a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. While few details have been revealed, Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith has said that it won’t use Night City as its main setting.
