CD Projekt RED have hinted at having destructible environments in their upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 in the past. When they released the 50 minute long gameplay demonstration not too long ago, among other things, several people also noticed that the environments were, at least to a certain level, destructible, and seemed to be deteriorating and reacting to bullets appropriately during firefights.
Given the kind of immersion the game is going for, it’s fair to say that destructibility would benefit it greatly. How much of it will be present though? GamingBolt posed this question to level designer Miles Tost, who told us that that’s something CD Projekt RED are looking at as an important element in their game. Tost said that the environments in Cyberpunk 2077 would “react to your presence”, and that they’d make the game more immersive and its world more believable.
“We believe that having a world you can interact with and which reacts to your presence is a key part of a good open-world experience,” Tost said. “Dynamic environments ultimately serve to fulfill that promise exactly: they help to enhance your immersion, the game world to become more alive and believable, and — what’s especially important when it comes to Cyberpunk 2077 — add a whole different level of weight and grit. Combat becomes that much more vicious too, enhancing the feeling of a world shrouded in violence and danger. Given all that, let me just say that we’re working hard on making sure that our environments look just as good when they’re untouched as when they’re getting blown up, without sacrificing the performance.”
While it’s fair to assume that a game in an open world setting in such a dense environment, with a focus on having guided narrative experience more than anything else, wouldn’t have fully destructible environments (Red Faction this won’t be), it’ll be interesting to see how far CDPR take this aspect of the experience nonetheless.