Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City Shows Natural Progress From Cyberpunk 2020’s World

Cyberpunk 2077 is looking to be one of the biggest games to come out in 2020, and considering how loaded next year is, that is saying something. But it can be easy to forget that the game is actually based on a previous property in Cyberpunk 2020. But the developers haven’t forgotten, not by a long shot, and they have put a lot of work into remembering it and envisioning the world of 2020, and what it would look like over five decades later.

Talking to GamesIndustry, Concept Art Coordinator Marthe Jonkers said that the team looked at 2020, as well as the many cyberpunk films, television shows, and books that inspired it. She says they tried their best to think what the world that was envisioned in Cyberpunk 2020 would actually look like from that time period to 57 years in the future, while making sure that you still recognize the style.

“Our team has probably seen every cyberpunk movie that exists, we’ve read the books, and we know we have this all in our head,” she said. “We know the whole canon of cyberpunk. But we still wanted to create something that was really fresh and new.

“We did that by really tapping into the lore that was created in the ’80s with Cyberpunk 2020, and also taking this timeline — between 2020 and 2077 — and letting those events that happened in-between define the way that Night City will look in 2077.

“Really early in the project, we were thinking about it. Our art directors mostly were really trying to nail down this sort of visual background for Night City. And that we use really as a guideline for the visual styles in the game, and you will actually see a lot of old styles reflected in the fashion and the weapon designs.”

The original creator of Cyberpunk 2020 seems pretty impressed with it. Those familiar with the source will no doubt find a little extra to love because of that, but it’s a game that’s hopefully going to connect with a lot of people regardless when it launches April 16th, 2020.