Any game developed by CD Projekt RED is going to be held to a very high standard, especially when it comes to things such as writing, quests, and world building. We’ve heard plenty about the quests so far, from the way they will be structured to the approach they will take to tackling themes. Recently, while speaking with PC Gamer, Cyberpunk 2077 quest designer Patrick Mills delved into this a bit more.
According to Mills, CDPR’s goal with every quest in the game has been to “say something about the world” of Cyberpunk 2077, with each quest serving a narrative purpose one way or another, whether that’s for world-building purposes, or on a much smaller, character-centric scale.
“It’s a major goal of ours to make sure all of our quests say something about the world,” said Mills. “Sometimes we’ll just want to explain how something works and build a quest around that. Other times we’ll be going deeper into a theme that’s only touched on in the story. Or maybe it’s driven by character and the quest is built around a personal journey. Our quests are about building the world, setting the mood, and exploring themes.”
CD Projekt RED has, in the past, spoken about the approach they will be taking with the storytelling in Cyberpunk 2077, about how they won’t shy away from discussing political themes in the game, and how they “want to show the game industry how to do things”. What Mills says here is definitely in line with that, and it should be interesting to see how deftly Cyberpunk 2077 handles such things.