As it turns out, there’s a new place to explore in Orion. Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith revealed in an interview at Digital Dragons 2025, “There’s another city that we visit. Night City is still there, but I remember looking at it and going, ‘Yeah, I understand the feel that you’re going for, and this really does work.’

“And it doesn’t feel like Blade Runner. It feels more like Chicago gone wrong. I said, ‘Yeah, I can see this working.'”

It isn’t explicit confirmation that players will venture to Chicago, but there is strong evidence. Billboards in Cyberpunk 2077 touted travel from Night City to Chicago in less than three hours due in 2080, referring to the construction of Night Corp’s maglev connection in the official timeline. Of course, it remains to be seen if Night City is available to explore and how much it’s changed.

Project Orion doesn’t have a release date or official title – it entered the early development stage in February 2024. A job listing from earlier this year revealed that the team is going for the “most realistic and reactive crowd system” yet. Stay tuned for more updates.

Having served as a writer on Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, she also co-led the story on Marvel’s Wolverine. As a senior writer at CD Projekt RED since last month, Kenney is responsible for quests, characters, dialogue, cutscenes and pitching stories for Project Orion per LinkedIn.

Very little is known about it, aside from being in the early development stage as of earlier this year. Though its story and setting are unknown, Associate game director Paweł Sasko promised it would further explore the first game’s themes but in a “very poignant way.”

In the meantime, CD Projekt RED is also focused on Project Polaris, the next mainline title in The Witcher franchise. Over 400 developers have been assigned to the title, but there’s no release window.

The new developers joining the team include veterans like executive producer Dan Hernberg, who previously worked as lead product manager at Blizzard Entertainment; design director Ryan Barnard, previously a game director at Ubisoft Massive and gameplay director at IO Interactive; and engineering director Alan Villani, who worked as VP of technology at WB Games (whose work includes “several” Mortal Kombat titles).

After serving as narrative lead on Fable, Anna Megill joins as lead writer. Her other writing credits include Control, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider and more. Alexander Freed, who worked as a senior writer at BioWare, will also “bolster” the project’s writing. Along with experience in Star Wars: The Old Republic, he also worked on multiple novels in the universe.

Project Orion doesn’t have a release date, but with CD Projekt RED hiring for positions in Boston and Vancouver, there may be more updates in the coming year as development picks up. Stay tuned in the meantime.