Project Orion, the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 unofficially known as “Cyberpunk 2,, is in an early stage of production at CD Projekt Red and their new studio in the United States. A notable characteristic of the team is that about half of the developers working on the RPG missions started as modders, reflecting a growing trend in the gaming industry to value and leverage the talent of the modding community.
Pawel Sasko, responsible for missions in Cyberpunk 2077 and now associate director of the sequel, highlighted in an interview with Flow Games the importance of mods and the composition of the team. “Half of the missions team [of Cyberpunk 2], the team that creates the missions, is currently made up of 24 people, half of whom are former modders,” said Sasko. Some of these modders previously created mods for company games, such as The Witcher or Cyberpunk 2077, while others, including the game’s mission director himself, created mods for other games, such as StarCraft.
Sasko also mentioned that the company has a small team called Jigsoft, composed exclusively of modders. This team, made up of approximately 20 people, was responsible for developing the modding tools for The Witcher 3. “I don’t want to call them subcontractors because they’re not really, they’re part of us. We work together on various things,” Sasko added.
The associate director of Cyberpunk 2 praised the value of mods and encouraged aspiring developers to start in the industry through mod creation. “I always advise young people, when they ask me how to get into the industry, to make mods,” Sasko commented. “Some of the best people we have are former mod creators.”
Mods played a crucial role in improving the state of Cyberpunk 2077, which was released with a large number of bugs and issues. Some ideas that emerged as mods became full features in later updates, such as a functional subway in Night City, thus demonstrating the importance and positive impact of modification in the development and evolution of video games.
Source: GamesRadar
