Cyberpunk 2's Dev Team Has Nearly Doubled to 184 People as CD Projekt Red Builds Toward a Second City

Cyberpunk 2 is getting bigger, and this is not rumor bigger or an anonymous insider posting an emoji. CD Projekt Red has expanded the Cyberpunk 2 development team to 184 people, nearly double the size it was when the game entered pre-production. Night City is returning, there is apparently another city, and according to Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith it feels like Chicago gone wrong.

Reality Check: Cyberpunk 2 Isn't Revealed Yet, But the 184-Person Team Is Real

Before getting into how ambitious this looks, a reality check is in order. Cyberpunk 2 has not been fully revealed. There is no trailer, no gameplay, and no release date, and Cyberpunk 2 might not even be its final name. It was originally announced under the code name Project Orion, and CD Projekt Red has only described it as the next major game in the Cyberpunk universe. Unlike a lot of games, though, this one is real, and the team behind it is growing fast.

When Cyberpunk 2 officially entered pre-production in 2025, CD Projekt Red said 96 developers were working on the game. As of July 31st, that number had grown to 184, almost double the manpower in a little over a year. That does not mean the game is anywhere close to finished. The Witcher 4 currently has, I believe, over 500 developers attached to it, so Cyberpunk 2 is still building toward full production. But there are no longer just a handful of people sitting in a Boston office drawing Night City on a whiteboard.

The foundation is built, systems are being tested, and the team keeps expanding. Once The Witcher 4 gets closer to release, more developers will almost certainly shift over to Cyberpunk 2, and that is where the team size should really explode. Development is being led by CD Projekt Red's North American operation, with teams in Boston and Vancouver receiving support from the company's developers in Poland.

The Team Includes Phantom Liberty Veterans and Credits From Control, Dishonored, and More

Importantly, this is not an entirely new group trying to figure out what Cyberpunk is. Gabriel Amatangelo, who helped lead the transformation of Cyberpunk 2077 and directed Phantom Liberty, is serving as game director, with Pawel Sasko as associate game director and several other Cyberpunk and Phantom Liberty veterans also involved.

CD Projekt Red has surrounded that core group with developers whose previous credits include Control, Dishonored, Fable, Apex Legends, Diablo III, Hitman, Mortal Kombat, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. That is a wide collection of experience covering open world design, cinematic storytelling, action combat, and RPG systems, and it also includes people who understand how to rescue Cyberpunk 2077 from one of the worst launches in gaming history.

This Isn't the Team That Delivered Cyberpunk 2077's Broken Launch

That launch cannot be pretended away. Cyberpunk 2077 arrived broken on multiple platforms, with features missing and the old console versions barely working. PlayStation temporarily removed the game from its store, and CD Projekt Red spent years rebuilding its reputation afterward. That history is part of why this sequel matters so much.

The team making Cyberpunk 2 is not starting from that same position. They already know what worked and what failed, they have Phantom Liberty as a quality benchmark that, from what I can tell, most people loved, and they have years of player feedback telling them exactly what people wanted that game to be.

Night City Returns Alongside a Second City Described as 'Chicago Gone Wrong'

The biggest confirmed, or at least very strongly revealed, detail is the world itself. Night City is present, but according to Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith, there is another city players will visit and play in. He would not reveal its identity, but he described its atmosphere as "like Chicago gone wrong."

That single sentence opens up a few possibilities. It might literally be Chicago rebuilt inside the Cyberpunk universe, it could be an original city inspired by Chicago's architecture and corporate corruption, or it could be somewhere else entirely that just carries that colder, heavier, Midwestern personality. Whatever it turns out to be, the important detail is that Night City is not being thrown to the wayside.

CD Projekt Red spent years designing Night City, rebuilding its systems and filling it with history, so abandoning all of that would not make sense. Night City is neon excess, giant adverts, corporate towers, palm trees, and gangs fighting in every alley, and it kind of seduces you in. The second city is probably going to be darker, colder, more industrial, with abandoned factories, elevated railways, and brutal winter weather if it really is Chicago, and I think it is going to make clear from the moment you arrive that it wants to kill you.

How players actually move between the two cities is unclear. It could be a location select from an airport, a high speed train, or physically traveling through dangerous territory. If CD Projekt Red wants to get ambitious, the two cities could run different economies, gangs, weapons, and cyberware, so something legal in Night City could make you a wanted criminal somewhere else, or a gang you helped in one city could have enemies waiting on the other side. That is speculation, but it is the kind of systemic expansion a sequel should explore.

The Open World Could Chase GTA 6 Level Crowd Realism, and Multiplayer Might Be Coming

The open world itself also appears to be one of CD Projekt Red's biggest priorities. A previous job listing mentioned creating "the most realistic and reactive crowds ever seen in a video game," which is a huge claim with GTA 6 looming. The original Cyberpunk 2077 looked incredible, but a lot of its citizens were just dressed nicely and acted like traffic cones, walking around, delivering a few lines, panicking during combat, and disappearing once you drove far enough away.

Cyberpunk 2 has the chance to make the city feel genuinely alive, with citizens remembering violence in their neighborhood, businesses closing because gang activity increased, or the trauma team dynamically arriving to rescue wealthy clients. We are seeing this kind of thing play out in real time with what is coming in GTA 6, and the tech is there now, so it makes sense that big open world games like this would start following suit.

CD Projekt Red has not officially announced a multiplayer mode for Cyberpunk 2, so this should not be taken as confirmation. But the company has continued recruiting people with online and multiplayer experience, which makes it increasingly hard to believe those systems are being ignored entirely. The original Cyberpunk 2077 was supposed to receive multiplayer before it launched, and that never happened.

I do not want Cyberpunk 2 turned into a live service grind where every jacket in Night City is tied to a seasonal battle pass. Keep the single player RPG as the heart of the experience. But a separate online mode set inside the same cities, where I build a mercenary, choose a background, and form a crew, is something I would be into, something like GTA Online with deeper RPG systems, or maybe a co-op version of the elaborate missions from Phantom Liberty.

Will V Return? My Take on a New Protagonist, Platforms, and What's Next

On the story side, will V return? Cyberpunk 2077 intentionally gave V multiple possible endings, and a lot of them are difficult to combine into one official continuation. V could leave Night City with Panam, become a legend, or control or hand control to Johnny. My take is that the cleaner move is a new protagonist, letting V become a legend whose fate changes according to save data imported from the first game. That is my professional opinion, if you want to call it that. I really do think you need a new protagonist here.

As for platforms, I think this is most certainly going to be a next generation game, targeting the next PlayStation, the next Xbox, and high end PC hardware rather than the current consoles.

Cyberpunk 2077 has sold more than 30 million copies, and Phantom Liberty has sold 10 million, so there is clearly an audience waiting for this. It looks like CD Projekt Red is approaching it the right way so far. Right now the team sits at 184 developers, and I expect that number to double or triple as production ramps up.

Do you think Cyberpunk 2 should bring back V, or is a new protagonist the right call?