CD Projekt officially confirmed that the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel was in early development in October, and it appears that the process is starting to accelerate. The studio announced today that it has added five veteran developers “with years of experience” to the team, including former New World production head Dan Hernberg and Anna Megill, head of pre-production narrative at Control.
Megill previously served as narrative lead on Playgrounds Games' in-development Fable reboot, a role she took on in June 2022. She announced them Departure She left the project in July 2023, saying, “The time feels ripe for new challenges,” and apparently she has found a good one. She is now the lead writer on Project Orion, as the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 is currently called, and brings considerable experience to the role: In addition to Fable and Orion, Megill writes Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Guild, among others Wars 2.
Joining Megill in the writers' room is Alexander Freed, who has previously written for games such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, Wasteland 3 and Battlefield 2042. He is also a New York Times bestselling author with a string of bestselling books Novels and comics to his name.
Hernberg, now executive producer of Orion, previously worked on New World and Lost Ark – he was production manager on both – as well as a number of Blizzard games you may have heard of, including Overwatch, StarCraft 2, World of Warcraft and Diablo 3. He also spent a few years at Panic Button, during which time he racked up credits for Apex Legends, Doom and Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Subnautica.
Ryan Barnard, with design and directing credits for Crysis 2, Ryse: Son of Rome, The Division and Hitman 2, has joined the Orion team as design director, while Alan Villani, former vice president of technology at a number of Warner Games including Mortal Combat X and Mad Max have signed on as technical director.
“And here is our Orion Edgerunner crew,” said Cyberpunk 2077 creative director Igor Sarzyński tweeted. “The amount of talent on board is truly overwhelming. It’s like a renaissance but with laser katanas.”
The announcement comes a month after Sarzyński said that CD Projekt was ready to “officially start our Orion journey,” and I get the impression that the studio wants to reassure fans that the project is in good hands – and that this time it knows exactly what it's about: Sarzyński also said in January that Cyberpunk 2077 was “just a warm-up phase.” While it's certainly well regarded now, Cyberpunk 2077's launch was less of a “warm-up” and more of a “tire fire” – a very flawed game released after a period of obligatory crisis. CD Projekt wants to put paid to the idea that the sequel could repeat history.
