Cyberpunk 2077 has a smaller, but denser world compared to The Witcher 3
The overall size of Cyberpunk 2077's world may be smaller than that of The Witcher 3, but each area now packs a lot more content.
Cyberpunk 2077's metropolitan world does away with the sparse approach to design seen in The Witcher 3. Developer CD Projekt Red is going for a denser, more crowded game compared to Wild Hunt, even if it means cutting the overall size of the map.
"If you look at pure surface [in terms of] square kilometers, then Cyberpunk 2077 might even be a little bit smaller than The Witcher 3, but it’s the density of the content, taking the world of The Witcher and squeezing it right in, deleting the wilderness between," producer Richard Borzymowski told GamesRadar.
"Obviously [...] in The Witcher we were an open world with vast lanes and forests in between smaller cities and larger cities like Novigrad, but in Cyberpunk 2077 we’re set in Night City.
"It’s an integral part of the setting; it’s essentially a protagonist if you want to call it that, so it has to be denser. It wouldn't give us the end effect we wanted to achieve if the city wouldn't be believable [...] so we packed it full of life."
This is likely bolstered by the ability to enter buildings, which adds a new vertical layer to exploration rarely seen in Wild Hunt. This may, however, make it more challenging to navigate, but we won't be able to say for sure until we see it in action.
Later this week, CD Projekt Red will stream 15 minutes of new gameplay live from Warsaw.