PHANTOM LIBERTY
Year: 2021-2022 | Client: Cd Projekt Red | Technology: Red Engine 4
Carrying on with the work on Night City was a opportunity we decided to embrace as a testament to our mutual professional esteem with Cd Projekt Red and simply because of the good flow we didn't want to interrupt. Even though Cyberpunk 2077 had some tough times at release, the architectural and design work of Night City was praised with the highest honours. Confirmed by everybody as one of (if not 'the') most iconic component in the story. Which was very motivating for every artist involved.
With the entire Cyberpunk 2077 and its post-release patches fully delivered, including the Edgerunners DLC updates and V's apartments, we really got to this point with a stable technology and workflow that allowed us to give full autonomy to the artists and their flow, while communication, art direction, efficiency and cross-department synchronicity smootly ran in full swing, thanks to the experience accumulated.
The area of Dogtown (a combat zone within Pacifica) is the part of Night City the Phantom Liberty expansion mainly takes place in, and it was conceived as a closed off zone with the intention of giving this expansion exclusivity over a number of never seen before locations. The core narrative rhythm and style stays consistent with the main title. But in Phantom Liberty we had the chance to go bigger and bolder, as pretty much everybody involved had achieved senior status on the franchise at that point.
Like in all previous projects, we got in charge of a number of independent quests of the game, developing the environments with care and attention for all the possible play styles and approaches that the game encourages the player to explore.
As per usual, the fundamental ingredients for us on each location were the level design blockout and the quest moodboard, which gave us respectively the overall gameplay intention and narrative progression of the quest, plus the color & form grammar we're aiming for to convey its mood and vibes, along with hints and clues for potential suggestions and brainstorming.
The biggest lesson here was more of a confirmation of what we already established: understanding the overall gameplay vision and keeping it as the statement guiding all artistic decisions is always the most important foundation. After that, the dicotomy of architecture+dressing and lighting, and their interplay is at the same time the toughest challenge and the most powerful (hence rewarding) aspect to manouver.
Every area of Phantom Liberty had a sub-district plan which allowed us to establish mood and construction principles to stick to and create consistency. And with the environment art and lighting creative conversation well established we had the chance to inject many ideas into the project, letting the artists' reading and intuition massage the storytelling as the product developed.
Not many artists were actually hurt on Phantom Liberty at Treehouse Ninjas. Our locations were mainly delivered by a small crew of senior artists, while the rest of the team was ramping up towards further titles. Some locations, such as the Heavy Hearts Club, the Organitopia Museum, or the Haven Church/Clinic, ended up becoming quite iconic locations.
Once again we were capable to wrap up a title destined to be enjoyed by players all over the globe. In this case specifically it was particularily rewarding walking with Cd Projekt Red through the difficult but eventually joyful process of bringing the potential of Night City to what it was meant to be since the beginning. Sometimes it takes extra extra-efforts to accomplish what you set out to achieve, and we can say finally Cyberpunk got the appreciation it rightfully deserves, for its top quality and for being the labour of love of many talented artists.