Cyberpunk 2077 sequel announces new lead writer, design director, and executive producer_ 'It's like

officially confirmed in October that the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 is in , and it seems that process is starting to heat up. The studio announced today that it's added five veteran developers "with years of experience" to the team, including former [[link]] New World head of production Dan Hernberg and Control pre-production narrative lead Anna Megill.

Megill had previously served as narrative lead on Playgrounds Games' still-in-development , a role she took on in June 2022. She announced her from the project in July 2023, saying "the time feels right for new challenges," and apparently she found a good one. She's now the lead writer on Project Orion, as the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel is currently known, and brings considerable experience to the role: Along with Fable and Orion, Megill's game writing credits include Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Guild Wars 2.

Joining Megill in the writers' room is Alexander Freed, who's previously written for games including Star Wars: The Old Republic, Wasteland 3, and Battlefield 2042. He's also a New York Times best-selling author with a whole big bunch of to his name.

Hernberg, now the executive producer on Orion, has previously worked on New World and Lost Ark—head of production on both—and a range 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 earned credits on Apex Legends, Doom and Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and Subnautica.

Ryan Barnard, with design and direction credits on Crysis 2, Ryse: Son of Rome, The [[link]] Division, and Hitman 2, has joined the Orion team as design director, while Alan Villani, formerly vice president of technology on a number of Warner games including Mortal Combat X and Mad Max, has signed on as engineering director.

"And here's our Orion edgerunner crew," Cyberpunk 2077 creative director Igor Sarzyński . "The amount of talent on board is truly mindmelting. It's like renaissance but with laser katanas."

The announcement comes a month after Sarzyński said CD Projekt was ready to "," and I get the sense the studio is hoping to reassure fans that the project is in good hands—and that this [[link]] time, it knows exactly what it's doing: Sarzyński also said in January that Cyberpunk 2077 "was just a warm-up." While it's certainly well-regarded now, Cyberpunk 2077's launch was less "warm-up" and more "tire fire"—a very buggy game that released after a period of mandatory . Thwarting the notion that the sequel might repeat history is clearly on CD Projekt's mind.