Cyberpunk 2 has entered pre-production, as The Witcher 3 leaps above Super Mario Bros to sell 60 million copies

A large, muscly bloke eating noodles at a bar while two people point pistols at him from behind in Cyberpunk 2077.
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

The Cyberpunk 2077 sequel has officially entered its pre-production phase, according to CD Projekt Red.

In a new investor relations presentation, one slide simply reads that "Cyberpunk 2 has entered pre-production phase." More information is likely to be available as part of the overall presentation, but for now these slides do offer some interesting information to pick over.

Chief among that is the fact that, externally at least, CDPR is still referring to the game - previously referred to as Project Orion – as Cyberpunk 2. That's likely to prevent giving away too much information about its setting. While original Cyberpunk author Mike Pondsmith did recently reveal that the new game would be set in a second location after Night City, the developers are yet to attach anything like the original's naming convention to the project.

A sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 conjures images of Cyberpunk 2078, but as soon as we know if that's the case, players can start making guesses about the narrative – if there's no date, there are no theories to be drawn up.

But pre-production is a very different beast to full production – it's often a period of ideation and trial-and-error, rather than actually building the final project, and it can often last for years. We do know that CD Projekt Red has built a new, US-based studio to make Cyberpunk 2, so it won't interfere with The Witcher 4 too much, but it's still anyone's guess as to how long we could be waiting.

Ali Jones
Managing Editor, News

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.

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