Perhaps the biggest game at PAX Australia, that was not playable was Cyberpunk 2077, CD Project Red were there to show of the game to thousands of fans. The Xbox booth had continuous short presentations, but there were three-hour long ones that saw over 7,000 fans learning more about the game.

I was lucky to be invited to have a chat with John Mamais, who is the studio head at CD Project Red in Krakow, one of the studios working on the game, we talked about many things, so enjoy.

Maxi-Geek: So, tell me how you got to the role you have and what is happening in Krakow?

John Mamais: I was an EP (executive producer) on Witcher 3 in Warsaw and then changed and went to Krakow, we are building a studio there, that has 100 people there, but is fully integrated into Cyberpunk development. We are basically doing a 3rd of the game.

MG: Have you been involved in Witcher 3 for Switch (was on the show floor)

JM: Not at all no. I knew when they started it and have seen builds along the way, but I was not involved at all.

MG: Ok then, well tell me, with Cyberpunk, there is the source material in the form of the book, so how faithful is the game to the source?

JM: So, they started with the source material, there is a lot of major things in the game that are based on the source material, I think we took it and decided what direction do we need to go in, to make it work as a video game.

We have done the best we can, to adhere to the canon from the source book, but I think we have had to make some creative modifications and I can’t give you specific examples. We know that Mike (Mike Pondsmith, creator of the series) and he has even been involved, even in key moments, our game director would go and visit Mike, talk about a key story idea and go is this a good way to go.

We have been working with him all along, you know we adapted his stuff, but he is doing some new stuff for Cyberpunk as well, and we have been working together on that to make it jive.

MG: The game has quite the unique style and obviously leans very heavily into the cyberpunk aesthetic, given the name. But was there any desire to say that this was that cyberpunk, and this is ours?

JM: I know that Adam saying he wanted to kind of reinvent and define Cyberpunk, you know a new definition for Cyberpunk. We definitely didn’t want to be you know, cliché, so we took those things on board and you can feel them in parts of the game, sometimes it feels like blade runner in the game and other times it doesn’t feel anything like Blade Runner, cause its like broad daylight and palm trees.

After all things are said and done, I think Adam and the team have nailed it, you have to show the game in daylight as it is realistic, we always have this day and night cycle and Night City is set in California and it has to be a realistic setting, to make it more believable and more immersive for the players. Immersion was a big thing for us and believability as well.

MG: So, the tenement that it is “your Cyberpunk, your rules” was the decision always that way, or did the game start out as a more structured experience?

JM: Well the game design has gone through a lot of permutations, initially it was class based, but it has now evolved into this fluid class system, cause it gives the player more freedom of choice, as you don’t want to play as a specific class which shoehorns you into one particular thing for the game. So, we wanted to keep it open world feeling, with the open world and take it to the next kind of degree.

MG: So last year was the re-reveal of the game, after the tease many years ago, and then this year with Keanu Reeves. Has expectations inside the studio increased, due to fan reaction or was it always set high?

JM: The hype level, yeah, it’s big, it certainly puts pressure on the team, but it is a healthy, intrinsic pressure I guess, that makes it like, now we really have to deliver, so it’s a healthy kind of thing. Hopefully it’s not too much, you have to have kind of a balance there, so the team does not go nuts, but from my perspective as a producer, it is a healthy thing to have, it adds more extrinsic pressure on the team, but it can take a toll, which we try to mitigate.

MG: Right now, you guys are aligned with Microsoft, appearing on the Xbox stage at E3 and such, is there anything on the gamer side of thing that makes it best to get it on one platform over the others?

JM: No, we are giving players the same game on all platforms, it is kind of company policy to do it that way.

MG: With the power of consoles like the Xbox One X and high-end PC’s, as developers, you are given more power to work with, was there a set target for what you wanted to meet for the visual look?

JM: We did some previz stuff early on, to establish the look, but we were developing the tech as we are making the game, so we never really know how its going to look until close to the very end of it actually. So even the demo’s that you have seen, are not a true representation of how its going to look in the end, but it should look better, in a way.

MG: Gwent was an in-game game for the Witcher 3 and now has become its own thing, Iron Judgement just released for it, are there any plans for a similar type of experience to happen in Cyberpunk?

JM: It is interesting, I had the question before today, but no we are not doing a meta-minigame in Cyberpunk. Gwent was really successful, so it was like maybe we should have, but it doesn’t really fit somehow with the game.

MG: Something that is at the forefront of social awareness right now is gender neutrality, and V can be male or female. Has there been any discussion of including a gender-neutral option?

JM: Yeah, I think we are dispensing of the idea of choosing a sex and instead choosing a body type, and that is how we are trying to present the character building options to you. It is not like male or female, but more like what body type do you want, what voice do you want, how do you want to mix it yourself.

MG: Can you have the male body type, with the female voice?

JM: I think that’s the goal right, that is what I have heard. I think that is the intention at least.

MG: Going back to Keanu for a moment, the reveal of him at E3 and his character Johnny Silverhand, was it always the goal to try and get him in the game, how did that come to be?

JM: I wasn’t involved in the decision process for choosing Keanu, that was up at the board of directors and Adam the game director. I think it came to Adam about six months before we signed the deal with Keanu, but it wasn’t something that we had in mind from the very beginning of the inception of the idea.

MG: In last years E3 trailer, we got to meet the big guy, whose name eludes me right now.

JM: Jackie was it.

MG: Yes, and this year he dies in the car. Are you able to save him, can you make those sorts of choices where characters live or die, depending on your actions?

JM: The answer to that, the written answer to that is you have to play it to find out for yourself, I can’t spoil that for you, I can’t give that away.

MG: But there will be ancillary people on the street that you can kill, even by accident. Will there be a punishment system in the game, that if you do to many bad things the law or companies will come down on you?

JM: It is not like GTA, but there is a police system in the game, so if you go crazy you will get stopped.

MG: Or attempted to stop, depending on how successful you are as a player.

JM: Yeah.

MG: Something I have been curious about is the world, we have seen two distinct areas of it, with the, not the slums, but the lower key urban area last year and Pacifica this year. Would you say that there are distinct areas for the city, or are they all similar, but have their own unique tone within them?

JM: Well it is one city, so it has to mesh in a way and look good together, but the design called for six distinct districts. We have talked about two, but there are six of them and they are different, with different gameplay feelings and vendors and factions are in these districts, and of course the architecture is a little bit different as well. So you will get a different feeling in each and there is also the outskirts, which is something else as well.

MG: You mentioned vendors before, and shops will play a large role in the game, with regards to character customisation and such. Will there be new content released down the line, that can be added to the game, similar to what you did with Witcher 3?

JM: Yeah, we are not talking about what we are doing post release yet, but I can say we want to do something similar to what we did on Witcher 3.

MG: I am looking forward to the cyberpunk version of the unicycle then. Finally, the story, is it a fixed start point and end, with the choices you make defining the way you get there, or is it more of this is the start of the game and the ending you get is based on your choices?

JM: Yeah the game has multiple endings and it is totally choice driven.

MG: Fantastic, well that was all I had, so thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

JM: Thank you and thanks for asking some interesting questions.

Many thanks to John for taking the time to answer my questions. Cyberpunk 2077 is coming to Xbox One, PC and PlayStation 4 on April 16, 2020.