| Session Name: | Level Design Summit: Benefits of Missing Out: What 'Cyberpunk 2077' Taught Us About Non-Linear Level Design |
| Speaker(s): | Miles Tost |
| Company Name(s): | CD PROJEKT RED |
| Track / Format: | Level Design Summit |
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| Overview: | Making non-linear levels where each path feels rewarding to the player is difficultespecially in an open-world game with the goal of maximizing the player's freedom by providing an endless amount of options. This is a lesson the CDPR Level Design team fully learned to understand after Cyberpunk 2077 first launched in December 2020. This talk will provide an overview of the design intentions behind the levels in the game, and look at how these intentions did not always fully receive the anticipated reception by players. It will elaborate on what the team was able to learn from this and, finally, how these lessons were turned into principles and techniques that can be applied by level designers to make those branching paths feel more rewarding and special, while still keeping things production-friendly. |
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