A little digging on the OP part and they could have easily found this. Not just a writer for Ubisoft.
Anna has worked for some of the top studios around the world, such as Ubisoft, Square Enix, Arkane, Playground, Remedy, and Nintendo.
Anna was narrative lead on Control, which received multiple Game of the Year and Best Story awards in 2019 and was hailed by many critics as one of the best games ever written. Her work on Dishonored: Death of The Outsider earned a Writer's Guild of America Award nomination for Best Screenplay in 2017.
I wont be surprised if Mike Pondsmith is working with CD Projekt Red as he did on Cyberpunk 2077.
100% this.
I would say "Ubisoft writer" is a bit misleading because it sort of implies Ubisoft somehow manufactured her with their DNA but that's really opposite to the reality here. It's like how Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij wrote The OA for Netflix (which is one of the best written TV shows ever made IMO)... but I can't imagine referring to them as "Netflix writers", which would give a totally different impression of who they are as creatives. Same thing here.
Anyway, just to echo what
@LeKill3rFou said, it's a team effort anyway. OP, have you seen the
credits for Phantom Liberty? It's a big team of directors and writers and so on:
Also, from the
link in the OP:
"
What does a lead writer do?
AM: It varies from studio to studio. My job as a lead writer is to help my team do their best writing, help them grow as writers, help them stay on tone, stay true to the lore of the project. We all have a vision presented to us by the creative director. It's our job to help realize that vision. A big part of my job is just ensuring that we're following that vision and the path that the creative director has laid out for us, and that the writers are doing their best work. I'm like a mediator between the writers and the creative director's vision.
And who's the creative director for Orion?
From CDPR's press release from February 6th:
"
Project Orion is currently in the early stages of development, with studio veterans previously involved in Cyberpunk 2077 and its spy-thriller Phantom Liberty expansion spearheading the project, including Gabriel Amatangelo (Game Director), Paweł Sasko (Associate Game Director), Igor Sarzyński (Creative Director), Andrzej Stopa (Cinematic Director), Kacper Niepokólczycki (Environment Art Director), Sarah Grümmer (Acting Lead Quest Designer) and Kacper Kościeński (Engineering Director). This group is now part of a larger team based in the newly created CDPR studio in Boston, Massachusetts.
Looks like it's Igor again (I'm assuming creative director is basically the same as narrative director or story director?). Gabe is the overall director again too. It seems to me that they feel they've really figured it out with Phantom Liberty, and they've got all of these PL vets running the show for Orion. Sounds like more than safe hands to me.
I mean, if CP77 was the big experiment where they were pushing the envelope and learning how to walk again, then PL was when they were running in the Olympics. I have a feeling they'll do pretty well with Orion.
As for Mike Pondsmith being Lead Writer,
given what that job actually entails, I don't see why he would even want to do that? Continuing in the same role as consultant makes a ton of sense though.