Cyberpunk still getting 2nd expansion + Switch 2 port + more? (Speculation on Virtuos co-operation)

[Surma.]

(This is just speculation based on discovering about Virtuos involvement in Patch 2.2, drawing my own conclusions as I discover more about the collaboration, how Virtuos Warsaw studio basically seems to be an outsourced CDPR studio only aimed to develop Cyberpunk 2077).

So after releasing 2.1 patch (December 2023) this was supposed to be last patch for Cyberpunk, and also there wasn't supposed to be anyone from CDPR team working for the game.

After 2.2 got released (December 2024) it turns out another studio (named Virtuos) had been working on this game called which is a company located in Singapore, working for multiple triple AAA titles. One of the works this company has is (after asking Copilot about company if they have experience in working with expansions) "They provide a range of services, including co-development and full stack development, which can involve creating expansions for existing games".

This game was originally supposed to have 2 expansions until CDPR cut the expansions to just 1 (at least that's what's officially told), and now with the patch 2.2 this company co-operation has been discovered.

But why would they hire a totally new company just to make 1 patch, and call it a day? I think Cyberpunk 2077 development might be actually far from over. Since CDPR owns the rights to basic game, and the rights to it's first expansion, any potential customer who would want new expansion would be a potential new buyer who'd need the first game at least, and would likely want to have first expansion too to experience.

Why is this important?

Because I believe by having a new company working on expansion, they can reap 100% profits of said expansions, which would highly incentivize on working with the game, potentially paying modders code to be enabled in the base game, while working on things like 3rd person view, more enemy variants, dynamically emerging mercenary missions.

Would working on Cyberpunk's expansion really be that beneficial? Lets think for a moment.

First expansion has already sold more than 5 million copies, making it an instant chance to hit close to 5 million sales for 2nd expansion. You could also make some custom in game purchases like paying for 4th and 5th origin story. They could even work with the CDPR NA team who's working on multiplayer components of the game to actually bring in Cyberpunk multiplayer as a real thing, potentially making it a huge revenue source to them, as they would likely be gaining majority of the revenue. I would imagine CDPR would have some ownership of the multiplayer as it's based on their game, and their engine + whatever was already done so far with the project.

So given with this new information it's likely further development is going to continue, and it's not just going to be 2.2 patch.

CDPR was talking in the investors calls about some kind of deals that they're excited about, and it appears that this patch 2.2 was a "crack" on that deal, and this is far more than just making a tiny 5-20 man team to add some color skins on cars and new cyberwear. No, the intention is clearly to renew the playerbase with new experiences for something to come.

And why such focus on things like having possibility to put cyberwear on character customization? Well there's 2 things coming to mind, both equally tantalizing, multiplayer, and 3rd person view.


So I'm asking for the community,
Why hasn't this company co-operation been announced earlier, before the patch release? How long has this co-operation gone? They clearly must have access to the source code and they're not just creating some "mods" that CDPR enables for everyone. Based on the time difference between patch 2.1 and 2.2, which is 1 year, there's possibility that the development was pushed to the Virtuos during the release of 2.1, and plans were made before that.


So what's to make all of this? (sorry for not being so concise)


* More development on Cyberpunk 2077 is certainly coming
- this wasn't just 1 time off where another dev team took over and started working on the title, it wouldn't make much sense with the time to teach other developer team about the code, and make 1 year mission to make a patch

* Likely 2nd expansion (even more?) are on the works
- there clearly is incentive structure for making this happen. CDPR will likely have less revenue directly this way, but it enables bigger playerbase for the base game, incentivizes more people to play the game as new cool things get added and things get tweaked along with player feedback

* This likely isn't just about new content
- potentially there's plans about fixing other aspects of the game that were a bit weak, maybe relating to scripted chase scenes or how certain smaller missions are lacking in dept, perhaps adding voice for memory shards, etc

Based on the size of the patch and the changes made, it's hard to judge how big the development team is as we have no idea how much was released as the size of total work done, we might be just scraping the surface, just like CDPR's many older patches were focused on fixing some aspects and making tweaks, while there was a lot of background work done for bigger reworks



Some works that Virtuos has been worked in past (using Copilot to look this up so might be incorrect somewhat?):
- Their work on projects like the Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater remake, involved 200-300 people over three years
- Virtuos had a dedicated team working on remastering Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. While the exact number of team members isn't publicly disclosed, projects of this scale typically involve dozens of developers, including artists, programmers, and quality assurance testers.
- Virtuos has a substantial capacity for creating game expansions, thanks to their 3,800 professional game developers spread across 23 offices worldwide. One of Virtuos' biggest projects is providing art support for the "Horizon" series, including "Horizon Zero Dawn" and "Horizon Forbidden West".

I think we also have to take in consideration that CDPR is planning to have additional anime being released, on top of live action series/movie of the franchise. There's HUGE potential for creating hype for existing game, especially with refreshed look and new expansion.



But... What kind of expansion would we be able to get?

I think besides the speculation of 2nd scrapped expansion being "moon expansion", we should take a look what holes the Cyberpunk 2077 would have to fill?

- Morgan Blackhand expansion (video link related to the subject)
There's a theory I just listened where events in Arasaka Tower (in the past) are explained. In dream sequence in Arasaka tower, there's a noticeable skip, where Johnny Silverhand get's seemingly caught and shot down as he's attempting to make an exit, being blasted by Adam Smasher, then after futile attempt to shoot back, there's a sudden "glitch" where story skips ahead with Johnny Silverhand escaping to helicopter, only to then being shot down again in the roof. Unbeknowst to the player, parts of Johnny Silverhand's memories are actually Morgan Blackhand's memories. Morgan Blackhand was part of the fight to take down the tower, but he acted alone, and the event with Johnny Silverhand didn't take place at all

Expansion would focus on reliability of memories, and also going back in time, seeing what happened in V's childhood, maybe witnessing some memories as if they were playable events, like losing parents or maybe stepparents who used to take care of V, maybe the story would be different based on origin story as well. Perhaps we could also see more of Alt Cunningham's abilities in searching for these missing engrams of Morgan Blackhand's memories. This would mean more BD sequences.

- Moon mission
There exists already assets like spacesuit which are shown in one ending, with also some assets for Crystal Palace. In more recent patches the entire space station was added into the game itself, making it visible and able to be accessed, all the way to the final gates of entry. Having Moon would make sense, and having a reduced gravity would likely be quite easy to do, and add some interesting new ways to maneuver the structures, and of course who wouldn't want to jump very high with those boosted high jump legs...

- Casino Expansion
There's assets already in game for the Casino, and clearly there was some design will to make this some kind of Las Vegas for the elites to gamble and discuss dirty politics and plot against one another. This could be good plot device to set up story perhaps against the Rogue AI, who controls the Mr Blue Eyes. There's a lot of questions to answer. How big is the reach? How many people are involved? This also was shown in initial trailers that there were these robots in passengers seat in the taxi. We are rarely shown any kind of independent robots, even though there's been strong signs of an "AI uprising", rebelling against their creator, like Delamain splitting into multiple personalities, one of them admitting, they are from behind the Blackwall.

BIGGEST OBSTACLE
Ok, so we got some incentives for doing it. There's money to be made. Fans to make happy. Keeping fans interested in franchise. Attracting bigger audience.

But there's also big obstacles, namely the budget...

Challenges are mostly related to how V is directly connected to Johhny Silverhand, meaning Keanu Reeves has to become a part of the team working for the new project, because he's the voice in V's head, it would be very strange for him to be completely disconnected from it all. If not Keanu Reeves directly, then they would at least have to have rights for his AI voice-alike, which I don't know how easy would it be to create... I suppose that's cheaper and not impossible to do. He's always been a bit stiff thanks to his mannerism and having glasses on, which I guess makes him somewhat ideal person to have AI-voiceover.

Alternatively there would have to be already voice lines that were recorded earlier, perhaps in the end of 1st expansion, they were having Keanu doing extra voice lines for 2nd expansion. I don't think it's that likely though...

 

[LeKill3rFou]

* Likely 2nd expansion (even more?) are on the works
- there clearly is incentive structure for making this happen. CDPR will likely have less revenue directly this way, but it enables bigger playerbase for the base game, incentivizes more people to play the game as new cool things get added and things get tweaked along with player feedback

If there are more content added to the game, it's (very, very) likely only little stuff like we had in the 2.2.
There is absolutely no way an external studio (Virtuos) would be able to make an expansion of Phantom Liberty scope, knowing the amount of work it would require... It's just impossible.
So yes, 2.2 might not be the last update, but I don't think you should expect more than "updates"

 

[Surma.]

If there are more content added to the game, it's (very, very) likely only little stuff like we had in the 2.2.
There is absolutely no way an external studio (Virtuos) would be able to make an expansion of Phantom Liberty scope, knowing the amount of work it would require... It's just impossible.
So yes, 2.2 might not be the last update, but I don't think you should expect more than "updates"

I think it would rely more on the scope of the expansion

Like obviously I don't think an external studio could pull expansion with the scope of Phantom Liberty where you got massive effort put into the first act with plane crashes, rescue, fighting giant mech and final act with 2 different stories and events taking place... but it can be something quite close to that, minus probably putting all the bread in one basket.

But I could imagine something smaller like making some kind of new gimmick gameplay wise, generating new set of characters, making 2 000 new voice lines and tweaking some existing assets to allow entry etc, even if it's just screen going blank and V emerging inside a rocket and pressing couple of buttons.

Like I said it's the matter of scope, but it's also the matter of how much we've been given as percentage of total work done. I don't think this studio has had experience on working on existing projects in this magnitude before where they add entirely new features and art assets.

CDPR had 500 developers working on Cyberpunk 2077 in it's peak, Virtuos has experience of putting more than 300 people on working projects, and just like Phantom Liberty expansion, not everyone was working on creating those very highly detailed cinematic scenes and working with high paying actors. Some of the work was also in working on patch 2.0 and 2.1, meaning that same could be done with 2.3 and expansion.

Probably half of that 500 staff working for Cyberpunk was just working on the system itself, including some part of the team working for Red-Engine. Now I'd imagine there's going to be some tweaks done for perhaps physics wise, but largely red-engine is done, along with the code for Cyberpunk 2077 game system. So it's possible that something along the 250-300 people could be working for Cyberpunk... or it just could be 20-50 people. We simply don't know. The quality of the upgrade however speaks volumes. This was flawlessly executed, transition animations were well crafted, the new character customization exactly what community has been wanting... It just seems as if this patch was intentionally delayed because the developers weren't in rush to push it out for no other reason than to market during Christmas to boost sales of the original game. But it is still small patch, which didn't seem to do a lot with bug fixes, which again big studio like CDPR had to put a lot of resources into, even during release of Phantom Liberty.

And if I were either Virtuos or CDPR I would probably push for expansion. I saw many people in this forum sharing same opinion where there was doubt if it was smart to just hire Virtuos to just make a patch or two.

If they're working for long time on the game, they must be compensated for the work, and for that to make any sense for CDPR to push extra content, keeping EXISTING community engaged with the project, they would want to have more things to promote in the future, other than just the next anime / real life adaptation.

There's so long time for the Cyberpunk sequel, that much like GTA 5 Online, Cyberpunk making more money in the next 4-6 years would largely rely on this existing product being worked on. Virtuos would have a monopoly on creating content that of course CDPR would have to greenlight, but content that'd be specifically exciting for the players.

Post automatically merged: Dec 31, 2024

Other funny thing is that the most recent investor call was in November 26, 2024

December 10, 2024 the 2.2 patch was released, meaning that during last investor call there was 0 details shared about co-operation of Virtuos, that being likely a huge interest for the investors about the details of the scope of the co-operation. Somewhere past year (2023) there was some talks about talking with some studios about co-operation, but not willing to disclose any more details about it. With this patch release, there appears to be a crack on this silence on long game-plan between CDPR and Virtuos. The studio was trained probably during the release of Phantom Liberty and first expansion, giving them access to work being done, while also training them, meaning that work that the studio has been working on could far exceed the time between patch 2.0 and patch 2.1.

It is my belief this patch timing was delayed intentionally to both boost sales and also to push the announcement of the partnership to next year investors call...

There was however in the most recent investors call talks about makes sales of new products released in 2025, meaning that there's some potential for them releasing both information about the scope of the Co-operation along with information about expansion. Of course the new product being referenced could be the Witcher spinoff or Witcher remake... Or it could be more than 1 product being shipped.


-----

Other thing to note is that Virtuos has office in Warsaw Poland, where it's very likely CDPR has maybe shipped some of the staff, especially if they were willing to work on the Cyberpunk for the foreseeable future.

I saw that Virtuos Warsaw Studios was established in May 2023, which was likely a result with discussions with CDPR, where they negotiated a deal to establish an entire studio with a staff (long time CDPR staff) working on Cyberpunk 2077 for at least 4-6 years until the next game is dropped (which's development hasn't even started yet).

Same time in CDPR there were layoffs in 2023 in that timeframe of opening up new studio by Virtuos, of the 100 people that were laid off, most of them were developers, most of them likely working for Cyberpunk as it was the main property... maybe they were part of the transfer team to the new studio, which helped to form the group working for the Patch 2.2

So in 2023 May until 2024 December they only worked on making 1 patch, with a staff of 100 people? Just speculating because we again don't know real numbers. This might've been the initial recruitment. It's also possible there's some initial leadership roles from other offices of Virtuos but I think most of the talent came from CDPR.

So why the outsourcing if working for the same project with same people? Maybe partly because it'd allow CDPR to reduce some risk of not making enough profit from expansion, while allowing the new studio to have freedom to develop with their capacity on something.

 

[Neuronin]

Just make the game as stable as possible. Don't do any more content updates.

 

[Bartinga2077]

"Cyberpunk still getting 2nd expansion + more? (Speculation on Virtuos co-operation)"​

CDPR themselves said that Cyberpunk would only get one expansion.

From what I've seen is that when a 3rd party is hired, it's only to "get the job done". Not to earn (more) money, as hiring usually can even cost more money than doing the work yourself. I'm of a thought that eventually, a 3rd party was hired to preserve developer resources.

Now about Cyberpunk only receiving one expansion, if I would guess, I'd say that Cyberpunk simply cannot warrant another expansion because it's completely spent. Its storage memory is spent, its active memory is spent. Found that out during building using the Object Spawner mod. A few 1000 items placed in the game would at some point crash it. Together they had a file size of (just) 3340 KB.

Just speculating but in order to warrant a second expansion the caliber of Phantom Liberty, the game's memory would need to expand further to 20 GBs of RAM. If that would in any way be correct, then that would mean that the expansion would not be available for the consoles, which would be completely unacceptable.

What the Object Spawner mod also showed, is that the Red Engine has two handicaps that I'm sure is not known by many.

One is that, if you take two identical items and place them precisely adjacent to each other, if you then for instance, move the right item 10 units to the East and then 10 units to the West, it will no longer be precisely adjacent to the left one. It will have deviated somewhat either to the North, or South. You have to manually move it in place again.

During movement, both the x and z axis are calculating. This occurs across the entire map, and ever since I'm aware of it, I deemed it the prime suspect pertaining all the issues experienced ever since launch and the bad launch itself included till this day.

The second is, if you have a group consisting out of shall we say, 50 items, once several items in that group have been yawned, the game can no longer move it using the z axis, but will instead spontaneously make use of the y axis.

So two rather serious discrepancies which I think would call for a complete reconstruction of a 15+ year old engine from the ground up to fix, which undoubtedly would cost a lot of time, money, effort and most importantly, developer resources.

So all things considered, yeah, I can perfectly understand the reasoning behind CDPR's decision to transition to someone else's brand new engine, why Cyberpunk only receives one expansion, why a 3rd party has been hired, and all the issues occurring in this game.

 

[DjSpyder]

I 100% agree that CP2077 will likely be getting more "Content" It seems odd to bring in this support studio for a very basic and relatively small update (Although bug fixes and stuff were much needed).....

BUT having said that, I doubt it's going to be a full scale expansion. For a few reasons.

1.) The writers have moved on to Orion.
2.) The cost and logistics of brining back voice actors (especially for the idea of new life paths they'd need to be integrated into main story that's a lot of reworking)
3.) Time and money commitment
4.) Age of the game.

Now while I think a full PL size expansion is out of the question. I do think some of what you've mentioned is possible, Specifically TPP, This last update focused a lot and I mean A LOT on character customization and expression. SO i wouldn't be surprised if this new studio brought in more clothing and TPP camera for the next theoretical update. It's honestly something I would not have expected at any point until now, but with the emphasis on expression style and customization I think for the first time it's a real possibility.

I also think some smaller scale story content like a few gigs, or side missions is possible, Maybe restore/finish cut content stuff that would require minimal VO work, New weapons are always on the table, maybe more Apartment customization or more locations. I think the addition of this studio adds the potential for a lot of quality of life stuff and open world engagement stuff, maybe even some repeatable stuff similar to what supply drops and auto fixer added, I'd even expect the possibility of integrating some stuff mods have done(CDPR has done it in the past). But MAJOR story or content I think is unlikely.

Of course none of this is guaranteed, This partnership could be a much larger corporate thing that has to do with support on their franchises moving forward and will have little effect on the current state of CP2077. they may use them to do work on The Witcher 4 and Orion and this was just the first small step in a larger partnership. It's really hard to say until they announce more.

 

[Spockprime]

Doubtful. I'm learning to never say never with CDPR, but I'm still going to say no way on this one.

They've made it clear that only one expansion was envisioned, and I can't see them deviating from that. Even if they were willing to outsource a full second expansion to another developer, they'd have to be far enough along with their own second Cyberpunk game to know exactly how another expansion to 2077 would fit with the second game.

I just can't see it happening. I'd like to be wrong about that.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I just can't see it happening. I'd like to be wrong about that.

Oh yes, I'd like to be wrong also. I would be amazing

swip...

Nope, you can argue as much as you want. For me, outsourcing an expansion (i.e paid content) of "CDPR scale", like their three previous expansions, make no sense at all. Just way too big, way too much work and above all, way (way, way) too expansive to take the risk of no making it themself.

 

[Surma.]

For me, outsourcing an expansion (i.e paid content) of "CDPR scale", like their three previous expansions, make no sense at all. Just way too big, way too much work and above all, way (way, way) too expansive to take the risk of no making it themself.

It's not that uncommon for studios to outsource some software work for another studios using their existing products. Technically Fallout New Vegas could be called an "expansion" of the original Fallout 3 with just much bigger scale and full sized game as price.

There are other examples like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords, where original was developed by BioWare, the sequel was developed by Obsidian Entertainment.

But I guess it's more reasonable at this point without further details to expect that there's just going to be updates worthy of "tiny expansions" like the 3rd person perspective and finishing up the Casino area.

I'm just wondering if this strategy is going to be net positive for the company's money flow in a long term. Sure the community is going to be happy, but without actual paid work being done I wonder if maybe hundreds of thousands of new fans of the franchise thanks to the additional work would warrant them paying for the studio to work on the patches. I would assume that would cost somewhere within margin of 1-5 million euros a year depending on development team size, and I guess if Cyberpunk Orion is going to have an extra million purchases, that extra 5 million euros a year is well warranted.

I guess there's always that possibility to market up the new and better version of the game as Witcher 3 Complete Edition did, and maybe upon that release there could be an external package, paid DLC rather than just labeling it as an expansion.

-

I'm still iffy why was this information of co-operation withhold in investors meeting, and the details only released after the patch was released, and why was there speak of releasing a new products in 2025. Is Witcher remake that close to release, or is this Witcher 4 (potentially planned as released in December 2025?) or could it be multiplayer Witcher title, or was this about CP Expansion made by Virtuos.

Still, the Virtuos Warsaw being only created in May 2023, it likely taking several months to get thing started to work on Cyberpunk, making an entire expansion in 2 years (if expansion were to be released after May 2025) might not be enough time, but of course it's all the matter of scale.

-

Also the studio has experience in producing art for big franchises, meaning if their Warsaw office (likely 25-100 people) would be focusing on the patch work, and changes needed for another expansion (or paid DLC, or free DLC, depending on what they want to pursue), there could be another office that's focused on producing the artwork, meaning they could easily scale up the staff to the game if they had the will to do it.

But why would CDPR say that there's no 2nd expansion then? We'd have to take closer look on how such statements were worded. For example they also said that 2.1 was the final patch they've planned on working on, meaning they knew even that time there was work on future patch but that they weren't going to be held responsible for updating it. Similarly the statements regarding on expansion 2, we have to closer inspect wording for such statements like "there is no future plans for any more expansions" could easily mean in their behalf there's no future plans, meaning the thinking about expansion is in the hands of the Virtuos themselves.

Bigger question is why was this information about teaming up with Virtuos held secret, if all they're going to do is patch up the game. Perhaps because there's customers who always want finished product so it could be "marketing speech", or their unwillingness to create hype that early for things to come.

-

I guess we'll know when next investors call is held, and more details about the Virtuos Warsaw studio is being made, how much money is spend on patching the game, is this all they are going to be doing, is there going to be paid content to be released by them later, and if so, how big share CDPR is going to take from the profits of that paid content. A lot of things to be asked I hope someone is going to ask, until that time we can't know any more details than is publicly available...



Another thing that's a little off topic is new Fortnite skins from Cyberpunk, which were released December 23, 2024, exact same day that patch 2.2 went live. Clearly the studio is pushing hard for Cyberpunk to be established as franchise with a ton of gamer awareness.

Since the Cyberpunk Orion is still 5-10 years off from release (not even started work on it yet in any meaningful scale), it's very possible that there are plans to keep the game alive, not with just another anime and live-action adaptations, but also with content that was worked on.

Which brings me back to Digital Scapes Acquisition.

Despite rumors of multiplayer being scrapped, we've not heard anything about the studio that was acquired almost 4 years ago. They're owned by CDPR now and their work is a total mystery. They've worked longer than most game developers have spend on creating sequels on games.

There's no clue about exact number of workers, but according to CD Projekt, their entire staff is around 615 employees as of December 31, 2023, assuming that 400 is in the Warsaw Studio, and that there's small teams working for GoG and Witcher Card game and other projects the likely size of the Digital Scapes studio is roughly 25-50 people.

Copilot:
Before its acquisition by CD Projekt in March 2021, Digital Scapes (now CD Projekt Red Vancouver) was a relatively small studio specializing in multiplayer gameplay programming and development. While the exact staff size isn't publicly available, it's estimated that the studio had between 10 to 30 employees.

It's possible, knowing that CDPR seems to have still plans on keeping the franchise alive, and pushing for the game to have more content with the co-development of Virtuos, when they already got studios that are known for developing multiplayer aspects for existing franchises, I find it rather interesting that the studio would have to wait for 10 years before actually showing anything of value being output.

Of course it could be also that Digital Scapes is working with the Molasses Flood multiplayer spinoff of Witcher, which was restarted in 2023 I believe? Again not knowing exactly how much of content was completely scapped, it's hard to estimate how much work is needed, since it's all a black box for the consumers, without any further information.

But it seems like it might not be coming in next year (or I guess this year since it's now 2025, hey happy new year ), since there wasn't a tease of the game in Game Awards, and instead of that being teased there was a tease for Witcher 4 instead...

Which all begs me to question, if it's not the Cyberpunk expansion, Cyberpunk Online, Witcher 4, Witcher 1 Remake, what exactly was teased as upcoming sales of new product for 2025? I would assume that it's in Q4 of this year. I guess signs could point to Witcher 4 release being closer than people estimate...


It's definitely going to be interesting year for sure, hoping CDPR will open up about their plans for the studios with Molasses Flood's spinoff, Virtuos Co-operation, and Digital Scapes studio. A lot of co-operation is being done to make sure that both Witcher and Cyberpunk franchises are going to be bigger hits than even established franchises like Legend of Zelda or Grand Theft Auto.


-

I know it's all just speculation but I find it very odd if there wasn't bigger news regarding to Cyberpunk 2077 this year. Perhaps it'd be a story of post game, where V gets rid of Johnny Silverhand in his/her brain. Or maybe story of Jackie and V's adventures prior to having the shard in V's brain (could be done with maybe visiting a BD of V's past events), that could be one with no big name actors being needed, something that fans have requested. Something is definitely bubbling underneath of all shown so far...

-

Also regarding Jackie Welles's voice actor, he's expressed deep enthusiasm for being a voice actor for any potential future DLC, and this isn't first time Jackie + V DLC has been suggested by community. In fact it's been highly requested feature.

Here's again something from Copilot,

( Link referenced )

 

[YasQueen]

Virtuos involvement

they are more like modders. i'd not expect huge dlc from them. just bugfixes and some new features

 

[Surma.]

they are more like modders. i'd not expect huge dlc from them. just bugfixes and some new features

So they just gave access for another studio who also happened to just create a new office in Warsaw to just create a patch or two for Cyberpunk?

Doesn't seem it makes any sense. Why would CDPR have Virtuos to be involved for 1 year project, having them create an entirely new studio just to develop a patch or two? I find it more likely that Virtuos saw financial incentive to create the studio there, close to CDPR office, allowing them easier access to the old staff that had moved on from other projects, while also catching all the CDPR layoffs (100+ people) from 2 years upon releasing Phantom Liberty.

Noticing how CDPR had laid off staff same exact dates when Virtuos Studio was established in Warsaw gives some hint of workers being shifted around to another studio rather than just "laid off", meaning that perhaps 80-90% of staff layoffs found themselves working in Virtuos either voluntarily or out of proximity to layoffs.

There's no way Virtuos working for Cyberpunk is some kind of short 1-2 year plan that has an end-date. There wouldn't have been a need to create a separate studio for 1 year worth of work, especially when CDPR has probably allows for distance working, meaning that their studio is likely to be fully staffed and would likely be able to fit that small update man team for an additional year or two if that's all it came down to it.

This seems like there was a lot of movement happening during and after release of Phantom Liberty, and CDPR is a company with a history of planning long time ahead, meaning that they know Cyberpunk Orion isn't going to come out for a LONG TIME, meaning they can make more consistent source of revenue for developing content for existing game, similar to how Skyrim has been updated with many different paid DLC's and selling their release with Legendary Editions etc.

Clearly there's a plan to make Cyberpunk more successful than Skyrim or even GTA, by pushing for a lot of media visibility and also co-operating with other gaming studios like Epic to make Fortnite skins, maybe having Johnny Silverhand appear as playeable character in Smash Bros or similar game as well.

 

[YasQueen]

So they just gave access for another studio who also happened to just create a new office in Warsaw to just create a patch or two for Cyberpunk?

yes. and they pay them for that work. virtuos did the same thing for a lot of games including battledield 1, v, tomb raider series, the last of us series, etc. that's a big outsource company.

 

[Surma.]

yes. and they pay them for that work. virtuos did the same thing for a lot of games including battledield 1, v, tomb raider series, the last of us series, etc. that's a big outsource company.

They've only shut down 1 studio so far, which seems to indicate that they're not just starting short term projects for a studio and pulling the plug the next year.

Virtuos Studios seemingly closes Calypte one year after opening

Update: Virtuos Studios has confirmed it is shutting down San Francisco-based subsidiary Calypte just one year after it opened its doors.

www.gamedeveloper.com

The reason for shut down was economical it seems, and with CDPR there's probably no need for shutting down, as CDPR can easily finance 5-6 years of development by putting 1-5 million euros yearly into the project, which is next to nothing in bigger scale, which can easily be turned to profit in just 1 more million of potential buyers of sequel.

 

[YasQueen]

CDPR can easily finance 5-6 years of development

probably true but there is a big difference between adding customizable implants to the game or fixing some bugs and making a story with voiced characters etc.

 

[djorokindex]

(This is just speculation based on discovering about Virtuos involvement in Patch 2.2, drawing my own conclusions as I discover more about the collaboration, how Virtuos Warsaw studio basically seems to be an outsourced CDPR studio only aimed to develop Cyberpunk 2077).

So after releasing 2.1 patch (December 2023) this was supposed to be last patch for Cyberpunk, and also there wasn't supposed to be anyone from CDPR team working for the game.

After 2.2 got released (December 2024) it turns out another studio (named Virtuos) had been working on this game called which is a company located in Singapore, working for multiple triple AAA titles. One of the works this company has is (after asking Copilot about company if they have experience in working with expansions) "They provide a range of services, including co-development and full stack development, which can involve creating expansions for existing games".

This game was originally supposed to have 2 expansions until CDPR cut the expansions to just 1 (at least that's what's officially told), and now with the patch 2.2 this company co-operation has been discovered.

But why would they hire a totally new company just to make 1 patch, and call it a day? I think Cyberpunk 2077 development might be actually far from over. Since CDPR owns the rights to basic game, and the rights to it's first expansion, any potential customer who would want new expansion would be a potential new buyer who'd need the first game at least, and would likely want to have first expansion too to experience.

Why is this important?

Because I believe by having a new company working on expansion, they can reap 100% profits of said expansions, which would highly incentivize on working with the game, potentially paying modders code to be enabled in the base game, while working on things like 3rd person view, more enemy variants, dynamically emerging mercenary missions.

Would working on Cyberpunk's expansion really be that beneficial? Lets think for a moment.

First expansion has already sold more than 5 million copies, making it an instant chance to hit close to 5 million sales for 2nd expansion. You could also make some custom in game purchases like paying for 4th and 5th origin story. They could even work with the CDPR NA team who's working on multiplayer components of the game to actually bring in Cyberpunk multiplayer as a real thing, potentially making it a huge revenue source to them, as they would likely be gaining majority of the revenue. I would imagine CDPR would have some ownership of the multiplayer as it's based on their game, and their engine + whatever was already done so far with the project.

So given with this new information it's likely further development is going to continue, and it's not just going to be 2.2 patch.

CDPR was talking in the investors calls about some kind of deals that they're excited about, and it appears that this patch 2.2 was a "crack" on that deal, and this is far more than just making a tiny 5-20 man team to add some color skins on cars and new cyberwear. No, the intention is clearly to renew the playerbase with new experiences for something to come.

And why such focus on things like having possibility to put cyberwear on character customization? Well there's 2 things coming to mind, both equally tantalizing, multiplayer, and 3rd person view.


So I'm asking for the community,
Why hasn't this company co-operation been announced earlier, before the patch release? How long has this co-operation gone? They clearly must have access to the source code and they're not just creating some "mods" that CDPR enables for everyone. Based on the time difference between patch 2.1 and 2.2, which is 1 year, there's possibility that the development was pushed to the Virtuos during the release of 2.1, and plans were made before that.


So what's to make all of this? (sorry for not being so concise)


* More development on Cyberpunk 2077 is certainly coming
- this wasn't just 1 time off where another dev team took over and started working on the title, it wouldn't make much sense with the time to teach other developer team about the code, and make 1 year mission to make a patch

* Likely 2nd expansion (even more?) are on the works
- there clearly is incentive structure for making this happen. CDPR will likely have less revenue directly this way, but it enables bigger playerbase for the base game, incentivizes more people to play the game as new cool things get added and things get tweaked along with player feedback

* This likely isn't just about new content
- potentially there's plans about fixing other aspects of the game that were a bit weak, maybe relating to scripted chase scenes or how certain smaller missions are lacking in dept, perhaps adding voice for memory shards, etc

Based on the size of the patch and the changes made, it's hard to judge how big the development team is as we have no idea how much was released as the size of total work done, we might be just scraping the surface, just like CDPR's many older patches were focused on fixing some aspects and making tweaks, while there was a lot of background work done for bigger reworks



Some works that Virtuos has been worked in past (using Copilot to look this up so might be incorrect somewhat?):
- Their work on projects like the Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater remake, involved 200-300 people over three years
- Virtuos had a dedicated team working on remastering Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. While the exact number of team members isn't publicly disclosed, projects of this scale typically involve dozens of developers, including artists, programmers, and quality assurance testers.
- Virtuos has a substantial capacity for creating game expansions, thanks to their 3,800 professional game developers spread across 23 offices worldwide. One of Virtuos' biggest projects is providing art support for the "Horizon" series, including "Horizon Zero Dawn" and "Horizon Forbidden West".

I think we also have to take in consideration that CDPR is planning to have additional anime being released, on top of live action series/movie of the franchise. There's HUGE potential for creating hype for existing game, especially with refreshed look and new expansion.



But... What kind of expansion would we be able to get?

I think besides the speculation of 2nd scrapped expansion being "moon expansion", we should take a look what holes the Cyberpunk 2077 would have to fill?

- Morgan Blackhand expansion (video link related to the subject)
There's a theory I just listened where events in Arasaka Tower (in the past) are explained. In dream sequence in Arasaka tower, there's a noticeable skip, where Johnny Silverhand get's seemingly caught and shot down as he's attempting to make an exit, being blasted by Adam Smasher, then after futile attempt to shoot back, there's a sudden "glitch" where story skips ahead with Johnny Silverhand escaping to helicopter, only to then being shot down again in the roof. Unbeknowst to the player, parts of Johnny Silverhand's memories are actually Morgan Blackhand's memories. Morgan Blackhand was part of the fight to take down the tower, but he acted alone, and the event with Johnny Silverhand didn't take place at all

Expansion would focus on reliability of memories, and also going back in time, seeing what happened in V's childhood, maybe witnessing some memories as if they were playable events, like losing parents or maybe stepparents who used to take care of V, maybe the story would be different based on origin story as well. Perhaps we could also see more of Alt Cunningham's abilities in searching for these missing engrams of Morgan Blackhand's memories. This would mean more BD sequences.

- Moon mission
There exists already assets like spacesuit which are shown in one ending, with also some assets for Crystal Palace. In more recent patches the entire space station was added into the game itself, making it visible and able to be accessed, all the way to the final gates of entry. Having Moon would make sense, and having a reduced gravity would likely be quite easy to do, and add some interesting new ways to maneuver the structures, and of course who wouldn't want to jump very high with those boosted high jump legs...

View attachment 11408065

- Casino Expansion
There's assets already in game for the Casino, and clearly there was some design will to make this some kind of Las Vegas for the elites to gamble and discuss dirty politics and plot against one another. This could be good plot device to set up story perhaps against the Rogue AI, who controls the Mr Blue Eyes. There's a lot of questions to answer. How big is the reach? How many people are involved? This also was shown in initial trailers that there were these robots in passengers seat in the taxi. We are rarely shown any kind of independent robots, even though there's been strong signs of an "AI uprising", rebelling against their creator, like Delamain splitting into multiple personalities, one of them admitting, they are from behind the Blackwall.

View attachment 11408062

BIGGEST OBSTACLE
Ok, so we got some incentives for doing it. There's money to be made. Fans to make happy. Keeping fans interested in franchise. Attracting bigger audience.

But there's also big obstacles, namely the budget...

Challenges are mostly related to how V is directly connected to Johhny Silverhand, meaning Keanu Reeves has to become a part of the team working for the new project, because he's the voice in V's head, it would be very strange for him to be completely disconnected from it all. If not Keanu Reeves directly, then they would at least have to have rights for his AI voice-alike, which I don't know how easy would it be to create... I suppose that's cheaper and not impossible to do. He's always been a bit stiff thanks to his mannerism and having glasses on, which I guess makes him somewhat ideal person to have AI-voiceover.

Alternatively there would have to be already voice lines that were recorded earlier, perhaps in the end of 1st expansion, they were having Keanu doing extra voice lines for 2nd expansion. I don't think it's that likely though...

i think you have a point

 

[Iferrebee]

Hoping for a bounty system they mentioned in a recent tweet

 

[jacklk85]

Personally, I think an expansion where you play as one of the other main characters in the game would be awesome.

I'd jump at the chance to play a continuation of Songbird's story after she gets sent to the moon, or Kurt Hansen's invasion of Night City. Plenty of scope to flesh out other characters like Jackie, Rogue, Panam and more.

 

[koalahugs]

If not Keanu Reeves directly, then they would at least have to have rights for his AI voice-alike, which I don't know how easy would it be to create... I suppose that's cheaper and not impossible to do. He's always been a bit stiff thanks to his mannerism and having glasses on, which I guess makes him somewhat ideal person to have AI-voiceover.

PLEASE kindly return this idea back to hell, and let it burn there. He's not gonna let that happen. And good on him:

Keanu Reeves Will Never Surrender to the Machines | WIRED

He literally has a clause in his film contracts banning shit like this (at least without his permission, on a case-by-case basis). His contract with CDPR is probably similar.

In any case, I'm not sure why anyone would want a Virtuos expansion? As far as I can tell, they're a support outfit; not storytellers. Personally I'm just glad to see the last few major bugs finally getting fixed. Hopefully we get some little extras like body cyberware next.

 

[Surma.]

PLEASE kindly return this idea back to hell, and let it burn there. He's not gonna let that happen. And good on him:

Keanu Reeves Will Never Surrender to the Machines | WIRED

He literally has a clause in his film contracts banning shit like this (at least without his permission, on a case-by-case basis). His contract with CDPR is probably similar.

In any case, I'm not sure why anyone would want a Virtuos expansion? As far as I can tell, they're a support outfit; not storytellers. Personally I'm just glad to see the last few major bugs finally getting fixed. Hopefully we get some little extras like body cyberware next.

Of course I wasn't expecting Virtuos would go out of their way to just create new lines for Johnny without his permission.

Also the article you linked isn't exactly saying that Keanu Reeves is against having his character legally manufactured voice over, especially when he's shown great interest in being the character in the series. His biggest gripe seemed to be about the Russian deepfakes using his likeness to sell products, and that he wouldn't like to have real acting be removed and replaced by CGI in his action films. Of course he would like to prefer the voices recorded by himself, and Virtuos has studios all over the world, including USA, which would make it easier to have a recording session than him flying to Poland to do it.

"they're a support outfit; not storytellers"
Wasn't there new stories added in patch 2.2, at least this one (Link)

Also, for example, in case of Virtuos, their contributions to Horizon Zero Dawn and Shadow of the Tomb Raider involved creation of cinematic sequences that support the game's story. If CDPR has been providing the story components, maybe for example of that scrapped expansion 2, they wouldn't necessarily have to craft everything from scratch but more so focus on the creation of critical events of the story that was likely near completion before ultimately being scrapped or delayed.

As this sort of stuff is kept in hush-hush black box we can only speculate how much work story wise would have to be made, and CDPR have well stated they have given support in this co-operation, so it's not like they would be walking completely blind on it.

"I'm not sure why anyone would want a Virtuos expansion"
Well why did anyone want Fallout New Vegas? That was created by completely different studio than the previous title. Also a studio that has focused on doing X can also start doing new things as well, just like CD Project had a history of doing translation work on existing games, before trying their luck with Witcher. So I wouldn't say it would be impossible for Virtuos just delve into that category if they wanted. It's like saying "Oh Apple wants to create phone? But they've only been working with Macs... who on earth wants an Apple phone?", I mean shouldn't we judge the product and not appeal to tradition?


Like I stated earlier, CDPR had been laying off workers during the time period of Virtuos Warsaw studio being created, which could have allowed access to people who created stories for Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty for example but were seen no longer needed, until at least the American studio has been well established, giving them some window of opportunity to keep the talent inside the studio unofficially.

Looking at the Fallout New Vegas case by Obsidian Entertainment (2nd game they made, after Neverwinter nights 2) for example, Obsidian Entertainment was founded by former employees of former game studios, Many of these founders had previously worked on Neverwinter Nights. CDPR had started laying off people who were likely working in Cyberpunk department, and they likely would've been part of the new studio in Virtuos Warsaw, making this quite the similar case, with of course exception being that New Vegas was an entirely new game, where (again, theory crafting here) the work they would be doing is merely just an expansion. There's of course positives and negatives on working for expansion, rather than new game. You only have access to people who've purchased original copy of the game... but also that you indeed have access to those people, especially who sticked around for the expansion. So I think having an EXPECTATION of any potential expansion they could make to sell 1-5 million copies upon it's launch, while not earth shattering, with the continuous support likely coming from CDPR in terms of funding to patch the game, they would easily work on other smaller DLC's likely increasing the revenue they could generate. Assuming a new expansion like Phantom Liberty was 30€ in price, they could likely charge similar 30€ for any expansion they make, maybe adding a smaller paid DLC (10-15€) in forms of accessing memory shards of Jackie and V's missions they used to work together (as stated in earlier comment, the voice actor for Jackie was ENTHUSIASTIC for any DLC that would include him). Like someone suggested here, it could be an entirely new story of lets say Johnny Silverhand's youth (when he's younger, thus different voice), him fighting in Corpo wars for example, smaller story in there.

Only thing determining what's actually happening to me is just the level of ambition and how much they (Virtuos) would want to risk, as CD Projekt themselves seem to have made clear, at least in their behalf the work on Cyberpunk 2077 was done.

 

[jeancastex]

I would love another expansion, but let's be realistic, it's probably not even worth it for Cdpr. Next year, console players will play GTA6, nobody will care about an expansion for an 5 years old game (aside of us). Everyone will talk about GTA for months/years. We just have to wait for Orion now.