Veteran developers join Cyberpunk 2077 sequel team at CD Projekt North America

CD Projekt Red has announced the appointment of a number of veteran developers to work on its Cyberpunk 2077 sequel.

Development of the title, which is codenamed Project Orion, is being headed by its North American arm, which has studios in Boston and Vancouver.

Core team members behind Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty expansion moved to North America to lead development on the follow-up, including game director Gabriel Amatangelo, associate game director Paweł Sasko, and creative director Igor Sarzyński.

The studio announced on Tuesday that they’re being joined by Dan Hernberg as executive producer, Ryan Barnard as design director, Alan Villani as engineering director, Anna Megill as lead writer, and Alexander Freed as writer.

Hernberg previously served as head of production at both Amazon Games and Panic Button, and lead product manager at Blizzard. His credits include New World, Apex Legends and Diablo 3.

Barnard previously worked as game director at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft, and gameplay director at Hitman studio IO Interactive.

Villani was formerly VP of technology on various Warner Bros. projects including Mortal Kombat games, and most recently served as studio tech director at The Molasses Flood, which CD Projekt acquired in 2021.

Anna Megill’s writing credits include Control, Dishonored: Death of The Outsider, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Guild Wars 2 and the upcoming Fable.

Freed has over 15 years of game writing experience, including as lead writer on multiple BioWare projects including Star Wars: The Old Republic.

CD Projekt said in October that Project Orion was in the “conceptual design” phase.

Further reading

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CD Projekt has also established a team to explore how it can use AI in development

The company expects to have about 80 people working on the game by the end of this year. It’s currently hiring for various positions at its North American studios.

CD Projekt joint CEO Michal Nowakowski said last month that it’s considering including multiplayer elements in the Cyberpunk sequel.