Cyberpunk 2077 director says it was hard to "propagate a vision" among 500 devs

Cyberpunk 2077 is perhaps one of the most fascinating stories in videogames. The victim of myriad delays (those bright yellow walls of text still haunt my dreams), CD Projekt Red's virtual vision of a neon-lit, sandbox dystopia simply didn't live up to expectations at launch, releasing in a bit of a borked state. I remember when Michael 'Shroud' Grzesiek got out of his car and his model was missing its head, and vividly recall getting yeeted into the air when my motorcycle casually exploded mid-ride for no apparent reason. But now, five years and one stellar expansion later, it's heralded as one of the finest RPGs around with a redemption arc almost unlike any other.

Rebel Wolves founder Konrad Tomaszkiewicz (then Cyberpunk 2077's design director) experienced it all behind the scenes, however. Departing the company in 2019, just before the game's release, he'd served as director on The Witcher 3, and contributed in various ways to both the original Witcher and its sequel. Now, he's creating The Blood of Dawnwalker, a dark fantasy RPG set in a plague-ridden Carpathia that has been enthralled by a particularly vicious group of vampires.

While there's certainly some Witcher DNA in there, I asked Tomaszkiewicz about his approach to Dawnwalker's design, and if there were any lessons he learned during his 17 years at CDPR. The TLDR? Smaller is sometimes better.

"I'm thankful for CD Projekt Red because they allowed me to grow as a developer," he tells me at Gamescom 2025. "We learned a lot and are doing a lot of things differently [at Rebel Wolves].

"For example, we don't want to be a big company; we want to be a medium company. I remember when I worked on the second and third Witcher that I was part of a smaller team that knew each other really well. Now, when I work with my team, I work the same way. I'm not just sitting in my office waiting to review [things], I'm implementing the quests and the enemies with them, and I've really quickly seen which direction the game is going in.

"I'm not saying that the big companies are wrong, but it's harder," he muses. "When you have 500 people like when I was working on Cyberpunk, it's really hard to communicate with everyone and propagate a vision, and it was really hard to see the progress and the direction the game was going in. What we're doing [at Rebel Wolves] is something new, something fresh, and we're choosing our own way to develop our game."

He clarifies that other developers on the team had their own experiences with CDPR, and that he doesn't want to make sweeping generalizations, highlighting that different offices in different regions had their own unique approaches. It is, however, a story we hear time and time again, with communication and management issues sometimes throwing spanners in the works at large studios.

From what I've seen of The Blood of Dawnwalker, though, my hopes are high, and while it isn't quite the vampire game I expected, Tomaszkiewicz has sold me on its combat, narrative, and choice-driven design. You can check out our full, UK-exclusive interview here.

Here's everything we know about The Blood of Dawnwalker release date if you're excited to see what Tomaszkiewicz and Rebel Wolves do next. Or, if you're finally taking a trip back to Night City, check out our list of the best Cyberpunk 2077 mods to freshen things up.

What did you think of Cyberpunk 2077 at launch vs today? Tell us over on Discord. Or, if you're more excited for Dawnwalker, be sure to ping me - I have an unhealthy obsession with vampires and will talk to anyone about all things spooky.