Story-driven, Open World RPG [2019-21]

Cyberpunk 2077

Studio: CDProjekt RED
Release: Dec 2020
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS5, Xbox Series S/X
Timeframe: Q1 2019 – Q4 2021
Role: Quest Designer

Trailers

GAMEPLAY

Duties and Responsibilities

  • Creating the storyline on a detailed level
    • Large role in crafting and guiding the Nomad lifepath and questline, which is one of the three main paths in the game
    • Worked on Panam’s questline, character, and romance path
    • Worked on River’s questline, character, and romance path
    • Additional writing done for multiple minor quests, vendors, and fluff NPC’s along with lore building events (TV ads etc.)
    • All lore-building content on locations I owned designed & written by me
  • Designing quests and implementing them using a proprietary toolset
    • Directly responsible and owner of one main path quest, one side quest, three minor quests and five cyberpsycho quests
    • Assisted actively with two prologue/hands-on main quests, three side-quests, five minor quests and four Open-World quests – this included design decisions, bug fixing, creating scenes, and reworking sections of the quests
    • Worked actively with the scene editor to pitch, design & implement scenes in the game using our modular editor and having reviews with the Cinematic Director, thereby easing the load off the cinematic departments
    • Considered one of the few “power users” of our in-house editor, frequently being brought on to assist other people in more advanced implementation or edge cases and being on-call for questions and emergency help during E3/Hands-on
  • Planning assets required for the creation of the quests
    • Oversaw and guided all asset requests and delivery for my content, creating tasks for other departments and handling communications between them to ensure everyone is on the same page
    • Also worked with several outsource contractors, handling communication and ensuring what they deliver meets expectations and fits narratively with the game
  • Cooperating with other departments
    • Worked hand in hand with Cinematic Designers, helping them in scene creation and often taking over implementation for certain scenes.
    • As owner of content was responsible for following up on all my asset/feature requests so had active relationship with all departments, communicating daily with members of Assets, Environment, Writing, UI, Code Core/GMPL, Open World etc.
    • Worked directly with code and gameplay teams on a variety of engine editor and in-game features and systems (e.g. Holocalls, scene editor improvements etc.)
  • Integrating delivered assets (like gameplay elements, locations, characters, dialogue etc.) into a seamless, engaging, and unique experience
    • Was directly responsible for implementation of all game elements in my content, assembling everything personally
    • This included not only all logic scripting and scenes but also, when needed, taking over from environment, level design and gameplay teams to handcraft encounters and locations
    • All time/context-sensitive content hand-placed – e.g. lore shards, emails, reactive dialogue, secret paths, environmental storytelling
  • Maintaining the highest possible quality of quests, and fixing reported bugs
    • Consistently maintained some of the lowest bug-counts across my department and as a result was frequently brought on to help and assist other designers with their content and bugs
    • By the end of development had assisted with over 18 quests that I was not owner to, helping bring all of them to a shippable state
  • Creating and maintaining design documentation
    • Created & maintained all documentation for content I owned
    • Created, maintained, and distributed documentation for all features and technical topics that I was owner off, handling dissemination of information across the company and handling any necessary global passes implementing it
  • Assisting in training
    • Helped train three interns that eventually became Junior Designers – teaching them design principles and having video sessions guiding them through using the editor
    • Helped in troubleshooting and training members of audio, environment, open-world, and cinematics in advanced features of the editor
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