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Cyberpunk 2077 Creative Director joins Blizzard

Budi

Budi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,883
Finland
For the reasons of him leaving, I could see the CDPR crunch finally taking too much of a toll. As to my understanding, Activision-Blizzard is allegedly really nice place to work. Atleast as far as gaming companies go, even though they had that one notable racial abuse and discrimination incident. Of course it won't be a vacation at Blizzard either, but likely bit more lax.
milad said:
Blizzard probably pays 3x as much or similar.

What his experience brings to Blizzard though I have no idea. They don't make narrative focused games which he has worked on thus far.
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Many of their games do have a lot of story and especially lore. It's just that it's not usually anything special.
Toumari said:
This isn't the first high profile departure from CDPR in the last couple of months. This was the guy who presented the game at E3:

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Whooooa Finland! I forgot he worked for Remedy before. Welcome back ^^
 
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Asbsand

Asbsand

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
9,901
Denmark
Gerwant said:
From his LinkedIn profile, nothing more to add at the moment:

linkedindok37.png


https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-stępień-3bb81947/

Creative director leaving while the game is still in development is rather unusual, right?
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Fuuuuck, this stings. I've been cheering for this guy specifically since the Witcher 2 days (lead story designer, responsible for complex political subplots which Witcher 3 failed to address properly in his absence). God damn this blows... I take that as a sign that not everyone's happy with the way CDPR do things. It's like when Drew Karpyshyn left BioWare Edmonton. Never knew it but clearly something was changing since he and several other veterans jumped ship around summer 2009 when the game still had a little less than a year left of production.
 
DarkFlame92

DarkFlame92

Member
Nov 10, 2017
5,644
You guys must understand that first of all the game is at its late stages of development,meaning that once someone has done all the work he ought to do in the game,he will either renew with CD Project for their next game or go work for other companies.

For example if the concept artists give all the material they can create for a game,they do'nt need to be there until launch day sitting at their asses. They will either move to another company or work on a new project of the same company.

Also,working at CD Project serves as a great biography for going to other higher paying companies. And yes there are higher paying companies than CD Project in case you didn't know.

TLDR: Stop looking at game development superficially,through twitter posts and job postings or movements. It's silly
 
Ploid 6.0

Ploid 6.0

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,440
Oh my sweet summer child. From CDPR to stinking Blizzard? The money better be worth the change for sure.
 
Finaj

Finaj

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,360
I'm curious if this means Blizzard's storytelling will improve (for at least one of their titles), which is probably the one area where they are consistently bad/mediocre in.
 
Hope

Hope

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
2,065
It seems kinda like a downgrade tho at least creative wise. I hope he will be happy with his decision.
 
Indy in the Fridge

Indy in the Fridge

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
15,278
milad said:
Blizzard probably pays 3x as much or similar.

What his experience brings to Blizzard though I have no idea. They don't make narrative focused games which he has worked on thus far.
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Yeah but cost of living in Poland is vastly different than the cost of living in California. That salary increase would have had to have been massive.
 
Vela

Vela

Alt Account
Banned
Apr 16, 2018
1,818
Man, people really are delusional if they think the creative director just sit on her/his ass in the final phase of development.

And that's even assuming that this game is anywhere near its final stages
 
Sign My Guestbook!

Sign My Guestbook!

Member
May 26, 2018
24,020
I'm used to people in these positions (generally) sticking around until release or something. Maybe I've got the wrong idea about the positions involved here?
 
Admiral Woofington

Admiral Woofington

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
14,892
Vela said:
Damn this is not good news no matter how you cut it
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Yall act like you keep the responsibilities from beginning to end and there aren't other coworkers who have overseen the work with you from start to finish and can manage it just fine with you gone.

If the game is largely done in its base state and they are now polishing the title, optimizing and squashing bugs what can the creative director do realistically at this point late in the development. The guy from remedy I was fairly sure they brought in to lead with the combat development of the title. Both of those positions would have folks that can take over now and oversee now that it's largely done.

Consider any other industry with management positions in a project with a clear end date. It makes sense that they use their experience to obtain more lucrative positions either by company or payment. No need to stick around if you aren't doing much.
 
mutantmagnet

mutantmagnet

Member
Oct 28, 2017
12,401
Japanonaut said:
Do people actually know that its common for games creative directors to leave like 12 months before release or whatever? Call BS that they do. Cos most big creative directors give interviews on the games release.

Could be a major reboot with not long to go, ala Destiny
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I doubt they are doing a reboot but I would have to believe there has to be some type of professional difference between this guy and the higher ups. Until some credible rumors crop up I would prefer to believe he had some serious issues about what bonuses and benefits he was getting and moving closer to Silicon Valley is just too hard to pass up on top of those issues.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,550
Creative work tends to happen early in development and should be mostly done by now.

Also, long-term projects are generally designed in such a way that work can still continue even when a key member leaves. You can't expect a staff to remain completely static for several years.
 
Aftermath

Aftermath

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,756
Just how far along is it?


September 12, 2014

Lionbite Games gathers an impressive team of talented minds from all over the industry.

Lead programmer Carl Granberg's merits include not only praised titles such as Alan Wake and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, but also upcoming CD Project's triple-A games The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077.

Make of that what you will, currently he is working on a 3rd person Dystopian/Cyberpunk game with Chose your own path elements, RPG (I think rpg is still in) & Hacking etc, split across Episodes.

episode 2 is going to be a Private Investigator Noir Cyberpunk story.

The game called Rain of Reflections since 2014


Source http://lionbite.se/category/updates/
 
Budi

Budi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,883
Finland
Aftermath said:
Just how far along is it?


September 12, 2014

Lionbite Games gathers an impressive team of talented minds from all over the industry.

Lead programmer Carl Granberg's merits include not only praised titles such as Alan Wake and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, but also upcoming CD Project's triple-A games The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077.

Make of that what you will, currently he is working on a 3rd person Dystopian/Cyberpunk game with Chose your own path elements, RPG (I think rpg is still in) & Hacking etc, split across Episodes.

episode 2 is going to be a Private Investigator Noir Cyberpunk story.

The game called Rain of Reflections since 2014


Source http://lionbite.se/category/updates/
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I remember this game, it seems very interesting. I made a thread for it's trailer back in GAF.
 

Zedelima

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,718
What about thag talk about the game already being playable from start to finish ?

Maybe they are in a polishing phase so people felt comfortable to leave.
 
Morrigan

Morrigan

Spear of the Metal Church
Member
Oct 24, 2017
34,357
Does this mean Diablo will finally have a worthwhile story? 🤔
 
giant_frying_pan

giant_frying_pan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,672
Glasgow
Anyone worried about Cyberpunk or CDPR just needs to bear in mind that staff turnover like this happened throughout The Witcher 3's development as well.
 
Artdayne

Artdayne

Banned
Nov 7, 2017
5,015
From my understanding, a creative director is done with their job pretty early so that may be the case here.
 
Young Liar

Young Liar

Member
Nov 30, 2017
3,421
Still need to play The Witcher games, but I'm excited anyway to see what he can do for a Blizzard game, whether it's an established series or a totally new game. Blizzard games have really cool lore. The devs just need help translating those backstories and histories into compelling... stories. Maybe he can be the catalyst!
 
Truly Gargantuan

Truly Gargantuan

Still doesn't have a tag :'(
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,034
Acorn said:
What is a creative director? Just writing story and world building?
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Roles are different from studio to studio but from my understanding Creative Directors have their hands in a lot of pies, from writing to art to tone/mood of the game.
Either way there are so many variables at work here that this isn't indicative of much of anything.
But I'm personally hoping this means the game is in it's last leg of development, where most things are set in stone and now just comes polishing and bug fixing. Crossing my fingers for holiday season 2019 or early 2020.
 
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