CD Projekt Red significantly strengthens Cyberpunk 2077 sequel development team

CD Projekt Red North America is strengthening its team with gaming industry veterans to work on the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077.

Among the people who joined the team of CDPR’s US office is Dan Hernberg, who will become an executive producer. Previously, Dan worked as the head of production at Amazon Games and Panic Button, as well as a lead product manager at Blizzard Entertainment. He worked on New World, Apex Legends, and Diablo III.

The new design director will be Ryan Barnard, who was formerly a game director at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft and worked on Hitman IO Interactive as a game design lead. Alan Villani will join as Director of Engineering. Previously, he worked as Vice President of Technology at WB Game and was the technical lead on several Mortal Kombat titles.

Another big addition to the team is Anna Magill, a well-known writer with 20 years of experience in video games. She will be working on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel as a lead writer. Previously, she worked on Control, Dishonored: Death of The Outsider, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Guild Wars 2, and the upcoming Fable.

Anna will not be the only new writer. CDPR has also been joined by Alexander Fried, who previously worked as a lead writer at BioWare, including on Star Wars: The Old Republic. He also has experience working with DICE, Obsidian Entertainment, Wizards of the Coast, and 20th Century Fox FoxNext.

With a team like this, it’s no surprise that Igor Sarzyński, narrative director of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, called Cyberpunk 2077 just a warm-up game. But it remains to be seen whether big names and industry veterans will help us produce a quality product.