There was a time, just a few years ago, when shorter RPGs were the “in-thing” and titles like Zeboyd’s Breath of Death 7 were held up as modern masterpieces and the voice of a new generation. This changed with the rise of Kickstarter and the hardcore older folks with excess cash to burn began investing in the longer, more complex games that the new crowdfunding platform seemed to become the launchpad for. This even carried over into Triple-A development when, earlier in the year, we all gave up large chunks of our life to CD Projekt Red’s Witcher 3. Weighing in at well over 100 hours, it demanded quite a bit of attention from a player in order to see it through to the end.

Knowing this, it sounds shocking that Cyberpunk 2077, the next big title to come from the Polish developer, is planned to be even larger.

“The Witcher helped Cyberpunk quite a bit, because the game got so big and so complex that it really taught us,” he explained. “We really didn’t know what was going to happen.

“If anything, working on The Witcher 3 was a really good and often brutal learning experience. Cyberpunk is going to benefit greatly from it. I can almost guarantee it.

“I have a lot of things that I want to change and do better the next time around, and I can guarantee that almost everyone in that studio has something that they go ‘I did this this time, next time I can do it differently, I can do it better’.”

According to visual effects artist Jose Teixeira, Cyberpunk 2077 will be, quote, “Far, far bigger” than anything the company has created before.

One of the few criticisms thrown at The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is that the game is too big for its own good. While everyone has different tastes when it comes to the size and length of their RPGs, I do see where they’re coming from. Including even half of the game’s side quests, you’re almost guaranteed to crack through the 100 hour ceiling if you stick around to complete the main story. I’ve seen folks who have managed to clock in a few hundred hours before seeing the end credits, which doesn’t seem all too uncommon. Whether Cyberpunk can hold a gamer’s attention through triple digit hour totals remains to be seen, but it appears CD Projekt is still planning to steal your social life regardless of how you feel about it.