“Cyberpunk 2077” Director Explains Why There Are No Police Chases In The Game

One of the strangest things about Cyberpunk 2077 is the way it handles its enemy AI system. Not just in terms of How? ‘Or’ What enemies react to you, but the path they react to you. As you go, the police will appear out of nowhere rather than appearing in cars, and no one, neither the gangs nor the police, will ever chase you in a vehicle outside of some very selected scripted sequences during the missions.

So why was that?

Quest Director Pawel Sasko asked this on one of his recent feeds, and the first part of his answer pushes back the idea that “all” games in the open world have a system like this. It hints at the upcoming open world game Sonic and Elden Ring as open world games that won’t have police chases. He cites GTA and Watch Dogs as two of the only games he can think of that have this system.

This part of the answer was not well received by fans, who roasted it for citing a game like Elden Ring. I think he’s trying to play a joke there, but his tone doesn’t really indicate it. But the fans are right when they say there is a tonne of games with police / gang chase AI in addition to Watch Dogs and GTA, be it Mafia, Sleeping Dogs, Saint’s Row or others. I also think there is a point to be made about the implementation of even non-modern games. some sort of research-based system that has enemies showing up to hunt you down, whether they’re Oblivion guards or Red Dead sheriffs. Cyberpunk is lacking in all of this.

The second part of the clip that got caught explains why they didn’t have a police chase system. Sasko says it was a combination of the engine’s technical limitations and not enough time to get it running before release, so it’s something that they ultimately gave up, that’s how we got the current system. which teleports you the police, and never have the gangs chased you apart from the small groups that you can provoke on the map.

Some rumors about what Cyberpunk 2077 has in store for the future indicate that an overhaul of this system may be in the works. While that could be a range of things, like more police / gang assault, and it’s hard to imagine that we could get to a point where we have real car chases, a mechanism that is currently at stake. 100% missing from the game. But I guess we can dream.

Tonally, I really don’t think it makes much sense not to have a more robust system than the one Cyberpunk was launched with. Jokes about Sonic and Elden Ring, if a game seems like it needs a system like this that matches the actual content of the story, it’s Cyberpunk, especially since you often side with it. one faction over another or that you betray / go with them. And you really can’t have a police system that he somehow overtook by GTA 3 in 2001.

We’ll see what CDPR has in store for this aspect of the game in the future, and I’d be surprised if it was left out entirely.

Follow me on Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content summary newsletter, God rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels on Herokiller Series and The Terrestrials trilogy.