Cyberpunk 2 Development Update: Multiplayer, Unreal Engine 5, and New Studio Expansion

That's because Cyberpunk 2 is still in the planning stages, so CD Projekt Red doesn't talk much about it in public. But their job ads say a lot. From the end of 2025 to the beginning of 2026, the company posted dozens of jobs for the Cyberpunk successor all the time. There's a lot you can learn about the game and what people might get to play if you read between the lines.

The first thing that stands out is what kind of people are being hired. Those who work on Night City 2.0 all the time, like environment artists and quest planners, won't be able to do these jobs. At this point, most of the jobs are top leadership positions with titles like "expert technical artist," "lead narrative producer," and "lead network engineer."

As part of their work, they are making animation pipelines, visual rendering tools, and the foundations for multiplayer networking.

What they said is very important. Still, the work that goes into making Cyberpunk 2 is known as "pre-production." Right now, the team isn't making the game itself. Instead, they're setting up the systems, tools, and processes that will help them speed up the process in the future. There are about 135 people working on Cyberpunk 2 at the moment.

The job ads run through April and May 2026, so the studio hopes to keep hiring leaders until the end of the year. That's because of the time it takes for interviews, moving, and getting new workers up to speed. These people probably won't really get to work until late 2026 or early 2027. That's when they could start making everything.

One of the most important things that these job postings don't say is that multiplayer isn't just a dream or something that could be added after the game comes out. The story of Cyberpunk 2 is being told at the same time that it is being built from the ground up. It's clear from the lead network engineer job description that this person will be in charge of creating multiplayer design, matchmaking systems, and ways to make servers run faster.

That the studio hasn't given up on the idea is clear.

The article from the technical QA lead, on the other hand, is about getting debug network messages and finding places where multiplayer games fail. We shouldn't say that. We should say, "someday we might add this." This is how you say "we're testing this right now." At first, Cyberpunk 2077 had plans for multiplayer, but they were scrapped because they were too hard to set up. This makes sense, then. 

This time, though, they're adding it from the beginning instead of trying to add it at the end. The tone of the listings doesn't make it sound like simple co-op jobs. It means an online world that stays the same and has lots of chores and things to do. It might be set up more like GTA Online, with small payments and ongoing services.

You might be able to play with other people in Night City 2.0 and a brand-new city after you finish the single-player game. The multiplayer mode will be based on the figure you made. Also, first-person combat is here to stay. You might be disappointed if you were hoping for a move to third-person like in The Witcher games.

The person who gets the senior-level designer job needs to know a lot about action RPGs, especially first-person shooters. But there is good news in the design attitude. Your main job as a senior encounter designer is to make sure that all types of players can handle the fighting. You do this by using both handcrafted set-piece fights and systemic encounters that appear out of nowhere.

The game is being made so that it can be played in any way, whether you like to sneak past enemies, hack your way through jobs, or charge right in. It's very important to switch to Unreal Engine 5 when it comes to technology. Many job postings for tech jobs say that you need to know how to use Unreal Engine 5. This makes sense since, after Cyberpunk 2077, the company stopped using its own REDengine.

Many scientific terms are used in the ads, which leads me to believe that the team isn't just learning how to use UE5. 

They are using the engine to try out new graphics technology and making custom rendering pipelines and shader systems that are more involved. As a professional technical artist, it will be your job to come up with looks, break down big visual goals into steps that can be done in real time, and work with others to figure out GPU costs.

One interesting thing is that knowing how Epic's MetaHuman process works is listed as a skill that is needed. This is a high-tech way to make digital people that look like real people. If this works as planned, the looks and actions of characters could be much better than what was seen in Cyberpunk 2077's non-playable characters.

Along with other changes, this shows a strong push for more realistic characters and a more movie-like presentation. Good news: a new performance capture studio with two stages is being built in Warsaw. This will help them reach their goal. The studio can record acts more often, make changes faster, and avoid scheduling problems that come with renting studios from outside sources because it owns its own space.

For the job of head narrative producer, you need to know how to record your words, your movements, and your performances. All of this shows that movie quality has gotten a lot better. The actors in Cyberpunk 2077 did a great job, but the face movement and body language weren't always as good as they are in the best story-based games. This time, the company seems to have a bigger goal.

A lot of places are growing, like Boston, Warsaw, and Vancouver. The Boston company is the main hub and is in charge of leadership, technology for graphics and multiplayer games, and key game systems. People know Warsaw for its animation, technical direction, new performance capture lab, and work that helps with production.

Vancouver might be doing scene art, technical work, and quality assurance testing, but it's not clear what exactly they're doing. It can be hard for engineers to work in three different time zones, but they can work almost 24 hours a day if they need to. To get a job, you often have to work with people from different companies and different departments.

Before artists can start making the game world, they need to finish this very important background work.

This makes me think that frameworks for management are being built to deal with this level of complexity. We can learn a lot about how Cyberpunk 2 is being made from these job posts, but not much about the story, the characters, or the places. Even though we don't know much about the story, there are signs of a new city along with Night City 2.0 that has been made better.

Since making the game took so long, it's likely also meant to be played on newer devices, like the PlayStation and Xbox systems that came out after this one. From the job posts as a whole, it looks like the company is building a strong technical and organizational base before production starts on a large scale. You can no longer choose to have multiplayer.

Fighting in the first person is still a big part of the game. Unique tech is being used to make Unreal Engine 5 better. We can record better performances and see movies more clearly now that we have new technology. The way people are hired alone paints a fairly clear picture of where Cyberpunk 2 is going, even though nothing has been said directly.