Cyberpunk 2077 players have no idea how many paths the game is offering during even the simplest of actions. According to the devs, spending so much time on creating these small choices could be a mistake which resulted in a huge amount of lost time and resources.
Cyberpunk 2077 acting lead quest designer Philipp Weber recently shared his thoughts on the title's excessive non-linearity. During the latest Cyberpunk 2077 stream on Twitch with Paweł Sasko (via GRYOnline), Weber revealed that a single conversation with Goro Takemura "took more work than the whole parade section" — and we can assume there's more than one such example in the game.
Weber looked at the "Down on the street" mission where the players accompanied Takemura on the way to Wakako Okada. During the quest, V can either join Takemura or go to the destination by themselves. The protagonist can also say he'll be joining Takemura but still set off alone. There is another option with V declining Takemura's offer to join him in a conversation and simply follow him afterward. And there are many little options here and there for how the whole thing is going to work with different consequences for every players' decision.
For CDPR, this insignificant choice of how to get to the quest location meant a lot of work. The team has to consider and design all the alternatives for every possible outcome, including individual NPCs' interactions with each other in every step of the quest. Weber admitted it wasn't a good solution, and since the team was learning only during Cyberpunk 2077 development, this became very complicated.
The studio would find a more optimized way right now and spend the time on something else of more importance. The entire section might be strictly linear without much sacrifice for the players' immersion, which would also make things much easier for the devs.
As of now, the team is busy with next-gen versions of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 — both delayed until the next year. In addition, all the remaining content for Cyberpunk 2077 was also pushed into 2022 regardless of the fact that 25 percent of the studio was working on its first major expansion back in June.