Cyberpunk 2077's quest director Paweł Sasko explained the game's lack of car chases or police pursuits, saying that the team wanted to deliver that, but couldn't manage because of technical limitations. He also mentioned Elden Ring and Sonic as an example of open world titles without car chases. Maybe they'll have horseback chases, eh?
Sasko held the six-hour Cyberpunk 2077 stream recently, during which he touched upon several challenges of the project's development. Someone asked the quest director: "Why there are not so many car chases while every other open-world game has these mechanics?" Sasko pointed out that the entire "every open-world game has car chases" phrase is incorrect.
"First of all, not every open-world game [has this]. I don't think that Sonic games will have it or Elden Ring open-world game will have it," Sasko explained. "I understand your point absolutely, but let's be realistic." The developer assumed that the fan was referring most likely to GTA or Watch Dogs. Of course, there are some other games on the market with such mechanics, including Sleeping Dogs, Saints Row, Mafia, Just Cause, Driver — let's assume that Sasko just forgot about them.
The developer continues saying that "various limitations" prevent CD Projekt Red from adding these mechanics to Cyberpunk 2077.
"In this specific case, it was just a technical limitation. There's not much more I can really offer," Sasko said. "We simply didn't manage to make it. It's not that we didn't make it because we didn't want to."
Sasko's reply ended up on Reddit, where it was a taken out of context, leading to many people roasting the quest director for comparing Cyberpunk 2077 with Elden Ring. The thing is, he never actually did — he just pointed out the whole formulation of the question was incorrect and the lack of chases in an open-world game is a normal thing. You can find him answering in full in the video above at the 3:38:40 mark.
Previously, senior cinematic designer PaweÅ‚ Ochocki revealed the studio never planned to expand missions with Jackie Welles in Night City as "there's no real tension in it." In his words, only "once you start dying and the cyber-terrorist from the past is in your head — that's where the tension arises."