Cyberpunk 2077 key dev leaves CDPR, joins Blizzard
Sebastian Stepien, co-writer and story designer for the Witcher series and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, left CD Projekt RED. His new employer is Blizzard, where the developer took over as Creative Director.
Another reshuffle in the industry. This time, it should be of great interest to people waiting for Cyberpunk 2077. We're talking about Sebastian Stepien, who worked for 12 and a half years in CD Projekt RED. As we can read on his profile on LinkedIn, this month, he left his native studio and moved to sunny California to work as a Creative Director at Blizzard Entertainment. The reasons for this decision are not known at this time. Perhaps the development of CP2077 is at a stage that’s sufficiently advanced to warrant letting go a key figure, or perhaps this winter in Warsaw was just too cold.
During his adventure in CD Projekt RED, Stepien occupied various positions. He worked on dialogs and story in all installments of The Witcher series. In recent years, he was one of the key figures in the team developing Cyberpunk 2077. As a creative director (from 2013) and the head of narration and setting department (from 2016) in the Polish studio, he took part in inventing the plot of the upcoming production based on a popular table-top RPG system, Cyberpunk, created by Mike Pondsmith. A couple years ago, Stepien spoke a few times about the game, for instance in a conversation with IGN, where he emphasized that the game will have more in common with Tarantino movies than with Scott’s iconic, Blade Runner from 1984.
What will be Stepien's responsibility in Blizzard? We know that the Irvine giant is currently focusing on projects from the Diablo universe. Recently, there surfaced the information that the company is looking for programmers, graphic designers and experts in task animation and gameplay systems, among others. There are many indications that the work on the fourth installment in the cult hack'n'slash series, Diablo, is in full swing. Is that indeed the case? This is something we should learn later this year. But if not Diablo, then what? Perhaps Stepien will be responsible for developing an entirely new IP? This would undoubtedly be a pleasing information for many, many players – provided the new title wouldn't be a mobile exclusive...
