Cyberpunk 2077 has been recently delayed by CD Projekt RED in order to ensure a polished version of the open world game would be available to players.

　　That means we've still got over seven months before the new Cyberpunk 2077 release date (September 17th). Don't despair, though, fellow readers! In an interview with OnMSFT, John Mamais, Head of Studio of CD Projekt RED's Cracow team, revealed quite a few new tidbits on Cyberpunk 2077. For instance, while he couldn't provide an estimate on the overall gameplay length, he did say players will find about 75 'street stories' throughout Night City.

　　We don’t have any simulator stuff or gameplay. In Witcher 3, we did the open-world elements very late in the development process when we only had two or three people working on it or something. Now there’s, like, 15 people doing these open-world quests.

　　There’s a couple of layers. There’s a passive layer, which is the vendors, then there’s the STSs, which are the street stories. I think there’s around 75 street stories. Then there’s minor activities as well.

　　The street stories are like little quests. There’s story but there’s not, like, advanced cinematic storytelling sequences so much. They’re a way to explore the world and level-up your character.

　　Later in the interview, Mamais also pointed out two technical features that will make Cyberpunk 2077 stand out from the crowd. The first is the real-time Global Illumination, which he said hasn't been properly showcased as of yet. He also praised the sound and recommended getting a Dolby Atmos system if possible to get a full immersion in the game's atmosphere.

　　There is some stuff that hasn’t been talked about such as the way that it’s been lit. Our director keeps talking about the real-time global illumination system which we haven’t really seen in its full beauty yet. No one in the public has seen how it’s finally going to look. It’s going to look more breathtaking than we’ve seen so far.

　　Also, the sound. The acoustic system that one of our sound programmers came up with is going to sound really realistic because of the way they’re using the geometry. It creates this reverb effect so that changes as the space changes. If I were a rich gamer, I’d definitely go out and buy a Dolby Atmos system to listen to this game. It’s going to be very immersive, deep, and beautiful-sounding.

　　Cyberpunk 2077 on PC will also have optional raytraced effects for Diffuse Illumination and Ambient Occlusion. These may eventually find their way on next-generation consoles which have hardware support for raytracing, whenever the developers will support PS5 and Xbox Series X.