CD Projekt Red has recently debunked a long-standing myth about Cyberpunk 2077’s loading screens. According to the game’s Creative Director, players have incorrectly assumed that they were hiding load times in the game with elevator’s.
Cyberpunk 2077 Elevator Loading Screen Myth Explained by CD Projekt Red
If you’ve been gaming for a while now, you know one of the creative ways developers have hidden loading screens is through elevator sequences. 2007’s Mass Effect was infamous for this. So understandably, many players assumed that the lengthy Cyberpunk 2077 elevator sequences were also used to hide assets and sections of the map loading in. However, according to CD Projekt Red, that isn’t the case.
In a post on Blue Sky, Cyberpunk 2077 Director Igor Sarzynski debunked that myth. “Mini rant: no, elevators in Cyberpunk are not ‘cleverly concealed loading screens’. You really think you can traverse a whole city and enter a huge complex interior with no loading screens—but we need to do elevator tricks to load a penthouse?” As for why Cyberpunk 2077 has so many elevators in the city, the developer said it’s because it’s realistic.
“Elevators are there because it makes sense. We could make it transparent if we wanted. This engine is a miracle. I will not accept slander.” Of course, Sarzynski is talking about Cyberpunk 2077’s REDengine 4. The in-house engine has been praised by many developers and players for its incredible graphics and technical capabilities. According to Sarzynski, though, players assumed that the powerful engine still needed to hide loading screens. Well, that isn’t the case.
Players React to Cyberpunk 2077 Elevator Loading Screen Explanation
What Igor Sarzynski says makes a lot of sense. It would be more strange if a major technologically driven city didn’t have elevators. So if you find these lift sequences in Cyberpunk 2077 are too long, then blame it on real life. However, the main takeaway is that elevators in the open world RPG are actually used for both realism and narrative reasons.
For example, one user on the Cyberpunk subreddit explained, “If anything, elevators are ‘pauses’ where you can have dialogues with characters. Some of them, in fact, become suspiciously slow in certain dialogue options (like the elevator to the hideout in Dogtown you take with Myers). So clearly, elevators aren’t slow because of a technical reason related to the engine. They are slow for a) realism b) very rarely, to give you a chance to talk to the character involved in the scene.”
A second user also pointed out another sequence where elevators are slowed down in the game’s main story. “Yep! Or the Arasaka Tower elevator that actually is unrealistically long due to the conversation.” So yeah, Cyberpunk 2077 elevators were not, in fact, hiding loading screens.
The open world RPG was instead using the lift sequences as narrative set pieces, or structural elements to make the city feel more realistic. Regardless, it’s a pretty neat fact that shows just how much depth went into bringing Night City to life. It also is an example of how powerful the REDengine 4 truly is.
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