CD Projekt RED’s next Cyberpunk game, currently known as Project Orion, is set to broaden the series beyond Night City. Mike Pondsmith, creator of the Cyberpunk tabletop role-playing game, has confirmed that the sequel will feature another city alongside the familiar metropolis. Several clues suggest that this location could be a devastated version of Chicago.
Project Orion is being led by Gabe Amatangelo, director of the Phantom Liberty expansion. Development is centered at CD Projekt RED’s new Boston studio, with support from teams in Warsaw and Vancouver. The project entered pre-production in May 2025 and is being developed in Unreal Engine 5 rather than the company’s REDengine. Announcements made in October 2026 also confirmed that the game will include multiplayer features.
Pondsmith revealed in spring 2025 that Project Orion would not be limited to Night City. After speaking with a lead level designer and seeing the new location, he described its atmosphere as resembling “a Chicago that went wrong,” while stressing that Night City would remain part of the game.
An additional clue appears in Cyberpunk 2077 itself. In-game advertisements refer to a high-speed Maglev line scheduled to connect Night City with Chicago in 2080. While the city has not been officially named, that connection has strengthened speculation that Chicago will be the sequel’s second major setting.
The choice also fits the wider Cyberpunk lore. In the tabletop universe, the Midwest is described as one of North America’s most damaged regions. The Great Lakes are biologically dead and heavily polluted, while toxic rain affects the area’s forests and buildings. Pondsmith also saw cybernetic equipment and implants designed specifically for the new environment, suggesting that the location will have its own survival requirements, culture and economy rather than serving as a minor backdrop.
A cyberpunk Chicago would offer a sharp contrast with Night City. Instead of a dry, California-inspired setting surrounded by desert, the new city could be defined by freezing weather, blizzards, icy streets and polluted waters around Lake Michigan. Its layered urban design would also provide material for the series, from the skyscrapers of The Loop to Lower Wacker Drive’s underground roads and the elevated “L” train.
Chicago’s history of organized crime, political corruption and industrial decline also aligns with the genre’s central contrast between advanced technology and social hardship. Modern towers could stand alongside abandoned factories, warehouses and other remnants of the Rust Belt, while megacorporations and gangs replace older criminal organizations in the struggle for control.
The tabletop setting provides a further explanation for the city’s ruined condition. Chicago was devastated by a biological plague linked to secret government research before being abandoned and gradually reclaimed by Nomad clans and opportunistic corporations. That history could support the kind of fractured, layered metropolis suggested by Pondsmith: a city where new skyscrapers rise above damaged infrastructure and a hostile environment.
Sources: Jeuxvideo.com.