Bit of irony that Pacifica, a place in lore that never got finished, also didn't get finished in the game itself.

Fun fact: The Pacifica combat zone was already abandoned in the 2018 E3 version, you can see obviously that the part of the Pacifica has the same shape as release version

I think their original plan was to create Pacifica alongside Dogtown, and eventually realized what a big task it'd become so they scrapped & saved it for Phantom Liberty, whilst putting together a "better-than-nothing" version of Pacifica.

As a small programmer, I usually focus on the core features first, then depending on the time and resources, I add more features.. Even then the final 10% takes 90% of the time. You can see they wasted so much time on things that didn't matter at the end. Compare it to Phantom Liberty where everything is focused, purposeful and optimized. Project management is an art in itself.

I think "cut content" is a misappropriated term here. This map had to have been atleast before 2018, likely befire they even had a set scope of the project. It was already made clear that CDPR were having trouble with REDengine and couldnt implement a lot of what they wanted. Cut content implies this was ready to go and got ripped out, (like the casino) but thats likely not the case here. This eas likely a thrown out proposal that was dipped due to a tactical change in scope. Just because a level designer drew out a map ignores the modeling, coding, texturing, ai work, voice acting, lighting, set dressing, and eveything else that goes into that space.

I figure Pacifica didnt get a Mega Building because as I know it, Pacifica was supposed to be one of those places for "rich people" and mega buildings are generally for poorer citizens and also to deal with the sheer population density of Night City. Pacifica has a lot of things that don't technically serve a purpose if you include Dog Town such as large artistic pieces that are half finished like that rusted out bridge with a woman on top who is now missing her arms. Also the old NCPD turrets which don't really appear elsewhere, I imagine the higher security was to help prevent any tom foolery by the lower class. Weird architecture like the pyramid building where Mr.Hands is chilling, the museum or whatever from the beginning of Phantom Liberty. The entire area screams "half completed decadence"

An like for a underwater bridge xd

Cyberpunk 2 better have a full map + wayyy more 😭

"underwater bridge" and "overground bridge" have to be the worst examples of an Englishman speaking English I have ever heard

Night city is one of my most beloved worlds in my years of gaming.

Honestly, with the inclusion of Phantom Liberty content (Dogtown, Spaceport), 2077's map is already so huge and layered that I wouldn't sweat over these remaining few pieces of cut content. Plus, they did a big brain move and made it so that El Capitan's car delivery points are often found in these underutilized areas like the Biotechnica flats and North Oak, which helps to flesh them out. Btw bro will you go back to building out the Casino? I cannot tell you how much I would love to see that released.

Underground bridge lol, never change mate. Great vid and analysis

How did half of this became missing? Easy, the city got bigger than the concept was, Pacifica got rotated and completely reconcepted. And this concept is smaller. North Oak is smaller in final version, but there are areas north of docks whichh are missing on this concept, Japantown is bigger in final (it got stretched, the bridge to downtown is a fair bit lower than the connection to Little China), the whole Downtown is bigger at release, Arroyo is much larger with the power plant in the final, Santo Domingo is bigger in the final, there are two dams at release while there is NONE here, etc... The bridge from wellsprings would have ended next to where the Grand Imperial Mall is, right next to the pier and the roller coaster... Also, this might be a second version of the map, because of the connection from Pacifica to upper Downtown. There was even earlier version that connected the highway from Pacifica to Konpeki Plaza. The connection from Downtown to Spaceport was there from launch, PL only finished the modelling and opened it, but in this version the connection from Downtown to Pacifica explains the multi-tiered highway cluster in Downtown.

The map is already almost perfect to me. I can’t wait to see what the sequel could look like

This kinda stuff always has interested me. Keep up the amazing content man 😁

I think you're crazy to say "something went completely wrong", them preplanning a space doesn't mean it was "never planned to be DLC"...kind of insane, sorry. They could make literally any area in Night City DLC space. They could tack on a new district anywhere, they could do fucking anything for DLC. Witcher 3 did the sames hit replacing sections of the map with nothing in it with dlc content. Like, sure, they didn't gauge how much space they'd need for Pacifica, so they oriented it south instead of having to extend the bay outward. Like it's pretty clear to me the countryside part of Pacifica was just harder to expand and build in that orientation and when they needed more space in Pacifica they couldn't just built out into the sea they had to keep expanding the map size. Whereas in the new version they could expand into the ocean much easier with things like the GIM and the docks and park area. Definitely feels like they just felt building out the badlands would be more interesting for gameplay than building out rich areas or one-off locations like the spaceport. And I agree, the Badlands is essential to the game's ability to feel new and make Night City not get old.

My man is back with another banger! Love these lore and cut content vids; keep it up!

There was some talk that the Casino was part of a monetization scheme they never added. One of the things I find most peculiar about this game I will say isn't locations. It is the clothing system in aspects.

Love these videos comparing old dev maps, concept art & trailers with the final released game. Keep up the great work.

I love your work, glad you're back

Thanks for the video, can't wait for the Arasaka Tower to be featured in one of the next ones

Honestly for future releases I hope they stick to their approach they had for 2.0 specifically their methodology behind vendors. Although “inconvenient” to be required to visit a ripper doc to modify cyberware, it ended up getting me to interact with everything else as a result since I became accustomed to visiting the doc every so often. I want them to gate things behind locations. It doesn’t have to be an ordeal but I think it will only have positive impacts when getting the average play though to feel more impactful. Also sidenote, I wish that the next entry will have a garage to showcase a few of my cars, after grinding the girls to afford them it would be a cool.

Love the break core in the background

One thing that might be worth thinking about is that the original map you're referencing is very similar to the versions found in the rulebooks, especially the earlier ones. It's likely that as they began fleshing out the road networks, neighbourhoods, views etc that NC started taking on the shape we see today.

this game needs a Noclip documentary on the development of the game istg

From what I saw on a form a long while ago, they originally planned to shift Night City North to Monetary Bay, but then brought it back down to the original location of San Louis Obispo. This is why Pacifica looks different in the two maps. The reason Mike made Night City to exist in SLO is because he believed you had to destroy something you love to make the world seem more real.

3:30 this is quite interesting. iirc, in the trauma team comics there was a "megabuilding-like" structure under construction in pacifica.

I really like the stuff you found in this. The content is really interesting to compare and see what it looks like. I do, however, feel like the way it’s framed in this video is missing some important context. There’s no mention of how early the referenced map is and sadly we don’t have any insight into why any of these things were cut. Considering that I think assuming that the changes mentioned were done last minute, or that lots of these changes were made because they were cut is disingenuous. The shift of dogtown makes sense as it allows the rest of ranch Coronado to feel less restrained. The biotechnica flats and the rest of the map outside of night city could be missing because this map is simply an earlier version that hadn’t incorporated those elements yet or was generally incomplete. You cover a lot of great, verifiably cut things here, it’s a shame that it’s undercut by putting all of these things into one, tired note of Cyberpunks development woes when that’s not necessarily the case.

Excited to see more behind the scenes stuff coming out, now that the stolen source code seems to be out there also: Underground bridge could be a tunnel :)

Underwater bridges got me cracking :D

I think the concept map was just that. If you look at the Cyberpunk 2020, or Cyberpunk Red 2045 maps, Pacifica appears to be more akin to the way it looks in the game.

Loved the new Cinematography ❤😩

Is this that map you mentioned in your Biotechnica Flats video? And calling North Oak slimmed down is a hell of an understatement. In game the entire subdistrict is reduced down to 3 villas, a robotics factory, and the shinto shrine.

Even with certain areas on the map being cut I still think that Night City is absolutely massive. Heck, I just checked my GOG account to see how much time I spent playing Cyberpunk 2077 (without any mods) and it's over 500 hours! That's more hours than I ever spent in any Bethesda Elder Scrolls or Fallout game (those were usually around 300 hours and had lots of content mods). So personally I'm not too concerned with what we got in the end; especially with Phantom Liberty. Now sure, I would have loved it if more places were accessible and that we had more doors/windows that could be opened (or broken into). I also liked that they finally added the metro; although it would have been nice if it had been a little more interactive. Here's hoping that we will get a similar experience whenever CDPR releases a sequel to Cyberpunk; and see how well they can incorporate Night City now that they switched over to UE5. At least I really hope it will still take place in Night City and not in some completely different country or anything (also hoping they won't turn it into a watered down MMO or something stupid like that).😉

"underwater bridge" some call them 'tunnels' 🤣

4:45 i thought i was going crazy

I love how, in this game, bugs, glitches and cut content can all be headcannoned by in world Lore :D

If they would've implemented the idea of megabuildings like they wanted, i think it could've been interesting to see megabuilding that the city council doesn't have any control in it

I really hope to see the casino area finished with a future update before cyberpunk 2

i wish the game wouldn't be rushed and we would get most of this cut content

You're going to be a big KZfaqr one day, these videos are great man! You deserve all 29.8k of these subs

I think the reason no mega building exists in Pacifica is because it was being marketed towards people that were Rich enough to own actual apartments or even individual houses on the beachfront. Just a theory

Friendly reminder that just because something was cut doesn't 100% mean it was due to time constraints or difficulties in development, granted, most of that CAN be applied to Pacifica, but I think for something like Megabuildings they could have been cut because they don't make sense. MB's *are* for the most part pretty maintained and controlled by the city, having one in an abandoned district wouldn't make sense, especially considering the district was abandoned way before it was even built.

This game was in development hell and it shows everywhere

The casino really does sound like it was going to be a future DLC area with a big heist attached to it

They definitely needed 5 more years with development. Crazy how behind they were and makes me wonder who tf was in charge of managing expectations.

Really hope with CP2 we get expanded districts and new ones as well. I just want to see the city become bigger and bigger

If i remember the lore of Pacifica, it was ment to be a high class part of night city. So since megatowers are just cheap mega housing it wouldn't make sense for them to build one of them in Pacifica.

I do wonder how drastically different the map would have been had the game not been launched on last-gen consoles. Obviously a great deal of the map was changed/never added due to time constraints, but it's also safe to say that some parts were definitely trimmed down/removed just to allow some level of performance on last-gen consoles.

i find it very interesting and pity that, since i played 2077 day 1 on pc, the developers added some missing elements in the city that didn't exist in the initial release during the patching.

I wish they put the north oaks casino into the game, could have been a cool side quest or something there. seems like they had so much cut content.

The road / tunnel to the casino actually exists. A walled off road tunnel actually goes to the valley where the casino is. It's too bad it was removed. They should have given us more content addons than Phantom Liberty. While I applaud them for fixing the game and making it super fun, only releasing one DLC nearly three years later and then abandoning it really annoys me when there's so much more they could have done.

Given that Night City still has a lot of untapped potential and deserves to be expanded and explored IN GREAT DETAIL starting from the version present in Cyberpunk 2077, the gravest mistake CD Projekt could ever make in 'Cyberpunk 2' would be to start from scratch with a new city.

Concept art is usually that a concept so It's not a map of actual game it's a map of how they envisioned the city

With the focus they showed developing Phantom Liberty, it’s a shame they didn’t add an additional DLC with the casino as the centerpiece.

I'm so so curious what they're going to do with Cyberpunk 2. I wonder if any of these unfinished elements will be carried on to the sequel. I have a feeling that they're either A.) going to use an entirely separate location with different characters in a different decade (with callbacks to NC and 2077) or B.) it's going to be a DIRECT follow up to 2077 and take place in 2079, but with different characters under different circumstances. I hope they go the route that KOTOR 2 did and allow you to organically choose in conversation what your V did in 2077 so it can affect the events of the main story in the sequel.

But under water bridges don't exist they are tunnels. Bridges go over stuff not under stuff.

.....I mean I want to revisit this sandbox in the future. But likely Orion is not going in that direction. Also the Casino does exist in also a picture in corpo restraunt near some boats. They likely had more things planned for it, but I guess it was an either or at that point.

Hey man there's a big pink cube on top of a building in Watson you can get up cos of invisible barriers, any chance you could tell me what it is or have a look? It's doing my head in haha. It's above the market.

Fun fact, the underwater bridges are called tunnels ;)

I hope if they make the second game they allow us to role play a bit more. I’d love to be able to play the entire game as a corpo or trauma team operator not corpo for five minutes with experience but actually as a soldier or person involved in planning a future war

Me gets off the game 9 minutes later: good morning night city!

This game amazes me, I’ve never played a game that has had so much depth to it

I hope they flesh out the city properly in the sequel. Night City feels very shallow when you're not doing quests.

huh.. never noticed before that the illuminated letters of the grand imperial mall spell out "ANIMAL" (4:27)

It amazes me that they did one expansion and felt they had to move on. After PL, they could have chosen to do 5 more expansions and the fan base would have ate it up and paid whatever price they put. The devs could have added in ALL the cut content. No need to jump to a new game right away IMHO.

Do you have have a link to that early cyberpunk 2077 map?

you know i like this version of Pacifica because on the map that you showed the coast view was night city but now the coast view is the ocean it's beautiful man just like when we were in hotel with Johnny he said things about ocean view and smell as I remember and I think it's cool the most dangerous part of city is the most peaceful part where you can watch sunset smell of ocean old hotel i don't change it even with plaza buildings or that room in half built building in dogtown where was the safehouse with myers man smoking in balkony with johnny at rainy night even thinking about it is peaceful for me

The size of Night City is reletively close to what it canonically is, I hope they expand it to what is and maybe even add their own districts. The Badlands, however, I hope they can make it a bit more interesting, I rarely go out there anymore after completing the gigs and relevant missions. If they can't, then probably cut it.

I have always thought that this game would have needed at least 2 more years of development

I can only assume, this map may have been 'complete' before the complete reshuffling they did just before 2018 E3, so many things were changed. What I believe is, the city we know now was almost complete by then and everything after that is the resulting game. My theory, which has no basis but my own thoughts, is that Keanu's presence changed so much of the story and game we got, I don't think he was supposed to be as big of part as he was. It's interesting that pretty much all of the voice actors refrain saying when they started recording their lines due to NDA, in all the interviews I've heard. It seems that even Cherami was out of the loop if she was hired as late as E3 2018, some hints at recording lines during lockdown even. I'm speculating but they say a lot without saying. So my theory has them recording for most of the game after Keanu was announced in 2019 as part of the project as part of complete rewrite, and cut all other plans. We'll never know unless they do a fan service tell all documentary between now and Orion.

“Pacifica is still Pacifica” still holds up

Id love to see the current features go into the next game upon an expanded city over time to give more room for multiplayer. Since they'll be using Unreal, making the city larger should be a breeze with PCG nodes.

Really enjoy these comparisons with the unreleased to the somewhat 'final' version of the game. Real shame the verticality wasn't really implemented into the game, it's all set dressing, and could have made the map really stand out from other open-world games. But, as it stands it's just a game with a great story, including 'Phantom Liberty,' with a game world that's vastly underutilized .

One thing about the map I didn't like is all that red and yellow paint everywhere. I also wish we got more suburban areas.

I would imagine cyberpunk but with different worlds to travel to and also entering buildings like the Witcher 3.

underground bridge............ never heard that one before

"Under water bridges" um, tunnels? Haha

I think the worse is north oak in game theres like three houses but in lore its it own ecosystem filled with the city elite to rich to touch the actual city

That original black and white map is based off the Cyberpunk Red ttrpg game.

The underwater bridges might've been cut because they are useless.

Interesting stuff

Honestly would be cool if they made the next game playable over an entire country or continent instead of a single city? The world building done in cyberpunk was great but it’d be cooler to see the rest of the world! Seeing cyberpunk Europe or Japan? Heck seeing the what the NUSA looks like? Wonder how they’ll portray China and Russia?

To be fair they had to cut A LOT of content. This game was made for the much older gamer and was R18 bordering on even higher rating if possible, with some extremely Dark, Frightening and Unsettling content. Once they screwed up and pi$$ed off their minority older audience they had to then pander to the much younger majority audience which has no qualms about crappy content as long as they get something to at least break even. To do that they had to cut all the adult content and bring down the rating to something teenagers can play and allow for an M rating. That alone has caused quite a large amount of content that had to be cut. Plus having to hire new older and more experienced Dev's to clean up and fix all the mistakes, which took a number of years, would of put a massive damper on anyone actually wanting or being bothered to continue with extra new content. I an actually amazed and quite pleasantly surprised that we got what we did.

see if they just delayed the game we could of got this map aton of cut content would of been in the game though that does beg a question if the game was was complete on release would of we ever got the phantom liberty DLC in the first place?. i hope in cyberpunk orion/2 they really expand the map and use well all the unused areas and bring them back like arasaka waterfront just being practically map deco is criminal same for the aircraft carrier being a primitive block out.

can you link the maps you use as reference?

I there possibility to see that map somewhere? Would like compare it myself with current map :>

it was all flooded

I dont why but this makes me bit sad cause the game is fantastic but there is such so much gut content that would have made it even more immersive that what we got have got

Its honestly a little confusing to me as to why the casino is still there, i remember when i first found it by chance i thought it would have been wiped when PL opened up dogtown but its still there. Why not just delete it and make the walled off area inaccessible like some moutains in the Badlands, as much as i want to hope its a sign of a future dlc but on a smaller scale than PL I know it's more than likely still there cause no one was explicitly told to do anything about it so it just sits there unused

Odds are they left it blank because of phantom liberty

Casino? BRUH WE WERE ROBBED

'Under water bridges' - You mean a tunnel? :P

Cyberpunk 2 should just expand on the existing city and add more interiors and verticality

I wish they just did a second expansion and added in more of the planed content, I miss good expansions. The next game is going to be 3-5 years away, an expansion may have been out in 1-2 years.

Personally it's the northern part of Watson that I find lacking, except for a few gigs and "Chippin' In" there's near to nothing to do there

I hope it will be reused for Cyberpunk Orion.

* last gen. The game was in development before the ps4 even released.

2:16 name of background music pls

Anyway…so a bluebird and a racoon walk into a public park