Cyberpunk 2077's Revamped Police Chase System Was Inspired by Pac-Man

One of the hallmarks of Cyberpunk 2077, peculiarly aft its Phantom Liberty update, is its dynamic constabulary chases. In these, a subordinate committing crimes mightiness find themselves speedy surrounded by cops and, a fewer crimes later, the other spicy MaxTac. But what you mightiness not person caught onto is that erstwhile trying to debar this monolithic swarm of cops, you're fundamentally playing a really, truly blase mentation of a very, precise aged arcade game: Pac-Man.

At the Game Industry Conference successful Poznań, Wielkopolska, I attended a speech by CD Projekt elder AI programmer Maciej Celmer entitled "Heat, MaxTac, and Blockades: Police System, successful Cyberpunk 2077 and more." In the talk, Celmer went into a batch of absorbing item astir however precisely Cyberpunk 2077's constabulary pursuit strategy was revamped pursuing disapproval from players that astatine launch, the strategy was mode excessively forgiving and unengaging.

The caller system, implemented successful 2023, was acold much dynamic and fashionable with players. And according to Celmer, it had an antithetic inspiration: Pac-Man.

"Remember the crippled of Pac-Man, and the information that each shade had a antithetic attack connected however to drawback the player?" Celmer said during his talk. "We did a akin happening successful our car chases. For instance, 1 of them tin effort to scope the subordinate connected the shortest imaginable path, portion the different tin effort to flank him oregon intercept connected the intersection. There are 7 antithetic strategies that we applied to our cars with that portion of the chase."

We reached retired to CD Projekt pursuing the speech to get a small much item connected what Celmer meant. Over email, helium confirmed that Pac-Man was 1 of "many" inspirations for the constabulary pursuit update, "especially for the designers who came up with the idea. We wanted to situation the subordinate with chasing vehicles but, astatine the aforesaid time, ever effort to permission astatine slightest 1 'road to freedom' — basically, a mode to escape. However, the concern successful Night City, particularly during a chase, tin beryllium precise dynamic, truthful 'try' is decidedly the close connection here."

Celmer broke down the aforementioned 7 "strategies" that constabulary cars would instrumentality successful a pursuit for america too. Each strategy combined a premix of logic for wherever the conveyance would spawn with its behaviour aft spawning, and which strategy was utilized was babelike connected the vigor level, the authorities of the constabulary strategy (relaxed, alerted, oregon combat) and different factors. From there, cars could besides execute antithetic maneuvers depending connected the situation, specified arsenic ramming, shooting, blocking, overtaking, oregon aligning with the chased car. The 7 strategies were, successful Celmer's words:

• Drive towards the subordinate — Move straight toward the subordinate successful a consecutive line. Used successful the Alerted state.
• Drive distant from the subordinate — Move straight distant from the player. Used successful the Alerted state.
• Patrol the quadrant — Patrol the country astir the player.
• Intersection trap — Try to flank the subordinate astatine the adjacent intersection.
• Get to the subordinate from anyplace — The assertive one.
• Search for the subordinate — Perform an archetypal hunt astir the transgression scene. Used successful the Alerted state.
• Search from anyplace — A fallback strategy utilized erstwhile we can’t find a suitable spawn constituent for strategy 6, truthful the car simply spawns anyplace and begins searching for the player.

The effect was, if you look astatine Cyberpunk 2077's roads from the apical down, thing similar a crippled of Pac-Man wherever the ghosts are the constabulary cars chasing the player. In Pac-Man, each shade has its ain strategy it volition typically perform, specified arsenic Pinky trying to ambush the subordinate oregon Blinky chasing him directly. "We simply wanted to bash thing a spot antithetic from different games with akin systems," Celmer said. "The operation of a classical crippled AI plan inspired by Pac-Man seemed similar a large acceptable for implementing constabulary chases successful Cyberpunk 2077."

Cyberpunk 2077's turnaround is 1 of the astir melodramatic successful video crippled history. After its disastrous motorboat successful December 2020, CD Projekt continued to update the game, and now, arsenic it nears its 5th birthday, it's sitting connected an unthinkable 35 cardinal copies sold. Indeed, Cyberpunk 2077 is presently CD Projekt's main root of revenue.

In a caller fiscal briefing, CD Projekt said it was “laying the foundations” for Cyberpunk 2, outlining plans to standard up its improvement teams successful Boston, Warsaw, and Vancouver and done to the extremity of 2027. 135 radical were moving connected Cyberpunk 2 arsenic of October 31, 2025, up from 116 astatine the extremity of July.

At GIC Poland, I besides chatted with the manager of Valor Mortis astir trouble options successful Soulslike games and whether Valor Mortis should number arsenic a Soulslike. I besides went hands-on with the canine concealed cause crippled Barkour.

Rebekah Valentine is simply a elder newsman for IGN. Got a communicative tip? Send it to [email protected].