Cyberpunk 2077 designer Max Pears calls in to discuss his recent book, Let’s Design: Combat, his podcast, Level Design Lobby, and his meteoric rise in game design, from school to Ubisoft’s The Division to CD PROJEKT RED’s most hotly anticipated title to date.
Let’s Design: Combat is fresh off the presses, offering rare access to design wisdom straight from a designer assigned to (probably) gaming’s most anticipated project. We discuss what you can expect to find in the book, Max’s inspiration for tackling the project, and where he hopes to take the series from here.
When Max isn’t blocking out levels for triple-A blockbusters, he hosts the Level Design Lobby podcast, featuring informative design segments, recommendations for other great resources, and interviews with other industry experts.
While we’re not able to do the in-depth discussion on Cyberpunk that we’d love to do (yet), this episode offers a fascinating glimpse into Max’s world, including the traveling he’s done to work in the industry, how he landed at CDPR, and resources/events he recommends for learning designers.
Max’s Links
- Let’s Design: Combat (physical) (ebook)
- The Level Design Lobby podcast (Spotify) (YouTube)
- Contact (Twitter) (Email)
Todd Mitchell is a US Midwest-based comedy writer and game developer with bylines at Weekly Humorist, Fanbyte, Slackjaw, End of the Bench Sports, and more. He’s the author of Inside Video Game Creation, the founder of CodeWritePlay, and host of the GameDev Breakdown podcast. Follow him on Twitter @Mechatodzilla.