How was Night City built by hand?
Creating a realistic open‑world city is hard. CD PROJEKT RED hand‑crafted a lot of detail, used first‑person view to set scale, applied path‑tracing for lighting, and later added new content with Phantom Liberty.
What they did
They manually modeled 3‑D assets, painted textures by hand, and arranged everything in the city. The first‑person perspective guided how big objects should be. Path‑tracing lighting was used to simulate realistic light. After launch, the Phantom Liberty expansion added new areas and features.
What they found
Players experienced a richly detailed city that feels alive, with realistic lighting that enhances immersion. The expansion expanded the world and improved gameplay.