Building the Chimera Tank Battle in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Took CD Projekt Red Roughly Two Years
Bringing the Chimera tank battle in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty to its final form was a much harder task than players might assume. Game director Gabe Amatangelo and creative director Igor Sarzhinsky discussed the process on the AnsweRED podcast, where they revealed that the large-scale encounter required about two years of continual reworking.
The fight sits at the meeting point of gameplay, narrative, art, and world design, which meant the developers had to assemble it piece by piece in search of the right balance. At different stages, the battle leaned too heavily toward mechanics, or the story took over, or it drifted into being a demonstration of the artists' work.
Art director Pavel Melnichuk noted that the team overhauled the Chimera's equipment and weaponry multiple times. Developers even exchanged videos of various military vehicles with one another while hunting for the right sounds and details for the machine. One priority was making its entrance land with force — the miniguns' deafening roar was meant to genuinely frighten the player.
Melnichuk put the number of Chimera reworks at around four. Sarzhinsky went so far as to describe the tank as one of the most expensive art assets the studio has ever produced. The spectacle of the encounter appears to have demanded considerable sacrifices, chiefly the developers' time.