Cyberpunk Legends: Into The Night Interview – Bringing Classic Cyberpunk World To The Tabletop Scene

James Portnow (game designer, studio founder): Ha, on that I’ll defer to Irene!

Irene Malatesta (art director): It’s a huge privilege and responsibility to create images of these well-known characters, and one that we all take seriously. We dove into all the existing imagery and descriptions of characters like Blackhand, Santiago, Kerry Eurodyne, and of course Johnny Silverhand to understand how they’ve been depicted before and what were the essential aspects of those characters, both visual details and personality vibes. We’re officially licensed by R. Talsorian games, and James (Night Crew Games founder and head game designer) is good friends with Mike Pondsmith, creator of Cyberpunk, so we’ve had Mike on speed dial when it comes to ensuring that our vision of the characters honor his original creative intent.

Our game is set in 2012, at the beginning of the Cyberpunk timeline, so we really wanted to capture the characters as they appear in the TTRPG. As far as the aesthetic being different from the video game, that’s intentional. We wanted to contribute and offer players a new way to experience this narrative world we love so much, and communicate the sense of grit and darkness along with hope. I think the artists we commissioned have done an amazing job in helping realize and expand the vision.

James Portnow: Great question. It’s been a blast getting to explore and expand the early history of Cyberpunk, but to me, nothing’s canon until Mike and the crew at R. Talsorian bring it into the TTRPG. Though they’ve been great about that, we’re not even released yet, and tiny bits of Legends lore have already started to seep in…

Irene Malatesta: A Cyberpunk Legends art book would be a dream project! It all depends on the amount of interest we get from fans. Creating a high-quality book featuring the artwork, the stories, and the incredible artists and studios we’ve worked with would be a fascinating and fun project; if we raise enough funds and get the time, we would love to do it.

James Portnow: This is designed to be a good entry point for new players. It’s quick to set up, quick to learn, and because the narrative has your crew coming to Night City for the first time, you don’t need to know anything about the world before stepping in.

It’s also got a lot of variety in the play; beyond just the obstacles and combat, there’s puzzles, narrative, mysteries to solve, choices to make…when I’m watching playtests, I love seeing players who might not be as familiar with tabletop games light up when they see the answer to a puzzle where no one else does. It gives them their moment to shine and to contribute to the team as they’re still getting their sea legs with tabletop play in general.

Oh, and it’s a co-op game, so all the other players are there to help you out. We’ve specifically designed the tabletalk rules to encourage people to work together while still keeping anyone from taking over and just telling people what to do.

James Portnow: It really depends on what you’re looking for. Personally, I love the banter and the role-playing aspects, so I like having a full party, but as you lower the player count, the combat encounters become a little more strategic. Each player has more control of the action, so the challenge becomes less one of how to communicate and a little more about solving the puzzle of how you address whatever terrible mess you’ve gotten into with the more limited card selection you have available.

Eh, as much as I say my favorite is four-player, it really is just different. After saying that last sentence, I realized how many nights I’ve spent trying to do a perfect run solo…

James Portnow: Great question. The main game is a co-op campaign card game. This means that it’s narrative-driven, and as much as I’ve loved testing it hundreds of times, most of the variation you’re going to get is from who you play with and some of the choices you make along the way.
But there’s also a roguelike deckbuilding mode, so when you’re done with the campaign, you can use all the cards you’ve gotten to take on a tough-as-nails roguelike’ boss rush’ mode.

James Portnow: You’re breathtaking!

Seriously, though, this is life-changing for us. Your support means that we can focus on this game full-time and really make it become what we always thought it could be. Because we don’t see this first set as the end, it’s only the beginning. We have many more expansions and campaigns planned. We want you to be able to use the cards you get now in adventures five years from now.

So again, thank you, everyone. This support means we really get to take a shot at making that dream a reality.

James Portnow: Ha! Good question. There’s plenty of easter eggs and lore revelations for veteran players to pick up on, but we set the game in 2012 specifically so we could start at the very beginning of the Cyberpunk timeline.

Legends kicks off right at the outset of events that will have a huge impact 65 years down the timeline, but because this is where things start, it’s easy for anyone to jump in and follow along.

James Portnow: I started working on this during the pandemic, and I really wanted to create something that I could play with all of my friends. This meant something with little setup time, something that was easy to pick up and bring with you anywhere, something that could be paused and restarted when needed. The fewer components I used, the easier it was to meet all those design goals.

Plus, there’s so much design space left in the card world…we see the same types of card games get trotted out over and over with minor variations; I was excited to see if we could offer a totally new experience with a deck of cards.

James Portnow: The one I’m really excited about is the possibility of players creating their own scenarios: building adventures for their friends like they could with a TTRPG. The problem was that doing so required a lot more cards than we could possibly release in the core set.

But we’re actually beta testing it with some of our Kickstarter backers. If we could give people a tool to tell unlimited stories in a way that’s a bit easier than the blank page tabletop RPGs present you with, I’d consider that a huge win.

James Portnow: The Arkham Horror Card Game, no doubt. And don’t get me wrong, I love Arkham Horror (I even have a copy of Arkham Horror sitting right next to me on my desk), but I wanted to make something a little more streamlined, that was faster to set up and faster to learn. I also wanted the cooperative mechanisms to be built a little more directly into the play.

But if you like the Arkham Horror style of co-op card game, with narrative, progression, and choices, I think you’ll get a kick out of Legends.