CD Projekt Red spent about two years developing the Chimera Tank boss fight in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, according to developers discussing the encounter on the studio’s official AnsweRED podcast. The sequence required repeated coordination between gameplay, narrative, art and worldbuilding teams.
A multidisciplinary set piece
The Chimera fight closes Phantom Liberty’s opening act, placing V and President Myers against a large spider-shaped tank inside a Barghest facility. Developers described it as a production “nexus point” because the encounter had to make the machine threatening while also serving the surrounding story and setting.
Balancing spectacle and play
The team reportedly kept revisiting the sequence because its emphasis could shift too far in one direction. At different stages, the fight was considered too focused on gameplay, too driven by narrative, or too dominated by visual direction. The developers ultimately worked through the encounter beat by beat to find a balance between those elements.
Four versions of the tank
Phantom Liberty art director Paweł Mielniczuk said the boss went through four iterations during development. Those revisions included changes to its equipment and weapons, showing how alterations to the machine itself affected the wider encounter rather than just its appearance.
An expensive asset with mixed results
Creative director Igor Sarzyński described the Chimera’s construction as one of CD Projekt’s most expensive art assets, although the source does not provide a cost. The source article describes the finished battle as memorable, but its reviewer found the slow process of destroying the tank one of the expansion’s more gruelling moments.
AI-generated editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.
SIGNAL TITANS
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