The engineering trick behind Cyberpunk 2077's most famous montage
▶ Watch on YouTubeGMTK unravels how CD Projekt Red pulled off 79 cuts and 15 locations in the 1:20 montage — using a hidden 'back lot' in the map with optimized streaming.
Highlights
- The montage is 1:20 long, with 79 cuts, 15 location changes, 3 outfits, and ~45 unique NPCs
- The secret: a hidden 'back lot' in the map's corner, with all locations stacked (club above the house, dealership above the club)
- The character teleports between areas while the game snaps day/night — only the montage's assets are streamed
- The disastrous launch: pop-in, invisible Jackie, and low-poly models on PS4/Xbox One — fixed after patches
- 268K views: the 'how it was made' analysis behind one of the decade's best-selling games
Cyberpunk 2077's most famous montage — that 1:20 sequence showing six months of V and Jackie's life in Night City — hides a brilliant engineering trick. Game Maker's Toolkit figured out how CD Projekt Red pulled off 79 cuts and 15 location changes without breaking streaming.
The montage's numbers
It's 1:20 long, with 15 location changes, 79 cuts, 3 mirror scenes with 3 different outfits, and about 45 unique NPCs. From a technical standpoint, moving the player through the real map that fast would be impossible — streaming can't load assets in a single frame.
The hidden 'back lot'
Mark Brown discovered (by installing mods) that the montage doesn't actually happen in Night City: it's a special 'back lot' hidden in the far corner of the map, with all locations stacked — the nightclub floats above Mama Welles's house, the car dealership sits on top of the club. V teleports between areas while the game snaps between day and night.
The troubled launch
The video also recalls the game's disastrous launch: in the montage, pop-in, weird lighting changes, low-poly models, and even invisible Jackie were common on PS4/Xbox One. After many patches, the scene runs 'almost flawlessly' in 2026 — on PC, at least.
Why it matters
The video is a lesson in game design and engineering: how a team solved an apparently impossible problem with creativity. With 268K views, it's the kind of technical analysis Radar values — the 'how it was made' behind a game that sold millions.