Pawel Sasko, associate director on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, has revealed the auditory fuel that keeps him going during long nights in the CD Projekt Red offices.
I'm pretty basic when it comes to focus music. My favorite lofi beats are adaptations of some of my favorite movie and video game music. Diablo lofi is one of my go-tos, for example. Sasko, on the contrary, may have discovered the true secret to quieting down distraction-prone brains: 10 hour loops of the Epic Sax Guy meme.
"When scripting or writing, I loop music I don't understand or tracks with a strong beat to get in the grind zone," Sasko said in a tweet. "I've listened to 'Epic Sax Guy 10h' way more than I’m willing to admit. It gives me insane focus and clarity while working."
- Before he was Cyberpunk 2's associate director and was just "employee #86," CDPR dev says it took him 46 tries to beat an infamous boss in The Witcher 2: "I was losing my mind"
- "Everybody's in competition with Civ": Lead Civilization 5 composer has been in the "volatile" gaming industry for over 20 years and thinks new IP is only getting harder to make
In case you were pulling a Walter White in 2010, Epic Sax Guy is known in real life as Sergey Igorevich Stepanov. He's a Moldovan musician and composer who shot to internet stardom after his impassioned saxophone performance during the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. This seems to be the video Sasko was referring to.
There isn't much we can do with this information, but it is highly amusing to think of Sasko head down in his office working on all sorts of upcoming CDPR games, all to the looping sound of an internet meme from 15 years ago. Is amusing the right word? Maddening also comes to mind.
