Cyberpunk 2077 Artists Explain Why They Used That (In)Famous Shade of Yellow

Have you ever wonder why Cyberpunk 2077 used that shade of yellow? CD Projekt Red used a particular yellow in everything from artwork to announcements. Eventually, it even became a warning sign for fans, after multiple delay announcements used the colour as a backdrop.

According to superstitions that yellow that gets negative reputation, as the expression yellow means that you are a coward. It also is the colour that many people turn before they die, so it is not a particularly positive colour. Back to the topic, the Cyberpunk 2077 gives explanation about why they used the shade of yellow.

CD Projekt was aiming for something similar:

"We were speaking about the Coca-Cola," said Janiszewski. "The yellow colour is pretty much the same thing. It is conveying the information, it is simple to remember."

'Cyberpunk yellow' became a part of that effort on the branding side: "Most people, when they are thinking about cyberpunk, it is like a red colour, a bit of blue," said Janiszewski, "but we wanted to have something new, something fresh; that’s why we picked the yellow colour. It is new, it is like 'California style'."

Speaking to me later, fellow lead environment artist Kacper Niepokólczycki said there had been a "very long conversation" about creating that iconic brand identity for the game. While it was less prevalent inside the game itself, the team did seek to represent that yellow in Night City too:

"You can see [it in] clothes lining. It is there. And even districts – like for example, the City Center has this yellow colour everywhere, it's the main colour from this district. Yeah, we definitely took it over wherever we could. But it was mostly first of all to figure out I think our identity as a colour – and then we took it over and injected it wherever we could."

For the art team, perhaps the best marker of how successful the Cyberpunk yellow experiment had been was when other companies started using it themselves:

"In Poland, there were companies trying to use the colour," Niepokólczycki says. "I remember there were food adverts here on bus stations and mobile phones that used the colour to grab your attention. They literally used the colour because they noticed how powerful it can be. Here in Poland, Cyberpunk at one point was crazy, posters everywhere – and people just [stole] the colour and used it for their own sake."

It's likely not the last we've seen of that particular shade. We're expecting the game's first expansion in 2023, and we know the developer has plans for the Cyberpunk franchise beyond this first game – Cyberpunk yellow is almost certain to return to help make you aware of those projects.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed and published by CD Projekt. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customisable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat.