10 Insane Ways Video Games Were Kept Under Wraps
6. Keanu Reeves Was Disguised With Stand-Ins & Codenames - Cyberpunk 2077
Back at E3 2019, CD Projekt RED made the shock announcement that Keanu Reeves would be appearing in Cyberpunk 2077 as the game's co-protagonist Johnny Silverhand.
It was a reveal so shocking that fans immediately began discussing how the company had possibly been able to keep such high-profile casting under wraps and away from leakers.
As it turned out, Reeves' involvement was on a strictly need-to-know basis, and even the creator of the original Cyberpunk tabletop RPG, Mike Pondsmith, was only clued into Reeves being hired a few short months before the E3 reveal took place.
Yet the real threat wasn't so much the game's own dev team but the notoriously leaky E3 weekend itself, which has often seen huge reveals leak out from rehearsals taking place mere days prior.
To combat this, Xbox boss Phil Spencer explained that Reeves was referred to by a codename among the show's crew, and a stand-in was used for him during rehearsals.
Reeves was only present at the Microsoft Theater from the morning of the show, never went out on stage prior to the live broadcast, and spent most of his time at the theater hidden in a green room backstage.
The secrecy was certainly worth it. The game itself, though? That depends on who you ask.