Cyberpunk 2077

[Drool]

I thought we had a thread about this, but it might have gotten eaten at some point.

Anyway, I'm sure you all saw teaser trailer from almost 3 years ago. I was a little shocked when I realized it'd been that long, but they did kinda make Witcher 3 in the middle there. Also, supposedly, Cyberpunk 2077 will be bigger than Witcher 3, which is... ambitious.

Regardless, I'm bringing this up again because I wandered over to their (semi) active forums, and found this handy FAQ. Some highlights:

Story

You’ll be able to create a character from the ground up and then experience Night City as a totally open world setting. [1]
It will be a rise-to-power story about "someone who rises from a filthy gutter to stand against a hostile world." [4]
Game will be a story-driven experience set in an open world environment, which will be driven throughout by player choice.[4]
It will be non-linear.[4]
Story will mainly focus on contemporary issues, and the world we will present is a kind of filter for those things.[4]



Gameplay

Advanced RPG mechanics based on PnP RPG system upgraded to the 2077 setting. [2]
Huge arsenal of weapons, upgrades, implants and cool high-tech gadgets. [2]
Takes place in a Sandbox environment in Night City. [2]
A whole system of cyber-implants will be implemented, allowing you to modify your limbs. [6]
Similar arm implants (that was scene in the Teaser Trailer) will be present in the game. [6]
Cyber-psychos will also be present.[6]
Aerial vehicles, the psychosquad, and the weapons seen in the Teaser Trailer are as well present in the game.[6]
They are experimenting with dynamic conversation.[7]

And also:

CDPR are trying to let the player print your character sheet from the PnP game.[4]
They are trying to make the game to be as close to the original PnP RPG as possible. There will be changes in the balance of classes and how particular skills work.[6]

I gotta say, this certainly sounds amazing, and I can't wait for... well... something. Like another video. I mean, that thread's pretty old, and this is some pretty major promises, but I'd like to think CDPR can pull it off, as opposed to it being another Duke Nukem Forever.

[Crosmando]

I seriously doubt that it will be close to the PnP rules. It'll be Witcher engine with guns.

[IHaveHugeNick]

I lost my interest when it was announced as open world. I just don't see how they can pull it off in an urban setting with current technology.

Open world is fine if you're mostly hiking around rural areas. But open world dystopian metropolis will unavoidably feel either far too small or just underdeveloped. Even modern games still can't really reproduce how current cities feel like. How they are supposed to make believable future city, one that really feels on a whole different level in terms of density and population?

Then again, by the time this game comes out, chances are 9th-gen consoles will hit the market with much improved hardware, so who knows what will be possible.

[macksting]

I'm certainly curious enough to give it a shot. If nothing else, I'm kind of a sucker for the setting.

[Zombra]

A CDP game with a created character instead of a prefab protagonist? Color me much more interested than I was when I just saw the flashy trailer.

[SagaDC]

The original trailer caught my eye, and the details sound pretty solid. Development has been moving so slowly that I've pretty much lost all of my initial enthusiasm, though. But I'll still be keeping an ear on it, just to see what the latest news might be.

I'm a fan of the original tabletop game. Still working on filling out my Cyberpunk library, but I'm most of the way there. It just gets tricky trying to track down some of the third-party adventure modules.

[Drool]

I lost my interest when it was announced as open world. I just don't see how they can pull it off in an urban setting with current technology.

My thought is that it'll be like Saint's Row or GTA. It'll be open world in that you can go anywhere in the city outside, but only certain buildings will be accessible. That, or there's going to be a lot of procedurally generated office buildings and apartments.

[IHaveHugeNick]

My thought is that it'll be like Saint's Row or GTA. It'll be open world in that you can go anywhere in the city outside, but only certain buildings will be accessible. That, or there's going to be a lot of procedurally generated office buildings and apartments.

That's exactly how I imagine it too. Unfortunately what works for GTA, isn't necessarily going to work for an RPG.

Then again, CDP are best worldbuilders in the industry, and by a mile, so hopefully they can surprise us.

[Lucius]

I've never played Witcher 3, is every building in that game enterable?

[Drool]

I dunno. But since I assume it's mostly little fantasy hamlets, I would assume so. I mean, Skyrim made every building enterable, but the "cities" still felt small. Certainly not like a megalopolis like Night City should feel.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Most of Witcher 3 is enterable, yeah. More importantly the world building is just on a completely new level. You can ride into a completely random, god forsaken swamp, and it feels like it was handcrafted.

But the cities still felt very small, unfortunately. That's the issue I have with open-world in a cyberpunk game. Open world means exploration, and fun exploration requires both content density and acres of space. In fantasy that' sort of thing was doable for many years now, since most of content is just random huts and forgotten camps and things like that.

But in a city? You should be able to walk into random skyscraper, explore all the rooms and find something actually interesting there. And there should be hundreds of them. I just don't see how they could possibly pull that off to give it that megapolis vibe.

[macksting]

There could be advance warning that a given building is boring. After all, not every building in Night City is necessarily going to have something worth breaching security to get at. (At the same time, an appropriately boring building might be an optimal hiding spot when things get hairy.) Perhaps folks exchange information on what might be found at a given location, workshift changes, things like that, so that what's interesting at a given building might be a readily available bit of information. Would that improve the effective density without losing the megalopolis feel?

Addendum:
Alternatively, there might be times when you're thinking, "What I really need is a lathe that doesn't check in to any offsite servers more than once a week. Preferably not at all." This would usually be a pretty boring datum. Somebody has a freaking antique lathe. Valuable, perhaps, especially to the right buyer, but right now you need a baseball bat without a paper trail...
Edit: My roommate points out you can probably just jailbreak your hammer. That you have to jailbreak a hammer amuses me. (Gotta turn off the accelerometers at least.)

[Drool]

I'd be fine with "boring" buildings, but even boring ones would require a lot of work. Elevator banks, service elevators, private elevators, office space, bathrooms, building engineer rooms, janitorial rooms, security rooms, conference rooms, etc.

For instance, the Aon Center in Chicago is a pretty dull building, but even that has 88 floors (including basement levels), 50 elevators, and 3.6 million square feet of floor space. Granted, that's like the third tallest building in Chicago, but even the much more modest One South Dearborn (even the name is boring) clocks in at 39 floors, 19 elevators, and 2.6 million square feet.

For another comparison, the world map of Skyrim is about 14.3 square miles, which is 39,000,000,000 sq ft (assuming my math is right this early in the morning). Which is... 110 Aon Buildings. But Skyrim had large amounts of that inaccessible, and much more of it as countryside. And then you have to consider that 14.3 square miles is tiny. Sticking with Chicago, the area for just the city proper is 234 square miles.

So... yeah. They're either going to need one helluva procedural generator, or there's going to be a lot of buildings that are off limits. Or they're going to have to deal with just a tiny sliver of the city.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Which is... 110 Aon Buildings.

Yeah. And that would be just interiors.

Even if they went and handcrafted 100 buildings, you can't have a megapolis with just skyscrapers. It needs whole bunch of other stuff that is too numerous to list. Not even mention you need some sort of explorable cyberspace as well. Its really a massive challenge to do it right, both financial and technological.

That's why I'm really puzzled why they didn't go Deus Ex: HR way. Having several chopped up areas that are still large and explorable, is a foolproof way to make the world feel big, even when it really isn't.

[macksting]

That does sound like a lot to ask of procedural generation.

[Crosmando]

I would love a procedural game where you could encounter say an apartment block and be able to enter and search every single room in the building, I mean so what if the majority of the rooms had no enemies/loot, the reality is that not everything you find is going to be useful. I'm honest to God sick of games with sealed doors that can't be opened and entered.

Loved how in Vegas in Wasteland 1 there were so many abandoned buildings.

That said I'm not interested in this game because I know it will be a shooter.

[Drool]

That said I'm not interested in this game because I know it will be a shooter.

Considering we have little aside from a several year old teaser video, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. At least until we see something concrete aside from interviews.

[Lucius]

That said I'm not interested in this game because I know it will be a shooter.

Considering we have little aside from a several year old teaser video, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. At least until we see something concrete aside from interviews.

Idk, I think we can confidently predict there will be shooting involved in this game. Whether it is DXHR first person thing or a 3rd person style, whether it will be cover based etc, are all unknowns, but we can pretty much guess safely this won't be top down or turn based. At best it may be some form of RTwP in the vein of either DA:O or FO3.

Now calling a real time RPG that features guns, Mass Effect or DXHR for example, a "shooter" could be debated indefinitely.

[macksting]

To be clear, are y'all concerned that a modern or futuristic setting will have guns? 'Cause it kinda sounds like that.

[Zombra]

Game with guns in it != shooter. The Witcher games are not "sword hitters".