Thoughts on Cyperpunk 2077

CD Projekt Red has been working on Cyberpunk 2077 since 2013, though most of the team had to be put onto the Witcher 3 to get that finished and out the door.  At the E3 conference a limited live demo of the alpha code and finished material was demonstrated, and a very few reports from that demo have come back.

First off is that Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person only game (or with limited times as 3rd person available).  Those players who have come to love the 3rd person game genre are a bit riled up at this, but do remember this code is still in alpha phase, so this may not be set in stone.  I can play both types of game and have a preference for the 1st person perspective over the 3rd person perspective, but that was not always the case.  What I enjoy about 1st person is getting a limited but deep view of the world from personal perspective, which creates immersion for me as a player.  I have problems getting immersed into 3rd person games as there is just too much of the game world I can see and experience that way.  I'm more than willing to get into situations where I know I will be swarmed as the 6th sense of being in 3rd person allows me to maneuver my PC in ways to alleviate that and address it.  Getting absolutely blind-sided is difficult in 3rd person, save for the 'pop-up' mechanic of hidden creatures underground, which when used sparingly keeps one on their toes.

What I don't like about 3rd person games is the general lack of accuracy for aiming of ranged weapons, and if a game is going to actually block out the rest of the world while I use a scope, then what is the purpose of 3rd person perspective if I'm just going to be able to do 1st person precision aiming?  All or nothing, mixing modes can be interesting, yes, yet that sudden black screen around a scope picture is immersion breaking in the extreme.  Still better than the 'get your aim point on the target and hope you can hit it' sort of deal, I suppose.  If CDP can put forward detailed and compelling content in 1st person, then that becomes a selling point.  Everyone loved the certain amount of detail that 3rd person got in The Witcher 3 and I'm not about to complain for more and more compelling content from a 1st person perspective.  Besides, who knows what the implants will get you, instead?

Second off is that there is a basic system of faction and class, along with reputation that backs these things for the PC.  The stats involved revolve around those of the cyberpunk ethos, which is to say that some of the traditional RPG stats are in the game, like Strength and Endurance/Constitution, but others, like Cool, are put in to represent other factors (like how you keep your Cool during certain situations, which is not well represented by either a separate charisma or luck stat).  What you do in the world will determine how you are seen by others, thus reputation amongst certain groups of people will make you more affiliated with them and the factions inside of it (depending who you work with or piss off).  That said these are not assigned at the start but what you get by playing the way you want to play.

How you play is determined by your background, and while there were only a couple of choices available in the demo, these represent your actual reasons for being in Night City and what some of your personal objectives are.  Are you looking to make a name for yourself?  Trying to find a lost love who disappeared?  Just an odd-jobber who sees this as a good place to pick up some work?  I expect that these will become more varied as CDPR adds in more stories, back story and content.  This is a welcome change from traditional RPGs where you are either that starting novitiate or have some nebulous history that you have to try and role-play given the situations in the game.  A good RPG allows for multiple paths to an objective and for play style that is part of a back story.  While a trans-human, that is a human with multiple cybernetic implants that can be swapped, is seen in the demo, it may even be possible to be someone who uses just exterior equipment to achieve similar ends.  The concept of a 'techno' path that doesn't utilize cybernetics (as such) is part of the genre just as the fully wired in 'net' specialist who has fully embraced the idea even into their own consciousness is part of it.  Hopefully that is something the player will get to determine and choose as this makes a difference in role-playing style.  Implants gives abilities that cannot be easily removed if they can even be found, while having none and using technology to interfere with cybernetic implants means you are dependent upon such equipment but are not so easily foiled through such attacks.

From what was demonstrated there are multiple ways to handle situations and jobs, and you determine your own style of play based on your background, skills and attitude towards those groups in the game.  If you want to go in guns blazing, then go for it.  Want to be a sly social engineer?  Go for it.  The thief who was never there?  Go for it.  Reputation for any play style is rewarded, while factional fame or infamy are also garnered by what you do.  How you do things gets some level of respect on the street, amongst groups and factions, and becomes a very real part of the cyberpunk genre.  Quests, as such, can be done however you like...or even not doing them at all or double-crossing the quest giver.  Experience, as such, is garnered by play style not via simply 'go here, get that' of the fetch quest variety, although that can also be done if you are just someone picking up jobs from people.  I welcome this as a good game mechanic and good concept for gaming that rewards a player getting into their character and doing things their own way.

While you don't get a blank slate you do get a slate that allows for how you approach your past in a way that suits you for a player character.  You may or may not have a companion, friend or lover that you work with and I expect that will be up to the player.  Solo play has certain benefits in that you aren't worrying about a companion, but you also don't have their skills and abilities to work with, either.   Social engineering and networking is a very real part of the cyberpunk game concept and if CDPR has done their background work for this, then working through a network of contacts means being able to get through some missions or jobs via that slowly building affiliation network with varying degrees of trust involved.  That is one damned complex mechanic to make and I hope that CDPR puts a large amount of effort into it as it can pay dividends and even shape the entire way a player goes through the game.  The smooth talker able to get rivals to work for them in certain ways and even together for projects of mutual benefit can be a very real possibility if you have enough street cred, reputation, and such, plus good interpersonal skills to pull it off.  Making that a viable and credible way to play in a cyberpunk world takes skill and care in crafting, and these are hallmarks of CDPR games which have a high amount of polish to them.

What CDPR is also known for is cut-scenes, lots of cut-scenes, and this is something that should be reserved for important events.  If I, as a player, have any real criticism of The Witcher 3, it is the sheer number of cut-scenes and those which are pre-rendered that do not fit current character appearance.  Cut-scenes can add to immersion, yes, but they can also break it by putting a 3rd person camera in to get a cinematic view that, while impressive, becomes something of an immersion breaker in a 1st person perspective game.  Even in 3rd person games where the characters are better rendered than what the game engine can accomplish normally, such scenes remind the player that they are in a game and without any control during the length of the scene save for maybe a decision or two.  Not being able to have an attitude, a way to use body language to express the player's stance on meetings or activities, or even choosing appropriate wardrobe to better suit a situation and being stuck with whatever the game designers put in will break immersion.  This is especially so in a game where these things matter, and much of cyberpunk is about what you wear, how you hold yourself and how you approach situations on an inter-personal basis. 

Doing that with a live action setting with other NPCs walking around and getting in the way has been one of the most immersion breaking experiences in modern gaming: having a talk with an important NPC only to have an NPC uninvolved with the conversation walking through it or even not pathing around either of the participants and pushing them out of conversation distance is one of the great sins of immersion breaking.  There doesn't need to be a freeze effect on everyone else to accomplish this, just putting in a script that gives a maximum approach distance that other NPCs have when they are not in conversation with those that are in conversation.  Add to that a 'stop walking around for a few minutes' when it triggers will at least keep them out of the frame for those scenes that are not pre-rendered.  Basically a script that tells other NPCs to 'stay out of the way and don't do much of anything' script would be good for this.

And if we are on the topic of NPC scripting, how about having them recognize when they are walking in place due to an obstacle, like a low wall or house, that is in the way of their path?  Somehow this simple concept has been overlooked in gaming, and even in The Witcher 3 you can find people with a walking animation who are facing a wall, a building or even stuck against a small rock unable to path around it.  Live action cut-scenes can look really nice but can also be a comedy of errors, with companions wanting to talk with you in the heat of battle where one or both of you might get killed by standing up and having a heart-to-heart chat.  How about a danger sense for NPCs that isn't magical but simply makes them realize that, in the middle of combat with enemies approaching or nearby, might NOT be the time for a little chat?  Saving an NPC from a scripted monster only to have a random one show up while you are talking does break immersion.  Especially if you are doing it against a wall where their path finding has gotten them stuck for the past 5 minutes.  This should not be a high bar to clear in modern gaming, but it is.  The inability of NPCs to jump over small obstacles is another problem, part of the path finding problem, but one that should be available so that someone other than the PC has the magical ability to jump up and over small rock or low fence.  What gives with that, anyway?  Still this is just a wish list idea, not a real one I'm expecting to see.

Talking about wish lists, how about every NPC have a back story and life?  For all the grand immersion of The Witcher 3 in places like Novigrad, where you see so many people having a life and doing things (like lifting invisible crates to pretend to work) just how many of them can you actually interact with?  How many actual street vendors are there in The Witcher 3 there?  Well over 20 would be my estimate.  And how many that call you over to offer their wares are ACTUAL vendors?  Perhaps 5 or 6.  In a brothel with so many women to choose from you can actually choose from 3 of them, even when they call you over to their table, it is likely they aren't one willing to spread for a few gold coins.  In fact the only 3 that will have to be marked on your map.  That is not 'immersive'.  And while you do get a bit of backstory, it goes nowhere.  Want to help the woman wanting to set up her own establishment?  Nope, can't do that.  Why?  I mean by that point in time or any time later, Geralt can be pretty flush with coin so investing in a business and safe house for the long-term isn't such a bad idea.  To take that a step further, how many street hooks, prostitutes or courtesans can you approach for a good time?  Zero is my count, even after a number of them actually seem to want a Witcher or possibly would prefer one (given the mutations and such it is unlikely that any Witcher carries a communicable disease).  What goes for them goes for much of the rest of the NPCs as well, and there are only a few that you get to actually interact with and the rest are window dressing.  For all the immersion of Novigrad, it barely has more people to interact with than in Skyrim's Solitude where at least everyone running a business there is willing to at least trade with you.  That is an exaggeration, but not by much.

While those are 'wish list' items, they are ones that make sense in a densely populated city, which is Night City in Cyberpunk 2077.  Walking along the street you should be able to get into a quick chat or at least get told off with a 'not your type' or 'not here but somewhere else' or some equivalent and have that as a follow-up.  Even if there is a short list of random NPC interests that have some branching to them and things that can be done with or for them for profit or pleasure or to just find someone to kill time with, it should be possible.  Will most NPCs have boring lives?  Yup, its expected.  Should they actually have a backstory and be a part of the world and fit their reputation and job, plus have personal things they like, dislike, need and want?  Why yes, yes they should.  And every shop, street vendor or other person running a business should be an actual vendor of the goods they have on display and even be willing to sell the display model if they are out of stock.  What is it with vendors not willing to sell what is on the shelves, anyways?  I thought these places were shops willing to sell their goods.  I'm not looking for filler quests or 'radiant quests', but for actual content that has some meaning to the NPCs involved.  Getting to know people exercises social skills and can be a handy way to get an out of the way refuge that no one is expecting you to go to when you are on the run.  Just a place to stay for a few hours or over night and then you're off again.  Is that so hard to accomplish in the modern world of RPGs?  Ditto that for sex workers: if you damned well call out to me, it has to be for a reason and that reason had better be sex related with exchange of funds for sex involved.  I expect that flirting in that line of business doesn't get you a long life save in the 'better' establishments...and those establishments, if you are in good with the management and you get your pick of the house, that pick had damned well better have more than a quick roll in bed available.  Social skills understand social boundaries, use them and exploit them to help get an advantage and to even find someone you might want to be with for the long haul. 

That shouldn't be just a couple of pre-made NPC companions, but something that is the equivalent of a 'getting to know you' period with some pre-made templates and scripting, and then finding out if it is possible to go beyond that which should then have some set templates and scripting by individual.  For the long haul a final set of templates and scripts should be available to move that NPC into a longer-term affair with reciprocity and all the advantages and disadvantages of their jobs, skills and abilities.  Possibly even have a training set-up so that the player can work with them or with trusted associates to train that NPC into a full partner beyond just friend to lover to affair to long-term relationship to companion.  Full partner with all of that rolled into it will be damned rare, true, but that is due to lack of player time.  Still allowing players the agency to pick and choose, find someone who fits their bill and not just have the individual thrust upon them, that would truly be 'immersive'.  At the end you get an NPC that starts out with a set of stock templates with adjustments, but who then becomes suitable to the relationship and begins to fit the player's play style either to boost it or give secondary venues that would not normally be available.  There were a few NPCs I felt that Geralt could definitely do that with in The Witcher 3 and not a single one of them were available for such an experience.  And there are a few that might even benefit by being with Geralt and find a much, much better life for themselves in the doing...and possibly even offer a way out of the Yennefer and Triss triangle.  A fresh perspective would have been nice, although I'm sure it would conflict heavily with all the lore. 

That is what player agency is all about, isn't it?  That's why I'm glad that there is a thumbnail backstory to the PC available in Cyberpunk 2077 as it can be fleshed in to the extent that the player wants to flesh it in.  Or not.  Player agency is required in RPGs, and if that means deciding to throw away your past life mid-way through the game, piss off everyone you know and go for broke in a different direction...then that should be available, too.  While that sort of story change does have to be considered and it makes for a horrifically complex game, that is what CDPR got into in trying to make a cyberpunk style of game.  You can play things simply or you can move laterally and obliquely to all expectations to play the way you want to play.  These are not neat and clean worlds, but messy ones with interpersonal stories, contacts, conflicts, loves, hates, status and all of that rolled into it, so that a pacifist play style can actually be accomplished.  Being a manipulative social climber is just as viable in a cyberpunk world as is the brawler, weapons specialist, net runner or technologist play style.  And if you want to try and play a stealthy character who gets things done but was never seen by any means, then that, too, should be something a player can do.  No one can ever pin the things you do down on you, but everyone knows you are the one who did it sort of deal.  There needs to be good and working stealth mechanics beyond just combat mechanics.  And if you feel that your social skills will be helped by a bit of eavesdropping on an associate, well, why not?

When I say that CDPR has a lot on its table with a cyberpunk world, I mean it.  The genre, itself, raises high expectations for at least some modicum of variability in play styles.  Whatever the main story or stories are, it should be possible to accomplish them without firing a shot or having one individual killed...as well as turning into a psychopathic slaughtering machine that people fear...and everything in-between.  You won't be able to please everyone in a cyberpunk setting, but having a good RPG experience means that the world is open for replay for entirely different play styles or just to investigate the world and see what it has to offer.  Going from the highly structured Witcher series to a far more open cyberpunk world means CDPR has to craft something good that isn't necessarily driven by any one thing, but that has a lot of people and organizations with conflicting agendas that may have no real 'end' to it, although it may have a finishing mark.  The story your create in the way you play the game should and indeed must be the paramount thing, and the objectives you set for yourself as a player take precedent over the larger world story lines.  While the game may have a finishing mark, you may decide to never reach it because the world is just that good.