Cyberpunk 2077 [split from video games]

[Ran]

Oooh, they also added gangs chasing you by car if you attack them and try and drive away. They'll give up eventually, of course, but still, adds a little atmosphere.

Some stories around right now of an investor's meeting or some such, and CDPR talking strategy. Apparently they bought Digital Scapes Studios, which had helped them with CP2077. They also seem to plan to be able to work on two AAA titles simultaneously starting from 2022, with this article suggesting they're Witcher and Cyberpunk titles. 

And in other news, Amazon is listing three graphic novels from CDPR for Cyberpunk 2077.

• Cyberpunk 2077: Your Voice: 

  Aleksandra Motyka and Marcin Blacha, writers on the Cyberpunk 2077 video game, and artist Danijel Zezelj (Scalped, Days of Hate, Northlanders, Starve) take you on a fast-paced twisted ride through the darkest corners of Night City.
   
  A lonely maintenance worker gets tangled in an anti-corporation operation.

  During a routine shift, Todd, an employee at Night City Area Rapid Transit, encounters an altercation between a mysterious woman and the Maelstrom gang. As the woman attempts to escape, she hands him a chip. To find her and uncover the data, he sets off on a wild journey through the city's seedy mekka and dangerous wastelands where he meets a sly new client, crazy cyberpunks, and the infamous Johnny Silverhand. He'll finally discover what true love is and why it'll never be possible, not in a place like Night City.

• Cyberpunk 2077: Where's Johnny? Written by Bartosz Sztybor (Witcher: Fading Memories, Jim Henson's The Storyteller: Sirens), art by Giannis Milonogiannis (Prophet, Ronin Island, Old City Blues, G.I. Joe), and colors by Roman Titov (Angel) comes a sci-fi pulp noir based on the hit video game Cyberpunk 2077!  A hardboiled journalist bent on taking down the corrupt corporations of Night City finally gets his chance to do it.  Drunk, cynical, and stubborn journalist Thompson is working hard to wake up the populace--keeping their eyes and ears closed to the filth and corruption of corporate-run Night City is a choice and he's going to blow their self-prescribed diversions to pieces. Somebody nuked the headquarters of a major corporation. Rumor has it, it was the infamous Johnny Silverhands. The streets are buzzing that he's dead and his body remains at the bottom of the nuked tower. His job: find the body. But is he dead or is it just hearsay? The streets of Night City talk and a corporate downfall is just the beginning.

• Cyberpunk 2077: Trauma Team: 

  Nadia, an assistant EMT for a privately-owned business known as Trauma Team International, is the sole survivor of a failed rescue mission turned shootout.

  After she agrees to continue work for an upcoming extraction mission, Nadia discovers that her new extraction subject is Apex--the man who's responsible for Nadia's former team members' deaths. A hundred floors high in a skyscraper filled with members of Apex's rival gang, Nadia and her team must complete the extraction.

  Cullen Bunn (Harrow County, Uncanny X-Men) and Christopher Mooneyham (Predator, Nightwing) introduce an all-original series based on CD Projekt Red's brand-new game Cyberpunk 2077!

  Collects Cyberpunk 2077 #1-4.

The new ones at top sound interesting, the first taking place before the Arasaka nuke, the latter apparently taking place right after and featuring Thompson.

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Karlbear said:

I guess maybe I should turn it around - what do you think of as 'wildly different gaming experiences'? What's an example of a game that does give you choices that are wildly different or do really matter?

The only ones that come immediately to mind are games with dramatically simpler graphics/settings (Pillars of Eternity, Baldur's Gate 1 + 2, Fallout 1 + 2, Tyranny).

The only game that comes to mind with anything approaching this kind of fidelity or an open-world setting is Fallout: New Vegas, which gives you the freedom to kill every NPC in the entire game (bar one robot vendor) at any time, and questlines will adapt dynamically to major NPCs being missing, The freedom in that game (the base game, not the DLC which are much more restrictive) probably remains the bar for any game promising dynamic player freedom to overcome.

Fallout 4 mayyyyybe because of the faction loyalty system and the four factions having numerous overlapping end-states, some of which are complementary, might give you arguably more freedom to precisely determine the end-of-game political situation, but against that there's the fact that the story is weak as all-fuck.

There's also the original Deus Ex, but the scale and scope of that game is much smaller, as I think we debated previously. The Mass Effect Trilogy isn't open-world but does have a huge variety of end-states of characters being alive/dead, factions existing/being destroyed etc, but in terms of the actual end state of the story, it only has three mildly varying scenarios.

Otherwise, amongst other modern open-world RPGs or action games no, nothing comes close to the story reactivity and choice of Cyberpunk 2077, to the point that I get bemused when people start ragging on the game for not having enough "choices that matter". Like, compared to what? Games from over a decade ago (if not two) or 2D isometric RPGs?

Don't get me wrong, they oversold the amount of choice there is in the game (especially with the background choices) but there's still quite a lot in there, and vastly more than any Rockstar or Ubisoft game, or Horizon: Zero Dawn, or most Bethesda games (especially Fallout 3 and Skyrim), though not being story-focused RPGs, they might not be the best comparison.

[Red Tiger]

Trauma Team's been out for months. It's pretty good.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Slurktan said:

I'd expect wildly different gaming experiences to be that not just doing more or less of the exact same thing you do throughout the game already. Are there missions that affect the ending where instead of killing (or the non lethal option making bodies  that are still and dont move or interact on the ground that aren't "dead") you can talk to them instead?

Yes, several, including major ones with the major plotline.

1 minute ago, Slurktan said:

What about tricking various factions into doing the work for you through financial means solely? 

Also yes, though not as many.

1 minute ago, Slurktan said:

What about instead of fighting against the seeming inevitable you instead embrace the Johnny take over and go play a game of golf first?

Sadly there is no golf game in the game, but you can ride on a ferris wheel if you want. 

1 minute ago, Slurktan said:

No its just the same shit over and over? Gotcha, so not wildly different gaming experiences.

I mean, to me the pinnacle of this was Deus Ex - where you could simply kill a person early in the game if you wanted to. Nothing was telling you that you needed to, and there was no specific questline to do it, and it's even not really one of  the options presented. And if you did so it was a really hard fight (though there was another way to make it a completely easy fight too!), and that changed...a little bit. Not a ton, but a little bit. one person that was dead would not be going forward, another person hated your guts from the get go (but that only changed minor dialog). It didn't change the main thrust of the game or even side missions - it was just a choice you could do. 

To me that was amazing! And there are a lot of moments like this in Cyberpunk. But there aren't a lot of 'this village is gone now because you're a dick'. 

[Ran]

Apparently CDPR has dropped its plans for a future Cyberpunk online standalone game, and will instead see about implementing online aspects to current and future games when and if it makes sense:

Quote

"We are building an online technology that can be seamlessly integrated into the development of our future games. This technology will power the online components we choose to introduce in our games, and will ensure we can do so without any great technological debt. With this technology in place, we can start to grow an online community powered by our own GOG Galaxy platform, which connects gamers both inside and outside of our games."

 

Which makes it sound like CP2077 can gain some online functionality down the road, as I think was hinted at in a post a few months ago where people dug into files and seemed to find the remnants of two game modes (some sort of battle royale and a team mode). But no standalone, GTA Online-style game.

They state that CDPR will stick to focusing on single-player AAA RPGs going forward. Fairly prominently, both Witcher and Cyberpunk are the only two IPs they talk about -- no indicated plans for developing an original IP or licensing something else -- so I think the feeling that CP2077 will eventually get a sequel (or at least a new RPG in the same setting) seems very high. Ditto the Witcher universe.

 

[Ran]

On 3/27/2021 at 3:36 PM, Ran said:

Claim via Reddit that the Epic Game Store had spots for a bunch of expansions at some point, 18  being free DLC that were then reduced in number to ten. Per them, Epic's servers now have spots for 3 paid DLCs as well, but no information on those.

So, CDPR has responded to questions from IGN, and per them these items that appeared at the Epic Store (now gone) are not names for upcoming DLC. The most straightforward take from IGN is that they're obfuscating, and that they were placeholder (i.e. not final) names for DLC, and that some of them may be codenames that hide what they actually plan.

[john]

I finished it just now, about 90 hours, did all the content up until the ending apart from one gig which I didn’t notice on the map until they switched out the car purchase missions for a different icon. I’m not going to say I didn’t enjoy it but, even if you forget about all the junk you have to suffer through, I found the gameplay poor to average, mostly because it seemed unfinished or was too easy. The story and cutscenes were pretty good, although I would doubt the impactfulness of your choices. Certainly didn’t seem on the level of the Witcher 3, where you’re shaping the future of a continent. Difficult to say on one play through though.

So, the ending, I did what seemed the most natural choice and did Johnny and Rogue followed by V back in her body. Disappointing, I have to say, both the mission and the ending, although I did like the bit where Johnny was crossing the bridge and V was repeatedly trying to stop him. Don’t have much inclination to play out the others. I’m assuming River wouldn’t have sort of dumped me like Judy did. But having looked it up, it seems like the nomad ending is the best one, which I had no interest in (why would you risk the lives of your friends that have absolutely no skin in the game?) I’m not sure why CDPR are obsessed with the nomads, I got like 4 different messages from them at the end too. I would’ve liked to have Takemura involved too but I hadn’t even realised that saving him was an option until I read up on the endings.

[Ran]

21 minutes ago, john said:

even if you forget about all the junk you have to suffer through,

Which part did you find junky? Just bugs and stuff? Or are you referring to the optional content? It's awfully tempting to grind it, but IMO the game is probably a greater challenge in the storyline if you try to ignore most of the side content and just stick to proper story missions or story quests.

21 minutes ago, john said:

I found the gameplay poor to average, mostly because it seemed unfinished or was too easy.

Easiness is definitely an over-levelling thing. Despite my damndest effort not to over-level on my second run, I found myself capped out at level 50 again well before I finished. Next time I'm turning off icons and not using a map and just going where actual missions lead me.

I wonder if anyone has made mods that will enforce some caps on stats and levels? It was fun to run with thousands of points of armor, but you become invincible then.

21 minutes ago, john said:

Certainly didn’t seem on the level of the Witcher 3, where you’re shaping the future of a continent. Difficult to say on one play through though.

I think this is true, but... it's The Witcher 3, which seems to have been seen as a kind of end point for the story from CDPR's perspective (at least at the time, the huge success of it obviously incentivized returnign to it). I don't think they're ready to leave behind the Cyberpunk setting, and I'm not even sure they're leaving behind V when there's a follow-up game. 

At the same time, it's also fairly reasonable from a thematic perspective. Johnny Silverhand nuked the Arasaka towers and 50 years later Arasaka is more powerful than ever. Now you digitally nuke them, and the end result is their stock falls a bit, they lose some data to rival corps, their big R&D project goes up in a blaze thanks to Alt, but there's no sense that they're now ruined for good. Night City is a place where the actions of little people amount to a hill of beans in the grand scheme of things. OTOH, there's surely some more minor, but personal, impact -- your ending sees the end of Rogue and your taking over the Afterlife, Panam seems to ultimately not stick it out with the Aldecaldos and is back to being an edgerunner, 

21 minutes ago, john said:

I’m assuming River wouldn’t have sort of dumped me like Judy did.

No, still together-ish, but you're clearly too busy to keep up with regular contact so he's calling to see if you'll be around for a dinner. Kerry's message is similar, if you romance him as male V. IIRC, Panam leaves Night City to be with the Aldecaldos and seems to feel like the relationship is kind of on pause.

21 minutes ago, john said:

But having looked it up, it seems like the nomad ending is the best one, which I had no interest in (why would you risk the lives of your friends that have absolutely no skin in the game?) 

They say they owe you... but yeah, it felt a bit so-so. My favorite ending remains "The Sun", either with Rogue or going on the suicide run. 

21 minutes ago, john said:

I would’ve liked to have Takemura involved too but I hadn’t even realised that saving him was an option until I read up on the endings.

I liked how they handled it. No sign-posting, just had to try it while Johnny's yelling at you that he's a goner and you have to run for it.

That said, he was not a happy camper in his final message in "The Sun" ending.

[Kalbear]

I really think the  Star is the best ending overall, especially with Judy as your romance. It's certainly the happiest. 

[Ran]

25 minutes ago, Karlbear said:

I really think the  Star is the best ending overall, especially with Judy as your romance. It's certainly the happiest. 

It's definitely the best one for leaving you in a  stable romance, at least with Panam and Judy. River is willing to visit but isn't likely to move into the Badlands, while Kerry is annoyed at you but is willing to forgive if you come back to Night City. The Sun ending is my favorite because it epitomizes "Wrong city. Wrong people" thing that Johnny says, no one is killed off helping you, but it's true that your romances are shakey (River and Kerry are okay-ish with somewhat separate lives, Panam is willing to wait until you leave Night City to join her) or outright fail (Judy).

The least murderous is the suicide run, because no one but a bunch of Arasaka goons die (and Hanako, I guess) -- Rogue's alive, Saul's alive, and so on. Takemura is a goner in either "The Star" or "The Sun" so a bit of a wash.

OTOH, with "The Star"... I don't know, it's just a wing and a prayer that there's someone "out there" who can help you in the six months you've got left to live. It's the nebulous, half-baked thing that's right in Panam's wheel house. With "The Sun" you're at least actively doing something... though there's no guarantee you'll survive, much less that you're being told the truth about being helped. 

[Kalbear]

I assumed that whatever ending you picked you'd be able to go back and find a way to fix yourself. Sun definitely sets you up for that moving forward, but Star sets you up as a massive legend, and i think it's the one that has Arakasa hurt the most and at active war with Militech (since you attacked their force with a Militech tank coming from a tunnel that Militech owns). 

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Karlbear said:

I assumed that whatever ending you picked you'd be able to go back and find a way to fix yourself. Sun definitely sets you up for that moving forward, but Star sets you up as a massive legend, and i think it's the one that has Arakasa hurt the most and at active war with Militech (since you attacked their force with a Militech tank coming from a tunnel that Militech owns). 

I think it's the other way, no? "The Sun" is where you're a legend in Night City, now running the Afterlife which was the domain of Queen Rogue. 

I'll grant that all of them (well, except suicide) leave some sort of hope in mind. But "The Sun" feels the most pro-active towards it.

[john]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

Which part did you find junky? Just bugs and stuff? Or are you referring to the optional content? It's awfully tempting to grind it, but IMO the game is probably a greater challenge in the storyline if you try to ignore most of the side content and just stick to proper story missions or story quests.

That was actually an autocorrect for janky. Yes, I just meant the bugs. It was probably worse on the PS4, but the level of bugs I was dealing with even after the patch was unacceptable.

3 hours ago, Ran said:

Easiness is definitely an over-levelling thing. Despite my damndest effort not to over-level on my second run, I found myself capped out at level 50 again well before I finished. Next time I'm turning off icons and not using a map and just going where actual missions lead me.

Not sure. I thought it was easy even compared to similar games, especially if you’re running and gunning which is my typical approach. It’s too easy to get headshots and too many health inhalers and grenades. And if you crank up the difficulty you just have to run behind cover more and get more headshots.

4 hours ago, Ran said:

No, still together-ish, but you're clearly too busy to keep up with regular contact so he's calling to see if you'll be around for a dinner. Kerry's message is similar, if you romance him as male V. IIRC, Panam leaves Night City to be with the Aldecaldos and seems to feel like the relationship is kind of on pause.

Oh yeah, I got that message. I did romance Judy and River but I figured if you call him before the mission you wake up with him after, and he’s possibly not as distant as Judy is already in V’s penthouse.

4 hours ago, Ran said:

I liked how they handled it. No sign-posting, just had to try it while Johnny's yelling at you that he's a goner and you have to run for it.

Yeah, that seems like good organic storytelling gameplay. I was very accommodating to Johnny all the way through (although I only ended up with 60% relationship somehow, which I believe knocks out some kind of dialogue choice in the final mission) so I was never likely to catch that Takemura was still alive. I feel like most of the choices you face are quite obvious when there’s going to be additional content available though.

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, john said:

Yeah, that seems like good organic storytelling gameplay. I was very accommodating to Johnny all the way through (although I only ended up with 60% relationship somehow

There's some very specific dialog choices you need to choose at his grave to push you over to 70%. 

3 minutes ago, john said:

, which I believe knocks out some kind of dialogue choice in the final mission) so I was never likely to catch that Takemura was still alive. I feel like most of the choices you face are quite obvious when there’s going to be additional content available though.

I think that's true, yeah. It's not like it makes a massive change to things, whether he lives or not, but the fact that you've control over it (and weren't told that you could affect it) was pretty cool.

 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

There's some very specific dialog choices you need to choose at his grave to push you over to 70%.

To be clear you don't need to get 70% to get that; you simply need to pick a very specific set of dialog choices. (this, IMO, sucks and they shouldn't have done it that way).

3 hours ago, Ran said:

I think it's the other way, no? "The Sun" is where you're a legend in Night City, now running the Afterlife which was the domain of Queen Rogue. 

I'll grant that all of them (well, except suicide) leave some sort of hope in mind. But "The Sun" feels the most pro-active towards it.

Sun is where you're a legend active in Night City, but Arasaka isn't nearly as hurt and the war isn't coming yet - and you're now working for the crazy AI group. Star has you leaving Night City in massive triumph and on your own terms, with Arakasa the most damaged and about to be in a war. I think you're more glorified in Sun - and maybe that's more of the point - but Star is where you've really won, and aren't going to be a dead legend like Johnny or Morgan. 

 

Quote

I think that's true, yeah. It's not like it makes a massive change to things, whether he lives or not, but the fact that you've control over it (and weren't told that you could affect it) was pretty cool.

This is exactly the sort of thing I tthink of when I think of choices making consequences - and them mattering. Does it change the actual outcome of the storyline? Not tremendously - but it's really cool that you can do it. Just like it is in DXHR when you can save your pilot. 

[Ran]

13 hours ago, Karlbear said:

Sun is where you're a legend active in Night City, but Arasaka isn't nearly as hurt

Both "The Star" and "The Sun" leave Yorinobu in charge, Hanako dead, and Arasaka rocked by the destruction of their big R&D project Mikoshi. "The Sun" is explicit about some of the damage, with Delamain reporting financial and political fallout, and Mr. Blue Eyes talking of their paralysis, the way his people would be stealing tech and info from them (much as the Aldecaldos did in "The Star").

I really think they're about equal in terms of how we're supposed to take the harm to Arasaka in both of these endings. Only "The Devil" gives Arasaka a better position.

The only other thing that "The Star" does in the grand scheme of things is that Militech will now have reason to hate the Aldecaldos as well, as you chew through a few score of their troops to get into that tunnel they were guarding. But near as I can tell the 5th Corprate War is no further or closer in either "The Star" or "The Sun".

Quote

and the war isn't coming yet

The war was already nascent even before you blew up Mikoshi, as Padre revealed regarding Arasaka deliberately sending Militech-dressed gangoons after Arasaka assets to create a causus belli. I don't think either of the two endings change that. "The Devil" may actually be the one to accelerate it, since it seems to me that the effort to start a war that Padre talks about must have been done at Saburo's behest before his death. With his return and with Arasaka coming back stronger than ever thanks to Mikoshi, Arasaka will probably feel like it's in a position of strength and launch the first direct attack.

Quote

- and you're now working for the crazy AI group.

On your own terms, but yes. Like I said, it's the only ending where you're proactively trying to solve your expiration date situation. "The Star" felt to me like V was capitulating to making the best of the last few months she had left, with no real reaston to believe Panam was going to lead to any solution, whereas "The Sun" V has gone through too damned much not to want to do everything possible to survive.

 

[Werthead]

A reasonable police pursuit mod has been created, allowing the police to chase you by both bike and car.

It's not fantastic, though, since it largely works by invisibly tethering the police vehicle to your car (an apparent necessity to stop the police vehicle despawning when you travel more than a few dozen feet away), so it makes the police a bit too OP.

But, still, given that the modders don't have the full source code to work with, a reasonable effort.

[Ran]

Apparently Panam has a series of new text messages added in the 1.2 patch, though the speculation is they aren't "live" yet, as no one who has played post-1.2 has said they've come across them. Details (note: spoilers) here and here. They seem to be largely romance related, but include things where Panam asks about Jackie and Judy, and V tells her about Takemura. 

I see it's been noted that Witcher 3 added something like 10 minutes of more scenes with Yennefer and Triss through patches because of feedback from fans that they wanted more scenes for the relationship side of things. Could be something similar.

[Ran]

Hotfix 1.21 out. Patch notes here. Lots of gig fixes where things could block progress, memory management fixes to reduce memory leaks and resultant crashes, 

[Ran]

CDPR has revealed in a financial report that the profit from the release of CP2077 more or less tripled the profit they made in the year The Witcher 3 was released, and that includes refunds being factored in,

The calls for them to abandon the property and move on seems even more premature, IMO.