Cyberpunk 2078

[Kalbear]

Finally finished my 2.0 playthrough. I did the Star ending as I said I would, with a female V and Judy. The Atom Smasher fight is remarkably tough; it basically makes sniping useless, but hacking + shotgunning when he's been immobilized and his cyberware is disabled still works eventually. 

And yeah, it's absolutely worth it to make her breakfast while she exclaims - in a voice mail because she's shy about her feelings - that she's actually happy for once. It might not last - as Blade Runner says, what does? - but it's a moment of actual triumph. You win, you beat Arasaka, the clan has an absurd amount of tech and supplies and is heading for a friendlier place in Arizona, you're going to look for different solutions there to your problem, Johnny gives you his blessing, Rogue is alive and well, Kerry has got a new lust for life and is touring again, River is...eh, who cares. It might go to shit in 6 months or more, who knows, but for this moment you and Judy are happy and the clan is successful. 

 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Finally finished my 2.0 playthrough. I did the Star ending as I said I would, with a female V and Judy. The Atom Smasher fight is remarkably tough; it basically makes sniping useless, but hacking + shotgunning when he's been immobilized and his cyberware is disabled still works eventually. 

And yeah, it's absolutely worth it to make her breakfast while she exclaims - in a voice mail because she's shy about her feelings - that she's actually happy for once. It might not last - as Blade Runner says, what does? - but it's a moment of actual triumph. You win, you beat Arasaka, the clan has an absurd amount of tech and supplies and is heading for a friendlier place in Arizona, you're going to look for different solutions there to your problem, Johnny gives you his blessing, Rogue is alive and well, Kerry has got a new lust for life and is touring again, River is...eh, who cares. It might go to shit in 6 months or more, who knows, but for this moment you and Judy are happy and the clan is successful. 

 

And you’re gonna die in 6 months while getting baked in the desert heat,having given up on NC  

Edited December 28, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

And you’re gonna die in 6 months while getting baked in the desert heat,having given up on NC  

You'll die a legend though, after taking everything NC had to throw at you and possibly bringing down Arasaka. 

And who knows? Maybe Arizona has a cure somewhere. Maybe Judy can help find something too. Probably not, but better than Rogue dying, better than Judy leaving, better than being in thrall to some blue-eyed demon from beyond the Blackwall. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Nah I stand by what I said earlier, great game but deeply unsatisfying endings,negating all the quests that I’ve done till that point as it changes nothing in the end(PL ending is even worse). Especially compared to The Witcher 3s happy ending. Give me atleast one unambiguously good ending man….Make it difficult to achieve, having a delayed choice-consequence mechanic like Witcher but atleast put it in there for players. 

[Ran]

You're a very wish-fulfillment driven sort of person, which is why you feel that way. That's fine. 90% of people who've rated PL on Steam love it, but there's always that 1-in-10 who have something they don't like about it.

[IlyaP]

Pretty much this. It's a cyberpunk hyper-capitalist dystopian AF society. There's no happy to ending to be found there unless it's the destruction of the forces that warped society into its current commodification- and object-obsessed status as depicted in-game and a creation of a healthier, less awful society. 

Which, uh, is really not what the game is about. This is a city that eats people alive. It's a deeply, deeply unhappy place, where good people die, revolution or positive change seems impossible, wealth frees people from legal repercussions, no one can buy property, etc etc. 

It's a beautiful hellscape where there's no happy ending to be found. 

 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

24 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Pretty much this. It's a cyberpunk hyper-capitalist dystopian AF society. There's no happy to ending to be found there unless it's the destruction of the forces that warped society into its current commodification- and object-obsessed status as depicted in-game and a creation of a healthier, less awful society. 

Which, uh, is really not what the game is about. This is a city that eats people alive. It's a deeply, deeply unhappy place, where good people die, revolution or positive change seems impossible, wealth frees people from legal repercussions, no one can buy property, etc etc. 

It's a beautiful hellscape where there's no happy ending to be found. 

 

You make it sound like such a fun, wholesome game to play   The world of The Witcher is equally, if not more bleak and we can still get at least one happy ending in Witcher 3, so I don’t buy the whole “ bad,dystopian world means we can’t have a good ending” argument.
 

On Reddit and Steam also one of the negatives people list are the unhappy endings so I’m not the only one who feels this way clearly. But I respect that the endings work for you guys, they just don’t for me.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ran]

It's fun (not sure about "wholesome") in part because it respects the narrative logic of the story. A "happy ending" is the thing everything in the game and the story tells you isn't going to happen, and only your personal expectation based on your interests, or your past experience of other games, tells you there ought to be a happy ending. But we were never promised one. The best we could hope for was an ending in which our character accepted the choices they made and their consequences.

[Kalbear]

If you want a happy ending you don't want the punk part of cyberpunk. And that's fine, but that is decidedly not what the Witcher is like. 

The punk means that you reject the system. You don't make it better for you, you fight it even when - especially when - it is hopeless, because the fight is what matters. You are aware the whole thing is impossible and you fight anyway.

I get that that can be unsatisfying from a game power fantasy perspective but it is deeply true to the genre and may be one of the best examples of cyberpunk ever done. All the endings accepting Corp or nation help have you selling out your friends and yourself to save yourself. All the endings that lead to your likely death have you sticking it, hard, to those forces. 

I get that it isn't for you and that's fine, but it's deeply intentional that way and excellent in that narrative and thematic arc.

[Werthead]

Mike Pondsmith - the creator of the Cyberpunk tabletop setting and world - has a good assessment of how he sees it:

 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

Mike Pondsmith - the creator of the Cyberpunk tabletop setting and world - has a good assessment of how he sees it:

 

I just realised his company made The Witcher TTRPG, probably part of how CDPR secured the deal for getting the rights to Cyberpunk. 
 

Also CDPR seem to have bought the IP rights to making CP related projects in other media like live action, anime etc Can anyone confirm if they made a similar deal for Witcher 3 spin offs ? I’m aware that the author sold the book rights to Netflix but could CDPR theoretically make a live action tv show based on the plot of The Witcher 3? I’d love to see them expand that like they are doing with CP right now and do the spirit, if not the plot of the books ,justice in live action.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

probably part of how CDPR secured the deal for getting the rights to Cyberpunk. 

Not sure that's true. They secured the rights to Cyberpunk in 2012, and only announced The Witcher tabletop game in like 2015. I suspect their collaboration with Pondsmith in the early years, plus the early success of The Witcher III which exceeded all expectations, are what led to it.

So far as I know, CDPR owns no media rights for The Witcher. Game rights, I guess, hence Gwent and such.

[Werthead]

8 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I just realised his company made The Witcher TTRPG, probably part of how CDPR secured the deal for getting the rights to Cyberpunk. 
 

Also CDPR seem to have bought the IP rights to making CP related projects in other media like live action, anime etc Can anyone confirm if they made a similar deal for Witcher 3 spin offs ? I’m aware that the author sold the book rights to Netflix but could CDPR theoretically make a live action tv show based on the plot of The Witcher 3? I’d love to see them expand that like they are doing with CP right now and do the spirit, if not the plot of the books ,justice in live action.

My understanding is no. Netflix have the rights directly from Sapkowski and actually cannot use any visual design elements from the games in the TV show. Slightly confusingly, the CG company Platige that worked on some of the CG cutscenes and marketing for The Witcher 3 and also worked on the Netflix show, and its head gets a producer credit on both the TV show and the game.

I believe CDPR did pick up wider media rights for the Cyberpunk universe, but Mike Pondsmith leveraged quite a lot of control over that. It's interesting that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners blasted his name on the screen in massive letters, giving him a much bigger profile for the anime than for the game itself.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

8 hours ago, Werthead said:

My understanding is no. Netflix have the rights directly from Sapkowski and actually cannot use any visual design elements from the games in the TV show. Slightly confusingly, the CG company Platige that worked on some of the CG cutscenes and marketing for The Witcher 3 and also worked on the Netflix show, and its head gets a producer credit on both the TV show and the game.

I believe CDPR did pick up wider media rights for the Cyberpunk universe, but Mike Pondsmith leveraged quite a lot of control over that. It's interesting that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners blasted his name on the screen in massive letters, giving him a much bigger profile for the anime than for the game itself.

Yes I know they can’t adopt Sapkowski’s books directly as Netflix owns the tv rights to the 7 novels, but what about their own games whose storyline is completely original and not based on any of the novels? Since they own the IP rights to the games themselves can they not use that IP and that story in other medias ?They reinforced this deal with the new settlement with Sapkowski in 2019 also. We need a lawyer @Ser Scot A Ellison to clear this up  

 

Because CDPR is able to use Witcher 3 merchandising( board games , mobile games, figurines etc ) for themselves, so does this also cover the media rights ? Can that be construed as merchandise ?

 

With Cyberpunk it’s much clearer with them owning the IP rights to games, live action, animation etc and I’m sure Mike gets a cut of royalties from it all (not sure about creative control)

Edited December 30, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ran]

If they don't have media rights, then they don't have media rights to anything they have licensed. So, no, they can't do that. The closest they can get is their game trailers.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Ran

[Ran]

Someone was going through the table top's source books, and Cyberpunk 2020: Chromebook 2 has a section on a group called... ORION. It's described as an elite team of operatives (called Hunters), who specialize in "corporate extraction", basically rescuing corporate executives and their families from kidnappings, hostage, blackmail, etc. situations... or arranging kidnappings, etc.

Folks are wondering if the codename for the sequel was not chosen at random and hints that the next game will focus on someone involved in ORION in some fashion. The originator of the thread speculated V would be involved, but I doubt that.

 

[Ran]

GameSpot says that Phantom Liberty is the game that features the hardest decision for players in 2023:

 

[Ran]

 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

 

Pretty good numbers for a DLC

[IlyaP]

Finally finished Phantom Liberty. Been playing through it all slowly to really savour, enjoy, and elongate the experience, given how much I'd already played the rest of the game. 

Ended up discovering the Cynosure, and dealing with the borderline-annoying hunter-spider, which oddly is set up as an unkillable enemy, and for a little while turns CP77 into like a low calorie version of System Shock 2. But at least I managed to give V a happy ending where he lives at the end, and isn't doomed to die from the engram. 

Seems like a nice place to stop after nearly 400 hours of game time.