Cyberpunk 2077: CD Projekt Red comes out of the shell of The Witcher

The story of CD Project Red it seems like a fable from a movie: a small Polish studio buys an IP that was unknown at the time and, a little by chance, a little by skill, transforms everything into a trilogy that has dictated the rules of Action RPGs in recent years. It was clear that all this would not stop only at The Witcher, also because skill always tends to emerge. I don't know if you still remember it, but cyberpunk 2077 it was first announced in the summer of 2012, 6 years ago. It is only now, with this edition of E3, that a gameplay has been shown in its splendor, adding concrete details to what was for now only a title with an attached teaser.

The First Person

Immediately around the web the indignant scream of the people exploded: a first-person RPG, are we kidding? I could list high-caliber titles that, thanks to the first person, have managed to give that something extra to the experiences normally already created. Fallout , The Elder Scrolls, or if we want to get even closer to the setting, the same Deus Ex. This is where the most obvious question ever starts: Is Cyberpunk 2077 a shooter? Absolutely not.

All the mechanics that pervade the title of CD Projekt RED seen during E3 have so many of those role-playing details that it is reductive to even define it as an RPG. In first-person shooters the main component remains adrenaline, speed, and in some cases the tactics: choice of locations, weapons and methods of completion remain quite marginal. cyberpunk 2077 instead, it focuses on playing as much as possible in your own way: being aggressive in completing missions, exploiting diplomacy to extort information or being a Night City ghost will be your choice, and this is more than enough proof to define the title like a 100% RPG.

Cause and Consequence

Your choices will affect the progress of the game. We are in the age of cause and consequence: titles scream and boast great consequences based on the choices made. Of course, doing it in an interactive film is far easier than inserting this mechanic into a title with a thousand variables: yet CD Projekt RED it's doing that, and it's far surpassing the levels seen in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Except that the missions will leave a lot of room for choice in the approaches (choosing whether to be more or less peaceful will be up to you alone), and that each subsequent situation will tend to always be different based on what you have done, this time the consequences will spread throughout. the game. In fact, it won't be strange to see gang survivors, simple rivals or someone you've stepped on their foot, appearing dozens of missions later, casually, ready for a heart-pounding car chase. In conclusion, Quantic Dream (Detroit: Become Human) showed us that choices can create many branches, Dontnod (Vampyr) that can vary the game world: CD Projekt RED will be the software house that will show us how the choices can chase us along futuristic cities, by means of land vehicles (the steering wheels will not be controllable), passing through a storm of bullets?

Maximum customization

We've already mentioned maximum customization: in fact, the name has been removed V, the whole character can be aesthetically customized. The appearance in the game will also vary the approach that the NPCs will have towards you: being elegant or wearing particular clothes will change as your experience continues. Furthermore, the customizations do not stop only outside, but also arrive in the technological components that can be installed: these will allow you to have enhancements, useful both in attacking and in following your typical approach, which can revolve around types such as stealth, assault and, last but not least, netrunner. The boys of CD Projekt RED they have already clarified how a class will not exist in the game, and therefore you will be able to customize your mercenary to the maximum by avoiding well-defined lines, but the choice to exploit the technology (thus being able to hack the enemy one) seems to be the most interesting now. The hope that the humanity value will return (as in the paper role-playing game) and count how many implants you have installed in your body (too low a value would lead to madness) is great. For now, the implants will also differ in brand, detail and functionality, changing your choices based on how you play.

A living world

The game world, Night City (consisting of 6 districts) will be alive. The phrase has been overused by so many development studies, but what so far cyberpunk 2077 showed confirms it. You will be able to choose who to talk to, establish relationships of any kind and adopt your line of thought, rotating in all respects V. To help the first person: the eye implants and all the game effects that will pass through the sight of the mercenary , they will also automatically pass for yours, almost artificially inserting you in the role of the anti-hero on duty. The way you talk to NPCs will also be completely up to the user: choosing to pull out a gun in the middle of a dialogue and point it at the head of those in front of us will have consequences. The reactions of the other characters will also be realistic: enemies can be mutilated or hit in support points, helping the player to adopt a different tactic than get out of cover and shoot.

Think, even in the 2013 it was rumored that each dialogue would be dubbed in the original language, and then translated from the installed chip. That would be a lot of work to do, but certainly something unique in terms of localization.

The timeline

The title is clear: we are in a world cyberpunk. The question is: how much? For example, it is assured that newspapers and mobile phones will appear, rather special things if alongside them we can see high-tech cybernetic systems. This little anachronism, however, makes everything more interesting: on the other hand, Blade Runner did not come out yesterday, but in 1982, and even in Star Wars the PCs of the space were certainly more backward than the worst smartphone of today. In short, if cyberpunk was born as a literary genre around anni 80, there will be a reason why the combination of old and futuristic always works.

Analysis and investigation

In cyberpunk 2077 it is confirmed that in some cases we will have to investigate. Thing? We don't know yet, but we do know that we will be able to analyze objects, rotate them on them, look for clues, link them together. In short, if an ingredient was missing from the delicious dish of the CD Projekt RED, this was just that noir loved by crime fans. Of course, it can only do well to add some enigma of this type, perhaps well articulated and fun even for the accustomed players, making identification easier.

Microtransactions, multiplayer, duration, release date

The three most popular questions by users. The Polish development house was clear and crystalline, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is proof of that, but if you've been to Mars in the last few months, here are the answers to your questions, directly translated from photos, tweets and info released by them.

There will be no microtransactions, no loot boxes. It's a single player RPG. You guys are stupid?

Multiplayer? Not at launch.

How long will Cyberpunk 2077 last? We don't know how to tell you, but it will surely last a long time. The Witcher 3 was a long game, this will be too.

The music will be composed by Marcin Przybyłowicz (The Witcher 3).

For the date, alas, no official information is available. But I don't know if you know the origins of the game: it all comes from cyberpunk 2020, paper role-playing game published by R. Talsorian Games (available for around € 30, but some jackals sell for $ 500). It wouldn't be such a bad idea to release Cyberpunk 2077 (which has a different name given its proximity to the old date) with the original setting date of the game, don't you think?

What would we like to see?

Honestly, there is little to want to see, if not the game installed on our platforms: although they want to release it only when everything will be of the highest quality, 6 years have passed and we begin to doubt that it will arrive in this generation of consoles. But if we had to ask for something, the real novelty is that cyberpunk 2077 could bring is consistency. Lot of GDR in the open world they often lose coherence from the main mission (and the plot). The suspension of disbelief is completely killed by those tedious and inconsistent secondary missions, capable of looking away from what should be the main objective of the protagonist. It does not help to build houses, walls, carry objects such as messengers from point A to point B. Instead, coherent and well-contextualized missions would be needed, not necessary for the mere purpose of enhancing the character, but able to describe our personality, our choice of game , how we want to exist in the world of cyberpunk 2077. But if I had to bet on a development studio capable of doing it, I would bet everything I have on the boys of CD Projekt RED: The Witcher 3 showed what they can do. Now we want to see how they can overcome themselves.