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Cyberpunk 2077 Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Danikas

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We’ve heard that Cyberpunk 2077 will have main quests, side quests and street stories. Can you explain how these quest types are different?

Main quests are usually the largest quests in the game and are the ones players have to play to get to the end of the story. Of course we make a nonlinear game, so not all main quests are always required, but those are usually the ones that have the main characters and themes in them that we want to convey. If you wanted, you could only play the main quests and should still get a really good experience.

Side quests are all other quests we put into the game. They can be as large or even bigger as a main quest, or just very short. They are based on all the ideas and stories we want to tell that don’t have a place in our main story. Sometimes they also have a specific purpose, like introducing a new theme to the game, or telling the story of a specific community or location.

Street Stories are the bread and butter of a street merc like V, a bit like monster hunting for a witcher like Geralt. These are the jobs that V gets from fixers like Dexter DeShawn, and doing these jobs gives V more street cred, so she gets a reputation around the city. These jobs can be very varied and of course also benefit a lot from our different playstyles, so there’s often many creative ways to solve them. Street Stories are designed and implemented by our Open World Team, so as a quest designer I’m actually really looking forward towards playing them myself, because I don’t know them as well as other quests in the game and I’ll be able to play them almost as any other player.

We also have minor quests, which is just our term for short or smaller side quests. Sometimes they can just be a few minutes long, but they all should tell an interesting story nevertheless. This is often where we can be the most creative, because there’s not a lot of pressure. Many cool moments that people remember from Wild Hunt are from these smaller minor quests.



Will there be procedural “radiant” quests at all, or is everything going to be handcrafted stories?

Every quest in the game is handcrafted. For us, quality is always more important than quantity, and we just couldn’t deliver this quality with modules we assemble in different ways to create these random quests. We don’t just want to keep people busy, but actually give them something to do that’s worth their while.

But we’re making a big Open World RPG of course, so that also means that despite our quests being handcrafted, we tried to make a whole lot of them, so players can have fun in the game for many hours.
 
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just

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mr hollywood himself advising polacks how to burn $100mil for an empty world cinematic experience
 

Grotesque

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Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
No pronouns and no Keanu romance: https://www.videogameschronicle.com...udio-explains-how-gender-customisation-works/

Cyberpunk 2077 studio explains how gender customisation works
CD Projekt Red has explained how gender customisation works in its highly-anticipated RPG Cyberpunk 2077.

cyberpunk-character-creation-320x167.jpg


Level designer Max Pears told VGC at Tokyo Game Show that players will be able to mix and match gender voices and body types, but that genitalia will be defined by the latter. Cyberpunk is set to feature fully nude sex scenes.

Pears also revealed that one way the game is attempting to be inclusive for all players is by having NPCs refer to the player character, V, by name instead of gender.

He said: “We really want to make sure players get the representation that they want. In the genre of Cyberpunk as well, it asks such deep questions about what it means to be human, let alone what it means to define your gender.

“Having that customisation match how you feel is your representation of how you feel… it’s important for us and it’s important to the lore of this world too.”

The designer added: “One of the things we’ve done to make sure the game addresses things a certain way is a lot of the time NPCs are just going to refer to you as ‘V’, because you won’t be able to choose your name.

“That way it helps people know that it’s their character that’s being spoken to and also however you’ve envisioned your V, that’s still your V. That’s been our focus: your version of V is your version as the player and that’s how you will be addressed in the game.”

On character customisation, Pears said: “We have the body type that you select and then the genitals will be determined by that. You can have a male or female voice with either body, but the genitals are defined by the body.”

Since Cyberpunk 2077 is not bound by a predefined character like in The Witcher series, the game will feature romance options going beyond heterosexual, CD Projekt Red has said.

However, one major support character will not be available for romance, said Pears: “Keanu plays a crucial role in the game, but as for the option to romance him, I don’t believe you can.”

CD Projekt Red has placed a renewed focus on character customisation for Cyberpunk 2077 following feedback from the public, a spokesperson said in a recent interview.
 

AwesomeButton

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
The gaming world loses so much by ignoring the existence of the Codex. If only someone could ask the question about the PC voice not maching the race...
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I don't understand this at all. If you are man, but "identify" or whatever as a women, wouldn't you want to play as a female avatar then? Why all this shit around it? Why this mismatch, what the fuck.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I don't understand this at all. If you are man, but "identify" or whatever as a women, wouldn't you want to play as a female avatar then? Why all this shit around it? Why this mismatch, what the fuck.

That's why I said it was a con job! They're giving SJWs the opportunity to play as a woman with a dude's voice and disguising it as woke. That's not woke, it's just weird!

Anyway, long developer Q&A: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...st-design-coordinator-philipp-weber.11014292/

DEVELOPER SPOTLIGHT WITH QUEST DESIGN COORDINATOR PHILIPP WEBER

Hey Choombas!

The Moderators got together and thought it would be cool to try and shine some light on one of our very favorite devs @Benzenzimmern (CDPR Quest Design Coordinator Philipp Weber).


index.php

We also collected some frequent questions or discussions on the forums related to quest design. He was gracious enough to give us his time and send us back some answers. Thanks to @Vattier for helping get it all set up, to Philipp for taking the time to chat, and to all of you for supplying the inspiration for the conversation.

Without further adieu, check it out:


Tell us about how you came to be a quest designer at CDPR.

I started out using the modding tool for The Witcher 2 called “Redkit” and created my mod “Lykaon”, which won a Redkit modding competition. I got a beautiful prize for it: a one-of-a-kind replica of Aerondight, the silver sword Geralt receives from the Lady of the Lake.

After that, I was contacted by Pawel “Banan” Panasiuk from CD Projekt Red, who asked me if I would be interested in applying as a level designer for The Witcher 3. Of course I was, so I prepared a level design test and had an interview with the company. Funny enough I wasn’t hired as a level designer, but as a quest designer instead, because I didn’t just want to build a level, but also added a story and characters to it.

Just a few weeks later I joined the company and started working on Wild Hunt.

How is modding different than quest design for a AAA game development company?

The biggest difference for me is that at CD Projekt Red I get to collaborate with lots of fantastic colleagues. When I was modding I was mostly doing things by myself (although I can’t forget to mention invaluable help by my girlfriend who did all the hard scripting for me. On top of that, there were other modders like “Tekoppar” who helped me with lots of tech aspects or Sardas, who created amazing art. I even had Gavin from “Miracle of Sound” voice Dandelion for a while, which was great!).

I have to say that doing things by myself gave me lots of freedom, but it’s nothing compared to all the great ideas that come out of working with other talented people.

Every time I get new dialogue, cinematics or art, it still amazes me how much their work can elevate the quests. On top of that, our QA team provides great help in finding issues with the quest and new ideas. When I was modding and working in a vacuum, it was easy to become blind to larger issues, so having someone with a critical eye watch over your work is incredibly helpful.

However, I sometimes still get to use my modding sensibilities and come up with a few new things that aren’t usually done by quest designers, even on Cyberpunk. So I think the modding spirit is still there deep inside!


How does the process of designing a quest work at CDPR?

It all starts with ideas. Contrary to what many people believe, having the ideas is actually the easiest part of the whole process. We usually write down hundreds of them as pitches and choose the best ones.

Usually a pitch for a quest is just half a page of text, but once it’s chosen, we turn it into a full written quest design that can have 10 pages or more.

The quest design can be compared to a screenplay without finished dialogue, since it’s basically the full quest, just for reading. We separate it into sections like “SCENE”, “EXPLORATION”, “PLAYSTYLES” so the reader can already see the major beats that the quest will have.

At this point we start our iteration process. The quest design is read by our writers, the Lead Quest Designer and directors, so they can all give feedback. But at this stage, we work the closest with our writers, who are assigned to the quest together with us so both can create the characters and story in this early form.

Once the design gets accepted, we move forward to the implementation stage, in which the quest designer builds the whole quest from start to finish in our tools, to create a very basic playable version. For this version, we also write simple “debug dialogue”. We give a vague outline how the dialogue could flow and what topics the characters talk about, but it’s not proper dialogue. As an example, we write everything in the third person.

“V greets Dex. She’s new to this, so she shows him lots of respect. What job does he have to offer?”

It’s important that we write our dialogue this way so the writers still have their freedom to be creative. Of course our debugs can also be on a very detailed level, but writing in third person gives it enough of a disconnect so the writer doesn’t feel like he’s subconsciously led to write dialogues in a certain way. It’s my job to create the best possible environment for my writers to create amazing stories, so I also like to adapt to the style of every writer I work with. Sometimes I write more detailed debug dialogues, and sometimes I am purposely rather vague.

From there on, we keep iterating the quest and giving it more detail, implementing gameplay features as they come in and we of course work with many different teams. As an example, I also have to talk to designers and artists about what locations, characters, gameplay features, vfx, sounds, etc. I need and put this information in a production tool we use, so each producer of a team can keep track of them. So it’s not just important to be creative as a quest designer, but we also have to be very organized.

If you want a more detailed version of this, you can actually check this talk I gave a few years ago in which I explain the process of working on “The Warble of a Smitten Knight”:

When we hear devs at CDPR talk about designing games, we often hear a lot about how it’s an iterative process. When do you start feeling confident that you’ve got a concept that is really going to work for a quest?

To be perfectly honest, it comes and goes. I often start really liking an idea at the start and work towards it, but once we add more detail and complications, that is when the flaws rear their ugly heads.

But throughout production, there are always these special moments when I start to “feel” my quest. When I can read final dialogue, when some great art comes in, I can hear the voice acting and especially when custom music is created for my quest. I still get goosebumps when I think back on hearing the theme of the Lady of the Lake in Blood and Wine for the first time in my quest after talking to our composer about it many months before.

True confidence in my quests usually comes only after they’ve been released to the public and I can see the actual feedback of thousands of people playing it.

I think it’s important to keep this critical distance from your work, because when we’re creating art, thinking that whatever I am making is always great usually leads to a bad result.


What makes a quest “good,” in your opinion?

Quests can be very different, so I’d say there’s also different qualities they can have. We thankfully don’t have a checklist that says that every single quest has to have particular things or a specific structure because I think this would really limit our creativity (we never say that “This is a fetch quest.” “This is an escort quest” or anything like this. Every quest just grows organically).

For me personally, it’s when a player can feel like he really went on his own journey. When this journey brought him to many exciting, but also emotional places that might make him think - and most importantly, if the player really feels like this is “his” story, based on decisions he made and relationships he created with our characters.

I often try to get a good mix in. When I play games, I’m a “story guy”, so that’s always the most important part for me. But I also enjoy coming up with interesting gameplay scenarios that maybe aren’t available in any other quest (this is where the modding background helps a lot!) because at the end of the day, most quests should also simply be fun to play!


How important is pacing when designing a quest?

It’s of course very important, and this is something where our leads and directors are excellent at pinpointing issues and their ideas to improve a quest. They play the whole game a lot, so they have a good feeling for how it should flow. Sometimes we might get caught up in our own quests, but the quest before that one is already very sad and doesn’t have a lot of gameplay, so following that up with a similar mood and gameplay structure might not be the best idea.

However, we also don’t “shoehorn in” gameplay if it doesn’t fit. Sometimes pacing-wise there might be too many scenes after another, but if it’s much better for the story, than we’d rather not have perfect pacing than to just add something in there for the sake of changing it up. But if we plan well, we can actually tell an interesting story, but still have different things going on to give it a brisk pacing.


How do you avoid the dreaded “fetch quest” when inherently all quests involve some amount of “go here, do X”?

When I started on The Witcher 3, we had a huge document with all ideas for quests. One of them was to find letters all over the world and you got a reward once you found them. It was rejected, and there was a comment there from our lead quest designer at the time, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz: “We. Don’t. Do. Fetch. Quests!”

So of course it's always good to have these easy rules in mind, but I think it also just comes with experience. Our quests usually aren’t built around specific gameplay actions, but interesting stories - and sometimes you need to fetch something there, but if there’s more to the story than you probably also do five other things on the way, so the one part where you fetch something doesn’t feel bad.

Since video games are inherently restricted by hard-coded mechanical systems, what is it like having to mold your quests around those features?

It starts out as a bit of a challenge to see how we can tell our stories with the systems we have, but it ends up being really fun. Cyberpunk as an example has many different gameplay options, so naturally there’s always many different tools a player can use to solve problems.

At the beginning, we might feel like these features are a bit like shackles, so we sometimes can’t do all the things we want to in our quests, but with time, we usually find that despite these hard-mechanical systems, basically anything is possible. We can always be a bit creative to bend the systems or come up with different solutions to let us do whatever we want, so in the end, it feels like we’re molding the systems more around our quests than the other way around.

Most importantly, sometimes having restrictions can also make you more creative. If we could do anything in the world, we might get paralysed always thinking about a thousand possibilities, but with some restrictions, you know what to do, but you can still think of clever ways to circumvent these restrictions.


How are the approaches to designing main quests and side quests different?

The quests in our main storyline usually have a short outline from our story team. Sometimes these can be a few sentences that explain where we start and where we should roughly get to - the main beats. As a quest designer, it’s then my task to turn this into a quest design, together with our writer.

Of course, most focus lies on the main storyline when we develop the game, so these quests usually are made first and will get the most feedback throughout development, with directors playing them a lot.

With side quests we have a bit more freedom, because they are often based on pitches we wrote ourselves and they don’t necessarily have to fulfill a specific purpose in our grander story (but sometimes they still do!).

I’d say we don’t have a hard difference in quality though with full sidequests. We never say that this quest can’t have custom characters or cinematics just because it’s a sidequest. We want to have the best quality everywhere in the game, so as quest designers we approach them in a very similar way.


What’s your favorite side quest or contract you worked on in TW3 and why is it you favorite?

I’d probably say that it’s “A Warble of a Smitten Knight”, the quest in Blood and Wine where I got to stage a whole knight’s tournament. This is actually one of the quests where the end result is still very similar to my original design, so reading it mostly gives you the same quest as you can play today. I was given lots of freedom (and a big budget) to create this quest, so I was able to create the tourney grounds with all the knights and visitors. So I didn’t just implement the quest, but I also filled the place with life, gave little stories to each knight (The Redanians and Nilfgaardians don’t like each other, so they might get up to some mischief at night).

But the best part for me were still the main characters Guillaume and Vivienne that I got to work on with our writer Magda Zych, who gave them some real depth. We were trying to tell a story that’s maybe a bit deeper than it seems. You can just play the quest, get a “happy ending” and be done with it, but if you really get to know the characters, you might also come to different conclusions. So I was happy to see that players got many different endings and are arguing to this day which one might be the best!

To be honest, it is hard for me to pick a favorite though. I also really enjoyed bringing back the lady of the lake (I won Aerondight in the modding competition and really wanted to bring it back into the games) and even my main quest like “Beyond Hill and Dale” was an optional one, so it’s almost a bit like a sidequest. There are players who finished Blood and Wine and never even saw the land of fairy tales.

So in the end, I think quests are a bit like children - you love them all equally (but the one with the sword is probably still the coolest)!


What lesson(s) have you taken to Cyberpunk 2077 from your experience with open world quest design in TW3?

We’re not doing a completely different approach with Cyberpunk, but we want to use some of the lessons we learned to improve our design. We still focus on telling really interesting stories you can find anywhere in the world, but this time, we really try to make everything you find meaningful in some way.

On Wild Hunt, most of the open world content like our communities, bandit camps and yes, even Smuggler’s Caches, were implemented by quest designers as well. But towards the end of Wild Hunt and with our expansions, we founded a new Open World Team that can fully concentrate on bringing the world to life. So they created lots of new ideas for things you can do that aren’t classic quests, but they also implement a different kind of quest that we call “Street Stories”. We really want to connect the open world content with the actual logic of Night City so it feels really immersive. Everything that is going on really has a place in this city, and even a simple encounter can tell its own story.



We’ve heard that Cyberpunk 2077 will have main quests, side quests and street stories. Can you explain how these quest types are different?

Main quests are usually the largest quests in the game and are the ones players have to play to get to the end of the story. Of course we make a nonlinear game, so not all main quests are always required, but those are usually the ones that have the main characters and themes in them that we want to convey. If you wanted, you could only play the main quests and should still get a really good experience.

Side quests are all other quests we put into the game. They can be as large or even bigger as a main quest, or just very short. They are based on all the ideas and stories we want to tell that don’t have a place in our main story. Sometimes they also have a specific purpose, like introducing a new theme to the game, or telling the story of a specific community or location.

Street Stories are the bread and butter of a street merc like V, a bit like monster hunting for a witcher like Geralt. These are the jobs that V gets from fixers like Dexter DeShawn, and doing these jobs gives V more street cred, so she gets a reputation around the city. These jobs can be very varied and of course also benefit a lot from our different playstyles, so there’s often many creative ways to solve them. Street Stories are designed and implemented by our Open World Team, so as a quest designer I’m actually really looking forward towards playing them myself, because I don’t know them as well as other quests in the game and I’ll be able to play them almost as any other player.

We also have minor quests, which is just our term for short or smaller side quests. Sometimes they can just be a few minutes long, but they all should tell an interesting story nevertheless. This is often where we can be the most creative, because there’s not a lot of pressure. Many cool moments that people remember from Wild Hunt are from these smaller minor quests.


How do side quests impact the main quest in Cyberpunk?

Side quest can of course be completely separate stories, but they can also continue the story of a main quest or even set up a new branch in the main storyline.

As an example, many people didn’t even realize that by the time they were finishing the storyline of the Bloody Baron in Wild Hunt, they were already playing a side quest that continued this story thread from our main quests. The main quest was over once Geralt found information about Ciri, but the Baron’s story still continued as a side quest.

We of course like to make the game so anything you do could possibly have an impact on the main story of the game. Characters you only meet in a side quest would then suddenly show up in the main story. This way, the player never knows what to expect. Sometimes a small quest can turn into something much bigger and then change the whole main story of the game. So it’s absolutely worth playing every quest in the game and to see how they interact with each other.


What sort of consequences are there if I “fail” a quest?

There can be many different story consequences that of course always depend on what the quest was about, but one thing that’s part of our design philosophy is not to have a game over screen other than player death.

This means that for many different cases, we have to come up with solutions how the quest can continue, even if the player makes a big stupid mistake. It’s especially important for our main quests, because those can’t be “failed” in the classical sense, because the player should always be able to get to his ending of the story. But of course we can make these decisions, but then have to live with the consequences, which sometimes can feel like we failed someone.

But of course, if we get a job and it’s specified that we shouldn’t go on a rampage, we simply fail our job if we do it and won’t get paid. So we just always try to find what makes sense and offer as many different possibilities and consequences as possible, but sometimes we also have to balance how much we can realistically do.

What’s it like designing quests for a less fixed protagonist like V, who has varying backgrounds, character builds?

As quest designers we were already used to tell nonlinear stories, so having a character like V gave us more of what we already like to do. The lifepaths are actually one of my favorite features, because they just give us more roleplaying opportunities. A nomad can of course solve some problems much better than a corpo, but put him into a board room and he might not really have the best way to lead a conversation the way he wants to.

So when we come up with challenges, we also like to think how different lifepaths could solve them effectively. This will hopefully give players lots of motivation to play the game multiple times, because they can have a completely new experience.

The new gameplay options thanks to our fluid class system essentially give us more opportunities to make our quests even more nonlinear. It’s a lot of fun to work with our level and encounter designers on locations for our quests, because there are always so many different options we can come up with. And sometimes, these options can then also change the story, so just like the lifepath, these gameplay abilities just make it easier for us to make the quest more nonlinear than ever.


How do NPCs responses to V’s style, clothing and cyberware (i.e. would a quest be impacted when it requires meeting an NPC who dislikes body modification, and our V is half machine) effect quests, if at all?

There might be reactions sometimes depending on what kind of npc we meet and of course what their status in society is, but unfortunately going too deep into that would get us into spoiler territory.

I can say however that in 2077, body modification is fashion and it’s a part of everyday life. Sure there might be people who don’t use them for religious reasons, but there’s really not many “purists” running around. Not having enhanced cyberware is just like not having a smartphone nowadays. There are people who don’t have it, but a smartphone is still completely normal and that’s also how cyberware is seen in Night City.


You once said that there could be times where a companion does or does not join V depending on player choices. What’s it like designing quests that have companions optionally along for the ride?

It essentially means having to implement a good chunk of this quest two times, because we of course want to have a very different experience if you have someone with you. They will take part in dialogues and the whole story can go into a different direction if they’re there or not. So in some ways it can feel like playing a completely new quest.

At the end of the day it’s a lot of work, but it’s also one of the best feelings when you can make a quest that can be so different for the people playing it. So yes, it’s hard to do, but it’s absolutely worth it!


What sort of investigation system is there to help V progress quests?

There are different ways V can gather information, but without spoiling too much I can talk a bit about V’s Kiroshi Eye Implant she can get. It provides the player and V with a lot of information (we try to make our UI really immersive, so whatever the player sees is also what V sees) that connects directly to the Kiroshi database. So sometimes it can be technical information about some cyberware that V can get, but of course it can also tell her what certain things might do or what effects they can have.

One special feature we also have is Braindance, in which we can experience the memories of another person who recorded the braindance. I don’t want to say much more about it, so players can find out on their own how it will actually work!


How do you try and capture the “feel” of Night City in a quest?

At the beginning of the project, we of course tried to do as much research as possible. We read the sourcebooks for Cyberpunk 2020, but also different novels like the Sprawl Trilogy, Hardwired, Snow Crash, The Stars My Destination, etc. to get a real feeling for what it means to live in a cyberpunk world. We want to make Night City feel like a real place, so our city planners had to figure out how a city like this would naturally grow over the years. From story-side, we also had to think about how the politics in Night City work. What’s the state of society and what problems do people still have every day? Does technology improve our life, or only the lives of those who can afford it? It even got down to working with our artist on how different brands in the city would advertise.

This additional layer of believability is very important to actually ground our quests in this new reality. Of course not every quest is about the politics and society of Night City, but knowing how they work helps us in making our characters feel like real people who have understandable problems and desires, and of course it also makes it so all quests still feel like they are taking place in the same city, since we share the knowledge about this world.


How hard is it for a Edgerunner to get rich in 2077’s presumably quest-based economy and are there other ways to make eddies?

We always like to say that the true evil in 2077 isn’t a particular person, but it’s society. The economy of Night City makes the poor stay poor, and makes the rich get richer, so someone like V is supposed to stay down in her station and just deal with it. It’s a real struggle to try and get out of this loop, but V can make it, and of course it’s also her big dream.

The best way ingame is of course doing quests, since being a merc is also V’s job. So if we ever need some eddies, checking what kind of jobs a fixer has on offer right now is always a good option. And the more street cred V gains around the city, the higher quality job offers she receives. Those are of course much more dangerous, but they also have a much nicer payday.


Will there be procedural “radiant” quests at all, or is everything going to be handcrafted stories?

Every quest in the game is handcrafted. For us, quality is always more important than quantity, and we just couldn’t deliver this quality with modules we assemble in different ways to create these random quests. We don’t just want to keep people busy, but actually give them something to do that’s worth their while.

But we’re making a big Open World RPG of course, so that also means that despite our quests being handcrafted, we tried to make a whole lot of them, so players can have fun in the game for many hours.


Even though Cyberpunk the intellectual property is making it’s first splash into the mainstream, the genre it helped form has been around for a long time. How do you balance staying true to the roots of the game and genre without making the final product feel cliche or derivative?

We tried to analyse which stories have been told really well in the Cyberpunk genre and what they offered. As an example, I think Blade Runner handled the philosophical implications of replicants perfectly, so there wouldn’t be a point in us telling this story again, because we don’t want to be derivative. Of course if we would have our own spin on it, could explore some other avenues that might give us something interesting, we would consider it, but most of the time, we’re looking at the things that might be new.

We look for interesting themes and concepts that can only be told in this vision of the future, but of course we also riff on existing tropes and try to put our own spin on it. Cyberpunk 2020 already had a whole lot of PUNK in it, and we want to continue this legacy.

Throughout genres, basic story and character beats are often similar, whether you’re making a Witcher quest or one in Cyberpunk. People have similar fears and desires, but the interesting thing with Cyberpunk is how they would evolve with technology and society, also compared to the one we have at the moment.

We are always trying to find a good balance between offering these new experiences, but also giving lots of nods to the classics of the genre, because at the end of the day we’re of course also fans of Cyberpunk ourselves.


When a player walks away at the end of Cyberpunk 2077, what do you personally want them to feel it’s saying, if anything?

That’s actually a difficult question to answer, because it’s such a big and nonlinear game that can actually go in many different directions. The decisions players make can really shape what the story becomes and also what kind of themes it leaves you with.

But the question of what each story is actually trying to say is something we want to answer for every single quest, so it’s something we are constantly aware of. If we make a story that has nothing to say, then what would be the point of telling it?

In Cyberpunk 2077 we take the role of V, but we can also shape her a lot through our decisions and through our relationships with characters like Johnny Silverhand.

So I think when the credits roll, one interesting thing would be to think about what the game actually says about you as the player.
 

Raghar

Arcane
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Joined
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Messages
22,503
The gaming world loses so much by ignoring the existence of the Codex. If only someone could ask the question about the PC voice not maching the race...
Have you watched Bleach? Do you remember on voice of that female character?

Also Marge Simpson is dubbed into czech language by a male.
 

Wyatt_Derp

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Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
3,062
Location
Okie Land
I don't understand this at all. If you are man, but "identify" or whatever as a women, wouldn't you want to play as a female avatar then? Why all this shit around it? Why this mismatch, what the fuck.

The world is full of hedge fund managers. Some choose ETF, some choose HRT.
 

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
The gaming world loses so much by ignoring the existence of the Codex. If only someone could ask the question about the PC voice not maching the race...
Have you watched Bleach? Do you remember on voice of that female character?

Also Marge Simpson is dubbed into czech language by a male.
No, and who?
 

Dodo1610

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2018
Messages
2,155
Location
Germany
I don't understand this at all. If you are man, but "identify" or whatever as a women, wouldn't you want to play as a female avatar then? Why all this shit around it? Why this mismatch, what the fuck.

It costs them basically nothing and they can pretend to be woke.
 

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