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

[Cat Dude]

Last year's E3 game play video was about a glorified fetch/kill quest basically. Why would anyone get excited about that? It had boobs and nipples though...hmmm... and they also promised for FULL NUDITY to get people's hopes up... liars!

Fetch quest is what western style rpg is all about. TES games consisted of 90% fetch quests.

 

[Zer0wing]

Cyberpunks skill tree looks awful lot like The Witcher 2s one.

Spoiler

 

[Glenda Glenn]

I personally don't get excited by the narrative, not one bit. This is a video game, not a movie or a book. I don't give a fuck about the narrative especially when it revolves around some run-off-the-mill save the princess/world/galaxy/universe or find dad/son/daughter stories. I no longer want to be everybody's errand boy, therapist or saviour of a bunch of NPCs or some other shit. I only get excited when I see some solid and fun game play mechanics, or complex/innovative role-playing mechanics if it's an RPG.

You know what, I'm gonna admit it. I'm actually one the few people, if not the only one, who thinks very negatively about narrative in games. I see games (any game, not just video games) as a means/medium to create one's own narrative. In my opinion, when you add narrative to a game, you are taking away from whatever it made a game, it becomes less of a game and turns into a more passive experience for you to sit through. This is why I generally prefer sandbox games. Anyway, this is basically my stance about narrative and story in video games in general.

TL;DR I don't like narrative/story in video games.

 

[Glenda Glenn]

Life is a huge fetch quest from the cradle to the grave.

Life is a horrible experience in which we all hide into our delusions to get through it.

 

[toro]

Cyberpunks skill tree looks awful lot like The Witcher 2s one.

Spoiler

Don't be retarded. They are not the same.

 

[toro]

I personally don't get excited by the narrative, not one bit. This is a video game, not a movie or a book. I don't give a fuck about the narrative especially when it revolves around some run-off-the-mill save the princess/world/galaxy/universe or find dad/son/daughter stories. I no longer want to be everybody's errand boy, therapist or saviour of a bunch of NPCs or some other shit. I only get excited when I see some solid and fun game play mechanics, or complex/innovative role-playing mechanics if it's an RPG.

You know what, I'm gonna admit it. I'm actually one the few people, if not the only one, who thinks very negatively about narrative in games. I see games (any game, not just video games) as a means/medium to create one's own narrative. In my opinion, when you add narrative to a game, you are taking away from whatever it made a game, it becomes less of a game and turns into a more passive experience for you to sit through. This is why I generally prefer sandbox games. Anyway, this is basically my stance about narrative and story in video games in general.

TL;DR I don't like narrative/story in video games.

Have you tried Kenshi?

 

[Zer0wing]

Don't be retarded. They are not the same.

It's still not classic CP 2020 skill system.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

For a demo that is supposed to highlight gameplay it was a disaster. it was mostly telling us, instead of showing. And what it showed was completely mediocre.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

Where is this game. The fckn teaser full of potential. Where is Night City. Where are the architectures that were built on skeletons of the past. Where are the towers so high the sunlight doesn't reach down!
Even if they fcked up the gameplay as we all expected, at the very least I wanted the dark gloomy corporate grit.
FUCKIN CDPROJEKT COCKSUCKERS. WAITED SO FCKN LONG. FOR THIS!!
FCKN GARBAGE!

 

[Zer0wing]

Where is this game. The fckn teaser full of potential. Where is Night City. Where are the architectures that were built on skeletons of the past. Where are the towers so high the sunlight doesn't reach down!
Even if they fcked up the gameplay as we all expected, at the very least I wanted the dark gloomy corporate grit.

Scrapped because of conflict between upper management and old CP2077 dev. team.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

what matters is writing, atmosphere, choice and consequence

Storyfags...

Fetch quest is what western style rpg is all about. TES games consisted of 90% fetch quests.

Gothic's and Deus Ex quests sure didn't. Plus a whole lot of other great RPG's like Startrail, Dark Sun. Arx, Underworld, Wiz 7/8, etc...
If anything JRPG are more guilty of this.

 

[Quillon]

Where is this game. The fckn teaser full of potential. Where is Night City. Where are the architectures that were built on skeletons of the past. Where are the towers so high the sunlight doesn't reach down!
Even if they fcked up the gameplay as we all expected, at the very least I wanted the dark gloomy corporate grit.
FUCKIN CDPROJEKT COCKSUCKERS. WAITED SO FCKN LONG. FOR THIS!!
FCKN GARBAGE!

Come to think of it...why didn't they show off night time gameplay with rain and neon lights and shit this time since we already saw daytime yesteryear? Skipping the night 2 years in a row... are they expecting another E3 before release?

 

[Danikas]

Gothic's and Deus Ex quests sure didn't.

Are you retarded? Remember fetching fucking focus stones in Gothic or fetching plants to heal Y'berion, fetching Stone ornamets in Gothic 2, Act 4 in Gothic 2 is basically go kill 4 dragons quest all of this is main quest content , dont forget that your beloved Gothic games had unkillable npcs for story reasons what decline!!!

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.shacknews.com/article/113652/cyberpunk-2077-producer-talks-playstyles-skill-trees-more

Cyberpunk 2077 Producer talks playstyles, skill trees & more
We recently sat down with Cyberpunk 2077 Producer, Richard Borzymowski to talk about different playstyles, skill trees, and what life is like working at CD Projekt Red.

Cyberpunk 2077 is no doubt the most anticipated game of 2020 and for good reason. With such delightfully beautiful graphics, gritty story, and what appears to be exceptionally fun gameplay, there’s no reason that fans shouldn’t be excited about CD Projekt Red’s upcoming RPG. This past week, while visiting Gamescom in Germany, we had a chance to sit down with Richard Borzymowski, one of the producers on Cyberpunk 2077 to talk about the game, different playstyles, and even what life is like working for CD Projekt Red.

“When I joined CD Projekt Red, I was very mesmerized by how professional the people tend to be. They are very passionate about their jobs,” Borzymowski said after being asked how the work/life balance plays out at CD Projekt Red. This was, of course, just a small part of the conversation that we had with the Producer, who has spent the past several years working to bring Cyberpunk 2077 to life. “They come into work with like this energy that wants to give everything that they’ve got while creating the best things,” he said, continuing his statement.

That passion is very evident in all of CD Projekt Red’s work in the past, and even now as we continue to learn more and more about Cyberpunk 2077 and the world that CDPR has brought to life in the game. Intense skill trees and the ability to really make your own playstyle are key components of the gameplay in Cyberpunk 2077, something that we talked quite extensively with Borzymowski about during our interview. While the studio has mentioned three distinctive playstyles throughout a lot of their time showing off the game, players aren’t just locked to these options, Borzymowski promised.

“It’s not like we are enforcing this choice on the player in the character creation, or somewhere through the game,” Borzymowski began. “It’s more or less like a set of tools in those three categories that the player will be able to take and mix up in order to create their own character, playing however they want.” We didn’t learn too much about the skill trees just yet, but from the sounds of it, players will have a lot of leeway in setting up their abilities and strengths to line up however they choose.

You can check out the full interview for all of the details that we learned in the embed above. You’ll also want to make sure you head back over and subscribe to both Shacknews and GamerHubTV on YouTube, where you can find plenty of other content from our time at Gamescom and other conventions around the world.

https://twinfinite.net/2019/08/cyberpunk-2077-interview/

Cyberpunk 2077 Interview: Producer Shares Details on Gameplay, Keanu Reeves, Setting, and Much More

Cyberpunk 2077 is without a doubt one of the most exciting games coming in the next few months.

In order to know more about it, Twinfinite interviewed Producer Richard Borzymowski at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany.

We asked Borzymowski about a variety of topics after taking another look at the latest demo of the game, which was really impressive.

Giuseppe: Let’s talk about something I noticed while watching the demo. Near the beginning we see an open view of the Pacifica district, and in the background there is a helicopter hovering in front of a skyscraper, gunning someone down through the windows.

Since this is an open-world game, can I go inside that building and shoot down that helicopter or being shot myself?

Richard Borzymowski: You can probably try to do that, but exactly what would happen you’ll have to find out by yourself. We don’t want to spoil more things.

What I can say is that when it comes to actually driving vehicles, we have cars in the game, we have motorcycles in the game, and players can own those vehicles and store them in their garage.

But when it comes to flying vehicles, we’re just doing that in dedicated story missions.

Giuseppe: so there actually are flying vehicles in the game.

Richard Borzymowski: There are flying vehicles in the universe, and we’re using them in the right parts of the story.

Giuseppe: Can you drive them?

Richard Borzymowski: In the story maybe. You’ll have to find out. Think about those flying vehicles like helicopters nowadays.

Not everybody has a helicopter. You see them some times, but they’re mostly military or police. Only rarely they’re owned by a private citizen.

Spoiler

Giuseppe: You can start as a street kid, a nomad, or a corporate. Does that actually influence your starting equipment and money?

Richard Borzymowski: It does change your starting equipment. It also influences how you’re able to progress at some point of the story.

You are from a certain background and you can draw information from your background, you know things other people don’t, you can talk to NPCs in a certain way.

This backstory is certainly influential on your story’s progression.

Giuseppe: I really love the fashion in the game. How did you guys go about evolving fashion from Cyberpunk 2020 that had an established look, but also a lot of variety in terms of sources and artists?

Richard Borzymowski: We have a very dedicated team of concept artists solely working on designing the characters.

We took the style from Cyberpunk 2020, but it wasn’t simply a matter of adding 57 years to that look because it was originally designed in 1986.

“Style over substance” is one of the mottos of the Cyberpunk that Mike Pondsmith created, so the thing that we did was looking at how the look of celebrities and more extravagant people is progressing.

We did a lot of brainstorming, and there are thousands of concepts around. We ended up with something we find suitable to our setting in Cyberpunk 2077.

Giuseppe: are you guys considering giving Johnny Silverhand a new line of dialogue saying “you’re breathtaking?”

Richard Brozymowski: You will have to wait and see.

Giuseppe: I see.

Richard Borzymowski: We don’t want to spoil more because we firmly believe that what you saw is representative of the game. People should know by now what to expect.

Now it’s just a matter of delivering the story, which has to have momentum and anticipation building up. The more you tell, the more people will make up their own versions, and then they may be let down.

It’s not about that. We have our game, and you’ll get it in due time.

Giuseppe: Speaking of the gameplay that we just saw. How representative is this of the final product? I guess what we saw last year isn’t as close to it anymore?

Richard Borzymowski: The demo you saw last year is still part of the game right now. Obviously it changed a bit since there will be two years between that and release, but in the end, that quest is still around. It’s more fleshed out, actually.

Giuseppe: So what about this new demo?

Richard Borzymowski: Considering that this demo was delivered like a year later and it’s a year closer to release, it’s more representative of how things will actually look in the game.

We’re still evening everything out, but this is the quest with the Voodoo Boys.

Giuseppe: So this is what we’re going to play, maybe with some polish on top?

Richard Borzymowski: the thing is that you may play it completely differently. Other routes may lead you to this quest. You may play it out differently.

It’s not like seeing it lets you know what will happen in your game. You don’t know. Maybe some choices from the missions that you’ve done before will influence how this mission will play out.

It should always feel fresh for you or anybody else who will see it.

Giuseppe: Can you actually make choices that will lock you out of some quests?

Richard Borzymowski: We want you to make meaningful choices. In general with video games, you often have two or three options, and five minutes later they join back together into the same storyline.

What we want to do is to actually make those choices matter for the player. There will be content that will be locked behind the choices you’ve made.

This is also due to the fact that when the players know that their choices really matter, they will pay closer attention to what actually happens on the screen.

This Cyberpunk game is all about immersion. This is why we changed from third-person to first-person. We want our players to be immersed in the story and to give them control on how the story is shaping.

Giuseppe: How is law enforcement working in the game? I’m thinking about police, Trauma Team… are they dynamic and actually react to the player’s actions?

Richard Borzymowski: Cyberpunk in general and Night City are dystopian settings, so it’s a tough time for police.

Corporations are ruling most of the streets with their private security guards. Police is around and what the player does in the city will affect how they react.

Giuseppe: So if I shoot someone in front of them, they will attack me?

Richard Borzymowski: You probably shouldn’t shoot somebody in front of a policeman.

Giuseppe: What about Trauma Team? Can you purchase their coverage plans and have them come and rescue you if you’re injured?

Richard Borzymowski: I actually don’t know that. Trauma Team is present in the game. How exactly that is represented, I am not sure.

Giuseppe: the game is fairly sexy in its imagery. Regardless of gender, it appears that you can pick a rather revealing style for your outfits (or be fully covered). How do you guys approach navigating the minefield surrounding this kind of stuff nowadays?

Richard Borzymowski: What we’re doing with Cyberpunk (and not only with Cyberpunk but with every game) is telling our story.

The story is set in a very specific world. I’m this case it is Mike Pondsmith’s world of Cyberpunk 2020. He fleshed it out very well.

Giuseppe: …And he isn’t afraid to be vocal about it.

Richard Borzymowski: He is very vocal about it. He is not shying away from violence, sexuality, and political issues that are happening in this universe.

The same goes for us. We’re setting our story in the world. We are fleshing out the world, and all of those parts are integral parts of the world.

We are not pointing the player toward any given conclusion. We are giving the player room to come up with their own conclusions. This is how we approach the subject.

Giuseppe: There are 57 years between Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk 2077. How much do you guys explain to the player in the game what happened in such a large time gap?

Richard Borzymowski: We’re explaining as much as it seems natural. Some times — it happens often in books — in the first few pages, we have this character who talks for two pages about how the world was created, although everybody in the world knows that.

It always feels to me like no one would ever do that within that world.

Luckily, Mike Pondsmith actually created Cyberpunk Red that bridges that gap. That’s the perfect point for people who are very interested in what happens in those years in order to find out.

Cyberpunk Red very neatly ties 2020 to 2077. Personally, I think it couldn’t have worked better.

Giuseppe: In the demo we saw that there is a translation cyberware that turns foreign languages into English on our retinal display. Is it an implant that we need to purchase or it’s simply part of the UI?

Richard Borzymowski: It is an implant and you need to get it, but I don’t know when and how you get it. I am fairly sure that you have to buy it, but I’m not completely positive about it.

Giuseppe: Talking about Johnny Silverhand…

Richard Borzymowski: About Johnny Silverhand or Keanu Reeves?

Giuseppe: Both, actually. In last year’s demo he wasn’t in our head. Was it because it was early in the game, or simply Johnny Silverhand wasn’t a thing yet as a ghost in our mind back then?

Richard Borzymowski: He was a thing already, but the demo from last year it was part of the beginning of the game. He wasn’t present yet in our mind. This year’s mission is later in the game, so he’s there.

Giuseppe: So he’s not there from the beginning of the game.

Richard Borzymowski: He is not in our heads from the beginning, no.

Giuseppe: How did you guys convince him to take on this role?

Richard Borzymowski: I wasn’t part of the team that made this happen but as far as I heard, we got in touch with his agent, we met and we presented the demo from last year. Keanu asked some questions and he was very enthusiastic about it.

As he said on stage, he likes good stories, which we can see clearly in his movies. This is another good story for him.

Giuseppe: How much insight did he provide for the character? Did he have any creative involvement?

Richard Borzymowski: I imagine that actors of his caliber always tend to come up with their own expertise. It was the same for him. When we were recording his movement he was suggesting things like “should I do it like that instead?”

When he was reading the script, especially after reading something he had already read before, he would go:

“Maybe I should say this in this way because I said that line in that way earlier…”

He got really involved. Certainly, we could count on his expertise, and it was incorporated into Johnny Silverhand, which is exactly what we hoped for.

Keanu is cool, but Johhny Silverhand is also a very cool guy, which is why we were looking for somebody as Keanu.

Giuseppe: Without mentioning names, are we going to meet other legends from the original Cyberpunk lore in the game?

Richard Borzymowski: We are basing our game on Cyberpunk 2020, and we’re using as much as possible. I strongly suggest keeping your eyes open because Night City is still the same city.

Giuseppe: I guess they might be just a little older?

Richard Borzymowski: Somebody may be older and somebody may just be mentioned.

Giuseppe: I guess there are going to be a ton of easter eggs for the fans even about characters who won’t directly appear?

Richard Borzymowski: For Cyberpunk fans that go way back to the pen & paper times, which I can see you’re one, this is going to be a tribute.

Giuseppe: We’re going to see a lot of fanservice, I imagine.

Richard Borzymowski: Yes. Those are details that those who have never played the pen & paper may not get, but that’s ok because they’re going to enjoy the world and we’re going to flesh it out. Yet, pen & paper players like you will very often say “oh! That’s a reference to this!.”

Giuseppe: I know you’re not probably ready to talk about post-launch, but is there any possibility of adding more origin backgrounds? I always tend to play a cop, and I’m feeling a little left out (laughs).

Richard Borzymowski: We’re now focused on launching Cyberpunk 2077, but we know how well-received the expansions of The Witcher 3 were.

If we’re going to do some additional expansions and DLCs for Cyberpunk, we’re certainly going to make sure that they suit the game and they’ll be fun for the player.

Giuseppe: We saw two ways to get through the mission in the game. Is there even more freedom to approach the same quest?

Richard Borzymowski: There are many different ways, depending on your playstyle. You can mix them together.

It might even be challenging to do the same path in the same way even with the same build. The routines of the NPCs will always be influenced by how you behave at any given moment. There is certainly a lot of room to experiment.

Giuseppe: The builds we saw in action were very specialized, but is it possible to become a jack-of-all-trades that unlocks all the skills if we level up high enough?

Richard Borzymowski: I actually don’t know the answer, but your main cyberware is limited. I don’t know about the points, if you actually can level them up all at once in one playthrough. Yet, when it comes to cyberware, you will not be able to to use all of the high-end cyberware of a solo, netrunner, and techie at once.

Giuseppe: You basically have to choose one.

Richard Borzymowski: There is basically a budget that you have.

Giuseppe: … Or it’ll make you go crazy?

Richard Borzymowski: We don’t have cyberpsychosis. We’re basically limiting you before that threshold.

It would mean a Game Over anyway, and it would just be frustrating. It’s present in the universe and you’re going to see some effects the more body augmentations you get, but that’s it.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com...2077-interview-there-are-many-surprises-left/

CYBERPUNK 2077 INTERVIEW: ‘THERE ARE MANY SURPRISES LEFT’
CDPR OFFERS AN UPDATE ON DEVELOPMENT

Cyberpunk 2077 continues to be one of the most exciting games on the horizon and although CD Projekt Red didn’t bring much in the way of new content to Gamescom 2019, there was still plenty to discuss.

In a dev diary premiered at the event, CDPR said it was ready to shock players with the story beats in its sci-fi epic, which it also confirmed will be arriving on Google’s Stadia platform at some point in the future.

To get an update on development, VGC met with spokesperson and senior concept artist, Marthe Jonkers.

There’s so much anticipation for this game right now, does it feel like something of a missed opportunity that you couldn’t get it out for Christmas?

Well first of all the hype is amazing and makes us really excited to work on this. We planned the game for April 2020, which I think is a very good date because Cyberpunk 2020 is the origin of the game, so it’s very symbolic.

At E3 and again at Gamecom you had feedback forms for those who viewed the game demo. What did you take from that, if anything?

I can probably compare it more with last year’s E3 [2018], after which we massively expanded the character creation options and added a lot more stuff, which was a response to that. We just listened to what people wanted, how they thought we could improve… we really expanded that, which I think is really exciting. You can actually make your own character now; you can change your body type, you can pick a voice you like, you can make all kinds of combinations. We really appreciate the feedback that we get from these demos and we are constantly looking to see what we can improve.

Spoiler

You’re building a complex game, to say the least. How have you found balancing the game? We imagine that’s what you’re working on right now?

Yeah we are in full production and really focusing right now on polishing, optimising and raising the level of detail on the visuals etc. So yeah, we’re working hard. We really have to balance it all, right? I think a lot of that depends on the level design and we have very talented level designers who made all these locations that can be approached in many different ways.

But yes, we’ve worked and tested it and it’s very cool to see all the different options the player has for missions and types of characters. You can play any way you want: you don’t even have to kill anyone to finish the game.

Right now we are mostly focused on polishing things, adding detail to areas and optimising performance.

In your Gamescom dev diary, it was mentioned that there are some story points that CDPR expects to shock players. So is it fair to say you’re tackling some difficult themes?

That’s a good question. Cyberpunk as a genre covers some difficult topics. It’s all about technology and how much humanity is left when you integrate with it. You have corporations that are in control, even over the government. You wouldn’t have Cyberpunk if you didn’t have a society with contrasts. That’s the technique that we’re trying to make: Night City is not a very happy place, it’s not a safe place, but it has many different aspects and we are making it as believable as we can.

We’ve added all kinds of characters, all kinds of stories and then we let the player go and explore that. It’s up to the player to interpret those stories and decide what they’ll do with them. We are trying to create a very believable Cyberpunk world.

The dev diary also mentioned holding a lens up to real-world issues. In that sense, do you expect it to be a bit controversial?

We are not taking a stance on anything… we are really creating this realistic city of the future and it’s up to the player to decide what they think about that, and how they tackle it. It’s all about freedom of the player. We want to deliver this environment that feels like it could be a city of the future.

So many big developers seem reluctant to discuss the real-world themes featured in their games, but CDPR seems more open to the political nature of Cyberpunk. Why is that?

I think it has to do with the themes of Cyberpunk and of course we based it on Mike Pondsmith’s world that he created, which was already a dangerous world. If you take that, you have to go for it: you can’t just make some happy world. You have to respect the source material and then expand on it, so we’re keeping the same vibe as Mike Pondsmith’s original vision. I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how people engage with this world.

Mike Pondsmith also created a lot of the original art for Cyberpunk. How authentic did you want to be in that sense?

We worked a lot with Mike as a kick-off point. He was very involved in development and would answer any questions we had, but 2077 is obviously more than 50 years later so we also had a lot of freedom to bring in our own art styles as well.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the posters of the different districts in the game, but these represent all the different art styles in the game, because of course a city doesn’t have just one style. Because we wanted to create a realistic city, we actually created a timeline for these four styles.

“Exploration is very different from The Witcher, which was very flat, because you have all this verticality with the buildings. There’s so much to explore in every direction.”

For example, there’s the Kitsch style which is really pink, yellow and with round shapes. It’s really happy because at the time people were having a good time. Then there’s the Neomilitarism style, which is very corporate, from when the corporations started to take over. We mix those styles together in the game, so if you travel the city you will see architecture from different eras. This is all stuff that CDPR added to the fiction, to overlap that 50-year gap from Cyberpunk 2020.

You seem to have created an impressive technology base with The Witcher on Nintendo Switch. What are the chances of Cyberpunk one day reaching that platform?

First of all, I’m so impressed with our optimisation team and their work on that. As for Cyberpunk, right now we’re releasing it on Xbox One, PS4 and PC and that’s all I can say!

Presumably you’ve finished the game. What did you think?

I have played several quests, yeah, and I’m really excited for the release! I think for me the most exciting part of the game is driving your car through Night City, with your music blasting, exploring all the different districts and seeing this really advanced crowd UI system and people reacting to you… the exploration for me alone is amazing.

My favourite district is Watson, which you saw a bit of in our first gameplay demo, because it’s this bustling, beehive of narrow streets and markets which I love to walk around at night. You hear NPC’s conversations and stories, which is very cool.

How much of the game have we not seen?

It’s a huge game. We’ve shown two districts now and there are six in the game. Exploration is very different from The Witcher, which was very flat, because you have all this verticality with the buildings. There’s so much to explore in every direction.

There are a lot of surprises left. I can’t really say a number or anything, but it’s going to be huge, that’s for sure.

https://www.rpgsite.net/interview/8...ent-with-senior-concept-artist-marthe-jonkers

Cyberpunk 2077 Interview: Exploring the Environment with Senior Concept Artist Marthe Jonkers

At Gamescom 2019 we had the opportunity to meet with Senior Concept Artist Marthe Jonkers and discuss the process behind designing the sprawling cityscape of Night City in Cyberpunk 2077. While we at RPG Site were also able to check out the gameplay demo at E3 earlier this year, this sit-down illustrated just how much detail was put into the environments and atmosphere of Cyberpunk 2077.

RPG Site: Cyberpunk 2077 has a very grimy, neon aesthetic similar to art featured in the table-top manuals. What was your main inspiration and method when it came to incorporating these 80's era elements into the environments and character designs of Cyberpunk 2077?

Marthe Jonkers: That's a really interesting question because Cyberpunk 2077 is of course based on Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk 2020, which is the origin of the cyberpunk in our game, there is so much lore and story there, but a lot has happened in the 50 years between. It's also not like Cyberpunk 2077 is the future of our world, but the future of Mike Pondsmith's world so we took that as an inspiration. Also, I guess in our visual style, here and there you can kind of see some references to Mike Pondsmith's table-top game - we have the jacket with the lights and stuff, but we also wanted to make something unique and make our own cyberpunk world.

We did that by taking a look at the timeline between 2020 and 2077, and connecting certain fashion styles and architecture styles to it like in the real world, like 70's styles or 80's. They're very different in aesthetics, but we wanted the same for our game so we would have this realistic place to work from. The posters you see on the wall there, they represent the four styles which are the backbone of our visual design and they are really connected to this timeline which gives it this extra layer of realism. The first style is called entropism and that is connected to a time in the Cyberpunk lore when it wasn't great - people were poor, it wasn't a happy time. So the aesthetic from that time is very practical. They made things practical, not so many decorations. It just had to work. You can see it in the architecture, the fashion, and the vehicles.






The color palettes are subdued, there are harsh angles there, the material is very cheap, so this reflects the mood of that time. Then you have the second style which is called kitsch and this is when things were getting a lot better. First, you had this economic depression and times were getting better. Things were improving and in that age, you can see people are wearing much more colorful clothing; even the cars and buildings had brighter colors. People were really happy and wanted to express that. You see that in the style - the angles are more rounded and there are softer shapes. So now if you drive around Night City for instance and you see a building that's bright yellow and the windows are really rounded then you know it's kitsch style, so you kind of know how old the building is and you know who build it.

So with these styles, we tried to add layers to the city to make it more believable. We have four in total, I just mentioned the first two but we also have neo-militarism which is very corporate and we have the newest style, neo-kitsch, which is for the super-rich because in the recent age the gap between the poor and the rich is getting bigger and bigger so the super-rich kind of define their own style. It's a little bit like kitsch, so it's very colorful, but it has this extra level of natural animals because in Cyberpunk 2077 a lot of animals are extinct so if you can afford to have an animal print on your clothing you must be really rich. If your house has wooden panels you must be someone from the upper class. In this way, we wanted to give our visual design some kind of lore and backstory and make the city more believable.

Spoiler

RPG Site: This is all very interesting. So would you say that, for example, you mentioned kitsch, which is an actual art style and fashion movement inspired the visual story-telling of that era within the Cyberpunk universe?

Marthe Jonkers: Yes, but let me use the Watson District as an example. We showed that area in the first demo last year and Watson is very colorful because you'll see a bit of the history of that district. We're telling a story by using these styles and it's because Watson was destroyed by an earthquake at some point in history and was rebuilt. So you will see buildings that are very much in the entropy style but you'll also see a mixture of the second style, kitsch. You can see this timeline. They started building and these new trends came up so you see these layers on top of it so you see this history in the neighborhoods just through these visual styles. You really feel like you're in a real city, because when you walk around Cologne for example you see a mixture of styles you won't see one style, not just in the architecture but even in the cars and what people are wearing.

RPG Site: What were your main methods of research when designing Night City and were you inspired by any real, pre-existing architectural concepts?

Marthe Jonkers: I worked a lot on the districts and visual design, so designing a city is not easy, that's for sure. So we have six districts and they are all very different, because like in The Witcher you had these areas that had their own personality. We wanted to do the same for Night City so it wouldn't be very boring or repetitive, so when you drive around and explore the city it's exciting. I'll talk about Watson again because it's a very good example. It's a very Asian inspired district so you will see elements there that might remind you of Japan or China for example, so that was a huge inspiration, but we made sure to add this layer of Cyberpunk 2077 to it.

So it's always something you might recognize, and when we give it this twist we add maybe one of the styles to it or make it more cyberpunk so it's not literally Japanese architecture. It was a base inspiration for a couple of these neighborhoods but we wanted to show that this isn't our timeline, this is also in the future and it's heavily based on Cyberpunk 2020 so it had to be unique. I hope people will see that, that they might feel like this is some kind of Chinese structure but it isn't because it has one of these four styles layered on top of it.






RPG Site: When conceptualizing levels in the city did you ever create or use table-top as references to test city layouts or blueprints for the city?

Marthe Jonkers: It was interesting when we designed Night City, it's of course based on 2020, but we actually had an urban planner on our team that really helped us create this layout. It was also to make sure that you always had cool views or you always know where you're going, it was really tough actually because it can quickly become very confusing if you can't really see where you are. The composition was very important for that. As for level design, I'm not a level designer but I'll try to answer the question because I work with these guys, but what's really awesome is that you can play each level with very different play styles. Of course, they'll make a lot of different versions and test them.

Actually, there is a lot of back and forth between us and them. They'll come to us with a super cool gameplay layout and it'll just be a bunch of grey boxes and we come in and paint it over and make it look like some super cool abandoned warehouse and then the environment team will come in and build it. But in the context of Cyberpunk 2027, yeah, I guess the approach to designing a level is maybe thinking of an area in 2020 and thinking of a map or a layout and you start building from that.

RPG Site: That's really cool that you have a city planner helping you out with creating the layout for Night City.

Marthe Jonkers: Yeah. It really helps and it's really great. You need someone who thinks about the layout, the map and how the roads will go and what is realistic.

RPG Site: What the biggest challenge in designing Night City and setting apart as it's own unique scenario separate from Cyberpunk 2020.

Marthe Jonkers: Actually, it really helped to have 2020 as a base because this game has so much backstory and lore, and it really helps when you have to design a city. When you don't have that, it'd be extremely difficult. But we have Mike available to ask him stuff and get all of this background information and get this timeline so we know how everything developed. You have a really strong base to design a city, but it still isn't easy and we're making this game out of it that brings a lot of new challenges with it. We really wanted those six districts to be different but on the other hand, it needs to feel like one city. They are very different, Pacifica the one we showed this presentation is different from Watson that we showed last year, however, it's still one city and those visual styles really help because it binds Night City as one world and one setting. We also put a lot of effort into the areas between the districts for instance, we made sure these areas flowed together in a very natural and believable way. This was actually one of the more difficult things - to make it feel similar but also the same.

RPG Site: Pacifica has a very large Haitian population. When designing that area did you look at any cultural reference from Haiti when creating this area?

Marthe Jonkers: Well if you know the backstory of Pacifica, to summarize it this was an area that was supposed to be a resort area and corporations withdrew the money because of an economic crisis, the area was perfectly fine but no one wanted to live there, and at the same time Haiti in our timeline - our Cyberpunk timeline - was almost unlivable because of natural disasters that's why the Haitian community moved to Pacifica. It was a perfectly good area and they could make a living there, even better that the corporations aren't there because they don't want anything to do with them. So it's like an alternate timeline and they made a living there. The Voodoo Boys are the gang that's in charge there, and what's really cool is that we had a lot of talented artists that made the graffiti for the different gangs and we did a lot of research into their backgrounds and what kind of style they would have. We made sure that all of the gangs have their own visual style and you'll see it when you play the game. It adds an extra layer of believably to the area - Pacifica is not just an abandoned area, you can see that they made a living there and you can see their art styles over the walls. You can see this place has a history. We tried to combine all of these visual cues to make the city feel as real as possible.






You can find more of our Gamescom coverage of Cyberpunk 2077 here. Interested in even more Cyberpunk 2077 content? Don't worry, we have you covered.

Cyberpunk 2077 will release on April 16, 2020.

 

[Zer0wing]

Scrapped because of conflict between upper management and old CP2077 dev. team.

Sorry, not gonna plow through reddit again in search for needed citation but to be short - team that worked on CP2077 before TW3: B&W got released took the decision to start over again too close to the heart since all their work was claimed to be shit not worth keeping. Some of them got fired.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Gothic's and Deus Ex quests sure didn't.

Are you retarded? Remember fetching fucking focus stones in Gothic or fetching plants to heal Y'berion, fetching Stone ornamets in Gothic 2, Act 4 in Gothic 2 is basically go kill 4 dragons quest all of this is main quest content , dont forget that your beloved Gothic games had unkillable npcs for story reasons what decline!!!

The focus stones quest is pretty fucking good, it's not fetch because it's not busywork. You have multiple ways of solving even finding their locations is by it self an enaging task (it's like a treasure hunt). Same thing with the stone ornaments in Gothic 2.
The dragons are bosses and to reach them you have essentially dungeon crawling segments.
So no these aren't fetch quests, and no your Storyfaggotary isn't what matters. What matters is if the activities are challenging, how well designed those challenges are and if overcoming them is in any way engaging.
Also most games have main story NPC's as essential, since making shit around that is kinda hard.
The plants are busywork though.

Still if we were to be as obtuse as you were in your last post then it can be said that there's no difference between Fallout 1 and Super Mario 64, because in both games you progress by either getting an item, defeating someone or talking to the rigth NPC.

 

[Danikas]

The focus stones quest is pretty fucking good, it's not fetch because it's not busywork

Noun. fetch quest (plural fetch quests) (role-playing games) A quest in which a MacGuffin must be acquired at some far-off location and given to the quest-giver or some other designated party.

How is that not a fetch quest? You get 5 Macguffins and bring them to water mages.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Don't believe their lies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW-gLVYI1uk

 

[moon knight]

What a boring thread this has become. I like what I saw, decent/good ARPG Open World are actually a rarity, so I can't wait to finally play one after 5 years.

I hope that the lacks of recoil from the weapons is due the fact that it's influenced by the Strenght character, or an "augmentation", or both.

Don't believe their lies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW-gLVYI1uk

The downgrade in TW3 was the scrapping of Global Illumination (for obvious reasons).

 

[Zer0wing]

The downgrade in TW3 was the scrapping of Global Illumination (for obvious reasons).

CDPR is not some small dill game studio, they could've finish their GI algorhitm. But lighting is only part of what was scrapped - what about LoDs, textures, vegetation, particles?

 

[Quillon]

Don't believe their lies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW-gLVYI1uk

Gods Witcher 3 trailers was good back then!

 

[Tancred]

Where is this game. The fckn teaser full of potential. Where is Night City. Where are the architectures that were built on skeletons of the past. Where are the towers so high the sunlight doesn't reach down!
Even if they fcked up the gameplay as we all expected, at the very least I wanted the dark gloomy corporate grit.
FUCKIN CDPROJEKT COCKSUCKERS. WAITED SO FCKN LONG. FOR THIS!!
FCKN GARBAGE!

Someone on here edited the trailer when it came out with the GitS theme instead. Really suited it. I must have rewatched it 50 times that year alone being hyped as fuck.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Where is this game. The fckn teaser full of potential. Where is Night City. Where are the architectures that were built on skeletons of the past. Where are the towers so high the sunlight doesn't reach down!
Even if they fcked up the gameplay as we all expected, at the very least I wanted the dark gloomy corporate grit.
FUCKIN CDPROJEKT COCKSUCKERS. WAITED SO FCKN LONG. FOR THIS!!
FCKN GARBAGE!

There's literally nothing shown in this teaser that couldn't still appear as part of the game they are showing these days.
Well, aside some slightly dated, overly clean, plastic-looking CGI, I guess.

 

[Life of the Party]

I remember reading this forum when the game was first announced and you actually had people here expecting a serious RPG and discussing the minutiae of the pen and paper. You guys can be so naive.

Everything about this thing is one big whatever. Gameplay, graphics, music, writing. By the way, just because a Pole is good at writing medieval Poland doesn't mean he's good at writing XXII century California. The 'how do you do, fellow kids?' dialogue, the characters, the factions, the game world, the 'YOU SET ME UP!' for days – none of it sounds even remotely appealing.

I wonder if it's a case of 'seen one cyberpunk story, seen them all'.

 

[blrrmmmff]

Story in Witcher 3 was shit. It was good at first with that barron and all, but then it got repetitive. I remember being in some basement, and I had to kill x amount of creatures, and I just got super bored with it all of a sudden and quit the game. A lot of dialogue was stale and repetitive as well, and witcher himself felt like a pretty boring generic character that had super powers. I started to quickly skip a lot of dialogue a few hours in, except for the main quest.

I hope that roaming around is fun, and that things like earning some money, and choosing your story will have some weight. If you combine creative random side missions that can be discovered by roaming around, and meaningful rewards that actually open up new gameplay and change the main quest or parts of the world, it would make exploring fun.

If instead like the Witcher 3 it is just some boring empty pretty world, with a straight forward main story in it where you have to save the world or some boring shit, and repetitive side quests, this game is probably going to be only somewhat fun for maybe 10-15 hours.

I don't understand the hype anyway. What has thhis studio done lately that is so super impressive? Unless you never played open world games before, Witcher 3 and expansions was pretty generic?