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

[highly functioning autist]

Did they just directly stole character assets from Mass Effect 2 again?!!!

Hiring Bioware rejects has some pros too I guess.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Taser nipples!!! ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

 

[AArmanFV]

Touch at your own risk.

 

[Zer0wing]

Except in "Human Retardation", where the game forced you into rat diplomacy.

And this Number 1 reason why Mankind Divided is better game. At least its lacking RPG system actually supported forceful kill 'em all playstyle for once in DE series.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh, Cyberpunk 2077 is Game Informer cover story.

https://www.gameinformer.com/2020/07/02/cyberpunk-2077s-shades-of-gray

Cyberpunk 2077's Shades Of Gray

We recently had the amazing opportunity to go hands-on with Cyberpunk 2077, which you can read about in our full playthrough impressions as well as our biggest takeaways article. We also sat down with some of CD Projekt Red’s talented developers, learning more about their creative process and how they approached this ambitious project. One topic that consistently surfaced was the team's signature shades-of-gray storytelling and how it enhances the experience.

During our four-hour demo, we wrestled with who to trust, never feeling completely confident in our decisions or what the consequences would be. If you played CD Projekt Red’s Witcher series, you know this feeling all too well, but with each passing project, the developers only seem to be getting better at keeping you on your toes and making you second-guess your actions. To learn how much care and thought goes into these interactions, we asked lead quest designer Paweł Sasko for more insight into the complicated process.

“It’s a very complex thing,” Sasko says, laughing. “It’s very easy when you design things to just fall into one [extreme] or another, and this is how our production style comes into play.” According to Sasko, every quest gets created with the writer, quest designer, and cinematic designer working together and challenging each other to show different sides to the character. “We’re always keeping each other in check… to figure out the correct way to present elements or the character when you look at it from their perspective,” he says. “We always look at it from a perspective of balance.”

Sasko says it comes down to feedback from both designers and testers. If they feel strongly against a character, the designers come together to think of ways to better showcase the character’s point of view and give more context for their actions. Sasko worked on the famous Bloody Baron quest from The Witcher 3, where you find out the man who offered his hospitality to Ciri also has an abusive past. “One of our objectives was to find a parallel between Geralt as a father and Baron as a father, but also throw enough bad things in there so the player will like him and dislike him at the same time,” Sasko says. “This is what we are almost constantly playing with in Cyberpunk 2077, having it be like in real life where people say one thing and then do another.”

CD Projekt Red goes to great lengths to pull this off in its games, using body language and dialogue to throw you in different directions. Just like in real life, you can never really know someone’s true intentions or what they’re thinking. Cyberpunk 2077 offers a world of danger, where it feels like everyone is out for themselves, just waiting to pull one over on you. As customized protagonist V, you must try to navigate these shady people to the best of your abilities, and deal with the repercussions. “It might be that a character is speaking in a very convincing manner, but through the animations, through their poses, and through the setup of the scene, we are showing that the character is not like that,” Sakso says.

A character in our demo named Evelyn is a good example of this. Evelyn is shrouded in mystery when you meet her; she's a confident, charming young woman who contracted Dex, the fixer you get one of your first big jobs from. All your interactions with her prove she has some connection to Night City’s high circles, but every time you ask her questions, it feels like you’re only getting half the story. At one point, she offers to just cut Dex out of the deal so only you two split the riches. It’s suspicious, but then again, you don’t know Dex that well. Still, are you ready to cross a legendary fixer who could make your life hell?

“When you're meeting Evelyn in Lizzie’s [Bar], she's doing very specific things in the specific moments and there are things she is not certain about that she’s discussing,” Sasko says. “The way she's moving in that scene, that's specifically designed to present that character in the best possible way, and to give the player lots of different interpretations and hypotheses.”

Sasko says the team then throws in more potential clues to give players a certain perspective or vision of the character. Then in the next meeting with the character, the team tries to twist this a bit by adding more elements to the picture that test or confirm the player's hypothesis. It’s a tricky balance between conveying a sense of who that character is as a person, but also reflecting the complexity of people and their capacity to omit, forget, or alter details. After all, memory is a tricky thing, and people’s versions of events sometimes change as they relay them.

The audio and dialogue also play a huge role in uncovering new information and giving you different ways to interpret characters. “When you talk to the characters and ask more questions, they can actually throw things in that are contradictory or will give you some more clues to what they really think to make you question things,” Sasko says. “It’s just really fun because that makes the player be conscious and look at the characters. Of course, we cannot be all over the place with that, because if you go completely random, then it won't work. It has to be designed very specifically.”

People are complicated, multi-dimensional beings, and CD Projekt Red certainly likes to display that in its games. In Cyberpunk 2077, there are no correct answers – just a bunch of choices and seeing where they lead. Either way, we can’t wait to see more of the intriguing people and conundrums V will face.

https://www.gameinformer.com/2020/07/07/cyberspace-is-one-of-cyberpunk-2077s-greatest-mysteries

Cyberspace Is One Of Cyberpunk 2077’s Greatest Mysteries

Cyberpunk 2077 takes you to the fast-paced, techno-centric world of Night City. People augment their bodies on a whim, replacing their parts with better machine variations. As a sci-fi tale that immerses itself in the excess and our obsession with technology, especially our digital world, it makes sense that CD Projekt Red would touch on the concept of cyberspace. We saw this teased a bit in the demo from E3 2019, but we wanted to learn more about how this idea is implemented and how it’s all connected to the strange biochip implanted into V’s head.

Cyberspace holds many mysteries. Not only will you be investigating this biochip and what it means for V, but a blackwall also exists within cyberspace. Few have gone to the other side of this wall and returned, but V is told they’ll be one of the first.

Apparently, an event where viruses and malware were released into the web made it unusable and caused a global crisis that forced corporations to cut off cyberspace to the general public. “It is this dark place with many artifacts and secrets and only the most experienced net runners go in there,” quest director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz told us back at E3. “Most users don’t go in there, but as you have seen you [are special].”

Just remember, nothing you do in the net goes unnoticed. Whether it’s corporations or gangs, someone is always tracking you. Netwatch and the Voodoo Boys are the two big powers at odds, and you’ll have to side with one. Netwatch provides high-caliber security for corporations and wants to prevent A.I. anarchy, while the Voodoo Boy are a group of highly skilled netrunners who want to establish contact with the free A.I. beyond the blackwall. The Voodoo Boys believe this will expand their domination over the net, giving them the upper hand against Netwatch. Netwatch believes in maintaining order and doesn’t want to see history repeat itself. Both are dangerous to the world.

During interviews for our cover story, we didn’t waste any time asking about how cyberspace will function in the game. Though the team wants to leave many things mysterious for now, lead quest designer Paweł Sasko provided more clarity. “There are layers,” he explains. “The first layer is the layer that exists in the world in social life. You can see that people have the internet, they have phones, you can check into the computers, and so on, but this is owned mostly by the military. Then you have this next level of netrunners. This specific type of cyberpunk that can go into the network, surf the network, and use it. And that last level is cyberspace – the moment the netrunner is actually inside it.”

For an example of how the latter works, Sasko points to the deep dive shown at E3 a year ago, where V is getting into a bathtub full of ice. “Their body is like a computer that is overheating, so they need to cool themselves down and not overclock their brain, because otherwise they could be fried," he says. "V gets into that bathtub, and there's a person who just adds more ice on top of them and, and then you just get cooled down, and then you get into cyberspace.”

But perhaps Sasko’s most interesting revelation came from how story-driven the moments that V enters cyberspace actually are, and what questions get answered within it. “For us, cyberspace is a storytelling tool,” he says. “As a player, you will be going into cyberspace multiple times throughout the storyline, and each time something very specific happens. So it's not that as a player you can freely explore cyberspace. This is more story-focused. You're meeting specific beings, and uncovering more mysteries regarding how it was made, how it came to be, and how it works. That's what I can say without just going completely into spoilers.”

We’re glad CD Projekt Red has kept an aura of mystery and intrigue around this aspect of the game, but also that it’s set some expectations on what it will offer us in terms of gameplay and story. You can uncover the secrets to cyberspace and how it impacts V when it launches on November 19.

 

[Gargaune]

Taser nipples!!! ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

It's something, but I'm still holding out for telescopic titty spikes.

 

[jackofshadows]

Taser nipples!!! ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

What about dick-taser?

they could take inspiration by analogy

 

[Longes]

"My vision is augmented and sharp, and I do not hope for orange soda for anyone. In fact, I want my lemon-lime to be inflicted on others."
~ JC Bateman

WOWWWWWW, THAT SO UNIQUE! I NEVER SEEN CHARACTER LIKE THAT! I wonder what he is called? Maybe a illusive man?

Did they just directly stole character assets from Mass Effect 2 again?!!! Someone should hint this to Bioware so they could sue them. So we now have Jack Ripoff and Illusive man ripoff. Not only that, but they also stole the memory rewind thing from Remember me. This game is so unique.

Doesnt surprise me though. Most of the quests and stories in Glitcher 3 were also stolen from fairy tales and other movies/games.

His name is definitely the Illusive Bob. Or Page Man.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Illusive Man is fine because he was voiced by Martin Sheen. Who voices the guy above? Charlie Sheen?

 

[Danikas]

 

[Alienman]

Ah, I see it got the Deus Ex piss filter

 

[Semiurge]

Max dong length is enough gameplay advantage for me

Dong lenght:

- 10 = Woman
0 = Neuter
+ 10 = Super Chad

"My vision is augmented and sharp, and I do not hope for orange soda for anyone. In fact, I want my lemon-lime to be inflicted on others."
~ JC Bateman

Doesnt surprise me though. Most of the quests and stories in Glitcher 3 were also stolen from fairy tales and other movies/games.

Not theft, homage.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Naraya]

Some interesting insights regarding the performance, graphics and overall feeling of the playable demo. In Polish but google translate should be more than enough to get the gist of it: https://www.purepc.pl/gralem-w-cyberpunk-2077-wymagania-sprzetowe-i-jakosc-grafiki

 

[Longes]

Max dong length is enough gameplay advantage for me

Dong lenght:

- 10 = Woman
0 = Neuter
+ 10 = Super Chad

"My vision is augmented and sharp, and I do not hope for orange soda for anyone. In fact, I want my lemon-lime to be inflicted on others."
~ JC Bateman

Doesnt surprise me though. Most of the quests and stories in Glitcher 3 were also stolen from fairy tales and other movies/games.

Not theft, homage.

Meh. This doesn't count. Reworking classic fairy tales is core part of the Witcher identity. The Last Wish stories are the grimdark retellings/parodies of Sleeping Beauty (Witcher), Beauty and the Beast (A Grain of Truth), Snowwhite (Lesser Evil), Hans My Hedgehog (A Question of Price), genie stories (The Last Wish)

 

[Zeriel]

These perks look underwhelming, percentage increases and small bonuses instead of new gameplay advantages

CDPR cannot into gameplay. They devolved the gameplay of Witcher series as time went on. 3's skill tree was exponentially worse than 2. 1 to 2 was so different I'll give it a pass, though, and I actually enjoyed 2's character development.

But considering what we see here and how 3 was, I'm going to assume 3 was a landmark moment in their evolution as a studio and we can expect that sort of pablum from here on out. At least we know the world will probably be cool.

 

[Gargaune]

Some interesting insights regarding the performance, graphics and overall feeling of the playable demo. In Polish but google translate should be more than enough to get the gist of it: https://www.purepc.pl/gralem-w-cyberpunk-2077-wymagania-sprzetowe-i-jakosc-grafiki

Thanks, that's useful though a little disheartening. I've already been kicking myself a bit over getting the 9700K instead of the 9900K last year, and it looks like it might come back to bite me sooner than I thought.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Some interesting insights regarding the performance, graphics and overall feeling of the playable demo. In Polish but google translate should be more than enough to get the gist of it: https://www.purepc.pl/gralem-w-cyberpunk-2077-wymagania-sprzetowe-i-jakosc-grafiki

Thanks, that's useful though a little disheartening. I've already been kicking myself a bit over getting the 9700K instead of the 9900K last year, and it looks like it might come back to bite me sooner than I thought.

Can you post the gist of it? dont have access to the site

 

[Gargaune]

Some interesting insights regarding the performance, graphics and overall feeling of the playable demo. In Polish but google translate should be more than enough to get the gist of it: https://www.purepc.pl/gralem-w-cyberpunk-2077-wymagania-sprzetowe-i-jakosc-grafiki

Thanks, that's useful though a little disheartening. I've already been kicking myself a bit over getting the 9700K instead of the 9900K last year, and it looks like it might come back to bite me sooner than I thought.

Can you post the gist of it? dont have access to the site

Sure, this is the bit on the CPU that got me nervous:

During testing, I was able to go to the Windows task manager several times to at least approximately check the load on the processor, which did not like the operation of the show (sorki). The typical use of Intel Core i9-9900K, even during a scripted ride through the streets of the city at night time, where there were few pedestrians and even fewer vehicles, oscillated in the range of 60-70%. A free trip during the sunny day through a very busy neighborhood has already resulted in a load of 80-90%, although the graphics card was also heavily pressed. Top Turing could be a bottleneck here, especially if RTX actually worked, although on the other hand it should be relieved by theoretically active DLSS 2.0. What's noteworthy is the even load on almost all sixteen threads,so Cyberpunk 2077 promises to be CPU-Killer.

If the site doesn't load for you, you can try passing it through Google Translate, maybe that will sidestep the block: https://translate.google.com/transl...unk-2077-wymagania-sprzetowe-i-jakosc-grafiki

In a nutshell, the author identified the test PC as an Alienware Aurora R9 running a Core i9-9900K and nVidia RTX 2080 Ti, coupled with an Alienware AW2521HF monitor at 1920x1080 with G-Sync. Raytracing and DLSS 2.0 were supposed to be enabled, but he had no means to confirm that, since the graphics options menu was blocked on the demo build.

The author noted that CPU load was high, as quoted above, and he guessed that the framerate fell short of 60 in certain scenes with extensive lighting effects. He also noted that the game is still, in all probability, unoptimised ahead of release. Environments were reported to be object-rich, with loads of clutter, though physical interaction with those were limited. Textures were generally good, but shown not to be particularly high-res when examined up close. Some environmental components were destructible, falling apart under gunfire, whereas other clutter objects were inconsistent in reacting to damage, e.g. computer screens. All in all, he felt the game looked good, but not revolutionary in any way.

 

[TemplarGR]

Actually, if what he said about cpu usage is true, the game is still extremely unoptimized. Typical of CDRPOJECT games in fact. You should expect tons of optimizations, the vast majority of which months after release.

 

[Egosphere]

Social media is part of marketing, and the marketing budgets for AAA video games are absurd.

Does CDPR really have that high a marketing budget? Honest question, since the only things I see are youtube wannabees who at best say "I played this game for 5 hours already", and then continue "analyzing" the trailer. Again. Without adding any new insight.
As compared to Bethesda and e.g. FO76, what felt like the marketing department had asigned part of their budget to make a game.
How much dorrars did it cost to recreate the Greenbriar in the game, just so they could have an event for their embedded youtube jOuRnAliStS at the real location and show off the infamous canvas bags?
The marketing budget was probably higher than the development costs of Twitcher 1.

well they got keanu reeves on board somehow, so i presume that took up a nice chunk of the budget

 

[mk0]

That CPU usage is most likely from a debug build, it's probably not worth the effort to compile a release build just for some obscure polish tech site and their alienware promo when they're busy getting the game ready for release. Remember, the game has to run on the same jaguar CPU as The Witcher 3 did on PS4 and Xbox One, I wouldn't expect the PC requirements to be that different.

Edit: skimmed that shit. CDPR shilled for alienware in their press presentation.

 

[Zer0wing]

That CPU usage is most likely from a debug build, it's probably not worth the effort to compile a release build just for some obscure polish tech site and their alienware promo when they're busy getting the game ready for release. Remember, the game has to run on the same jaguar CPU as The Witcher 3 did on PS4 and Xbox One, I wouldn't expect the PC requirements to be that different.

100% Cyberpunk 2077 will run on lower than the lowest settings, cpu taxing ones. Many former console exclusives are having problems running on low end processors with 2-4 cores.

 

[Gargaune]

That CPU usage is most likely from a debug build, it's probably not worth the effort to compile a release build just for some obscure polish tech site and their alienware promo when they're busy getting the game ready for release. Remember, the game has to run on the same jaguar CPU as The Witcher 3 did on PS4 and Xbox One, I wouldn't expect the PC requirements to be that different.

Edit: skimmed that shit. CDPR shilled for alienware in their press presentation.

That's a fair point, I keep forgetting this thing also has to run on the current console generation. But between the next gen consoles going to 16 threads and DX4 already giving me up to 80-90% aggregate CPU load in the busy Prague areas, I'm getting jittery about how much bang I'll get for my buck.

 

[Ivan]

did someone say Santo Domingo? did anyone else's brain immediately go to: