Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Cyberpunk 2077

[lukaszek]

71 people wishlisted, cdpr is bound to notice

 

[tritosine2k]

supposedly they were redoing w3 until 2016. 3rd person perspective and so on. Then Adam Badowski came and forced everyone to make fps instead

Good decision ,no dice at >30hz outside PS5 & co anyhow, visible player model is tons extra work and lost perfomance they'd try to alleviate with CAMERA-LAG.

But endless whine because 30hz.

 

[MicoSelva]

Thanks for the somewhat chaotic, but informative review, lukaszek & Darth Roxor. I am tempted to skip this game completely, but I will probably dig into it in a couple of years, when it is cheaper and (hopefully) somewhat fixed.

 

[The_Mask]

I don’t expect many to talk about CP2077 two… five years from now

On the contrary, I expect that 2 years from now it will be on a lot of "best games ever" list, once they fix the game, add multiplayer and make a next-gen re-release.

Not that they will fix the fundamental issues with the game, but even now and even here in the Codex there's a lot of people who enjoyed it "for what it is".

haha

 

[Sobchak]

I get the feeling that part of the responsibility is the absolute awesome reception that... Witcher 3 had.

A lot of Cyberpunk 2077 issues originate from Witcher 3. What was Witcher 3 ?
* A game with crappy itemization
* A game with poor choices and consequences, with a few linear intersecting storylines
* A game with a lot of sidequests that were just filler
* A game that did not much with AI, but anyway medieval life is "slow" and combat is mostly melee so it's harder to notice
* A game with shit character building where your development choices don't matter and you can defeat every enemy with the same rinse & repeat method.
* A game with great writing, storyline, and environment.

Most reviews praised Witcher 3 for the latter, completely ignoring the rest. CD Projekt probably designed CP 2077 based on that feedback.

I remember loving Witcher 3, as did much of the crowd, but its flaws were apparent, and I remember criticizing it pretty much for gameplay wise being completely similar to the panned Assassin's Creed 3. People said I was trolling back then. Sure.

Now comes Cyberpunk 2077, and because of the lack of criticism of Witcher 3, it just does everything that the Witcher 3 did, turns it first person in a futuristic city, and exacerbates it. Except the first person view and the futuristic makes Witcher 3's flaws become more apparent : sure more AI is needed, sure more interactions are needed, sure more physics are needed, sure itemization has to work differently.

And you add 5+ years of growing expecations about what a game should be.

I see people complaining they did a sub-par GTA clone. I think this comparison is off.

They redid Witcher 3, when they should have thought of a new game from the ground up.

CP 2077 is Witcher 3 with guns.

lukaszek start taking some notes on how to make a coherent review. The guy even put some bullets points for you.

 

[Latelistener]

I see people complaining they did a sub-par GTA clone. I think this comparison is off.

They redid Witcher 3, when they should have thought of a new game from the ground up.

They didn't want that though. I saw many leaks about the troubles in the development and one of those was about the engine not being fit for that kind of a game. That was at the end 2017. 3 years before the release. Even if the higher ups didn't understand about potential problems, some part of the team did.

Basically when they finished Blood and Wine in May 2016, they should have reviewed their tech first. I don't know what the fuck happened, but apparently they didn't. They just started building a cyberpunk game placed in a big city on the Witcher 3 engine while making quick changes on the fly.

Obviously everyone shrugged off those leaks, since this is the holy CD Projekt we're talking about.

Also, I think that every comparison is fair as long we're talking about the same price category. If they wanted to escape the inevitable comparison, they should have stayed with the hub system from Deus Ex. Damn, many people won't even mind if this won't compare to a Rockstar game in the world simulation department, but not when the AI is barely functional.

 

[Nikanuur]

I get the feeling that part of the responsibility is the absolute awesome reception that... Witcher 3 had.

A lot of Cyberpunk 2077 issues originate from Witcher 3. What was Witcher 3 ?
* A game with crappy itemization
* A game with poor choices and consequences, with a few linear intersecting storylines
* A game with a lot of sidequests that were just filler
* A game that did not much with AI, but anyway medieval life is "slow" and combat is mostly melee so it's harder to notice
* A game with shit character building where your development choices don't matter and you can defeat every enemy with the same rinse & repeat method.
* A game with great writing, storyline, and environment.

Most reviews praised Witcher 3 for the latter, completely ignoring the rest. CD Projekt probably designed CP 2077 based on that feedback.

I remember loving Witcher 3, as did much of the crowd, but its flaws were apparent, and I remember criticizing it pretty much for gameplay wise being completely similar to the panned Assassin's Creed 3. People said I was trolling back then. Sure.

Now comes Cyberpunk 2077, and because of the lack of criticism of Witcher 3, it just does everything that the Witcher 3 did, turns it first person in a futuristic city, and exacerbates it. Except the first person view and the futuristic makes Witcher 3's flaws become more apparent : sure more AI is needed, sure more interactions are needed, sure more physics are needed, sure itemization has to work differently.

And you add 5+ years of growing expecations about what a game should be.

I see people complaining they did a sub-par GTA clone. I think this comparison is off.

They redid Witcher 3, when they should have thought of a new game from the ground up.

CP 2077 is Witcher 3 with guns.

lukaszek start taking some notes on how to make a coherent review. The guy even put some bullets points for you.

I'd say only a little from what you wrote is true and much of it is actually (not very nice) subjective thing. Every single quest in W3 I saw was awsome, many of them even reveling, witty, twisting, sick, hillarious etc. Villages and towns were nothing you say. People minded their business, there were lots of them, filling places to the extent one felt really alive in urban areas. Guard system was alright. Geting to meet the people of power in the world of Witcher and watching their story unfold a time to time had been nothing short of awsome piece of epic writing. One could really have feeling things ARE HAPPENING in the world even without his/her participation. Combat may have been filled with sort of mindless creatures now and then, but it was fluid and good to look upon (just don't call a HEMA expert to validate, else they'd get a heartattack :D :D ). Dodge worked, blocking worked. Harder monsters (first encounters against Wights or Leshens for example) or boss fights were often pretty tense and imaginative. Loot was, yea... sort of sad. But Witcher is a game that can afford to contain some poor stuff and still come out as a total winner. I don't think that's the case with C2077 at all.

 

[Zeriel]

I don’t expect many to talk about CP2077 two… five years from now

On the contrary, I expect that 2 years from now it will be on a lot of "best games ever" list, once they fix the game, add multiplayer and make a next-gen re-release.

Not that they will fix the fundamental issues with the game, but even now and even here in the Codex there's a lot of people who enjoyed it "for what it is".

haha

I'm curious to see if he still feels so confident after nearly a year of development barely moving the needle on even minor patching issues, let alone fixing core problems.