Cyberpunk 2077 from the makers of The Witcher

[Smoove_B]

New trailer from E3.

[Daehawk]

Cool trailer. Interested still.

[Fitzy]

Was there a hint of release date? Or still looking at 2077?

[Max Peck]

Was there a hint of release date? Or still looking at 2077?

We're still at the "It'll be done when it's done" stage.

[Fitzy]

Figured. Thanks!

[Max Peck]

[Smoove_B]

It's a first person RPG, for those that are wondering and you're playing a specific character, not a blank slate:

You’ll play as a character named V, who CDP describes in a press release as “a hired gun on the rise in Night City, the most violent and dangerous metropolis of the corporate-ruled future.” You’ll be able to choose V’s gender, appearance, class, and historical background. Any of those things can influence the “shape of the game,” CDP wrote.

Much like Geralt from The Witcher, V will still very much be their own person, rather than a blank slate for the player. “For us, having someone who’s voiced and a named character allows us to build more interesting relationships,” the game’s associate design director Kyle Rowley told GameSpot. “So V in a sense does have her own kind of personality, but you shape it as a player.”

[Daehawk]

First he says you pick the gender then he says her. Also is it V or 5?

[Max Peck]

First he says you pick the gender then he says her. Also is it V or 5?

[killbot737]

First he says you pick the gender then he says her. Also is it V or 5?

Dude, shut up. You want Jennifer Hale to be one of the female voice options.

[Max Peck]

Also is it V or 5?

According to the IGN Live interview with Peter Gelencser (Twitch VOD, interview starts at about 07:49:00), it's pronounced Vee.

[Daehawk]

Well ok then im set. I like Jennifer Hale

[Daehawk]

Why the Cyberpunk creator choose to partner with CD Projekt Red.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/14/ ... rojekt-red

“A lot of [the other offers] were like ‘okay, we’re going to take this and we’re going to reskin it to whatever we’re currently doing, and we’re going to call it Cyberpunk.’ We’d walk out of the deal and go ‘yeah, I dunno, that didn’t feel good.’”

But that wasn’t the case for CDPR. “The CDPR guys approached us and they were fans. So they knew the property and the loved it, and they honestly probably knew more about it than I know about it.”

Pondsmith called CDPR’s enthusiasm and experience with the source material “the tipping point” in making a Cyberpunk game, and that it was incredibly important to get “people who know the material and cared.”

Pondsmith also went so far as to joke around saying that if we didn’t have a company of his own to run, he would apply for a job there. “As a studio runs,” Pondsmith explained “it’s one of the best running studios I’ve come across, and I’ve worked in a bunch and known a bunch.”

CDPR is dear to my heart. I lump them in wit hthe giants ive loved over the years...the best of the best...Origin Systems, Looking Glass, Westwood, Dynamix, SimTex, Volition among others.

[AWS260]

A somewhat skeptical take from Keza MacDonald of Kotaku:

Cyberpunk as a concept is the antithesis to utopian science fiction, so I was never expecting a city with gleaming white buildings and a happy, well-adjusted populace, but I was hoping for something that explores the issues of an unequal future society in a way that felt fresh.

There was nothing whatsoever in the demo’s future that I hadn’t seen before. Gangs that kidnap and kill people to harvest and sell their augments. Mercenaries who’ll kill whomever for the credits. Crime syndicates with a stranglehold on the city. A black-market gang whose embrace of cybernetic augments takes them further and further away from “human.” The hard-boiled female protagonist who joins in, seemingly uncritically, with a cycle of violence and machismo. Naked, almost-dead women. Brothels, black markets, dodgy backdoor cybernetics doctors.

***

The Witcher 3—one of my top three games of all time—is expert at employing and subverting fantasy-genre tropes to say interesting things about its world and characters. Its world, too, is rife with corruption and hypocrisy, but it feels so unpredictable and full of possibility. E3 demos usually emphasise action over everything else, and are forced to cram a lot of material into a short period of time, but an hour of Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t show me anything about Night City that surprised me.

I haven't seen the demo, but the trailer made me a bit skeptical as well. No focus on character or story at all, only mood. I couldn't help but notice that the taxi driver shown is South Asian and the convenience store clerk is East Asian -- stereotypical roles from the current era that just seem creatively lazy in Cyberpunk's future setting.

Still, it's CD Projekt, so I remain hopeful.

[Fitzy]

A somewhat skeptical take from Keza MacDonald of Kotaku:

Cyberpunk as a concept is the antithesis to utopian science fiction, so I was never expecting a city with gleaming white buildings and a happy, well-adjusted populace, but I was hoping for something that explores the issues of an unequal future society in a way that felt fresh.

There was nothing whatsoever in the demo’s future that I hadn’t seen before. Gangs that kidnap and kill people to harvest and sell their augments. Mercenaries who’ll kill whomever for the credits. Crime syndicates with a stranglehold on the city. A black-market gang whose embrace of cybernetic augments takes them further and further away from “human.” The hard-boiled female protagonist who joins in, seemingly uncritically, with a cycle of violence and machismo. Naked, almost-dead women. Brothels, black markets, dodgy backdoor cybernetics doctors.

***

The Witcher 3—one of my top three games of all time—is expert at employing and subverting fantasy-genre tropes to say interesting things about its world and characters. Its world, too, is rife with corruption and hypocrisy, but it feels so unpredictable and full of possibility. E3 demos usually emphasise action over everything else, and are forced to cram a lot of material into a short period of time, but an hour of Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t show me anything about Night City that surprised me.

I haven't seen the demo, but the trailer made me a bit skeptical as well. No focus on character or story at all, only mood. I couldn't help but notice that the taxi driver shown is South Asian and the convenience store clerk is East Asian -- stereotypical roles from the current era that just seem creatively lazy in Cyberpunk's future setting.

Still, it's CD Projekt, so I remain hopeful.

I enjoyed all 3 Witcher games, the third one was an amazing game. However, I never saw the games as anything other than typical high fantasy. It’s interesting that other saw it as something unique. I’ll have to re-examine my take on it.

[killbot737]

Is this the game they're working from? Because it was 10000% Gibson cyberpunk. NTTAWWT.


Not sure that "the dark future" is an appropriate tag, but whatevs. Also whatevs was not a "word" when this game was created.

[Blackhawk]

Pristine buildings with happy, well-adjusted people in them aren't all that uncommon in cyberpunk settings. What makes it cyberpunk is that the story is about the broad swathe of the society that isn't allowed in those buildings, who live in the chaos at the bottom of the city where the well-adjusted people wouldn't dare go.

You can't have a story about the have-nots without featuring the haves for contrast.

[MonkeyFinger]

Here is an interesting article on designing the quests for the game and how they compare to Witcher 3.

[hentzau]

Is this the game they're working from? Because it was 10000% Gibson cyberpunk. NTTAWWT.


Not sure that "the dark future" is an appropriate tag, but whatevs. Also whatevs was not a "word" when this game was created.

Yeah, thats the one. I worked with Mike Pondsmith for a while on a pitch for Castle Falkenstein...he was a really nice guy. Hope this turns out great for him (and that he hopefully gets a little coin from it.)

[Max Peck]

Something is afoot on CD Projekt Red's Twitch channel today. They are streaming what appears to be base64-encoded binary data. I can't wait to see what it is, after someone with even more time on their hands that me captures the video and decodes the data. Well, actually I can wait...

[Blackhawk]

Ugh. I love those social 'treasure hunt' games, but they have a tendency to write them so that only a fraction of a percent of the audience (usually the coders and mathematicians) can play along.

[Paingod]

I'm always content to see the result and appreciate the work that went into it and solving it.

[Blackhawk]

I'd much rather be part of solving a mystery then just waiting to see another ad.

[Isgrimnur]

PSU

The header also reads: png;base64. If this is the case, and it is an image, there’s base64 image decoders online. So if one fanatic can copy the code, then it’s possible we’ll have a definitive answer to what CD Project RED are teasing.

Some players have been watching for the duration and claim that the code is showing in a loop, so it definitely has a beginning and an end. Interestingly, it’s also being streamed live on IGN’s YouTube channel, so it’s likely the gaming outlet has some exclusive deal with them.

[Fitzy]

I'd much rather be part of solving a mystery then just waiting to see another ad.

It’d be interesting if they combined different puzzles, pulling in a lot of people. Sort of how RPGs with multiple companions can do.

Someone to solve the coding issue, which reveals a clue, which leads to another clue and so on until it’s solved. Though I’d expect creating such a thing to be more work than worth it considering it would still come down to a small group solving it.

[Daehawk]

This reminds me I own both Witcher 3 addons and have not touched them.

[Daehawk]

Gameplay video in this link. Looks really good. Reminds me of Mankind Divided but with a huge open world city.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/08/27/ ... 02360008e1

[Max Peck]

Yup, it turns out that if you sat through 9 hours of base64 data, you were rewarded with a gameplay demo stream.

Or you can just load up the VOD and skip ahead to the 9-hour mark.

I got home from my daily walkabout just in time to catch the last few seconds of the stream. The viewership was up to 300k+ at that point.

[Grifman]

This was absolutely amazing. The cityscape gave the best representation of a real living breathing city that I have even seen. So many people milling around on their own business. I want now!

[gbasden]

Holy shit, that looks fantastic!

[naednek]

dare I ask what the release date is?

[Max Peck]

dare I ask what the release date is?

When it's done®.

[Vorret]

The word around reddit is somewhere in 2020 so still a long way out, then again they usually release well polished, complete games so they can take their sweet time !!

[Vorret]

but seriously when you get down to street level , wow, all those people I'll need a new computer

[morlac]

The word around reddit is somewhere in 2020 so still a long way out, then again they usually release well polished, complete games so they can take their sweet time !!

That sounds about right. New MS console is supposedly coming out then and I suspect this game will need next gen hardware.

[jztemple2]

but seriously when you get down to street level , wow, all those people I'll need a new computer

Oh, please don't say that, I just upgraded to a GTX 1060 6GB but I'm still rocking my i7-4770K from four plus years ago.

I never got into The Witcher, as I'm not a big fantasy world fan, but I admired the developer. And I love all the attention to detail in their open world.

[raydude]

but seriously when you get down to street level , wow, all those people I'll need a new computer

Been playing Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition lately. I was impressed with the people count there, but yeah Cyberpunk 2077 takes it to a whole new level.

[Zitterbacke]

This might very well be the game I finally will upgrade my system (Mobo + 2nd Gen i7 CPU) for, after just 8 years.

[Daehawk]

Back in the 90s I upgraded about every year or two. Im still using a cpu and other parts from 2011.

[Sepiche]

Man, that's the first gameplay video I've seen in a while that has really blown my socks off.

If the game as a whole shows even half the attention to detail on display in that video it's going to be amazing.