Cyberpunk 2077 - Interview @ IGN

Myrthos

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In an article style interview IGN talked to creative director Sebastian Stepien and game director Mateusz Kanik from CD Project Red, whoc are currently working on Cyberpunk 2077.
Character customisation, for instance, was necessarily not an option in Geralt’s world. But in Cyberpunk 2077, it’s self-defined role-playing: your style and personality will have deep and far-reaching effects on the world and how it reacts to you. “We will have several features that allow you to create your [visual] style, and your style will affect gameplay, storyline and relationships between characters,” explains creative director Sebastian Stepien. “Your appearance and your dress will change the behaviour of NPCs, and also the story also in some parts,” Mateusz adds. Style and appearance works together with the personality you create for your character and express in conversation to determine how the world reacts to you.
“It’s about telling story via what happens, not cutscenes or other features,” Mateusz says. “To do that we need to create a totally new unique dialogue system – we’re doing that right now, it should be awesome.”
Cyberpunk hasn’t been as easy to adapt as a video game as you might think. Pen and paper mechanics have been the foundation of many digital RPGs over the years, but they do not translate well into the kind of game that CDP is trying to make. “The game mechanics are totally different on paper, they don’t work in video games because they would be super boring,” Mateusz says.
“The main problem is that the original system is based on dice rolls. When you think about Cyberpunk you think about shooting, action, a lot of explosions. But that doesn’t fit dice rolls in a video game. We want to make it more action-like – there will be a system that lets you use active skills actually in the gameplay in a shooting sequence or something like that, rather than just passive skills like in the books.”
More information.
 
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Very nice interview.

Kotaku picked up this story and ran it not as an article but as a discussion:
"We do not want to make a dark and hopeless world. We are not doing Blade Runner." Here's CD Projekt RED on Cyberpunk 2077 over at IGN. Though the developers haven't shown anything particularly concrete, gameplay-wise, the title still sounds intriguing so far.

And that's the entirety of the post. :D Man, talk about taking things out of context just to stir the pot.

Understandably, the author is Patricia Hernandez who is the least popular writer on Kotaku. And trust me, that is the kindest criticism I can think of.
 
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I like the idea of trying a different take on the visuals than what we saw in blade runner - while I like it, some of it really can date the scifi elements. If they're updating the alternate history and science fiction elements to reflect more of an extrapolation from current day design aesthetics and technology, it makes sense.

I am not sure how I feel about them thinking tarantino for inspiration. To me that conjures even older visual styles from the 70's and earlier periods. I think I'd prefer aspects of modern science fiction adaptations visual design from ghost in the shell to deus-ex human-revolution over anything I'd describe as reminding me of Tarantino, but that just might be the films I associate with him. Not complaining about those, just seems incongruous.

I didn't really expect "dice rolls" to be in so much as dice rolls are stand-ins for stuff computers can do in more complex and less obtrusive ways. I hope they don't mean that to suggest as significant of a deemphasization of the "build" side of character creation/development as it might sound. If they're emphasizing that a skill value and random number won't cause a point-blank shot to miraculously miss defying all physical plausibility... well I don't think anyone seriously expected a daggerfall-inspired combat system. If they mean that the technical side of character creation and development does not noticeably effect combat performance, that's dissapointing.

I was hoping for something at least in the neighborhood of Deus Ex. Maybe, if your background might imply some general combat training and decent cybernetics, the baseline accuracy and spread shouldn't resemble that of a Parkinson's patient. I do hope though that the non-combat skills a least open up meaningful options and are well developed if they're de-emphasizing the PnP-like aspects of the character sheet's role in combat.

I do like the idea that behavior and attitude - including that which is communicated by how you style your appearance - are meant to play a significant role in how people interact with you. It's always weird to go around in an RPG with a character that looks like death come on black wings and have people talk to you as though you're just some guy. Would be refreshing that if you're character looks like the terminator's angry cousin that people treat him as at least worrisome and disturbingly out of place walking into a restaurant.
 
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The teaser was very Blade Runner -esque. It would be great if they would use that aesthetic. The thing is, I can't really think of even one game that would have done a Blade Runner -esque world properly, except for the 90's Blade Runner adventure game. Sure, you can see BR's influences in many games - It is after all arguably the most visually influental sci-fi film ever made. But nobody has attempted even a half-assed re-creation of the BR world. With its monolith buildings, constant rain, spinners, multi-generational and multi-national architecture and culture, etc.

The Hong Kong segment in Deus Ex: Human Revolution comes the closest. But even on that the color palette makes it look completely different. And it's really more of a combination of many different Cyberpunk influences, instead of being truly Blade Runner -esque.

What I'm essentially saying is, that I would like to play in the world that they show in the teaser.
 
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The teaser was very Blade Runner -esque. It would be great if they would use that aesthetic. The thing is, I can't really think of even one game that would have done a Blade Runner -esque world properly, except for the 90's Blade Runner adventure game. Sure, you can see BR's influences in many games - It is after all arguably the most visually influental sci-fi film ever made. But nobody has attempted even a half-assed re-creation of the BR world. With its monolith buildings, constant rain, spinners, multi-generational and multi-national architecture and culture, etc.

What I'm essentially saying is, that I would like to play in the world that they show in the teaser.

Yeah the city-scape was pretty blade-runner esque but I liked how the design of some of the scifi elements deviated strongly from that. For example the intricate and cleaner styling of the cybernetics displayed as opposed to everything having wires, tubes, and buttons times ten or bordering on grotesque.
 
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Not really intersted in an ultra clean sci fi environment ala a ME or KotoR clone. I've seen enough of that. I'd prefer something more atmospheric like Bladerunner.
 
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Not really intersted in an ultra clean sci fi environment ala a ME or KotoR clone. I've seen enough of that. I'd prefer something more atmospheric like Bladerunner.

Well what I said I appreciated is how elements deviated from the style to contrast with it rather than that I preferred the style outright. I think a piece of technology which would represent the cutting edge design for something within the setting should look out of place against that environmental design - because it is. A bugatti veyron looks dramatically out of place in a parking lot full of 1980's honda civics and volvo wagons - because it is.

That's why I appreciate what they did with the design of the cybernetics displayed in that scene. Even against most of the other scifi elements present, the notably sleeker and cleaner look stood out as out of place. This communicates some very different than if the character were styled in a similar chunky gritty look to the officers' equipment. Its kind of like how the scenes in Blade Runner involving the Voight Kampff machine were shot. Although its design wasn't so radically different from some other scifi props used elsewhere, they were always careful to shoot those scenes such that it was clearly the "most scifi" thing in the room. Underneath a ceiling fan that could have been from the 1950's, the supposed newness and oddness of the Voight Kampff machine was effectively communicated to the audience from the first frame.

While the Voight Kampff machine was able to stand out despite not starkly deviating from the cyber-noire design stylings of many of the more day to day scifi props in the rest of the movie, you have to do something different to acheive the same contrast in a game like this. Here you probably don't have the luxury of communicating which scifi elements are unusual even within your setting by sticking them in a stark room. Having an element or object be far more elegent and sleek compared to other clearly sci-fi elements sharing the scene is an effective way of allowing the player to experience how they would stand out to characters within the setting.

So I'm not saying the design styling of blade runner wouldn't belong in the game. I actually think it works particularly well as a background/ambient style because it so effectively contrasts with sleeker or more minimalist designs in a way which communicates that they are both unusual and perhaps also very new. I'm saying it's important that there are distinct and radically different styles which will carry appropriate connotations. A blade runner visual style would be fine for the background scifi elements in the slums though and I do think the clean sleek look would actually be a far worst choice as some sort of base-line or norm as it would kind of ruin the opportunity to highlight the lone bugatti in the lot of the volvo dealership.
 
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When you think about Cyberpunk you think about shooting, action, a lot of explosions.

No.

When I hear Cyberpunk, I envision the eighties, corporate dystopia and neural plugins. I also think P&P role-playing.

Why would anyone think about shooting, action and explosions in that context?
 
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This is the kind of game I'd like to play with an Occulus Rift :)
 
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