The gaming space in this day in age is nothing if not totally chock-full of quality open world experiences with lots to do and plenty to see. Whether you just look at the last few years of gaming or the last 10 years of gaming, no matter how you slice it open world games with similar structures are everywhere. They populate every nook and cranny of the gaming space to no end and as a result it can be hard for a large open world action-adventure RPG to stand out in this day and age. Cyberpunk 2077 is aiming to do just that though.
First and foremost, for those of us who haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention to the development of Cyberpunk 2077 over the last few years, the game is aiming to be absolutely massive and that is even compared to the games that are currently holding on to the throne of scope and scale in open world games today. If The Witcher 3’s densely packed world is any indication, Cyberpunk 2077 will also be just as full of things to do and not just space to do them in. This might seem like a no-brainer but it’s important to know that going in. If you want to see the entirety of Cyberpunk 2077 the world and its possibilities, you’re going to be spending an unfathomable amount of time doing so. Fans of the genre will be delighted to know that the odds are good we are going to see a new plateau for the sheer amount of content we can expect to see from open world games going forward after Cyberpunk 2077 launches, as it will likely serve as a benchmark for the genre for years and years to come.
Right off the bat Cyberpunk 2077 will be treating you as if you’re ready for an incredibly in-depth RPG with tons of skillsets to choose from to start out. This alone opens up the possibilities of different ways to play to an amount that will seem infinite to the player. Whether you want to put emphasis on shotguns, engineering, assassinations, or nerve will entirely depend upon your inclinations at the very beginning of the game as you allocate yourself to any number of these and more skills.
This is on top of choosing one of the several backstories to begin the game which will all also affect the direction the story and its characters take and how they interact with you throughout the game. This is a level of depth the most open world action RPGs don’t take into account. Games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Ghost of Tsushima are excellent in their own right, but you play the same person every time with the same backstory and the same motivations. Cyberpunk is doing away with that for this game and giving you even more unparalleled freedom to craft your story and your adventure through this world the way you see fit.
In that same vein the large step with customization and choice that Cyberpunk 2077 is making with the genre it is also taking with its storytelling and interaction with NPCs. For those who played through The Witcher 3 and saw how densely populated it was with things to do and places to go, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see that there are conversations to be had at every turn in Night City with an incredibly wide variety of character archetypes that all have their own special outcomes of conversations that you can trigger or not trigger depending on how you interact with them. For fans of variety and unexpected outcomes, Cyberpunk 2077 has definitely got you covered at least in terms of interacting with characters in the world, both story-related and not.
Any open-world action adventure RPG worth its salt has at least tried to figure out a way to make traversing its world as interesting as its destinations. Granted, most don’t quite accomplish this, as riding around on a horse or driving around in downtown traffic will never be quite as fun as slicing through a band of menacing mongols or pulling of a bank heist. That said, CD Projekt RED isn’t throwing in the towel on traversal either. From what we currently know about the game it appears that they’ll be taking the same approach in incredibly detailed statistics and pros and cons to their characters, to their vehicles.
Out of the wealth of different vehicles there are to take control of in the game, there are going to be several different classes of them each with different strengths and weaknesses depending on the vehicle. while we do not yet currently know whether or not those stats will factor into certain story-driven events, or how much of the burden of choice will be placed on the player at certain moments to pick the best vehicle for any given situation, we do know that vehicles will vary widely in their utility. Among the many stats that vehicles will have for you to look through will be manufacturer, style, curb weight, as well as door mount and windshield type.
Knowing CD Projekt RED and how they like to incorporate stats into just about every decision you make as a player, I would be shocked if these different elements didn’t factor into how each and every vehicle drives and fairs in different situations whether that be a combat scenario or trying to manoeuvre through traffic in a way that either keeps you hidden or losing a pursuer. Usually an open world game with lots of different vehicles to choose from, vehicles do differ but only in superficial or barely noticeable ways.
Here, it’s looking like Cyberpunk 2077 is going to go above and beyond with its vehicle types and classes in a way that really makes you think about what type of vehicle to use for any given situation. Do I charge my way through the problem with something big and heavy? Or do I speed away in something small and nimble? Maybe some balance of both? Hopefully this is in a way that doesn’t make certain things impossible to do but just makes them unfold differently, but we’re going to have to wait until we have our hands on it until we can determine that.
I suppose if nothing else Cyberpunk 2077’s amalgamation of all of gaming’s most successful gameplay elements from the past 10 years or so is what’s shaping up to be its most impressive characteristic. Everything from the investigative elements of the Batman: Arkham games or Detroit: Become Human, to the deep, cyberpunk action and stealth mechanics that we saw Deus Ex games, to the aforementioned, seemingly endless dialogue options with a vast array of characters, and a wealth of different alliances you can create and destroy at will. These ideas are not, at their core unique, but the inclusion and integration of so many of them and in such an organic way does seem to be an unparalleled agenda for the game that will take other games in the future a very long time to eclipse if they ever do.
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