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[Rince Wind]

Yes, more focus would have been better for CP. It tries to do too much and some of that stuff just isn't very good.

[The_Explorer]

In their defense...do think they really wanted the best and most immersive "world"/city ever made in a game. I doubt they went at it with ill intent to start with, though the advertising toward the end ended up overselling way too much and overall peoples expectations were way too high...and some of that is on CDP

Though right in middle of the game, kinda close to release really...covid. Yeah I know its an excuse used by a lot of companies, but a lot of times it actually is a rather legit one. I don't imagine that helped things what so ever.

[Damiac]

If you keep in mind that cdpr never said the game would be any good, and covid happened, and uh... People have "turbo vanilla" tastes to be edgy...

It's a poorly made bad game. Do not buy. Regardless of fanboy excuses. It's not worth more than 20 dollars. Enemy ai is bad on a level not seen in decades. Has a half baked broken crime system they're half assedly patching into something that will look crude compared to gta1.

Give it a year and maybe it'll be worth the discounted price after they've fixed it up as best they can. Or watch the story beats on YouTube, they're the only worthwhile part anyway.

[Ivefan]

All this bashing just wants me to toss in my opinion which is by its nature, biased according to my experience.
I might have been fortunate with the bugs but the last few post has had a few games compared to this so I shall do the same in that i played/enjoyed this game for longer than vanilla oblivion & skyrim. I quit rdr2 a lot sooner than this.
That said, its not like I think that this is a masterpiece or somesuch. Just that in my experience the AI is just as bad(except bugs), or maybe easily exploited might be more correct.
I should probably say that I am an avid book reader so i mostly grade the story of a game from unbearingly cringe to tolerable.

Tldr: Its yet another GTAish game with less obnoxious characters and a bunch of experimental features that keeps it alive for a bit longer due to novelty

[dragdeler]

You do have a point in that the game gets by with by with primitive gunfight AI since it can compensate via dmg and health, and stealth is super easy to cheese, but that's allmost allways the case in any game. But they didn't T-pose midfight or shit, so worst in decades is kind of a big claim.


What annoys me is when frustration about the technical side of game, swaps over into broad attacks on the storytelling that seem unjustified, especially when certain other examples get brought up, like I couldn't name a single character from skyrim. I didn't actually check who wrote what, just read "the what". So the edgy/turbovanilla juxtaposition I'm going to describe in more detail is just me broadly responding to a strawman if you will of somewhat popular opinions:

What's the story of RDR2 vs CP2077? RDR2: crime doesn't pay but here have a happy end anyway. CP2077: you got a rockstar terrorist in your brain and best case scenario only one of you survives. So how the fuck can people say stuff like "oh wow look how "cool" johnny silverhand is smoking his cigarette, common this is all overdone, your capitalism hate is getting old", but then hail as a counterexample a story that just keeps on stretching and stretching the same rob-run-guilt cycle, where the cast has the same psychological rigidity than the characters of a sitcom. Every time I hear that kinda of take I start hallucinating the blazing saddles fart scene.



There was serious lack of vision from CDPR though. But AFAIK fucking nobody in the AAA business did any noteworthy experiments in like 15 years. It's funny how I keep circling back to the series but imagine what kind of playthrough you would have in CP if it had a timer, like fallout1. But an actually threatening one. This is how you get multiple playthroughs, not with stupid prologues you had to keep short so people aren't big crybabies about "BUT WHEN OPEN WORLD". Cars & pedestrians are a programming nightmare, also you want verticality for wicked visuals? Fine take artistic liberty with the cyberpunk setup and borrow from platforming games, or spiderman or what have you. Conveyor belt public transportation could give elongated running sessions a boost of adrenaline, also why not lol at pedestrian ragdolls? Yeah but then the sportshirts can't own and drive a cool car and we don't get to make that one playful remark extrapolating private traffic. So "low fantasy" setting instead to play it safe. Wouldn't want anyone to feel overpowered jump dashing and wallrunning like a rockstar terrorist legend. Oh also we need some form of numbergrind to artificially inflate playtime, marketing says it's called engagement. Cut that crap, we are playing on borrowed time: you get to pace a game so frickin well if you let like 3-4 opportunities to implant the cybergear you found in the quests. Then instead of making every decision accessible to every playthrough, so no mike or kevin or kyle feels left out, you don't get to do everything for each NPC, you choose who you spend your last days with doing with what... They fucking had it just in front of them, but pulled a people pleaser instead. Lack of vision and cojones. Could have allways tried to imitate GTA with the FLC that they're going to release anyway.

[nenjin]

But they didn't T-pose midfight or shit, so worst in decades is kind of a big claim.

Pretty sure I've seen this, and besides. If you're t-posing in the other 80% of the game, not t-posing in the remaining 20% doesn't earn you a lot of points.

[Lidku]

In their defense...do think they really wanted the best and most immersive "world"/city ever made in a game. I doubt they went at it with ill intent to start with, though the advertising toward the end ended up overselling way too much and overall peoples expectations were way too high...and some of that is on CDP

Though right in middle of the game, kinda close to release really...covid. Yeah I know its an excuse used by a lot of companies, but a lot of times it actually is a rather legit one. I don't imagine that helped things what so ever.

The entire predication of CDPR's marketing campaign and overall philosophy they claimed that would be the centerpiece of the game, was the fact that Night City was going to be the main driving point of the game. That it was going to be biggest part of Cyberpunk 2077, even over the main and side quests/stories of the game itself. They strictly ADVERTISED that it was going to be a decade turning, industry turning game, that would have this immersive reactive-dynamic city.

Of course as we all known by now, it was entirely hogwash essentially. It barely, if not at all, had much of the elements they claimed was going to be in Cyberpunk 2077. The only thing that they admittedly delivered on, was the city design itself... but that's only style and not substance. All the high aesthetic, but the city still feels essentially dead.

They've been making the game since 2012, which is 8 years. San Andreas only took 3 years to make. But which one has more developed game environments? CDPR was the one that stoked this hype, for a long time even. People trusted them and had high expectations of them due to the Witcher series. The company has nobody to blame but itself, so it isn't a "some" situation at all.

The biggest argument for this game at this point, is its "story".. Once you complete the game however, is it really worth it for any replay value? It seems like a Mafia 2 situation, where you finish it and never return back to it, because you already know the story that went on. That's not to say linear style games don't have a semblance of replayability for some people. But Cyberpunk 2077 puts up an illusion that its not a linear game, when it is. This overall makes the quality of game more low when taking into account the horrible AI, the fact that you can't actually modify your character with cybernetics, can't customize your vehicles, non-existent miscellaneous activities, etc.

Story alone, Cyberpunk 2077's isn't that good, if we're taking its reality as a linear style Action RPG into effect. It didn't really touch on its theme, where V slowly gains would-be notoriety around Night City doing various tasks and criminal feats. Instead it is completely skimmed over by a montage, cheating the player to experience such a thing; basically, all around bad pacing. No interaction with any of the gangs, beside them just being shooting gallery targets from time-to-time. The entirety of the story is more or less the story of Johnny Silverhand, than anything else. That character alone was most of Cyberpunk 2077's marketing with Keeanu Reeves and what not with the hype generation.

You never get any real connection with V at all throughout the game. They just feel like a set piece, and that's it. This is essentially due in part with how a major part of the player relation with V, that could've been developed, was skimmed over like mentioned previously. Even baring the skimmage though, all the choices you make with V barely matter and have no weight in developing them narratively. They just seem.. so dry compared to the likes of Geralt or Commander Shepard in the vein of these action RPGs with these type of protagonists that are crafted-designed for you. Hell, I even have to give props to Fallout 4 even though I don't like the game and hated the fact they added in a voiced protagonist; the Sole Survivor is a hell of a lot more compelling and personable than V as a character.

Storywise as a matter of fact... I think even Fallout 4's story is much more provoking and at least somewhat more dynamic than Cyberpunk 2077's story when looking at both of them... and that's just sad, considering the majority of the Fallout fandom agrees Fallout 4's story wasn't even good.   

I feel like the only real draw to Cyberpunk from the majority of the people that like it, is merely due to its graphics and the minutiae seeming of the "Cyberpunk" aesthetic in the game alone; not to mention its major push in marketing to the mainstream at large. It doesn't give much substance beyond that, like I broached on earlier about, however.

[Jimmy]

Yeah, the biggest turn-off for me were the characters. I can stand bugs in my games. Shit, I'm writing this on a Dwarf Fortress forum for god's sake. But if I'm forking out my cash, I had hope I'd want to care about my character.

Instead, I just really don't. V is a giant asshole. Johnny is a dead asshole. They do jobs for other assholes in asshole city.

Gimme a snarky wisecracker a la Fallout 4 'left' dialog option, or a grizzled mercenary with a heart of gold like Geralt. Instead, we get the ending choice of the equivalent between a shit burger or a turd sandwich. I don't like either one, so why bother?

[nenjin]

V tried to be everything, I feel like. One minute he's a hardened criminal who will gladly waste people left and right for some cash, the next he's got hang ups about individuals and the whole nature of the business they're in. I honestly don't feel like V was much of a character; they were a collection of themes grouped together. I'm sure someone sees an arc and character growth in all that, and perhaps it's just the gamey nature of a game that gets in the way of decent characterization. But I sometimes struggled with bouncing between actual missions and side missions/busy work and feeling like V's personality and what they actually cared about pivoted depending on what they were doing.

Johnny was sorta similar but I felt like they were at least pretty consistent as a character in what they said, what they did, what they cared about.

But I think this is usually the issue when a game tries to wrap a complete character around the freedom to do w/e. Sometimes, what you as the player are allowed to do isn't going to jive with how the character is presented. Silent protagonists may be a meme but there are times when I prefer them to avoid this sort of disconnect.

[The_Explorer]

I think the most hilarious part of it all (I do like the game a lot, more than skyrim/fallout 4, kinda on par with RDR2 though that is pretty buggy too). I mean, skyrim/oblivion were and still are complete bug fests and need mods to actually make the game playable and good...tbh without mods, bethesda's entire franchise after morrowind would be junk to me. And holy cow do they crash a ton, need so many mods to make it not crash and be stable. Anyway besides that rant, I think the stupidest thing of it all for cyberpunk isn't even the advertising...

Is CDProjekt complained it took too long to finish witcher 3 so cut out a massive chunk of story

"OH NO PEOPLE FINISH TOO FAST! ME DUMB DUMB CAVEMAN! WHY ARE PEOPLE NOT PLAYING LONGER TROLOLOLOL ME TROLL ME CAVEMAN NO BRAIN"

Like yeah...wow...cut the story massively and of course people gonna finish and not play longer or as long as witcher 3 rofl

The entire career paths (street kid/nomad/corpo) were so massively cut you can see the gameplay in the cutscenes lol. And that is just the start of the game, the rest of the story was obviously cut too by quite a lot.

Are they high as hell on that one? Or literal caveman trolls with no brains? Like...even a kid knows "cut story, makes shorter story..."...literally need to have no brain to not know that if you cut a story so much people won't play as long as witcher 3....

I'm guessing they just massively trolled their fans with that one though more than "me dumb dumb troll with no brain". but more they used their brain and gave the middle finger to all their fans with the comment of "why is no one playing longer than witcher 3 :O"...you know making fun of how much story (and content) they cut out and they already know that is why. On par with the comments blizzard makes really, but quite a bit more subtle than a "you dont have phone" which is point blank insult to the face kinda style comment. Where as CDProjekt did an insult but isnt really obvious as one, which makes it worse. I'd rather be laughed in the face like blizzard does than behind my back.

I mean I still been having a lot of fun with it. But man, they sure did some trolling there and some rather bad decisions/choices.

[nenjin]

It was cut by "necessity." Halfway through original development they wanted star power, expanded Keanu's role beyond the minor one he was originally intended for (because apparently he got deeply interested in the project and wanted a bigger role), completely removed two other pivotal characters who were supposed to be alternatives to Johnny Silverhand, and re-wrote half the story.

The original story was supposed to be more of a detective/cop style story, before it morphed into what it currently is.

Not exactly a smart decision to make midstream when the entire world is watching you.

[Lidku]

Yeah.. don't get me wrong, I love Reeves.. but for CDPR to scrap the majority of their original story to place it all on Johnny Silverhand, just because of Keanu Reeves... was such a juvenile mistake. Like, really juvenile. Not to mention, like deducted from many other parts of this thread already, the only real reason they did such a thing was as you mentioned: "star power" or greater marketing amplification. Hype generation. They should've strayed away from that entirely.

I wonder if what has gone down with Cyberpunk, will drive away other game companies from hiring or putting onboard famous Hollywood celebrities into their games; or at least, not mistakenly make them the centerpiece of the game in a scheme to generate quick n' dirty hype.

[The_Explorer]

Well, I mean I dunno why they couldn't keep the story of whatever it was. Don't think someone famous needs to be involved in writing/story except their actual parts sure maybe, but not the whole story. I just found it funny they complained people didn't play as much as witcher 3 because they really just cut a ton of story and other content lol.

But as for keanu...I mean I guess he wanted more part to the story. But doesn't mean they needed a sledgehammer to it. Just because its someone famous, that isn't on keanu, thats squarely on CDProjekt. Wouldn't matter who else it was.

[nenjin]

FWIW, there could be other reasons. Maybe after review they decided the original wasn't action-y or miserable enough. Maybe they decided to go with something less likely to disinterest people who don't play stuff like Mafia or all those hard-boiled investigation type games.

And lastly....I think classifying it as juvenile doesn't really appreciate the reality. They had investors. Investors who bolstered their ability to make a bigger game, and expected a significant return on their investment. It's things like that which drive the "star power" thinking. I've got $123 million, why not spend $12 million (and royalties) to possibly earn another $75 million. (Fictitious numbers, in case it needs to be said. I don't know if I've read any real details on the actual arrangement.)

CDPR decided it was their time to go big, they went whole hog, sought investment, leveraged their position as a national icon domestically, got AAA money and made AAA mistakes. Hard to call that juvenile when so many developers trying to transition into that do the same thing. "Just hire Mark Hamil!"

I don't feel contempt for them. I feel pity. I wonder what kind of game we might have had w/o all the extra investment but also without all the pressure to completely knock it out of the park. CP2077 needed another 2 years of uninterrupted work IMO to reach a state of "everything is 80%." Between the pressure to release and covid, they backed themselves into a corner and then rolled snake eyes on the global event table to boot. And I'm kind of darkly amused by the parallels that can be drawn between the morals of the story in CP2077 and the reality of its development.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I also think the Silverhand/Reeves narrative was really keyed in on a major motif in Cyberpunk that was important to explore: cyberpunk narratives since Neuromancer are always about these anarchists/terrorists/rockstars taking on the giant megacorps, to fight for personal freedom and liberation the only way that they can--by buying gadgets from these corps and literally inserting them into their bodies.  It is a development of ant-colonial and anti-capitalist ideas from the 20th century, only moved to a context where literally everywhere is completely colonized by capitalism, and the last frontier are people's bodies and minds--thus the central paradox of cyberpunk, where in order to resist this process of colonization, you have to do it yourself--plug those colonizing gadgets right into your own body and mind. Here, the Silverhand narrative just takes it to a horrifying but logical conclusion--where the corp is literally overwriting you with a typical cyberpunk character--Johnny Silverhand, thus utterly removing his ability to be a rebel--because he now exemplifies the corps reaching a new frontier--selfhood.

Thus the games' multiple conversations about "what is the self"--c.f. Clouds conversation about death instead of the expected sex-scene and the downer endings which apporpriately explore what freedom might mean (leaving as yourself but dying, dying as yourself but continuing as Johnny etc)