Cyberpunk 2077

I'm going to say it, I actually feel like buying the Glen mansion in-game had an actual massive roleplaying moment for me. V finds himself inside the apartment and stares out onto the city below and goes, "I've finally made it."

Except, right behind him under the stairs is a bunch of stuff belonging to the previous owner. He probably was killed or got kicked out and can't afford to get it back.

Having it happen in game while V is dying really drives home what a meaningless exercise the "Night City Dream" was.

This is me as a writer and RP Ger, though.

Not saying there aren't ways to make it work. Just... it doesn't feel like it fits this narrative. 2077's core main story feels too tight and short; maybe two-three months at max (excluding the prologue), for switching apartments to feel needed. And I just feel like whatever could be told via the apartment, other stories in the game do that better unless they were to add actual dialogue, animations, and assets to really telling that story.

It fits Night City. It fits Cyberpunk. But not this installment.

The Ludonarrative Dissonance of the main story is something that has been commented on repeatedly that Cyberpunk 2077's in-universe story is just too SHORT to make sense of the game. So you have me there. If they removed the line from Vic about having a few weeks left to live and changed the six months to live to six years, I feel like the game would make a lot more sense.

On my earlier topic of stuff that's still broken:

The in game GPS is still hopelessly confused by Westbrook's multiple level thing.

I'd probably change Victor's line to "anywhere between a few months and a year".

This kinda reminds me of Batman: Arkham City, where the Joker infects Batman with his Titan-infused blood, which slowly kills him. Batman occasionally feels various side effects, but, again, nothing's stopping the player from doing various side quests.

Though, in hindsight, comparing this game to Arkham City is not really a fair comparison.

Edited by IvanovTroping97 on Mar 31st 2022 at 8:41:52 PM

I feel like changing Vic's line would be a band-aid. Like, sure, it's an indicator for time-scale, but the rest of the story feels just as tightly paced. Every event feels like it flows pretty closely from one into the other. And when they need to put one line on pause, another character calls you up because they have an update on that storyline.

Even without Vic's line, this story's pacing is like an action movie. And that's fine. But it means that everything outside of that pacing can feel a bit off.

Compare to say, Dragon Age or Mass Effect where there's inherently so much travel that inevitably it can feel like anywhere from a few days to few weeks could occur between missions.

I never felt like Arkham City was too bad in that regard; Batman never quite felt like he did anything that actively was too big or too distracting from the main story; most things are on the way to other events. And I felt like it fit some of the themes; Batman is straining himself trying to do everything for everyone at detriment to himself. That this is more or less killing him. Trying to do everything when there are more important matters at hand felt in character and the point.

Edited by InkDagger on Mar 31st 2022 at 1:01:58 AM

The thing that makes the pace weird is Johnny's dialogue doesn't mesh with side quests and thus tends to be all over the place. He'll go from semi hostile to V to him and V having a rapport with no real consistency at the whim of whatever quest you're on, then when you go back to doing a main quest the Johnny and V are back at wherever their relationship should be.

Like you wake up in V's apartment and Johnny says he wants to kill you, the first thing as you leave your building you'll get a) Takemura wants to meet at a dinner south of watson, and b) Your car needs to be picked up. As the car is literally reacheable from an elevator next to V's home, you're liable to do the car first (Besides, having the car makes going to the dinner faster). However the Car event has V and Johnny act like they are fine with one another, with V actively asking Johnny if he saw what happened.

But V and Johnny don't really form a truce till after the dinner, where Johnny goes "I decided I dont want you dead".

The game's structure actually undermines the play order of those quests. And of course they can't move the car bit later coz if you drive to the dinner then why would V's car be back in the parking lot. It being there only makes sense after V's been out of comission a few days and thus the building management has cause to tell V his car's there.

Edited by Ghilz on Mar 31st 2022 at 2:16:42 AM

I mean, that seems like a simple solution... just make the car inaccessible. V can't summon the car and you don't get the text and quest pop-up until after.

The Diners only a short walk away anyway.

If the freedom of order is the problem, then don't let quests be played in an odd order.

I did notice that problem my first playthrough too. It was strange.

Edited by InkDagger on Mar 31st 2022 at 2:19:51 AM

Leads to the weird "Why can't I car" problem especially as your car isnt wrecked yet.

Mind you, the car quest is itself dumb since it denies you the car for like several in game days, and the player can't purchase other cars till act 2, and it takes your car away the moment the map opens up fully. And the only free car not locked behind a quest or a SC requirement is the van located DEEP IN THE DESERT.

It's really a poorly thought out quest.

Unrelated topic: I really wish they'd open the mega buildings in a dlc. These are supposed to hold the majority of night city's 5 million people. They are supposed to be small towns onto themselves. And like... you can visit 1 floor of 3 of them? Would be really cool to have one open as its own area and get a real size of the scope of these things. Them being nothing but set pieces to fill the skyline is kind of the game's biggest cop out.

I mean, the very car quest we're talking about is at the start of Act 2 so, you can buy a car right after that happens. In fact, I believe Regina or Wakako sends you an offer for a really shitty car right after that happens.

You also end up with Jackie's bike shortly after. I believe that's triggered by either calling Mama Wells directly or going back to your apartment? It might also have a timed trigger to it.

I don't think it'd be that big of a problem. 2077 would not be the first game to slightly restrict you as they set you into the open-world portion until they give you the scene setting up the major plot arcs, that being Takemura's diner conversation.

"Why can't I car now?" just feels kinda whiny to me when... it's a 20 second walk to the diner for a 5 min scene and then you can trigger the car quest. Just get the introductory conversation out of the way if you really want to explore so badly.

You could also just go jack a car too, something I don't think would be below V's character.

Man the devs really do think the Quadra Type-66 is their best looking car. Considering there's 5 versions you can own...

Javelina -> Nomad Version

Cthulhu -> Game Poster Version

640 -> Stock Green Version

Avenger -> Shiny Chrome version

"Jen Rowley" -> General Lee-inspired version.

And there's more unobtainable version, one is Rogue's Car, the other is a Wraith version.

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 1st 2022 at 7:58:20 AM

CD Projekt are stating that they're still improving Cyberpunk 2077 following the positive feedback to patch 1.5, and they revealed that an upcoming expansion to the game will feature a new storyline, stating that V's story is complete and that we may see something new in an upcoming expansion set for release next year.

Sounds pretty exciting. I hope one of the new stories will focus on Morgan Blackhand, or maybe tell the story of an honest NCPD officer working among other dirty cops.

Edited by IvanovTroping97 on Apr 16th 2022 at 4:01:23 PM

Here's hoping you can get a Malorian 3516 in the new storyline too. (canonically in the TTRPG there were more than one, albeit they are rare and expensive as hell in RED costing a cool 10,000eb)

I only want to play V and would hate anything not involving them.

Mind you, my response to the story is it feels grossly incomplete.

I don't quite get where the "V's story is complete" line is coming from.

Mostly because I know for a fact that the DLC will be played with V as the player character and I don't see that changing at any point.

I really wish I could cite sources on that, but for the moment I'll simply say 'datamining' and little more. I really don't want to give anything further away, especially with the DLC being pushed to 2023.

Which... I'm disappointed about. On one hand, dear god, it's been ages to get any actual new content for this game to discuss and experience. I would like new narrative please.

On the other, with everything that went on behind the scenes, actually dealing with bad development practices would necessarily require interrupting or severely slowing down production. 2077's DLC coming out on time would have indicated they learned nothing from their development troubles, much like a certain other AAA RPG Developer.

Also swapping out major creative leads like director will also require content to go into evaluation and redevelopment. The new director could have looked at all of Expansion 1's development and tossed it. Not saying he did that but point is on why development of DLC is a problem.

And the other problem is the RED Engine. It's an inhouse engine created by inhouse employees. Who probably aren't there anymore. W4 is probably moving to UE 5, not just because it's an amazing engine, but because they probably no longer have the employees and trainers to maintain use of the RED Engine.

W3 was probably moved in house due to the Ukranian war going on. The development studio contracted out to do the Next-Gen upgrade was a Russian team. And CDPR then pulled all of their marketplaces out of Russia. Which... probably didn't go down well. Though I admit this one is a lot more speculative.

Remember Studio TRIGGER's Cyberpunk Edgerunners? Well, we'll finally have a look into the anime series during Netflix's Geeked Week (June 6th-10th).

The following teaser trailer contains segments from the anime: (0:26, 0:37, 1:12, 1:21; 1:33)

Welp.

The headlines are probably going to light up in a week or so.

TLDR version is I was in a datamining group. Patch 1.5 accidentally leaked the script for Expansion 1, least as far as it was set in Feb. Which I have reason to believe is probably fairly set in stone least as far as the core beats, characters, and story. We decided to contact CDPR and keep it on the downlow.

Well, one guy got fed up and decided to drop it into a bunch of different discord servers and *run*.

And that'll mean many many more months of people complaining.

Man, I'd love to know what it's about.

Welp. It hit reddit, 4chan, and news this morning so I might as well just say.

To clarify, these are script subtitles taken from Patch 1.5 in Feb. There are no dates or changelog for the subtitles so we don't know when it was written or how accurate it was to the 1.5 patch. Devs have hinted it's out of date and inaccurate but... I also feel like they'd say that no matter what or what *is* out of date might not be the major details.

Expansion 1 is set in the Combat Zone of Pacifica. It is also a redevelopment of a cut-sidequest from the base game (called "Medusa") that has been MASSIVELY expanded.

Basically, a hacker suddenly interfaces with the Biochip and regresses some of it's progress. Amusingly, they do mute Johnny at one point. They show V they can help with their problem, but need V do help them first.

Their first task is... The hacker sends Air Force One crashing into Night City. Landing in the Combat Zone. The Hacker wants V to go to the ship which had NUSA President Rosalind Meyers inside.

And the DLC only goes on from there.

There are Rogue A.I.s. A Braindance Nightmare of the White House. A massive level set in the layered car-park in the Football Stadium. Net Watch is involved.

I think my biggest problem since I knew of the DLC in summer of 2021 is that... It feels like a filler story. An Overlord to Lair of the Shadow Broker. Jaws of Hakkon to Trespasser. Or Hearts of Stone to Blood and Wine. It doesn't really follow up on any main game plots. None of the major side-characters are present here except Johnny. This feels like the expansion that leads into something bigger.

I also think people will be kinda pissed when the DLC teases the hacker can help save V, but can't. And attempting to follow the Hacker's instructions requires the Devil ending, universally the bad ending. Which feels... awkward.

But it wont. CDPR Conference Call today confirmed that Expansion 1 will be the only one. And, I'm kinda sad about that. I really wanted to know where V's story went next. I wanted one last grand adventure to end the story. And this just isn't it.

If I had to guess why, it's probably a lot of reasons. RED Engine is probably a problem for CDPR by now; the devs that made it have left and the new employees need to be trained on it. Which is very likely why they're moving to UE 5. But that means only so many can be working on an expansion work without training new ones.

Second, I do think CDPR addressed a lot of their crunch culture problems. They've announced a bunch of stuff on social media and it would add up to why this DLC also took so long. Without accounting for crunch, deadlines would need to be pushed back and made more manageable. Thus DLC takes longer unless the cut back the scope of it.

Third, I would imagine execs and investors want to drop 2077. It's taken two years to get one DLC out and I'd imagine, even if it was a massive success, they want to move onto a new shiny sure-seller like Witcher 4.

And especially after so much evidence added up to a second massive DLC involving the moon... I feel so let down and disappointed. :/

Didn't CP Red say the expansion was a new story, and that's V's story was done? Cause that sounds a lot like "still V's story".

CDPR misrepresenting something about this game? That's new!

Yeah, it doesn't make much sense.

"Expansion is a new story" and "V's story is done" were separate statements. So... I think that's back on fandom misrepresenting what CDPR has said.

Which, it is a new story; it's completely voided from the rest of 2077's story and basically fills a plot cul-de-sac filler narrative and interacts with nothing else. V and Johnny are the only characters, far as I recall, that overlap between the DLC and the rest of the game's narrative. And Johnny has an EXTREMELY reduced role.

And I interpreted V's story being done to mean that V wouldn't be continuing to headline the sequels. It's kinda uncharitable to complain about that being contradicted in regard to DLC too... Like, it's a DLC. Of course V is in it and a lead. What, were they going to have the player create a new character for DLC? Very very few RP Gs have separate characters for their DL Cs and even fewer let you create a new RPG character.

The only one I can think of that does that is Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening and even then that only occurs if your Warden died at the end of the base game. And "The Orlesian Warden" is in dubious continuity at this point.

Speaking of Dragon Age, we have a full translation of the conference call from last week.

So, I'm guessing EP 2 is probably in a DA 2: Exalted March position; production is underway (as evidenced by datalines that mention EP 2 and q400) but in a stand-by position where production could be canned in favor of moving to a full sequel if DLC isn't particularly popular or a good source of revenue.

I mean I can get "V's story is done" because even if you believe the one ending where its hopeful V could survive and live out his/her/their life, I cant imagine them wanting to get involved in more bullshit after such a close call., and a sequel confirming her survival kills all the other endings.

If they really wanted to do it, they could probably continue a sequel with a majority of the endings remaining valid as either a replacement for Lifepaths or an additional choice beyond that.

In each one V would ultimately get pulled into the same event in the same place, but depending on the ending the context, V's motivation, and part of the cast would be different. Potentially certain endings to the sequel either require you to be operating from certain endings of 2077, or are much more difficult to unlock.

As for how you are still alive, we just need to get a little creative.

Following the Temperance and Devil (accept) endings would start off with V being downloaded into a new body. Whether by Alt for her own reasons or by Arasaka who ultimately keep their word.

The Star Ending would simply have the Nomads work out a cure as they planned, while the Sun Ending would have your fantastic wealth enable you find a cure while barely looking for it, and the Devil (reject) ending would have some of your friends at Arasaka work out a cure just in time. In all 3 cases the cure would be such an invasive procedure that it would more than justify going back to level 1 in terms of character level.

Only the suicide ending would be decanonized outright, and all the other choices could be carried forward via uploaded saves or not depending on how deep they want to go or if they are relevant.