The demo continues on, and it is obvious that the player can choose to play as a male or a female.
Next the character creator takes us to a screen where we can make decisions about the player character’s background. The first and last name’s display “missing data” but the Character’s alias is “V.” Given that the devs constantly refer to both male and female protagonists as “V,” I think it’s a safe bet that “V” is what all the NPCs in the game are going to refer to the player as. It also appears that V’s birthday is set, and that (s)he will be 22-23 years old.
There are choices in the demo as to background for the character. First is the option of who V’s childhood hero is, either (a) rockerboy Johnny Silverhand, (b) solo Morgan Blackhand, or (c) corporate god Saburo Arasaka. Then the player can choose a key life event, either (a) death of a sibling, (b) ran away from home, or (c) first big kill. Finally, the player can choose why they have come to Night City from either (a) unfinished business, (b) ex-lover in town or (c) something to prove. CDPR claims these choices involving the character’s gender and background “affects your experience within the world.” (1) Given that there are no more arrows over or down, I would speculate that these nine options are all of the various backgrounds one can chose … as on subsequent screens, it’s obvious there is an arrow which indicates more options are available. Your chosen backstory unlocks specific sidequests from the off. (48)
https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...reviews-thread.10970204/page-61#post-11136734
The next screen labeled “biometric scan” covers what I would refer to as the biological appearance of the character. The options at the top are face, hair, scars and other. While it is unclear what would fall within “other,” it is explicitly mentioned by the narrator that the player can choose the character’s “body type” … so that seems like at least part of it.
For now, we only get a look at the options for face. There are five facial presets, but seeing as there is an arrow to the right, it appears there are more that can be rotated through. Along with the presets there are options below to customize eyes, nose, mouth, jaws, ears and skin tone … with each option having 10 possible settings. There is also a selection for “color” (which I think means “eye color”) with at least 36 options. In total, that’s 96 possible variable selections just for facial details.
Now the screen rotates over to “appearance” which appears to be more of stylistic options rather than biological ones. The options at the top include style, clothes, makeup and piercings. We get a deeper look at style only here, which includes tattoo options (again the arrow to the right indicates there are more than five options), locations, colors and glow. Also, under style are cosmetic options such as eye mods, skin mods, surface wiring and bodily scars. There appear to be 83 total variables visible on this screen.
Finally we have the “biostats” page. The options are Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, Reflexes, Tech and Cool. All of these stats other than Tech and Cool seem fairly self-explanatory. Mike Pondsmith told IGN “Cool isn’t just the Cyberpunk version of the more traditional RPG stat Charisma. ‘You can have a tremendous amount of cool and have very little charisma,’ Pondsmith explained. Basically, there’s a difference between talking your way out of situations and just throwing off a vibe that commands respect.” Pondsmith also said he believes it will also influence dialogue options, but didn’t share specific details on that. He spoke about the idea that people who might otherwise draw weapons on you when you walk in the door would not want to mess with a particularly cool character. (4)
https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/14/e3-2018-cyberpunk-2077-has-a-cool-stat-heres-what-it-does
In the demo, the character has 25 stat points to spend. Interestingly, below the stat options are two choices, either “confirm” which starts the demo, or “edit additional details” which states “admin access required.” Whatever it is … it’s clear there are other options in the creator that were not shown off in the demo.
The narrator says “you’ll notice we didn’t pick a class. Cyberpunk 2077 features a fluid class system, and you’ll be able to modify your class throughout the game.” This class system has been discussed in a few different places.
Miles Tost told CEREALKILLERZ “So basically our idea is that, instead of having just one class the player will be able to choose a mixture of abilities that fall into archetypes. We’re designing levels so that the player can be either a strong solo, a fast solo, a netrunner or a techie. And we are designing abilities around these archetypes. But the player will be able to combine any of these to make their own class.” (5)
When asked about the character’s “skill tree” Phillip Weber told community member Kinley “The actual shape of skill progression is still something that is in full development, what we know is that there are the 3 directions that you can take. The Solo direction, the Netrunner direction and the Techie direction. Compared to the Witcher we have much more freedom on what these skills can do and how varied they can be, in Witcher 3 all the skills had to make sense to what Geralt, a witcher, can do. Having this freedom also means that now we can solve quests in many more different ways.” (6)
https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...om-2018-edition.10979804/page-2#post-11096951
CDPR’s Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter Account summarized the stats and skills progression systems this way: “We have Attributes like STR, REF etc. which can be raised by leveling up and installing body cyberware; Skills, raised by successfully performing actions (Hacking, Crafting, Short Guns, Long Guns etc.); [&] Perks unlocked with both Street Cred and XP.” (7)
Maciej Pietra told fandom “There will be many different abilities and because of the fluid class system, you can mix and match them. So, if you want to spend a few points in [the hacker style] Netrunning skill tree, or some as a techy, this is a good choice. This will help you if say, you want enemy turrets to be standing still when you run into the enemy [base]. Or you can spend some points in the solo playstyle if you want access to a particular weapon, etc, so obviously, you’ll be able to mix and match those and create your own unique playstyle.” (2)