E3 2019 & post-E3 2019 - Media News & Previews

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I expected at least one or two mechanics-related questions.

I didn’t; not so surprisingly perhaps.

Kinley delivered previously, so that’s the bag I’m putting ny eggs on time around too. I didn’t like some of the responses (some too vague, needing followup questions and some were just : ”But... Why??”), but that’s not his fault and at least the topics were somewhat in my interest zone.
 
Um ... no?

48 minute demo + 15 minute demo is already more than an hour of gameplay. Even if the game ends up being 100 hours long, that's already 1% of the game shown. Let's leave something to actually play. As long as I see some skill tree stuff and netrunning stuff, I'll be happy.
Ehh. I still maintain they haven't gone into detail on so many things, namely game mechanics. If this is all we get till release it's a concern imo.
 
Ehh. I still maintain they haven't gone into detail on so many things, namely game mechanics. If this is all we get till release it's a concern imo.
There is still the better part of a year left before release. The should not have gone for an almost two-year long marketing campaign, but that ship sailed at last year's E3.
 
There is still the better part of a year left before release. The should not have gone for an almost two-year long marketing campaign, but that ship sailed at last year's E3.

Perhaps, but from my limited perspective it seems that by now they can almost relax (don't take this too literal) till release. Due to high demand for the game and their track record I doubt serious issues will arise from this "MO".

Like, as if people won't get the game upon release day now because they (subjectively according to some) didn't promote more in hindsight? Just my take on this.
 
https://www.gamesradar.com/cyberpunk-2077-map-size/ Map might be a "little bit" smaller in square kilometers than the zones of TW3 together, but obviously includes more vertical space.

For those who don't recall, the size of the maps together in TW3 was around 140 km squared before expansions, and including smaller zones like White Orchard and Kaer Morhen.

Also, in The sheer scale of Night City a few of us took a stab at guessing the size of the the Metro Map of Night City, assuming (1) that the map was to scale and (2) that the distances and speeds in the 2018 demo were accurate. We came out with a guess of roughly 64 km squared (roughly the size of Novigrad + Velen in TW3). Since the guess is based only on the Metro Map, it of course wouldn't include the badlands outside the city.
 
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https://www.gamesradar.com/cyberpunk-2077-map-size/ Map is a "little bit" smaller in square kilometers than the zones of TW3 together, but obviously includes more vertical space.

For those who don't recall, the size of the maps together in TW3 was around 140 km squared before expansions, and including smaller zones like White Orchard and Kaer Morhen.

Also, in The sheer scale of Night City a few of us took a stab at guessing the size of the the Metro Map of Night City, assuming (1) that the map was to scale and (2) that the distances and speeds in the 2018 demo were accurate. We came out with a guess of roughly 64 km squared (roughly the size of Novigrad + Velen in TW3). Since the guess is based only on the Metro Map, it of course wouldn't include the badlands outside the city.
Good to hear.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: cities are BIG. People who keep saying "yeah but its ok if its the size of Novigrad because its verticaaaaaallllllllll!" always confused me a bit. First, what does "vertical" even mean? You can't take an elevator up to the top of every building, you can't even enter every building.

Also, sure, the city itself will likely be smaller than the entire map of TW3... that's inevitable. It's a city, whereas TW3 contained a lot of countryside. But modern (much less futuristic) cities are still big. It can take you an hour to drive from one side to the other, due to traffic, highway planning, and sheer scale. I know because I live in one, and the city I live in is still relatively young; it's nowhere near as big as some older places.

I'm glad to hear we'll still have a decent amount of horizontal space to trek around. Of course, map size is not my core concern.
 
I estimate that the map’s size might be similar to Velen’s. I’d appreciate an even bigger map, especially taking the Badlands into consideration but, in my opinion, for now I don’t believe it’s going to be significantly bigger than Velen.
 
To whom it might concern: I personally would not solely look at "map size" in the classic way. Medieval or futuristic, X % of a map are always inaccessible, you have natural boundaries or man-made structures like buildings you cannot enter, etc.

I could argue that for example Star Citizen playable builds right now have the biggest maps one can think of, but does all the empty space in between POIs (points of interest) really count or offer anything meaningful?

Now I read that the map here in CP77 is "perhaps a bit smaller" than the one from The Witcher 3. Sadly never played it, but with the prior in mind I think that perhaps this might even be better as you have a lot of "vertical content".

So, perhaps, in a way, given all the additional interiors and exteriors - filling the level up and downwards, too -, the map might be bigger content-wise, if not regarding area covered on paper. In the end, we'll have to see, but I think I prefer a more filled than a more bigger map.
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I forgot to add to my post (feel free to click on the quote for my personal GC demo impressions if you haven't seen them and would like to) that your background plays in nicely into some conversations.

Also make no mistake and assume just because you are a street kid, nomad or corpo, that you are area or people restricted on average or by default. I cannot remember who V spoke to or in what context (Placide or a goon of that gang) when the corpo option popped up but it wasn't a corpo as I recall. And you are in Pacifica.

Basically to me this means you obviously don't have to be in your average background related district nor does the person you speak to necessarily need to have that background themselves which might be trivial for some, but for me it is interesting.
The corpo dialogue option that was not picked didn't require the other person to be a corpo in that context because it was relating to V using his corpo background to assume or explain something.

TL, DR: Your background can in theory factor in anywhere, not just with your "kind".

Seems realistic to me and is a bonus point opposed to setting it up in a more stiff way where you only get something out of it if you are speaking to a person with the same background.
 
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https://metro.co.uk/2019/08/23/cybe...-paint-picture-let-player-interpret-10618408/

A really good interview. Even though I don't find it necessary for all the devs to know so much about aspects of the game they're not directly involved with, I appreciate those who do, like the interviewee, Marthe Jonkers.

My favorite bit:

GC: Since cyberpunk is an established concept there are some obvious sources you must have looked at for inspiration but thinking about it I’ve never seen anything that seems particularly Blade Runner-ery.

MJ: [clearly delighted] No, that’s good! I’m happy you said that! [laughs]

GC: So there’s not some other district that’s more inspired by the film?

MJ: No!

GC: The one thing I did think of with Pacifica though was Judge Dredd’s Mega-City One. The comics more than the films, which couldn’t really afford to do it properly. Is that just coincidence because you’re dealing with similar subjects or were you actively looking at other cyberpunk style media?

MJ: Of course, we’ve seen, like, every cyberpunk movie that’s out there.

GC: But there’s not really that many are there?

MJ: There are actually many that have some elements… cyberpunk is about technology and humanity and corporations and there are a lot of stories around that. So we’ve seen lots and we know what’s out there but it was our role to create something unique, because we want you to look at a screenshot and instantly say, ‘Oh, that’s Cyberpunk 2077!’ If you say, ‘Is that Blade Runner?’ then we didn’t do our job. Because we wanted to create something new.

So what we did, is we actually took the timeline between 2020 and 2077 and we really defined what happens in-between and that actually inspired the visual styles of a lot of areas in Night City, in Cyberpunk. And I don’t know if you’ve seen the posters that hang outside? They actually represent the four visual styles that we have in the game. And they are connected to the timeline.

And I’ll give you an example. The first style, we call entropism. This style is the oldest style, it originated in a time when people were really poor and things weren’t going really well. So the design aesthetic from that period is very practical. So the things are very cheaply made. They’re practical, not much decoration and colouring is very subdued. And it really defines that period.

After that things happened and people got more happy. You get the kitsch style and it’s much more colourful and you have rounded corners everywhere. And we use these styles connected to the period they are, and then the events of Cyberpunk that they’re connected to, to build up the city. And for us it’s really important that Night City and the world of Cyberpunk feels like a very realistic place and cities are layered, you know? There’s not just one style.

So we really try to make this history of the visual style, not just for the story, not just for the lore, but also for the architecture and the vehicle design. So when you walk around Night City and you see a car driving around and it’s made of really cheap materials you know it’s a really old car. It’s probably from people who are poor. It’s from that era of time. But if you see a building that’s really pink with rounded corners you know that’s kitsch, so that was built at that period of time.
 
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https://metro.co.uk/2019/08/23/cybe...-paint-picture-let-player-interpret-10618408/

A really good interview. Even though I don't find it necessary for all the devs to know so much about aspects of the game they're not directly involved with, I appreciate those who do, like the interviewee, Marthe Jonkers.

My favorite bit:
Well, several other devs have already said there will be blade runner vibes, so which is it? I dunno.

Side note, that interviewer was quite competent and I appreciate that. They tried several times to get him to elaborate on how or if the player will be impacted by dwindling humanity (NOT necessarily cyberpsychosis, as we know that won't be available for the player), but it was dodged multiple times, and the interviewer eventually gave up.
 
Side note, that interviewer was quite competent and I appreciate that. They tried several times to get him to elaborate on how or if the player will be impacted by dwindling humanity (NOT necessarily cyberpsychosis, as we know that won't be available for the player), but it was dodged multiple times, and the interviewer eventually gave up.
So far metro has made the best interviews, asking some of the real questions other journalists refuse to make.

Great that he asked, now it's quite obvious at this point that humanity won't affect the player in any way since they also removed the humanity cost from cyberware.

P.S. the article spoiled what happens in the demo, the game is completely ruined for me now. /s
 
Well, several other devs have already said there will be blade runner vibes, so which is it? I dunno.

Aside from replicants, BD is relatively low tech compared to Cyberpunk. I’m suspecting the BD vibes that get unseen but that are still implied to be there, have more to do with themes rather than what’s on the screen.
 
So far metro has made the best interviews, asking some of the real questions other journalists refuse to make.

Great that he asked, now it's quite obvious at this point that humanity won't affect the player in any way since they also removed the humanity cost from cyberware.

P.S. the article spoiled what happens in the demo, the game is completely ruined for me now. /s
Yeah, I was still holding out hope that there'd be some impact, however minor, but this seems about as clear as it will get.
 
Podcast interview with Pawel Sasko. Starts by going through his history at CDPR, quest design, feel of cyberpunk and noir inspirations. More bits to follow:

Essential NPCs work similarly to how they work in TW3. Characters become essential depending on choices within the story-line. So essential NPCs can become unessential and killable. He used Kiera Metz as an example from TW3 as to how it works.

Techie build is focused on using the Flathead. We can command it and ask it to perform actions for the player. Takedowns, take over devices, dismantle objects and collect parts. The parts collected can be used in crafting. Crafting is not blocked behind Techie build, but access to obtaining parts for crafting is done via different methods. You can use parts to create or upgrade weapons. Flathead is AI controlled, but you issue commands to it.

Other companions do there own thing for the most part, but can be commanded in specific story moments. Companions do have there own builds for how they approach situations.

In conversations, some options are dependent on skills the character has, choices, and lifepaths. So the path a conversation can take is varied based on the build and story of the player. There are times where you can advance the conversation quickly and go through story fast, or you can dig into story a lot and really in depth.

There will definitely be slower paced missions and missions with the noir / hard boiled detective style story. They're are some quest that are built around investigations.

The Kiroshi Optics scanner can work in a functionally similar way to Witcher Senses, where key details can become known to the player that are not apparent to the unenhanced naked eye.

Loot is connected in the game with the story. If you are going through All Foods factory inhabited by Millitech armed Maelstrom, you are able to find artificial meat, Mealstrom gear and Millitech gear there. There is not random loot in places, loot is connected to the place. Also, you can learn something about areas from the gear that is there, especially if you inspect the gear. Also you can get gear as quest rewards. Some quests are even built around trying to get specific items of gear.

Making quests is much more difficult with fluid class system. You have to design levels and quests around the ways that various builds would logically want to approach a situation.

Pawel said he was confident Cyberpunk will release on time. He also mentioned that he was confident TW3 would release in 2014. So being confident does not mean he wont be wrong.

Quests are being QAed and polished currently to check and make sure logical character choices are available to the player. Pawel said that this game should have much more complexity and freedom than TW3 had as far as story and quests are concerned.

Time of day or night can effect encounters player experiences in certain areas. There are certain ways to approach missions that are supposed to be done at certain times. Weather system is based on TW3 system, but with Cyberpunk lens on it. Trying to get variety so that player can see both the sunny California days and rainy cyberpunk inspired nights. Some story beats will have scripted weather events associated with them.

Only have one apartment is again confirmed. At some level, V is always a edgerunner so she will always be connected to the street, but she can become more wealthy in the game depending on choices, quests as well as connections with various NPCs/groups.

Verticality of world greatly impacts level design and quests. Also it is tightly connected to player builds. In multi-story buildings, you can sometimes try and go up to the next level in a building to reach your objective. Some locations however are mostly horizontal. However, you cannot climb buildings using Mantis Blades. You can hang on buildings with them, but not climb them.

You will have to play the game at least a few times to experience all the builds & lifepaths. However, choices and consequences can make it much more complex than that.

Enemies have large amounts of abilities whose archetype are largely based on cyberware. Most enemies are specialized in some way. But just about everything V can do is able to be done by at least some NPCs.

CDPR absolutely wants to include modding later on their roadmap for the game. Game would be a great Sandbox for modders to play with. However, creating modding tools in the Engine is not simple, and they are focused on making the game first. So they can't promise anything, but it is planned.

Different cars and motorcycle have different stats as far as speed and handling. Different vehicles feel different when you drive them. There are some limitations for fast vehicles to make sure they dont outrun how quickly the game world can load in on screens. They want to make sure driving the fastest vehicle at top speed works on minimum spec supported systems.

Braindancing is a very important part of the lore, and is important to some quests of the game and the main storyline. They want to make it interesting, but he can't say more than that.

Pawel wants to make players think of the game as art. He said that personally he doesn't care about sales, he wants to make the best possible things. He wants people to talk about the game, fight about it, be mad a devs over NPCs who die, overjoyed with who they can make love to. He wants players to experience strong human emotions. Wants players to learn and see how amazing life can be. Wants players to have perspectives challenged based on the stories and themes that are being presented in the game. He wants people to see that he feels strongly about the quality of the work.

Different locations have there own musical beats that are associated with them, though he explicitly says he cannot say each district has it's own specific theme.

There are lots of factions in the game. Corporations and booster gangs are the two most prevalent types of factions.

There are a "fair deal" but not "massive amount of" underground portions of the map. Sometimes connected to subways, sometimes distinct unique places.

There are consequences to doing things in front of the authorirites of an area. Corporate guards, booster gangs and police will not like actions that are adverse to their power. Night city is a "balkanized" place, where different areas have different powers that be. There are also totally lawless areas like the badlands, where there are very few authorities at all.

Chatting and killing are definitely mapped to different buttons on controller.

Pawel said that he doesn't know how big the game is in square meters, but that it is definitely massive.

Keep in mind I am paraphrasing all of these answers. So apologies if I misheard or got something wrong.
 
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Podcast interview with Pawel Sasko. Starts by going through his history at CDPR, quest design, feel of cyberpunk and noir inspirations. More bits to follow:

Essential NPCs work similarly to how they work in TW3. Characters become essential depending on choices within the story-line. So essential NPCs can become unessential and killable. He used Kiera Metz as an example from TW3 as to how it works.

Techie build is focused on using the Flathead. We can command it and ask it to perform actions for the player. Takedowns, take over devices, dismantle objects and collect parts. The parts collected can be used in crafting. Crafting is not blocked behind Techie build, but access to obtaining parts for crafting is done via different methods. You can use parts to create or upgrade weapons. Flathead is AI controlled, but you issue commands to it.

Other companions do there own thing for the most part, but can be commanded in specific story moments. Companions do have there own builds for how they approach situations.

In conversations, some options are dependent on skills the character has, choices, and lifepaths. So the path a conversation can take is varied based on the build and story of the player. There are times where you can advance the conversation quickly and go through story fast, or you can dig into story a lot and really in depth.

There will definitely be slower paced missions and missions with the noir / hard boiled detective style story. They're are some quest that are built around investigations.

The Kiroshi Optics scanner can work in a functionally similar way to Witcher Senses, where key details can become known to the player that are not apparent to the unenhanced naked eye.

Loot is connected in the game with the story. If you are going through All Foods factory inhabited by Millitech armed Maelstrom, you are able to find artificial meat, Mealstrom gear and Millitech gear there. There is not random loot in places, loot is connected to the place. Also, you can learn something about areas from the gear that is there, especially if you inspect the gear. Also you can get gear as quest rewards. Some quests are even built around trying to get specific items of gear.

Making quests is much more difficult with fluid class system. You have to design levels and quests around the ways that various builds would logically want to approach a situation.

Pawel said he was confident Cyberpunk will release on time. He also mentioned that he was confident TW3 would release in 2014. So being confident does not mean he wont be wrong.

Quests are being QAed and polished currently to check and make sure logical character choices are available to the player. Pawel said that this game should have much more complexity and freedom than TW3 had as far as story and quests are concerned.

Time of day or night can effect encounters player experiences in certain areas. There are certain ways to approach missions that are supposed to be done at certain times. Weather system is based on TW3 system, but with Cyberpunk lens on it. Trying to get variety so that player can see both the sunny California days and rainy cyberpunk inspired nights. Some story beats will have scripted weather events associated with them.

Only have one apartment is again confirmed. At some level, V is always a edgerunner so she will always be connected to the street, but she can become more wealthy in the game depending on choices, quests as well as connections with various NPCs/groups.

Verticality of world greatly impacts level design and quests. Also it is tightly connected to player builds. In multi-story buildings, you can sometimes try and go up to the next level in a building to reach your objective. Some locations however are mostly horizontal. However, you cannot climb buildings using Mantis Blades. You can hang on buildings with them, but not climb them.

You will have to play the game at least a few times to experience all the builds & lifepaths. However, choices and consequences can make it much more complex than that.

Enemies have large amounts of abilities whose archetype are largely based on cyberware. Most enemies are specialized in some way. But just about everything V can do is able to be done by at least some NPCs.

CDPR absolutely wants to include modding later on their roadmap for the game. Game is a great Sandbox for players to use, however, creating modding tools in the Engine is not simple, and they are focused on making the game first. So they can't promise anything, but it is planned.

Different cars and motorcycle have different stats as far as speed, handling, durability. Different vehicles feel different when you drive them. There are some limitations for fast vehicles to make sure they dont outrun how quickly the game world can load in on screens. They want to make sure driving the fastest vehicle at top speed works on minimum spec supported systems.

Braindancing is a very important part of the lore, and is important to some quests of the game and the main storyline. They want to make it interesting, but he can't say more than that.

Pawel wants to make players to think of the game as art. He said that personally he doesn't care about sales, he wants to make the best possible things. He wants people to talk about the game, fight about it, be mad a devs over NPCs who die, overjoyed with who they can make love to. He wants players to experience strong human like emotions. Wants players to learn and see how amazing life can be. Wants players to have perspectives challenged based on the stories and themes that are being presented in the game. He wants people to see that they feel strongly about the quality of the work.

Different locations have there own musical beats that are associated with them, though he explicitly says he cannot say each district has it's own specific theme.

There are lots of factions in the game. Corporations and booster gangs are the two most prevalent types of factions.

There are a "fair deal" but not "massive amount of" underground portions of the map. Sometimes connected to subways, sometimes distinct unique places.

There are consequences to doing things in front of the authorirites of an area. Corporate guards, booster gangs and police will not like actions that are adverse to their power. Night city is a "balkanized" place, where different areas have different powers that be. There are also totally lawless areas like the badlands, where there are very few authorities at all.

Chatting and killing are definitely mapped to different buttons on controller.

Pawel said that he doesn't know how big the game is in square meters, but that it is definitely massive.

Keep in mind I am paraphrasing all of these answers. So apologies if I misheard or got something wrong.
That modding thing is fantastic news. I always understood that it wasn't a #1 priority, but hearing that it's planned is really encouraging. I hope they manage to stick to that. I of course understand that making good tools (And not mediocre ones) is not easy, and I'm willing to wait.

Basically, lots of great info here, thanks, Rawls.
 
https://www.vg247.com/2019/08/27/cyberpunk-2077-night-city-map-design/

If you had to describe cyberpunk visual style, what would you say?

It’s easy to gravitate toward streets of neon signs reflected in rain-slick concrete, and people in tight layers of cropped, boxy techwear with ubiquitous cybernetic enhancements geometrically scored into their skin.

In some cyberpunk fiction – outside of minor differences to try and convey the themes of corporate dominance and social inequality – these ideas are often liberally applied to everyone and everything in the world, creating a homogenous setting that’s dominated by one style, like it was all thrown up at once.

More successful examples though, try to reflect the organic growth of their cyberpunk societies by coding its backstory into the fashion and architecture of its citizens. It’s this approach that CD Projekt Red is taking with Cyberpunk 2077.

“They’re roughly similar [in size],” Marthe Jonkers, senior concept artist at CD Projekt Red, says about the six districts of Night City, “but really different in style so you’ll always recognise where you are the game. For instance in The Witcher you had these different areas, like Skellige was really Scandinavia, and we wanted to do the same thing here because the city would get boring very quickly if you only had the same sort of buildings.

“Every district has its own personality. Because we have this immense amount of lore and background from Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk 2020 – and he’s this walking encyclopedia of information about the Cyberpunk lore – we could really use that to create these districts as a base.”

The visual identity of Cyberpunk 2077 is made up of four distinct eras: Entropism, Kitsch, Neo-Militarism, and Neo-Kitsch. Although they appeared in that chronological order, certain districts and social groups in Night City adopt aspects from each as signifiers of wealth, or out of necessity.

“They are really the backbone of the visual design of the city,” Jonkers explains. “Because real cities also have many different layers of architectural styles, many different vehicles from different ages riding around, fashion – not everyone’s wearing the same. We wanted to have that as well in Night City, so we created this timeline that connected the styles together.”

Entropism
The first of the design eras, Entropism, is typified by “necessity over style”, and draws its roots from a period of austerity following a global financial crash earlier in the Cyberpunk lore.

In 1994 clandestine currency manipulation and stock market fraud in the United States rocked confidence enough to cause a worldwide recession. The resulting economic hardship ushered in a time of ultra-utilitarian design where nothing could be wasted.

Buildings in the style of Entropism are old, grey, and decrepit, and appear in areas where people can’t afford to modernise.

“It was a time when people were very poor, it was a very tough time,” Jonkers says. “So their design was very practical, it wasn’t about looking great, it wasn’t about decoration, it was about pure practicality, using cheap materials, things are very cornered, and a colour palette that’s really subdued.”

Kitsch
As society began to recover after the stock market crash, people looked for a way to brighten up the grey world they’d become accustomed to.

Kitsch was a popular counter-cultural movement against the austerity of Entropism, an expression of happiness and recovery in a period of relative excess typified by bold colours, bright plastic, and accessibility. If you’re seeing more rounded shapes, and colours like yellow and turquoise, then you’re looking at Kitsch.

Neo-Militarism
This period of free expression wasn’t to last however, as power-hungry corporations swung in to take advantage of weak and corrupt governments to seize control for profit.

“In the city centre, which is very corporate, you’ll mostly see neo-militarism,” Jonkers explains. “This is a time when the corporations were very powerful so it impacts the style of the people.”

Neo-Militarism is separated from the austerity of Entropism by its sleek and domineering aesthetic. It’s power dressing for the already powerful, and has an air of practical luxury. Unsurprisingly, this pillar also includes the various organised militias of Night City, who wield their imposing appearance as a weapon of intimidation.

Neo-Kitsch
Finally, the most recent, and one of the most interesting, design eras is Neo-Kitsch.

Where the original Kitsch era was marked by its accessibility, Neo-Kitsch is the opposite. This is the look of the ultra-rich appropriating the surface-level aesthetic of Kitsch without acknowledging its cultural motivation, warping it into a statement of abject wealth.

While it has a similar colour palette to the earlier era, Neo-Kitsch incorporates natural fabrics into its clothing and things like wood and marble into its architecture.

“In Neo-Kitsch they use these natural materials because that’s the most expensive stuff you’ll find in Night City,” Jonkers says. “If you see someone walking around with animal print that has to be Neo-Kitsch. It’s the most recent style that most rich people are wearing because animals are really rare in Night City, most are extinct.

“If you have an animal skin it’s almost unaffordable, we tried to connect the timeline with the wealth of people, the type of people, and create these four styles and mix them in the city. With that we designed all the districts as well, the richer districts will have more of the recent styles, the poor ones more of the older styles.”

Different Districts, Different History, Different Styles
All four of these styles appear to varying degrees around Night City, but that doesn’t mean that every area is bound to be a perfect representation of one or the other.

Each of the six districts have been shaped by their history, the people that live there, and their culture.

Pacifica, the southernmost district in Night City, is run by the Voodoo Boys.

“We know that Pacifica, for instance, was supposed to be a resort area where they built all these hotels, there’s this mall, and there’s this ferris wheel,” Jonkers says. “But then the corporations that were spending money on it hit an economic crisis and they withdrew all the money and left it.

“Then the Haitian community came and thought, ‘you can still live here and it’s good that the corporations got out because we can make something nice here’. So they went to live there, and you have this story and background that’s suddenly very unique.

“We have this for every district,” explains Jonkers. “Watson is another district that we showed in the first demo. Watson was at one point in history heavily damaged by an earthquake, so after that they rebuilt, but on top of each other. So what you now have is a very crowded district with towers and narrow alleyways and streets – a completely different atmosphere, but there’s this story behind it.”

Each of the cultural groups in Night City layer their own identities on top of the underlying design eras, creating unique spaces for each faction to inhabit. In the Gamescom demo of Cyberpunk 2077, you can see this in the Voodoo Boys’ occupation of Pacifica.

“They have their own visual language, and you can recognise that,” Jonkers explains. “If you saw the demo again maybe you’d notice how they decorate the area around them, the symbolism they use, the graffiti they use, it’s very specific to them. We gave almost everyone their own visual language. That works really well because the architecture might be entropism, but then you see this layer of decoration that marks it as Voodoo Boys hideout.”

Street Samurai
The main exception to all of this is V.

Separate from the gangs and corporations, your customised player-character is an outlier with nothing that overtly ties them to another group.

“Well you’re a Cyberpunk, that’s for sure,” Jonkers says. “So you are an outsider in the sense that in the game you might engage in relationships with people or work with some gangs but you will never be affiliated to anything.”

While you can align yourself more closely to certain organisations through backstory choices and role play, the player has their own distinct visual language. This leaves V as a blank slate for you to shape, and sets them apart from everyone else in the game’s personally-motivated story.

“We really wanted you to be free”, Jonkers explains. “Because as a cyberpunk you’d never ever be part of a group, you’re really your own. I also think that in Cyberpunk we want to tell a really personal story. We noticed in the Witcher as well that it resonates with people when they experience a personal story.

“For us it’s most important that you have themes like trust, or betrayal, or friendship and have this very personal story with the character you created, it’s not about saving the world, but more about saving yourself. That’s the approach that we want to take with this game.”

Cyberpunk 2077 is due out on April 20, 2020 on PC, Xbox One and PS4. There are rumours that it might be a cross generation game that also lands on next-gen hardware.

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