It's been stated since 2019 that there are three lifepaths impacting dialogues and prologues. In 2018 there was a magazine quote that also mentioned additional unique questlines, but I haven't heard about those in more than two years. Doesn't claim to be anything more than background flavor. It's also been confirmed a long time that V is a semi-fixed character, not the sort of blank-slate that would have vastly different gameplay experiences based on character creation choices. See this for the flavor descriptions given earlier this year ... seems pretty accurate.
In the thread I linked (props to people putting that together btw) go to the part about LP's leading to non-linear quest design. Hit up the link there and read the quoted text (dev quote). It talks about non-linear quest design, how LP's tie into it, etc. If we take all of these statements and interpret them a certain way it does align with what is in the game.
As I've mentioned in other threads, at a certain point it becomes less about what they said. It's about whether the mechanic is good, feels like it had extensive work put into it and the way it improves the overall gameplay experience. In this case, or for LP's, I think it flopped. All that commentary about non-linear quests also flopped. Outside of very specific cases at very specific points in the game, and there aren't many of these, the LP mechanic simply doesn't matter. Choices and consequences fit the same bill.
I personally love the character creator. It gives a lot of options, and most of them look really good. We can definitely alter a lot of V's characteristics, but she's still always V, the Edgerunner mercenary outlaw going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality. We've known since 2018 that V is a customizable but somewhat fixed character for narrative purposes.
The options to adjust superficial appearance are there, sure. I wasn't being critical of those. As is the case with LP's you could definitely argue the... spirit of the character fits the description. Still, it's like they implied V as a character was going to play out differently then Geralt did for the player. I don't think it works out this way in the game. Customize V anyway you wish. Change physical appearance, progression, put them in a clown suit. It's still V. Customization rarely matters outside of physical appearance and the 40 different ways you can destroy things (these fears were brought up well before release on this very forum after people saw character progression... fears realized).
This is one of those areas where I have to toss my hands up and ask what the hell happened? Which is it? A fixed V for the cinematic narrative? A player defined V where it's up to the player and fits with "open world". It's as if they tried to deliver both, utterly failed to deliver the latter and we ended up with "square peg in round hole" situation. This same argument can be extended to other areas. Too much stuff was trying to be shoved together.
In the media we watch. In the sights and sounds of the city. In the random conversations we see (I actually think there are quite a lot of them over the course of the game). In some of the side quests (Heroes, Sinnerman, Delamaine, Kerry's questline). In the optional text and call conversations with NPCs. I don't think I ever saw CDPR claim this was going to be a life-sim style game (as much as I personally would have loved that). Nor do I remember them implying that might be the case. We knew things like eating, drinking, visiting bars and sleeping were optional and purely flavor role-play with at most minor gameplay rewards.
Oh, you can see this type of stuff. You can't engage with it in any way though. And I think people assume this complaint is insisting on a life-sim experience. It is not.
I recall earlier in one of my games stumbling on a pool table in a club/bar. I stopped for a second and was like, "Hmm, I wonder if I can play pool for money or something to interact with this world?". Nope, no pool.
I'd see NPC's talking about something I thought was interesting and wonder if I could gain anything from seeing the conversation until it's completion. Maybe even walk up and get interesting feedback from the NPC's. Nope... It's the same generic, "Get the fuck outta my face gonk.", dialogue response. Unless it's a cop, then they aggro on me and start shooting if you stand there too long....
I'd clear a bandit camp (organized crime I think), find a locked door, open it and see a handful of NPC's in there. I guess they were locked up? The game didn't really explain it. One of them was like, "Thanks"., for some reason. They then walked out of this... cage and sat by a fire. After that, nothing. No interaction at all. No, "Hey, we were locked up and you saved us, sit by the fire and take a swig of Oklahoma.".
Remember TW3? You'd clear an area sometimes and NPC's would appear, thank you for it, etc. You might get a new vendor. Yeah, this was all rather generic. Even so all of those NPC's seemed organic to the environment. It felt like the experience made sense. At least it was something. Find that in CP2077....
Consider the factions alone in this game. The corps and gangs. Yeah, these guys have lore behind them. You can find it all over the place in the game. But from the player perspective, at least on the gameplay side of things, they're just corps and gangs. Tyger Claws, Animals, Scavs, Maelstrom.... It's just another soulless zombie waiting to have it's neck snapped and shoved into a trash can.... The lone exception is if it's on the yellow brick quest road. Even then, the opportunities to pit these guys against each other, engage with them, pick a side, whatever is incredibly limited. Almost non-existent.
They didn't advertise this as a feature. Again, advertisement and what was said is less important compared to the end result. In fact, given how watered down much of the content is in CP2077 I often ask myself what the hell they put in this game. However many years and this is what they could come up with?
Police - I think the most I saw said about it was Miles Tost saying in (Dec 2018?) that the system was that police would come if you committed crimes, and basically your choices were fight until you eventually get overwhelmed, or run. I think that's basically how it works.
Would you say the police mechanics work well in this game? I ask because to me it's one of the worst implementations I've ever seen in this type of game (out of games I've played). When the player commits a "crime" the cops teleport in and flank them? Are you serious? From here you have the choice to sit there and shoot back at the cops for eternity or run away a bit and, nothing. Nobody remembers you or what you did.
Fist fights and car races are both decent-ish - But we were told about these two things back at E3 2019 when asks about side things V could do for fun other than questing. It was pretty much the whole list.
I'll let earlier comments on car races stand.
Fist fights.... I have a lot of mean things to say
. Decent-ish? Are we talking about the same fist fights? 3 second wind-up moron punches? Perfect blocks and still taking damage? Dodging, watching the NPC hit air and still taking damage? A handful of attack/dodge sequences the opponents appear to cycle through? The animations/physics here are simply not good (pretty sure something is off with the physics/collisions in general in fact, queue the "I believe I can fly" song when stepping on a pile of trash bags... assuming you don't flatline). The mechanics are more annoying than anything.
I actually drop my game to the easiest difficulty when doing fist fights. Know why? I don't want to be bothered spending anymore time on them then necessary. I'd go so far as to say TW3 fist fights were better. And those basically consisted of dodge/block -> counter -> rinse/repeat until it was over.
In closing, I'll reemphasize a point. If you want to say they gave us what they said if you interpret the statements in a very specific way, sure. I'll give ya that. I'm less concerned with this though. I'm more concerned with the quality. As things stand it's like someone saying they'll make dinner for the family. They then turn around and hand each member of the family an unpeeled orange. Here ya go, technically it qualifies as dinner. Get to peeling. And when you get done collect all them bottle caps....
Am I
really supposed to believe all of this falls on mismanaged time constraints? Unrealistic deadlines and paid slavery? Yeah, sure, they're going to "fix" all of this stuff and more on a whim. Roll out patches over 6 months to a year. The game will be a masterpiece. Ahem.... eh... horseshit.
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