I don't know if this was intentional and they tried to make something new and brilliant, let us call it "next gen", and lost it on their way. Or if somebody was overwhelmed by the task bringing the threads together again and made bad decisions.
They got caught up in ambition, poor management, and over marketing. That is one avenue I will never defend. Call it out for over-promising.
GTA and RDR2 are "true" Action Adventures with linear storylines wide like an avenue. Everyone knew what he/she would get. If there wouldn't be a difference between Action Adventure/RPG there wouldn't be so many people "not satisfied" with the path Ubisoft went with AC in the last years.
CP2077 is everything and nothing. This is the reason why it can't compete with <insert the best of> Action Adventures, Action RPGs, Shooters, Looter Shooters, bla.
That "true" label doesn't matter when genre walls are so thin in this day and age. So the comparisons are still shallow. And the further proves my point of their difference. We have action-adventure games that have RPG elements and RPGs that are action-oriented. Batman Arkham, Ghost of Tsushima even AC Unity are labeled as Action-adventure yet they offer more approaches to missions than GTA and has light progression systems that are more akin to RPGs. Games dabble in other genres depending on what it's about.
CP2077 is narrative-based 1st and foremost. Approaching combat/exploration like Shadow Warrior, Doom, Dying Light, or Watch Dogs are viable options because that where the non-linearity and player emergence extends to. But at the end of the day, the combat options are nothing more than just player emergent options so they are "lite" versions of those influences rather than focusing in one avenue like how GTA focuses on a refined crime system because it doesn't offer that black box mission design Deus Ex has. Because that's not what GTAv is about while CP2077 is.
And before you say that the narrative is "bad". That still depends on an individual's subjective opinion. There are people who are overly critical of the story, some straight-up voice their disdain and disappointment but there is also a massive chunk of people who genuinely enjoys the writing and the characters for all it's worth and spent hundreds of hours with it already. Saying it's less non-linear than TW3 also doesn't mean it's entirely non-linear. Because compared to GTA which this thread is about, it definitely is.
Who was head of studio/game director when they made Witcher 3? I couldn't find something.
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz was the game director of TW3 if i recall. Did a stellar job. But that's also because they learned and improved after the 2 previous entries. CP2077 is still their very 1st rodeo with the IP. It's only obvious that there will be rough corners like every 1st entry of this scale. However, it's also pretty severe because of the management and current director's fuck up and they deserve criticism for it.
Well let's take your comparisons - in Fallout 4 I might spend just as much time building. In Skyrim I might spend a fair bit of time thieving or crafting and resource gathering.
You're putting your own comparisons in my mouth. I never compared this with FO4 or Skyrim. Those games have entirely different systems.
I only ever compared this to Deus Ex as I consider it to be Deus Ex-lite with cars and a heavy focus on dialogue. Still pretty far from GTA in terms of game direction. Like I said, the only 2 things that are familiar and not even remotely similar in design and function are the drivable cars and the metropolis setting