A Predefined Protagonist & Character Creation Don't Work Together in Cyberpunk 2077

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DISCLAIMER: This is all my opinion even though much of it may come across factual. I'm merely explaining from my point of view as to why I believe I'm right. This is also a continuation of an old post about why character creation served no purpose other than being a visual self-insert fanfic, so take it with a grain of salt.

Before I continue, I'll quickly go over the two different genres of RPGs:

Traditional RPGs have the blankest of slate protagonist that is completely silent and, generally, their appearance, gender, or race can be altered so the player can project their own vision of their character. The strengths to this type of system is complete ownership and player expression, because the player can act anyway they want and the world will respond to the player's actions, but the shortcomings is the player's character serves a minimal or no role in character relationships and is generally pushed into the background with poor facial animations while the real characters tell the story.

Non-Traditional RPGs have a predefined protagonist with core character traits, tailored appearance, and fully voiced. The strengths to this system is the protagonist has a defined role in the story and has their own subjective relationships with characters which allows the story to discover more in-depth relationships and the choices have more weight as they directly effect the protagonist, but the shortcomings of this system is the player's choices are limited to the protagonist's own moral dilemma and ambiguity.

When you combine these you run into issues. Cyberpunk went with this system.

V is a voiced, predefined protagonist that can have an edited gender, appearance, and background. The first issue is V is predefined, so you already run into issues. There's no ownership over your character, because regardless of the player's changes, they're still playing as V from the trailers and demos. I know people will start drawing comparisons to Mass Effect, Saints Row, and other games that may or may not be that similar to Cyberpunk's style of protagonists, but those games have many of the same issues.

Cmdr. Shepard, Mass Effect, and Hawke, Dragon Age 2, are still the protagonists of their games, not the player's made up character, so similar to V, their stories are their own, not the player's. The player can murder as many people as they want, but V still acts like nothing happened, because the game is designed around V acting a certain way. This extends to appearance as well.

V can look like fingers and characters won't react any differently. It's an illusion when characters react the exact same way regardless of V's appearance, because the game was designed around the canonized appearance so the world of Cyberpunk only sees V as the canonized appearance while the player sees a simulated illusion to hide the real character, and it's pretty obvious when V is lower resolution and deformed when placed next to the more realistic characters. Appearance may seem like a little thing, but to me it matters, because they market a character, but the player can change them to something completely different. The player is given the illusion they made their own character, but they didn't. This harms a player's experience, because the game is trying to get the audience to care about the protagonist, but when you can change them into your own vision, player's won't grow an emotional attachment to a character they think is theirs. It's especially evident since the industry only recognizes V as his canon appearance.

This final argument may seem like a strange one, but gender options are an issue too. Similar to Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and many other games, the opposite gender is just a gender bend of the same protagonist. Games like AC: Odyssey actually tried to do something different with its different gender options. The options were separate characters in the same story, but at different points. The only issue was that Cassandra and Alexios act exactly the same, but newsflash: men and women do have different personality traits regardless if they act similarly. Both Male and Female V can have their own unique traits that gives them advantages with their gender. Cyberpunk could've done something interesting as Male V and Female V could've been twin siblings. On top of that, the lifepaths could've created a much bigger extension to the characters, because I thought the lifepaths were just going to be What If? scenarios for the same characters. Wolverine, my favorite comic book character, has multiple versions of the same character: Old Man Logan, Hydra Wolverine, and many more with their own backgrounds and personalities with slight appearance changes.

This is why games like Fallout (New Vegas) and The Witcher games excel at their RPG systems. Fallout focuses more on in-depth character building and the Courier has such a vague past which allows the player to project themselves into the character and create their own backstory for the character. The Witcher is more focused on telling Geralt's story. While being preestablished, Geralt still fits in perfectly to an RPG setting, because of his morally ambiguous personality has many different interpretations. Even Red Dead Redemption 2, a sandbox game, handles its protagonist, Arthur Morgan, like Geralt perfectly in a non-RPG game. Making protagonists like Geralt of Rivia and Arthur Morgan will cause players to grow an emotional attachment to these characters. That's a pretty rare achievement in a game where the player controls the protagonist's actions in the story.

These were all issues I saw coming from a mile away before the game released. I saw these issues at the 2018 E3 demo. I'm still surprised many were hyping character creation like it was going to be a Fallout lovers dream. I do think character creation does have a place in the multiplayer mode since RPGs were traditionally always a social experience.
 
For something who don't work (at your opinion), the character creator have a pretty good success for many players in any case :)
(and it was few month ago...)
And my opinion didn't change since the last similar thread, if you want the base V, don't change him/her and keep the base V... As easy as that ;)

 
Seems more like a re-post than a continuation...

On that note, a pre-emptive reminder: please make sure to leave out all personal skirmishing and such.
 
The source of your dissonance remains obscured to me. Why, for example, would a bald V experience a substantially different story than a hirsute one? Why would a dark-skinned V not fit into the pre-defined story ... CP2077 appears to be absent that kind of racism entirely. And it's not like the pre-defined story could only support one skin tone, or one eye color for that matter! Nobody in the game refers to V's 'deep blue eyes' or says things such as 'I like your tattoos' that wouldn't be appropriate for all appearances. I am not sure how the story and experience of V could possibly change based on skin tone, or any character generator trait. Would Delamain not request help from people with purple hair?

newsflash: men and women do have different personality traits regardless if they act similarly
Strongly defined and restrictive gender traits do not exist in CP2077 and even in 2021 are considered an archaic idea, in progressive societies anyway. For the rare occasions where gender is relevant, the CP2077 world does react differently according to your gender, in that there are straight, gay and bisexual love interests and one playthrough cannot have them all.

I'm unconvinced that appearance and character are inextricably linked in 2077. We choose our own desired appearance of the protagonist character, but the character is always V (or, for the subtle differences, always either male V or female V). It's always V's story and the story works and makes sense, for all appearances. There's no illusion that we can play as anyone - as any other character - but V. I don't see anything about this system that does not work. Maybe, they could have called it 'appearance generator' instead of 'character generator' but that is just a semantic debate and doesn't affect the gameplay.

V can look like fingers and characters won't react any differently.
Why would they?

the game was designed around the canonized appearance
No, it wasn't, and,
the world of Cyberpunk only sees V as the canonized appearance
no, it doesn't. There's nothing - literally nothing - in-game that supports either of these statements, unless someone has some examples to offer?
 
Why did you make this topic? Thats a genuine question, as you should have gone back to the old topic or dropped the subject alltogether as many of the claims you make here have already been covered in the other one.

A few things that come to mind from that one;

This harms a player's experience, because the game is trying to get the audience to care about the protagonist, but when you can change them into your own vision, player's won't grow an emotional attachment to a character they think is theirs.

People have already told you that they created their own V and that it enhanced the bond they had with their V, despite being a predefined V. I'm one of those.

the canonized appearance
Which you cant make In game. You can make a female V that looks similar to E3 Trailer but not a copy(and some people did come close, but no exact copy). The "canonized V" is marketing V developed at a time when the developers of the game (not the salespeople but the ones who actually created the storyline) had already decided that V would not have a canonized look. Not to mention that female box art V also looks different from trailer V.
In fact, and this one of the criticisms that the game got, is that the things people saw in the trailers wasnt seen in game or not enough. Its because the people who gave you those trailers belonged to the marketing department. We have gone through all of this in the other topic where we talked about Andrzej Sapkowski and Henry Cavill.
As for the industry(again wondering what that is) uses pictures of Silverhand or Jackie or just gameplay screenshots and ofc, screenshots of the city which was one of the selling points. Very few media outlets used one of the trailer V's, because character creation exists.
V can look like fingers and characters won't react any differently. It's an illusion when characters react the exact same way regardless of V's appearance, because the game was designed around the canonized appearance so the world of Cyberpunk only sees V as the canonized appearance while the player sees a simulated illusion to hide the real character,
Contradictio in terminis here. The world is supposedly designed around canonized V, yet as you admit yourself, the world of cyberpunk doesnt react any different if you change V's looks. Which indicates that the world of cyberpunk accepts the character that the player made in the game's CC.
And as I said in the paragraph above, you cant make trailer V. You cant 'hide the real character' if it doesnt exist within game/story. It wasnt meant to exist and I think the flaw was for them to make a marketing V for the trailers. They should have made trailers without any player character.

You can have your opinion as to whether there should be a character creation or not, but please dont repeat the same arguments again.
I'm not going to get further into it because I dont want the other topic again. I dont think this one should exist.
 
Maybe the problem comes from confusion between what means character creation in a RPG . In this game your character is not this:

V.jpg

V is defined by this:
V_att.jpg

V_perks.jpg


In game, in the character creation there are only two attributes that lock/unlock content for V: voice and body type that define who you are able to romance:

1632900541618.png

All the rest its purely cosmetic (skin color, eyes, beards...), thats why the game story/world doesn´t react to your appearance because the systems/mechanics in place are not the "visual" representation of V. There are games, where some "racial prejudice"(or gender prejudice also) is included as mechanic when interacting with NPCs... if you look at it, as far as I know is in game with fantasy races. I'm not sure that a game developer would like to go into "racial prejudice" mechanics in a human only world setting (and I fully understand the nightmare that this could be).

Which leads to an interesting question because is a mechanic that some people has asked: clothing and appearance should impact reaction of NPCs, how do you define "scary","attractive","sexy"...? What is sexy for one might be disgusting for another...Thats why, anybody who has played tabletop sooner or later had to yell to the GM "I roll seduction!/I roll persuasion!" based on some attribute or skill and contextual difficulty based on the NPC that you are interacting and the location.
 
When you combine these you run into issues. Cyberpunk went with this system.
I'd disagree with this premise. When you combine the two you're presented challenges you wouldn't face with the alternative. It's a lot harder to get it right. Whether this game navigated those challenges well is another matter.
Maybe the problem comes from confusion between what means character creation in a RPG . In this game your character is not this:
I don't think the OP was/is attempting to fixate on character appearance. It appears that was one area playing into the perceived disconnect. This is what I got out of the post anyway.

I think the op is saying the game championed a player designed character but kind of forced the issue in a lot of areas. The end result being you can change the character appearance, build, freely decide upon approach and in many cases pick from available options but still end up feeling like you're playing "V". At least, one of the versions of V tailored around what the game wants.
 
Something for general consideration related to OP.

NPC's reactions toward's V's gender are there in context that makes sense in the game, that's romantic possibilities with certain NPC's. Other than that, it wouldn't make any sense in CP 2077 and it would be counter productive for what goals CDPR had for it as something that is sometimes less or more in sub-context, the Night City in CP 2077 is a world past identity politics. Way game presents things is something that has been part of cyberpunk literature since 1980, when genre really wasn't even recognized yet.

Something from William Gibson:
"The very fact that a writer like Shirley could be published at all, however badly, was a sovereign antidote to the sinking feeling induced by skimming George Scithers’ Asimov’s SF at the corner drugstore. Published as a paperback original by Dell, in July 1980, City Come A-Walkin’ came in well below the genre’s radar. Set in a “near future” that felt oddly like the present (an effect I’ve been trying to master ever since), spiked with trademark Shirley obsessions (punk anti-culture, fascist vigilantes, panoptic surveillance systems, modes of ecstatic consciousness), City was less an sf novel set in a rock demimonde than a rock gesture that happened to be a paperback original."
William Gibson foreword in 1996 edition of John Shirley's City Come A-Walkin’

Approach CDPR took with CP 2077 makes certain things possible, we have game that is not only cyberpunk in thematic level, but also has certain subtlety in presentation. I don't want block anyone's critique but sometimes it's that what is seen experienced as fault or shortcoming, I don't understand how "fixing" those things would practically work in work like CP 2077 without changing certain intellectual aspects of it fundamentally and from my point of view, not for the better.
 
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This has a very familiar flair to it, hah.
Well. I have given my stance on this topic last time around. The short version is: I disagree, reasoning for it is stated in the other topic.
And I'd like to keep it brief this time around.
 
Definitely a worthy argument. It has come up a few times before, I agree that a disconnect is definitely created when players are allowed to blindly customize another person's vision. Their creation can easily wind up being extremely different than the dictated parts of the vision. (In this case, V's voice, mannerisms, attitude and energy, etc.)

I'd say that V is very much pre-defined in many aspects, and those things can clash directly with player agency. The reason characters like Geralt work so well is because they are clearly defined and envisioned to be "Geralt", and no one else. (People complain about the hairstyle options that were included because, "They're sooo not Geralt.")

I did the same thing with Mass Effect 1 -- spent hours customizing a character only to feel like it totally didn't fit within the first 5 minutes of gameplay. Went back to the default Sheperd, and that's how I played all the games. It was simply the visualization of the character that the game was clearly designed around.

No such issues with things like The Elder Scrolls, Mount and Blade, or Divinity: Original Sin. By leaving so much of the character undefined (no voiced dialogue, no backstory, etc.) the games do nothing to interrupt the players' injection of their own agency.
 
Definitely a worthy argument. It has come up a few times before, I agree that a disconnect is definitely created when players are allowed to blindly customize another person's vision. Their creation can easily wind up being extremely different than the dictated parts of the vision. (In this case, V's voice, mannerisms, attitude and energy, etc.)

I'd say that V is very much pre-defined in many aspects, and those things can clash directly with player agency. The reason characters like Geralt work so well is because they are clearly defined and envisioned to be "Geralt", and no one else. (People complain about the hairstyle options that were included because, "They're sooo not Geralt.")

I did the same thing with Mass Effect 1 -- spent hours customizing a character only to feel like it totally didn't fit within the first 5 minutes of gameplay. Went back to the default Sheperd, and that's how I played all the games. It was simply the visualization of the character that the game was clearly designed around.

No such issues with things like The Elder Scrolls, Mount and Blade, or Divinity: Original Sin. By leaving so much of the character undefined (no voiced dialogue, no backstory, etc.) the games do nothing to interrupt the players' injection of their own agency.
It is only based on a personal feeling (for me at least). In Mass Effect, like you, I always stay with predefined female Shepard (look awesome), but never in Cyberpunk (I don't know why...). And like in Mass Effect, players have choice to customize or not their V in Cyberpunk.

The problem would come from the fact that there is no choice. To have only a predefined V or to be obliged to customize your V. So I don't think there is a problem with character creator, since you can ignore it completely if you want.

So if someone think that the character creator don't work in Cyberpunk, he can ignore the CC and choose one of these predefinied V :
Vs.png
 

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V is not predefined protagonist. That would be Geralt, Adam Jensen or Henry of Skalitz.
Shepard, Hawke (and V) are semi-defined. Some elements of their personalities are set in stone, but not nearly enough to be compared to someone like Geralt who had 7 books of character development before the first Witcher game came out.
Anyway, what's the hypothetical benefit of removal of character creator? How would the game improve without it? Some NPCs would mention Fem V's red hair from time to time and what else?
 
It is only based on a personal feeling (for me at least). In Mass Effect, like you, I always stay with predefined female Shepard (look awesome), but never in Cyberpunk (I don't know why...). And like in Mass Effect, players have choice to customize or not their V in Cyberpunk.

The problem would come from the fact that there is no choice. To have only a predefined V or to be obliged to customize your V. So I don't think there is a problem with character creator, since you can ignore it completely if you want.

So if someone think that the character creator don't work in Cyberpunk, he can ignore the CC and choose one of these predefinied V :
View attachment 11257141
I also had no trouble with it. Having worked as a thespian for decades, I am perfectly fine jumping into this role or that role. I love being able to create a character based entirely on my own imagination, and I love playing the roles of characters that are created by others.

However, for Cyberpunk, I basically did stay with the default visualization of V and customized it to my liking. I don't think that any of my personal visualizations for Cyberpunk characters would work. They wouldn't fit the role of "V".


V is not predefined protagonist. That would be Geralt, Adam Jensen or Henry of Skalitz.
Shepard, Hawke (and V) are semi-defined. Some elements of their personalities are set in stone, but not nearly enough to be compared to someone like Geralt who had 7 books of character development before the first Witcher game came out.
Anyway, what's the hypothetical benefit of removal of character creator? How would the game improve without it? Some NPCs would mention Fem V's red hair from time to time and what else?
Some parts are up for interpretation...while other parts are not. In the end, I think there's enough there to define the following:

V is a young and relatively inexperienced solo with big dreams and the ambition to chase them. S/he is willing to take risks, and has a driven desire to prove themselves to be a name that will be remembered. Now...whether or not those motivations change over the course of the story is totally up for grabs, so there's still a lot of roleplaying and player agency involved. But V is definitvely not:
  • A 6-foot, battle-hardened solo with bulging muscles, lined with dangerous-looking chrome, and voice that backs people off.
  • A drug-addict netrunner with wild hair and a penchant for leeching off of NCPD comms to find the next big grab.
  • A street tough rising through the ranks of a local booster gang, tatooed from head to toe, and willing to turn on anyone if they stand to gain something.
  • A smooth-talking, arrogant corpo, always dressed to the hilt, who likes the finer things in life, living in one of NC's most prestigious areas and determined to move up instead of down.
  • A foreign spy working for one of the major corps with a fake identity in Night City. They've got jobs to do, but the corp doesn't pay them enough to just sit around and wait for their next gig.
  • A wizzened mechanic of some repute, able to work on pretty much any machine and squeeze more out of it. Rough and tumble, rarely without a grease stain somewhere, and always surrounded by some of their unique contraptions.
  • A mysterious figure that sports about as much chrome as flesh, living on the fringes of society with some...interesting connections.
No matter what, the player will be a young person who falls in with Jackie and actively tries to make a name for themselves in Night City. They'll be totally unprepared for the heist going badly and winding up in the "Johnny" situation, and that will be the motivation that drives them to their eventual conclusion.

Now, nothing wrong with this at all! This is what a narrative RPG is all about! But the bulleted visualizations of the character simply won't work for V. The "look" won't fit the character...or the interpretation of the look is not available in the gameplay. In Cyberpunk 2077, the player is "V", as presented.

Here's where I think a lot of players were really expecting something way more open-ended. Now the issue is: if the player character was less defined...we would never have the game we got. The scenes between Jackie and V could not have happened. V's interactions with Johnny would have needed to be almost one-sided, with Johnny just uttering a monologue. Voicing the protagonist would not have been a good idea. Almost all of the cinematics and storytelling where the player is involved would have needed to be removed, and instead, the player character would be along for the ride, dealing with other people's problems. Like most RPGs.

So not necesarily removing, but limiting the character creator would be ideal for letting people accent their V with less potential for creating a character appearance that just doesn't seem to gel with the motivations, energy, and presentation of the V that the game creates for you.

(But, as is already plainly apparent, this sort of thing would probably have gone over very poorly. In the end, I love the game, and I think it's handled very well for the game they were trying to make. I simply think that people didn't want the game that was made. They wanted a free-for-all, open world game that let them create any sort of random character they could imagine, then run around completing objectives any number of different ways. Sadly, not too many people seem to be interested in the fantastic story or the world-building that the game creates.)
 
The whole thing is an absolute mess. There's a contradiction between the traditional RPG free character creation they'd promised (supposed to be a departure from CDPR's norm up to that point, of having a predefined character like Geralt) and V, there's a horrendous contradiction between the open world/fixer/gig economy thing and the fact that you have a story that's on rails with a death clock. There's a contradiction between the "3 lifepaths" we were supposed to have and the 3 (mostly) merely cosmetic lifepaths we have.

It's clearly two (or maybe 3) games jammed together: a linear cinematic experience centered around a famous actor, and an RPG proper. They had an RPG to make, but they ended up making half an RPG and plonking a linear cinematic story experience with a famous actor on top of that half-baked CRPG. And not satisfied with that, they had ambitions to make some sort of multiplayer cash cow nonsense out of it, so the loot system is a multiplayer loot system that's absolutely awful in an RPG context.

The result is something that certainly has flashes of the old CDPR brilliance (not just in the story, but in many great side-quests and some of the open world design, and of course in some of the graphics, audio and digital puppetry), but basically it's still an incoherent, unfinished mess.

The only question is whether there's any ROI for them to actually get the game finished eventually to become what it should have been, or whether they'll just cut their losses and move on to something else. If they do the latter, that would be understandable, but it would be such a shame, because the graphic/audio/quest/build system skeleton of a truly fantastic RPG is still there.
 
Alright, I shall scrible some words together even still :)
As stated earlier, I disagree. And my reasoning is twofold.
First reason is that me personally, I find the connection to a character to be greater when I have been able to model her (and yes I always play with a 'her' if that option exists) to my own design. Its a deep rooted visual preference that means more to me than a preshaped character.
My second reason is that I a bit devided in the statement of 'predefined'
V has a backstory, or rather: 3 possible backstories. But these in no way tie her exterior into it and as such the created character still merges well with that backstory.

It would ofcourse be silly if a prologue would describe a "rebel red-haired Nomad who has gone her own ways after her family signed a deal with the devil" and my character would have blue hair.
But this is not present, so the backstory which you engage in, can have a character that looks like whatever you want.
This is how I view mainly the asset of a character creator.
 
  • A 6-foot, battle-hardened solo with bulging muscles, lined with dangerous-looking chrome, and voice that backs people off.
  • A drug-addict netrunner with wild hair and a penchant for leeching off of NCPD comms to find the next big grab.
  • A street tough rising through the ranks of a local booster gang, tatooed from head to toe, and willing to turn on anyone if they stand to gain something.
  • A smooth-talking, arrogant corpo, always dressed to the hilt, who likes the finer things in life, living in one of NC's most prestigious areas and determined to move up instead of down.
There's nothing in the game that says or suggests or implies that V cannot be 6 foot tall. Likewise, there is nothing in the game that indicates that V does not have, can not have, wild hair. Or lots of tattoos. Or being dressed to the hilt.

This list mixes appearance characteristics with personality characteristics. But these things are not intertwined. There are plenty of people in 2021 who are 6 foot plus and who are kind and unthreatening. Many people who have full body tattoos that are not violent gang members. Many well-dressed people who are not arrogant or ambitious. Decoupling appearance and personality traits is important in this thread because we're arguing about a game that has something called a "character generator" that is actually just an "appearance generator" and does not really claim to be a "personality, backstory and motivation generator".

So not necesarily removing, but limiting the character creator would be ideal for letting people accent their V with less potential for creating a character appearance that just doesn't seem to gel with the motivations, energy, and presentation of the V that the game creates for you.
Still, no-one has presented any evidence of an appearance that can be generated that conflicts with any actual statement, voice line, response, or anything else in the game. It may conflict with some people's preconceptions of what people should look like, or their own ideas and beliefs of how the 2077 world and residents would maybe react. But there is no evidence of an actual, literal, in-game conflict. And given that Night City appears mostly free of racism and sexism, I think we should be wary of projecting 2021 preconceptions linking appearance with character into the 2077 game world.
 
Alright, I shall scrible some words together even still :)
As stated earlier, I disagree. And my reasoning is twofold.
First reason is that me personally, I find the connection to a character to be greater when I have been able to model her (and yes I always play with a 'her' if that option exists) to my own design. Its a deep rooted visual preference that means more to me than a preshaped character.
My second reason is that I a bit devided in the statement of 'predefined'
V has a backstory, or rather: 3 possible backstories. But these in no way tie her exterior into it and as such the created character still merges well with that backstory.

It would ofcourse be silly if a prologue would describe a "rebel red-haired Nomad who has gone her own ways after her family signed a deal with the devil" and my character would have blue hair.
But this is not present, so the backstory which you engage in, can have a character that looks like whatever you want.
This is how I view mainly the asset of a character creator.
There's nothing in the game that says or suggests or implies that V cannot be 6 foot tall. Likewise, there is nothing in the game that indicates that V does not have, can not have, wild hair. Or lots of tattoos. Or being dressed to the hilt.

This list mixes appearance characteristics with personality characteristics. But these things are not intertwined. There are plenty of people in 2021 who are 6 foot plus and who are kind and unthreatening. Many people who have full body tattoos that are not violent gang members. Many well-dressed people who are not arrogant or ambitious. Decoupling appearance and personality traits is important in this thread because we're arguing about a game that has something called a "character generator" that is actually just an "appearance generator" and does not really claim to be a "personality, backstory and motivation generator".


Still, no-one has presented any evidence of an appearance that can be generated that conflicts with any actual statement, voice line, response, or anything else in the game. It may conflict with some people's preconceptions of what people should look like, or their own ideas and beliefs of how the 2077 world and residents would maybe react. But there is no evidence of an actual, literal, in-game conflict. And given that Night City appears mostly free of racism and sexism, I think we should be wary of projecting 2021 preconceptions linking appearance with character into the 2077 game world.
These are still missing the point:

Of course the game provides lots of options to customize the character every which way.

Of course the game lets people play or imagine their character however they wish.

Of course players can and will come up with interpretations of V that work quite well with the look, the sense of character in the scenes, etc.

But there are also ways to create conflicts of interpretation that don't seem to gel. They don't all come together. Of course some people like that sort of thing -- consider games like Fortnite, or Terraria, or Fall Guys -- it's why players can dress up in a Victorian top-hat or clown costume in PUBG. Wacky, nutsy, random, and surrealistic is appealing to a lot of people, or these games wouldn't be as popular as they are. But those are titles that intentionally set off to become wacky, nutsy, random, and surrealistic. That's the whole point.

Other games do not. They set off to capture a very specific aesthetic and a very specific energy. Everything, from the shapes and perspectives used to design the world, to the color palette that is used, to the way certain elements of the design may be exaggerated or stylized in certain ways, to the music that plays in the background...and the visual design of the characters.

If I am setting out to create a dark and gritty crime drama, there are certain elements of visual design I need to adhere to. If my story will be intimate, and heartbreaking, and full of tension -- I cannot have the main detective wear a bright pink track suit and talk like Donald Duck. It doesn't work. It will take the experience that I am trying to create and destroy it completely.

This is the same effect that can happen with an interpretation and visualization of V. Having never played the game before, If I envision my V to be a six foot, muscular dude with a gravelly voice and complete apathy for others -- there's no way for me to create that character in the game. If I make my character look like that, it's going to clash with the vocal performance and narrative arc that exists in the game. What I'm envisioning is not going to line up with what I'm hearing and seeing. Too much of V is defined.

Not everybody is going to care about this, but the vast majority of people will -- even if they don't realize they care. This is why so much time and effort is taken in film, television, animation, graphic novels, etc. to find visualizations of characters, costuming, vocal performances, etc. that work. And when something doesn't work, the feedback is pretty universal.

Hence, since V is very much given a dictated voice and a dictated mannerism (with some wiggle-room in that framework) it would be a great idea to ensure that the visual customization options take that into account. Or rather, avoid creating too many options that can result in something way, waaay off the intended mark.

Again, this is not a consideration in games that have blank-slate, silent protagonists. Those games will present little to nothing that conflicts with player interpretation and visualization.

_______________


So what is Cyberpunk 2077? Is it an open-world, free-for-all RPG that let the player come up with anything they imagined and play through the experience however they wished?

No, it is a very narrative experience that created a lot of room for interpretation within the framework of the story being told. Players can adopt a wide range of playstyles, or freely mix and match them while exploring the open-world setting as V. You are "V", a newcomer to Night City with big dreams...
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the point was not about how much customization one can omit to a character, the point was wether or not V should have been customizable at all.
Imagine V to be a Ciri, or a Lara Croft.
I was arguing that Cyberpunk in what the game does tell us, there's no insinuation to what V should look like in such predefined vessel.

I've created a V which is my own (although others could end up with the same results of course)
but that V is now my narrative framework for the character as how perceived by me and to me, that has become the face of Cyberpunk. While for others he/she can look different. but the game still works.

For the record, I am not advocating that I should be able to make a space marine in a cyberpunk world, I would think that would be clear and obvious. But a character creation within the framework of the world aesthetics like we have has not deterred the receipt of V. And as stated, for me its an enhancement over some predefined and casted framework, imagine the cover box art female as an example.
 
Honestly and I'm probably alone on this, I'd rather not have my character voiced in these types of games. I love the way elders scrolls handles it, fo3 and new vegas too. I can stomach and even find enjoyment in a ****** story, but nothing takes me out of the moment like a voiced character that you create in an open world rpg.
 
Shepard, Hawke (and V) are semi-defined.
^This.

It a mixed protag. I actually loved it. I remember like 7 years ago saying something along the lines of "I hope they try to blend fixed and customizable protagonist like Bioware did in ME1." I think it worked fairly well. There were very few times that I felt like my V was doing something out of character. The semi-fixed nature of it gives the character definition like a fixed protag, but also allows for some feeling of ownership by the player, which is nice. Sure it results in some dissonance at times, but IMO it worked in the vast majority of the game.
 
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