Cyberpunk 2 will have to be smaller

[GrimReaper801]

It's like another "famous" engine which evolved with games but still share the same issues/bugs/problems since more than a decade, engine which is named Creation Engine

Exactly.

Or the one CDPR is switching to. A new engine version is in no way comparable to creating/working with a different engine.

 

[BabaBooey88]

With all of its warts, I think people criminally underrate the amount of risk CP2077 represented for CDPR, thus the slightly inflated budget.

They used REDengine to build a game that, in many aspects, was completely new for them and that engine.

Shooter, first person view, urban environment... diametrically opposed to what they were used to do, aka the Witcher series. The only thing that were "kept" were their emphasis on narrative and the open world genre. The rest had to be built by a team that was, for the most part, not experienced in those new mechanics.

Let alone forcing REDengine to accommodate this vastly different game.

I think that for a first try at it, they did pretty well with a rather conservative budget (AAA standards and as someone stated, we know that close to 50% was spent on marketing). Also, Keanu Reeves, Idris, cameos, etc... we can debate on the value of those additions, but they were surely more expensive than random voice actors or less famous ones.

Teams aren't static entities. People come and go, similar to film and TV( though not as frequent), surely at least 60% of the staff had experience on games outside of CDPR's catalog. I'm not saying you're entirely incorrect as i agree with much of what you've said, but to think of them as the same small dev team that made the witcher doesn't hold up. Expanding as they did though is challenge in itself which certainly made conditions all the more difficult.

2077 does plenty of things that would challenge any season dev from what I know and what I can see though. While I've no doubt Rockstar will deliver an incredible simulation with the next GTA, I'm not sure I'll find myself nearly as intrigued or entertained as I feel when venturing through Night City.

Even with all the flaws it has, and there are still many, very rarely do I feel compelled to fast travel. Only other game like that for me (sometimes) is Ghost of Tsushima on account of it's precise art direction and setting. Gorgeous game.

 

[GrimReaper801]

Only other game like that for me (sometimes) is Ghost of Tsushima on account of it's precise art direction and setting. Gorgeous game.

.... You fast travel sometimes in Ghost of Tsushima instead of taking in all of it's splendors!?

 

[BabaBooey88]

.... You fast travel sometimes in Ghost of Tsushima instead of taking in all of it's splendors!?

I mean... uhhh... I ... watashi-no ego-ga jouzu ja-rimasen!

 

[GrimReaper801]

View attachment 11380363
I mean... uhhh... I ... watashi-no ego-ga jouzu ja-rimasen!

Yeah, thought so!

I'm disappointed in you!

As a side note - I was tempted to make the Greta gif humongous but chose to be reasonable about it. You went another way. I'm now disappointed in myself.

 

[Spockprime]

I don't know...

FromSoft, Larian, Rockstar, Nintendo all beg to differ. Each of their games gets bigger and more grandioise and they seem to be doing well. Meanwhile all the Live Service focused companies like Ubisoft and Blizzard have been suffering...

As an aside, GTA6 is already reportedly costing more than $2B in development. You crying about a CP2 costing $1B and being terrible returns is laughable in comparison.

Also note, your basis is entirely driven by CP2077's lackluster sales. Which is in part driven by its terrible release state. There's no reason to expect CP2 to also get such sales figures at this point.

Agree with most of that, except lackluster sales. The initial release definitely was a huge mess, but the game has continued selling well over time, and is one of the big all-time single player sellers at this point. It probably could have sold a lot more without the terrible release, but still, it's been successful. One other thing that, I think, got negatively impacted by the release is the restriction to one expansion, and that one coming really late in the process. They spent a couple of years ironing out problems in the game on various systems, which should have been time spent on additional expansions.

A live service model is probably the only thing that would keep me from buying CDPR's next game on day one. CDPR is great with large expansions, and I'm happy continuing to buy those as part of their alternative to a live services model.

 

[DjSpyder]

There are really 2 separate issues being discussed here.

1. Scale: how big or small the game actually is.
2. Model/Genre: Games as a service Vs Single player RPG.

Not to re-hash everything that's been said about Games as a service, I'll just say, that Model is arguably "Bigger" in Scale than any single player game, as it requires continual content update, server maintenance and usually a cosmetic shop to fund those two things. So, calling that Model "Smaller" is not entirely accurate.

Personally, I believe the series started as single player narrative driven RPG and should stay that way, Multiplayer modes or spinoffs are cool but "Mainline Entries" should stay Single Player focused RPGs with any online components secondary.

As for Bigger or not. Bigger doesn't mean better but smaller doesn't mean focused. The game should be a quality RPG with immersive stories and characters and systems, with fun fleshed out combat that is fun moment to moment gameplay. The Scale should be approximately as "large" as expected from the genre, A solid "Critical story Path" with enough interesting side content to make the world worth exploring. The thing is what the game REALLY NEEDS is quality, I don't care if its 150 hours to 100% or 60 hours to 100% as long as the content is quality. Interesting fully fleshed out characters and stories, interesting areas, minigames that feel worth repeating relationships that feel worth pursuing beyond getting the one unlock and then it just sort of ends.

Yes add some endgame/repeatable content to give incentive to continue exploring and playing beyond the "Main Story" sure make the map bigger, if you can populate it with interesting locations, Honestly I expect a return to Night City there is so much Unused space they don't need a bigger map, just open up those areas and populate them with good content and that would make the game feel twice as big, on the same size map. But a game can feel really "Big" just by making everything immersive and worth doing.

And of course, the main thing they need to improve is player choice, there is the illusion of choice in this game, but only a few have big consequences, most end up the same with slight variation. A bigger impact on characters would be nice. I like the Idea of just being one story in NC and not having a HUGE effect on the world overall.... but some visible changes or impact would be appreciated, other than people returning to normal business after stopping a crime or clearing an area, it felt like very little the player did mattered, The side characters stories felt a little like they mattered, but because the interactions were so limited once that story ends, you didn't really feel the impact, and player choice was meaningless really it boiled down to did you finish this or not.

So sure, It doesn't need to be "Bigger" in terms of map or Time commitment, but the systems need to be better in terms of impact immersion and overall quality.

 

[lefouduroi.pr]

hmm there is a really good documentary about Horizon Zero Dawn.... with everything you said above - totally new and unexperienced for the studio to make a game like that and it was a great success with way less issues at release... its really worth watching, maybe you would think different afterwards : /

edit: cant find the whole docu anymore but small snippets like this one here:

Saw it back then. Didn't say it was impossible, just that people seem to underestimate the difficulty and risk. No excuse for the launch, but that is on management, not the devs.

Teams aren't static entities. People come and go, similar to film and TV( though not as frequent), surely at least 60% of the staff had experience on games outside of CDPR's catalog. I'm not saying you're entirely incorrect as i agree with much of what you've said, but to think of them as the same small dev team that made the witcher doesn't hold up. Expanding as they did though is challenge in itself which certainly made conditions all the more difficult.

2077 does plenty of things that would challenge any season dev from what I know and what I can see though. While I've no doubt Rockstar will deliver an incredible simulation with the next GTA, I'm not sure I'll find myself nearly as intrigued or entertained as I feel when venturing through Night City.

Even with all the flaws it has, and there are still many, very rarely do I feel compelled to fast travel. Only other game like that for me (sometimes) is Ghost of Tsushima on account of it's precise art direction and setting. Gorgeous game.

Agreed.

 

[ShinAkira00]

I think many will agree that the main thing CDPR needs to focus on for the next game is alternative paths for each mission/quest. They did ok but not as good as Witcher 3 in that regard and most sidequests almost always ended the same way or ended abruptly.
There were only a handful of gigs that had 2 or 3 parts where it was continuous. Some of them only had you going to a location to jack in to a terminal, not exactly interactive and it felt like a chore, whereas in Witcher 3 you were getting additional details to put the story together before making a final decision at the end of the thread line.

Instead of trying to make the game bigger, I'd prefer they work on things like that, which will enhance player experience.

 

[LEEMAN-X]

CDPR have said that they see cyberpunk roadmap taking shape like witcher in terms of each new version being bigger and better than the last.

But this isnt going to be possible. The realities prevent it. Let me explain.

Cyberpunk 2077 cost around $350M and has sold 25M copies for $1.5B or 4.2x investment. Not great not terrible.
(As an aside 2077 really needed a content store).

If cyberpunk 2 will be 2x the size and/or length of 2077 then it will cost north of $700M. Accounting for rising costs closer to $1B.

Even IF (a big IF) cyberpunk 2 sells 25 million units. Thats $1.5B revenue on $1B invested and thats not counting the lost time. All of that equals A TERRIBLE investment and return.

This is why I keep suggesting it needs to go the live service route (done right hopefully).

The old model of bigger AAA games is dead and unsustainable.

Focus on smaller more polished experiences with online and repeatable value.

Oh wow you have it all figured out!

Post automatically merged: Dec 31, 2024

I mean, sure...

But also lets remember that CP2077 also switched engine part-way through development. Meaning having to start from scratch.

Lets also remember a few other titles that were made by developers inexperienced in the type of game:

- Anthem
- Fallout 76
- Forspoken
- Redfall
- Gollum
- Kong

Developers tackling new things seems to often have significant teething problems (Possibly as managment uses timeframes based on their existing portfolio that they're experienced in and try to apply it to something the devs have to learn as they go) most of the aforementioned games have been "Death of the studio" bad.

Could CP2077 have released better? Sure. I wonder how much of a difference it would have made if they simply started on the REDengine from the get go so didn't need to reset part way through development.

But it's worth giving the result at least a pinch of salt for being such a different type of game from their previous fare (Which incidentally, also didn't come out of the gate swinging... W1 has its share of clunk to it)

I love me some Fallout 76

Post automatically merged: Dec 31, 2024

There are really 2 separate issues being discussed here.

1. Scale: how big or small the game actually is.
2. Model/Genre: Games as a service Vs Single player RPG.

Not to re-hash everything that's been said about Games as a service, I'll just say, that Model is arguably "Bigger" in Scale than any single player game, as it requires continual content update, server maintenance and usually a cosmetic shop to fund those two things. So, calling that Model "Smaller" is not entirely accurate.

Personally, I believe the series started as single player narrative driven RPG and should stay that way, Multiplayer modes or spinoffs are cool but "Mainline Entries" should stay Single Player focused RPGs with any online components secondary.

As for Bigger or not. Bigger doesn't mean better but smaller doesn't mean focused. The game should be a quality RPG with immersive stories and characters and systems, with fun fleshed out combat that is fun moment to moment gameplay. The Scale should be approximately as "large" as expected from the genre, A solid "Critical story Path" with enough interesting side content to make the world worth exploring. The thing is what the game REALLY NEEDS is quality, I don't care if its 150 hours to 100% or 60 hours to 100% as long as the content is quality. Interesting fully fleshed out characters and stories, interesting areas, minigames that feel worth repeating relationships that feel worth pursuing beyond getting the one unlock and then it just sort of ends.

Yes add some endgame/repeatable content to give incentive to continue exploring and playing beyond the "Main Story" sure make the map bigger, if you can populate it with interesting locations, Honestly I expect a return to Night City there is so much Unused space they don't need a bigger map, just open up those areas and populate them with good content and that would make the game feel twice as big, on the same size map. But a game can feel really "Big" just by making everything immersive and worth doing.

And of course, the main thing they need to improve is player choice, there is the illusion of choice in this game, but only a few have big consequences, most end up the same with slight variation. A bigger impact on characters would be nice. I like the Idea of just being one story in NC and not having a HUGE effect on the world overall.... but some visible changes or impact would be appreciated, other than people returning to normal business after stopping a crime or clearing an area, it felt like very little the player did mattered, The side characters stories felt a little like they mattered, but because the interactions were so limited once that story ends, you didn't really feel the impact, and player choice was meaningless really it boiled down to did you finish this or not.

So sure, It doesn't need to be "Bigger" in terms of map or Time commitment, but the systems need to be better in terms of impact immersion and overall quality.

You bring up great points, good insight!

Post automatically merged: Dec 31, 2024

.... You fast travel sometimes in Ghost of Tsushima instead of taking in all of it's splendors!?

lol!

 

[Neuronin]

This is why I keep suggesting it needs to go the live service route (done right hopefully).

The old model of bigger AAA games is dead and unsustainable.

Corpo?

 

[YasQueen]

Focus on smaller

no. you have your smaller games at home. let someone make good aaa games

 

[Spockprime]

This thread is a bit old. But for reference, CP2077 sales are now above 30 million units, and PL sales are above 8 million units. The game consistently remains in the top 25 sellers on Steam. Depending on how much of that was purchased at a discount, it's somewhere between $1.5B and $2B. Lifetime sales are easily on target to exceed $2B.

I have no idea how big the next game will be, nor even how big it should be. But my point is simply that there's nothing about CP2077 that creates a limiting factor for the next game. It can be whatever CDPR envisions it should be.

 

[jeancastex]

It can be whatever CDPR envisions it should be.

I read a few months ago, that they want the same evolution between 2077 and Orion as the witcher 2 and 3.
I don't think they were talking about map size tho, and we know they are very careful about what they say now lol.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I don't think they were talking about map size tho, and we know they are very careful about what they say now lol.

Just a guess, but I think it will be similar to what they announced for The Witcher 4. More or less the same size as The Witcher 3
Not sure the map need to be bigger, but if it's filled with more stuff and/or more interesting stuff, it would be great (TW3 and Cyberpunk maps are alreay pretty big^^)

 

[Hoplite_22]

As far as i know the biggest problem the CP2077 had was scope creep, largely thanks to some of the directors wanting to do more haning out with Keanu Reeves, management is always the biggest problem*

 

[Kormac67]

As far as i know the biggest problem the CP2077 had was scope creep

Afaik problem was it had to run on last gen consoles and was not designed for that. Along with terrible testing/bug reporting processes. If your engine doesn't work and makes terrible glitches it is not helpful to let a contractor test and make a separate bug ticket for each glitch they observe.

 

[jeancastex]

Afaik problem was it had to run on last gen consoles and was not designed for that. Along with terrible testing/bug reporting processes. If your engine doesn't work and makes terrible glitches it is not helpful to let a contractor test and make a separate bug ticket for each glitch they observe.

I would not be surprised if they play time, and aim to release Orion on ps6/next Xbox.
The Unreal Matrix demo was impressive on console, but if you add all the complexity of a real game, current consoles might not be enough again.

 

[SpookyFX]

No. Nope. Absolutely not.

That would be a great way to alienate a lot of the people who currently like CDPR games.

Even just the "impression" of Bethesda taking all their games live service lost them a lot of long standing fans.

 

[Hoplite_22]

Afaik problem was it had to run on last gen consoles and was not designed for that. Along with terrible testing/bug reporting processes. If your engine doesn't work and makes terrible glitches it is not helpful to let a contractor test and make a separate bug ticket for each glitch they observe.

yes and no, it probably should have been out before the "next gen" as it where launched. so yes it should have run much better, but becuase they where shoe horning in new features all the time stuff like that fell by the way side.