I had no HUD (Other than the ammo count since canonically it's supposed to be there) and no music except the radio. This means I had no health bar and no minimap. I think I could have had the crosshair since I think it's also part of the karoshi eyes upgraded but i didn't put it on and used scopes/iron sights
I went on Very Hard difficulty. Play style was stealth. Since I had no health bar I tried to avoid combat as much as I could so quickhacks like bait or sonic shock came in handy early game. Later on when I got biomonator I could afford to be more bold in combat. Of course with no healthbar on enemies I also had to really think about who to kill and when. Luckily tagging enemies shows the strongest people with the skull icon. It's not perfect since there's a spectrum between a 1 bar enemy and a skull level enemy but it still was useful.
Some scenes actually benefit from no BGM while others definitely need it, but even so it's good to hear a "realistic" encounter on some of the most epic scenes. You could hear ambient sounds you normally wouldn't with the BGM. In a lot of cases a radio will be playing in the back. Even if the song didn't go with the mood of the scene it still worked because of how real it was.
Unfortunately what counts as "Music" is pretty inconsistent. The ambient guitar songs you hear people playing are mute sometimes but others aren't. Same with some cutscenes. Some were mute but others weren't (Thankfully the samurai concert isn't mute but the concert in Johnny's flashback is)
Driving was sometimes a pain. The new update that gave us autodrive was a big help but obviously some gigs have you in a car that isn't yours which doesn't have autodrive meaning i was stopping the game every few seconds to open the map. But eventually I learned the layout of the city so well I could go off memory.
Biggest problem was during the phantom liberty mission where I'm supposed to hijack the car, my Icon was facing the wrong direction when driving causing me to drive the wrong way before I realized I was getting further from the goal.
It was a really interesting experience and very immersive that I suggest everyone try at least once
I went on Very Hard difficulty. Play style was stealth. Since I had no health bar I tried to avoid combat as much as I could so quickhacks like bait or sonic shock came in handy early game. Later on when I got biomonator I could afford to be more bold in combat. Of course with no healthbar on enemies I also had to really think about who to kill and when. Luckily tagging enemies shows the strongest people with the skull icon. It's not perfect since there's a spectrum between a 1 bar enemy and a skull level enemy but it still was useful.
Some scenes actually benefit from no BGM while others definitely need it, but even so it's good to hear a "realistic" encounter on some of the most epic scenes. You could hear ambient sounds you normally wouldn't with the BGM. In a lot of cases a radio will be playing in the back. Even if the song didn't go with the mood of the scene it still worked because of how real it was.
Unfortunately what counts as "Music" is pretty inconsistent. The ambient guitar songs you hear people playing are mute sometimes but others aren't. Same with some cutscenes. Some were mute but others weren't (Thankfully the samurai concert isn't mute but the concert in Johnny's flashback is)
Driving was sometimes a pain. The new update that gave us autodrive was a big help but obviously some gigs have you in a car that isn't yours which doesn't have autodrive meaning i was stopping the game every few seconds to open the map. But eventually I learned the layout of the city so well I could go off memory.
Biggest problem was during the phantom liberty mission where I'm supposed to hijack the car, my Icon was facing the wrong direction when driving causing me to drive the wrong way before I realized I was getting further from the goal.
It was a really interesting experience and very immersive that I suggest everyone try at least once
