How the history affects the world of Cyberpunk 2077?

[4RM3D]

Inspired by: District feature: Watson. A true world isn't created overnight, but is build on decades of important events that shape the world. Creating a believable world means that these kind of events should be seamlessly incorporated. This is a real challenge that most games get wrong, the Witcher 3 included. The Witcher 3 has some interesting locations, but, overall, I don't see nor feel the history of the world when travelling through it (Kaer Morhen excluded) and the generic points of interest do not help either. The one thing I am looking forward to is CP2077 having an interconnected city where every area tells its own story and the effects of the past can be seen in the world. This also includes random (background) encounters that make sense within the city. Simple put, the world needs to feel alive and ever changing, unlike the Witcher 3 which felt stuck in time.

 

[MayenabDysheebudo]

Inspired by: District feature: Watson. A true world isn't created overnight, but is build on decades of important events that shape the world. Creating a believable world means that these kind of events should be seamlessly incorporated. This is a real challenge that most games get wrong, the Witcher 3 included. The Witcher 3 has some interesting locations, but, overall, I don't see nor feel the history of the world when travelling through it (Kaer Morhen excluded) and the generic points of interest do not help either. The one thing I am looking forward to is CP2077 having an interconnected city where every area tells its own story and the effects of the past can be seen in the world. This also includes random (background) encounters that make sense within the city. Simple put, the world needs to feel alive and ever changing, unlike the Witcher 3 which felt stuck in time.

You know, this is one of the things I have high hopes for in the game: Many things influencing the world’s reaction to you and what path you’re taking. According to them, side quests might affect the main story right? So I expect a good chunk of the content to be influenced by what you do besides main missions and what is out there in the city. Maybe by exploring you can be rewarded with info that can help you in a more important mission. Another thing I heard (from Alanah Pearce) is that there is so much dialogue that she tried to spend most of her time talking, and choosing from a bunch of dialogue branches (not knowing what the consequences are, of course).

Another thing we know is that romance options will be affected not only by our gender, but our choices as well. Maybe Judy is not into a V that sides with corpos? (Just a random example). So with this info, I’d expect for the world to also react to our “romance”, not anything hardcore, just other characters acknowledging you’re in a relationship or receivings calls from your lover? Something that representa that something changed in the world due to your choice to date that person?
I mean, all of this might not happen either and I guess it’s very complicated too lol, but it would be really fun if done well.

lol i sent it without finishing on mobile , so going to your point:

I do think the locations will be interconnected, and from what we already know they each tell a story and have a different atmosphere. I wonder however, if they will be divided by “level” as in, we go opening the areas and by endgame spend most of our time in... City Center for example, or if it’s well balanced and we travel around them during the whole game.

 

[satyrsangre]

Creating a believable world means that these kind of events should be seamlessly incorporated.

i am a firm believer that interesting stories are the results of the implications of things, and not the construction of a cool results. the why is important.

i think this is a feature of the way Pondsmith wrote Cyberpunk and how cyberpunk fiction as a genre is written: it's a predictive forecast of the future based on recent history, current events and how populations move. it's about the implication of things, not just a collection of cool results.
i feel similarly about TW3 in that it was closer to a collection of cool places/results that were inspired by cool places/results. but i feel like most medieval fantasy fiction suffers this problem. fantasy fiction is stuck in time and never really seems to progress. for example the conjunction of the spheres happened and now they're just dealing with those consequences forever (even Ciri is a product of the conjunction). like in 1 500 years y'all still look like that?
Pondsmith's Cyberpunk was written at the end of the Cold War, the most tense time in history at that point not just because it was current but people really didn't know what to do with all of this new (nuclear) tech except threaten each other with it. and thus everyone else is hella on edge. so the story kinda goes, 'what's the worst that can happen while resulting in the cool things we think the future will have?' i remember Pondsmith said something along the lines of 'i had to end the world without ending the world.' which is much more interesting than just writing about a near future where everyone has guns and chrome prosthetics, y'know? the why is important. the why lets the world end without ending, while providing a method for ensuring it doesn't have to end. like, the Middle East and China are basically gone by 2020. not only is that an incredibly bold thing to write into your world building, but the implications of that are enormous and freaking fascinating
i really love the immigrant stories of Night City. the west coast today has enormous populations of Asian, Latinx, and Black people, immigrant and citizen, so it makes sense that in 57 years those communities would still have effects on the layout of the city. especially Pacifica with the immigration of Haitian people after climate disaster on the island. it's implications of things that lead to implications of things. it feels like human (fiction future, of course) history instead of, 'well here's where the Black/Latinx/Asian people live.' the why is important.

 

[Matchst1ckk]

One question that always comes to mind for is "Why Night City?" Why do people come here? V says in the trailer that Night City is the worst place in America to live, yet everyone still wants to live there. Since then, I've been asking why that was and I've never felt it properly explained. In short, I was looking for glitz and glamour, that seducing dream that charmed people before trapping them. It was feeling like they were saying things like "Night City is a dangerous place" for no other reason than it's a dark version of the future so of course it will be. What's at the top of the ladder that everyone is fighting for? Why would you come to this city?

But of course, the answer was right in front of me the whole time. First it was Pacifica in last year's deep dive, and now with their little feature on Watson. The line "In the end, Arasaka got what it wanted - port access in the Waterfront" hit me like a ton of bricks. People got screwed over by this big corp, and now they're just trying to get by. Same with Pacifica: funds for the district's development stopped, and everyone lost out. People weren't coming here. They were stuck here.

This is how you make a believable world. It's all just cause and effect. What's the cause, and how does it effect the world around it?

 

[satyrsangre]

But even people who choose to show up because they think they can game the system do choose to show up. Night City just chews them up before they realise how arrogant they were. Even the most ambitious corpos who move into Night City on the most lucrative contracts get screwed, and stuck.
You gotta also account for families and a general persistence of preference. The US Provisional Gov't (USPG) kinda sucks everywhere (kinda like the US gov't now ) so some people might really decide, for whatever insane reason, 'yeah i'm gonna go to Night City; gotta a cousin/contact there.'

 

[Suhiira]

One (of many) things Maximum Mike did well was create a alternate history to base CP2020 around. And CDPR saw the value of, and utilized that history. Those events are the history of, thus shape the world of CP2077.

 

[fridgeband]

One question that always comes to mind for is "Why Night City?" Why do people come here? V says in the trailer that Night City is the worst place in America to live, yet everyone still wants to live there. Since then, I've been asking why that was and I've never felt it properly explained. In short, I was looking for glitz and glamour, that seducing dream that charmed people before trapping them. It was feeling like they were saying things like "Night City is a dangerous place" for no other reason than it's a dark version of the future so of course it will be. What's at the top of the ladder that everyone is fighting for? Why would you come to this city?

But of course, the answer was right in front of me the whole time. First it was Pacifica in last year's deep dive, and now with their little feature on Watson. The line "In the end, Arasaka got what it wanted - port access in the Waterfront" hit me like a ton of bricks. People got screwed over by this big corp, and now they're just trying to get by. Same with Pacifica: funds for the district's development stopped, and everyone lost out. People weren't coming here. They were stuck here.

This is how you make a believable world. It's all just cause and effect. What's the cause, and how does it effect the world around it?

That's really interesting but what do you think is trapping them or making them stuck? Couldn't they just build a cheap bus out of scrap parts and drive out of the city bus loaded with as many people as possible and go to another location with more reasonable safer opportunity? Do corporations actively prevent people from leaving Night City? Do they arrest or murder whoever tries to simply leave? How do people go into the nomad wastelands then? That seems outside of the city limits as well, so what is actually keeping people stuck in Night City? Is it their own greed? Their own ego? Some lie they have been convinced of, convinced themselves of?

 

[Matchst1ckk]

That seems outside of the city limits as well, so what is actually keeping people stuck in Night City? Is it their own greed? Their own ego? Some lie they have been convinced of, convinced themselves of?

All of them at once, I suppose. This is what I'm curious about as well. Maybe perhaps fixers and gangs won't let anyone leave that owes them money. Or is it just a case of "a bad day in Night City is better than a good day anywhere else", or some form of blind optimism that life could be a lot worse. Or maybe some dogged determination to get out on top?

 

[FirstBlood2621]

Thing about the Nomads is they are Tribal/Pack/Family based. There’s probably more than a few that act as bandits out in the badlands. If I remember correctly there is one such group called the Wraiths in this game.

 

[DataEntity.390]

That's really interesting but what do you think is trapping them or making them stuck? Couldn't they just build a cheap bus out of scrap parts and drive out of the city bus loaded with as many people as possible and go to another location with more reasonable safer opportunity?

History. Specifically history of the Nomads and the fact that not all Nomads are nice people.

Nomads were formed by two events in conjunction. The fall of the US government and it's ability to maintain the rule of law. And Agricorps pushing small town people off their land. These people became the Nomads. Some of them lived of their honest work, moving from city to city doing odd jobs and occasionally the dirty work of Corpos.

Others turned to banditry. But even still, moving between cities was relatively easy to what it is in 2077. Then came the 4th Corporate War and the Time of Red. Long story short, the banditry problem got worse, far worse. And now intercity shipping, not to mention international shipping is almost completely reliant on the Nomads.

To add to this, Night City is on the border of the Free State of North California and the Free State of South California. Which while nominally still part of the US, are legislatively independent. This has likely caused relulatory divergence and now goods must be checked on the borders of these legislative areas. Which means border controls. Which may mean the need of paperwork.

So unless you have contacts with a Nomad pack and city officials, you ain't going anywhere.

 

[satyrsangre]

2076 is the tricentennial of the US. as the us government and constitutional union as we understand it does not exist in the world of CP2077, i wonder how the older characters (if there are any) acknowledged the significance of 2076, or if that date was important at all to anyone. that's so weird to think about to me.

 

[Rawls]

Timeline

The timeline of the Cyberpunk series has gone through many iterations, with new sourcebooks and games continually expanding on its world. This article covers the canonical timeline following events from Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2020, as established by R. Talsorian Games and CD Projekt RED in...

cyberpunk.fandom.com

 

[Syware]

All of them at once, I suppose. This is what I'm curious about as well. Maybe perhaps fixers and gangs won't let anyone leave that owes them money. Or is it just a case of "a bad day in Night City is better than a good day anywhere else", or some form of blind optimism that life could be a lot worse. Or maybe some dogged determination to get out on top?

Well, its the same way of why people still move to California. It has many problems like the housing bubble, rising pollution, high cost of living, biggest homeless population in USA, high taxes, wildfires, earthquakes, upcoming drought, etc. But people still move there because Califorina is depicted as this perfect paradise where there are beaches, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, where many start-ups happens, Beverly Hills, LA and its a place to go if you want to become rich and famous. That is what people seek, at least most people, when they move from the states to California.

Or think about like this. It is the Honk Kong and Singapore of the USA. They are both considered good places but once you get into the underbelly of these city-states you start to realize that they are not so much of good place of what the media depicted them as.

 

[fridgeband]

History. Specifically history of the Nomads and the fact that not all Nomads are nice people.

Nomads were formed by two events in conjunction. The fall of the US government and it's ability to maintain the rule of law. And Agricorps pushing small town people off their land. These people became the Nomads. Some of them lived of their honest work, moving from city to city doing odd jobs and occasionally the dirty work of Corpos.

Others turned to banditry. But even still, moving between cities was relatively easy to what it is in 2077. Then came the 4th Corporate War and the Time of Red. Long story short, the banditry problem got worse, far worse. And now intercity shipping, not to mention international shipping is almost completely reliant on the Nomads.

To add to this, Night City is on the border of the Free State of North California and the Free State of South California. Which while nominally still part of the US, are legislatively independent. This has likely caused relulatory divergence and now goods must be checked on the borders of these legislative areas. Which means border controls. Which may mean the need of paperwork.

So unless you have contacts with a Nomad pack and city officials, you ain't going anywhere.

wow thanks makes sense.

 

[Nadim0000]

Alot of the content creators said that they were overwhelmed once they finished the prologue,i think there are many missable lore elements that can only be appreciated by people who know more about the lore,kinda like the witcher 3