Is CDPR moving in the wrong direction?
With recent additions to the game, CDPR is showing signs of choosing a new path in their storytelling, and as a long time fan, I find this more troubling than exciting.
I’ve been a long time fan of the RPG genre. The usual staples. Old Infinity and Aurora engine RPGs. Diablo 2, etc. But eventually I got bored. I bought the original Witcher based entirely on word of mouth. The RPGs I was familiar with all belonged to one of three categories: The hack-and-slashes, the open world RPG, and the story driven RPG. (For the sake of convenience rather than accuracy, I’ll refer to the latter two as “Bethesda” and “Bioware” style RPGs, respectively) The Witcher intrigued me because it promised to be something different.
While superficially similar to a Bioware style RPG, the Witcher differed on several key respects. You controlled a single character in Geralt. Rather than a party, your “companions” went about their own lives in the game world, dropping in and out of the story at need. And most importantly: choice and consequence. This phrase has been thrown around a lot in marketing during the past decade. But with the Witcher, it actually meant something. Rather than just choosing which way you wanted things to go, you had to actually think about what you wanted and how to get there. Morality was truly grey, tactical situations murky. You didn’t know what the “right” choice was when you made it, and often, even afterwards.
In a “Bioware” style RPG, more often than not, the player character is a major mover of the game universe; sometimes literally a “chosen one”. Choices usually amount to a simple decision about where you want the story to go. Are you good or evil? Does this character you like die, or does this other one die instead? Except when mandated by the plot, in effect, the player is always right. In The Witcher even if you knew what you wanted, it wasn’t clear how best to get there. A Bioware style RPG asked if you wanted Coke or Pepsi. The Witcher offered a fully loaded bar at the end of a trap laden obstacle course. This removed the need to think as a player of a game, and encouraged one to think in character. I didn’t think about where I wanted the story to go. I thought about what Geralt would do. Ironically, a restricted character with poor access to information offered a richer opportunity for roleplaying in this roleplaying game. Suddenly, all my previous attempts at roleplaying in games like Planescape: Torment all the way up to Mass Effect 2 felt quite shallow.
On top of this, the game didn’t pull its punches. You missed a hint or subtext? Too bad, take your licks and move on. Characters had their own agenda, rather than being shallow companions or strawman villains meant to feed the player’s ego; and despite being the PC, the world did not revolve around Geralt. I rarely had any idea what was going to happen next. When a character was in danger, I felt genuine uncertainty. This was not a feeling I had playing any other RPG, and it made the high points that much higher.
The Witcher 3 was no exception to this. The first 3/4ths of the game were absolutely fantastic, albeit with a few glaring omissions (Iorveth chief among them). The final quarter of the game was rather ragged and unpolished, but I’d come to expect CDPR to correct those sorts of mistakes later, so I didn’t worry about it. The eventual Hearts of Stone expansion was a masterful story, perhaps their best yet. So again, I was willing to be patient. The events leading up to the addition of new (and uncharacteristically poorly written) “romance option” dialogue were rather off-putting, but again, I dismissed it as a minor hiccup.
Then we came to Blood and Wine. From the start, I knew to expect a change of tone. It was all over the previews. But I didn’t expect a change in CDPR’s writing philosophy. I never felt the slightest moral dilemma in any quest or sidequest I undertook, and uncertainty about how things would progress was absent outside of a few parts of the main quest. Rather than subverting a fairy tale atmosphere, it played it straight. Fanservice was abundant and in your face. The inexplicable return of Regis, complete disconnect from the rest of the story, a player house to add to the feature list; and perhaps worst of all, the strangely exaggerated, fanfiction-like characterization of Geralt’s companions in the post ending scenes. The finale felt unearned, the change in characterization of old staples like the now fawning Yennefer and Ciri (and Papa Emhyr) jarring.
Yes, it was a sharp contrast to the rest of the game, as was their goal, but it was…boring. Clear solutions to almost every problem, black and white morality, absence of suspense... I felt like I was playing an actual Bioware game. Even Geralt was different. Previously, CDPR had attempted to make every option something Geralt could conceivably choose, depending on player’s interpretation of the character. Here, they seemed to have made no such attempt. The Geralt in one dialogue option could seem totally different from the Geralt in another. His history and personality was largely meaningless. For the first time, I felt like I was playing just another guy. A generic cipher that was simply a tool for interacting with the world.
Just like in almost every other RPG.
I liked those RPGs. I liked Blood and Wine. I’m glad I played it. But if this is a sign of things to come, I’m worried. Plot ideas and characterization taken directly from fan forums, a generic player character and NPCs that exist to facilitate a power fantasy…I’ve seen it all before. On top of this, there is to be no Enhanced Edition. CDPR is not correcting existing mistakes as they’ve done in the past, except at the behest of extremely vocal online petitioners.
The first purpose of CDPR is to make money. The second is to serve its customers. This is natural and good. But I have to wonder, is this the best way to accomplish those two aims, in the long term? We know these methods can be profitable. Multiple companies have become quite successful making these sorts of games, Bioware and Bethesda among them. But…Bioware and Bethesda already exist, and they have a lot of experience being Bioware and Bethesda, not to mention brand recognition. CDPR has made it to the mainstream and TW3 is a success, but its sales still pale in comparison to Fallout 4 or Dragon Age Inquisition. Will trying to force its way into an already crowded market niche really allow them to reach such heights? It’s certainly not how they’ve arrived where they are now. And besides, no one that’s started small and risen far like they have is motivated purely by profits. Small business owners want to feel that they’re making something truly worthwhile. I think this is still the case.
I do not criticize so harshly because I am angry or hold any dislike for the dev’s or their fan community. I simply want to keep enjoying these games as I have in the past (and coincidentally, keep giving CDPR money). Neither is Blood and Wine a bad expansion. I simply fear that things may go further in this direction. In which case the series is likely to lose its appeal for me.
Maybe this is the way of the future. Maybe it will lead to ever greater profits. But if Cyberpunk continues this trend, none of those profits will come from me. Like I said, I’ve gotten bored of those kinds of game plots years ago. It’s my hope that a silent majority of existing CDPR fans feels similarly. If so, maybe CDPR can be dissuaded from this course. After all, they’ve bowed to pressure from vocal fans on the internet before. Let’s find out. Do any of you feel the same way?
With recent additions to the game, CDPR is showing signs of choosing a new path in their storytelling, and as a long time fan, I find this more troubling than exciting.
I’ve been a long time fan of the RPG genre. The usual staples. Old Infinity and Aurora engine RPGs. Diablo 2, etc. But eventually I got bored. I bought the original Witcher based entirely on word of mouth. The RPGs I was familiar with all belonged to one of three categories: The hack-and-slashes, the open world RPG, and the story driven RPG. (For the sake of convenience rather than accuracy, I’ll refer to the latter two as “Bethesda” and “Bioware” style RPGs, respectively) The Witcher intrigued me because it promised to be something different.
While superficially similar to a Bioware style RPG, the Witcher differed on several key respects. You controlled a single character in Geralt. Rather than a party, your “companions” went about their own lives in the game world, dropping in and out of the story at need. And most importantly: choice and consequence. This phrase has been thrown around a lot in marketing during the past decade. But with the Witcher, it actually meant something. Rather than just choosing which way you wanted things to go, you had to actually think about what you wanted and how to get there. Morality was truly grey, tactical situations murky. You didn’t know what the “right” choice was when you made it, and often, even afterwards.
In a “Bioware” style RPG, more often than not, the player character is a major mover of the game universe; sometimes literally a “chosen one”. Choices usually amount to a simple decision about where you want the story to go. Are you good or evil? Does this character you like die, or does this other one die instead? Except when mandated by the plot, in effect, the player is always right. In The Witcher even if you knew what you wanted, it wasn’t clear how best to get there. A Bioware style RPG asked if you wanted Coke or Pepsi. The Witcher offered a fully loaded bar at the end of a trap laden obstacle course. This removed the need to think as a player of a game, and encouraged one to think in character. I didn’t think about where I wanted the story to go. I thought about what Geralt would do. Ironically, a restricted character with poor access to information offered a richer opportunity for roleplaying in this roleplaying game. Suddenly, all my previous attempts at roleplaying in games like Planescape: Torment all the way up to Mass Effect 2 felt quite shallow.
On top of this, the game didn’t pull its punches. You missed a hint or subtext? Too bad, take your licks and move on. Characters had their own agenda, rather than being shallow companions or strawman villains meant to feed the player’s ego; and despite being the PC, the world did not revolve around Geralt. I rarely had any idea what was going to happen next. When a character was in danger, I felt genuine uncertainty. This was not a feeling I had playing any other RPG, and it made the high points that much higher.
The Witcher 3 was no exception to this. The first 3/4ths of the game were absolutely fantastic, albeit with a few glaring omissions (Iorveth chief among them). The final quarter of the game was rather ragged and unpolished, but I’d come to expect CDPR to correct those sorts of mistakes later, so I didn’t worry about it. The eventual Hearts of Stone expansion was a masterful story, perhaps their best yet. So again, I was willing to be patient. The events leading up to the addition of new (and uncharacteristically poorly written) “romance option” dialogue were rather off-putting, but again, I dismissed it as a minor hiccup.
Then we came to Blood and Wine. From the start, I knew to expect a change of tone. It was all over the previews. But I didn’t expect a change in CDPR’s writing philosophy. I never felt the slightest moral dilemma in any quest or sidequest I undertook, and uncertainty about how things would progress was absent outside of a few parts of the main quest. Rather than subverting a fairy tale atmosphere, it played it straight. Fanservice was abundant and in your face. The inexplicable return of Regis, complete disconnect from the rest of the story, a player house to add to the feature list; and perhaps worst of all, the strangely exaggerated, fanfiction-like characterization of Geralt’s companions in the post ending scenes. The finale felt unearned, the change in characterization of old staples like the now fawning Yennefer and Ciri (and Papa Emhyr) jarring.
Yes, it was a sharp contrast to the rest of the game, as was their goal, but it was…boring. Clear solutions to almost every problem, black and white morality, absence of suspense... I felt like I was playing an actual Bioware game. Even Geralt was different. Previously, CDPR had attempted to make every option something Geralt could conceivably choose, depending on player’s interpretation of the character. Here, they seemed to have made no such attempt. The Geralt in one dialogue option could seem totally different from the Geralt in another. His history and personality was largely meaningless. For the first time, I felt like I was playing just another guy. A generic cipher that was simply a tool for interacting with the world.
Just like in almost every other RPG.
I liked those RPGs. I liked Blood and Wine. I’m glad I played it. But if this is a sign of things to come, I’m worried. Plot ideas and characterization taken directly from fan forums, a generic player character and NPCs that exist to facilitate a power fantasy…I’ve seen it all before. On top of this, there is to be no Enhanced Edition. CDPR is not correcting existing mistakes as they’ve done in the past, except at the behest of extremely vocal online petitioners.
The first purpose of CDPR is to make money. The second is to serve its customers. This is natural and good. But I have to wonder, is this the best way to accomplish those two aims, in the long term? We know these methods can be profitable. Multiple companies have become quite successful making these sorts of games, Bioware and Bethesda among them. But…Bioware and Bethesda already exist, and they have a lot of experience being Bioware and Bethesda, not to mention brand recognition. CDPR has made it to the mainstream and TW3 is a success, but its sales still pale in comparison to Fallout 4 or Dragon Age Inquisition. Will trying to force its way into an already crowded market niche really allow them to reach such heights? It’s certainly not how they’ve arrived where they are now. And besides, no one that’s started small and risen far like they have is motivated purely by profits. Small business owners want to feel that they’re making something truly worthwhile. I think this is still the case.
I do not criticize so harshly because I am angry or hold any dislike for the dev’s or their fan community. I simply want to keep enjoying these games as I have in the past (and coincidentally, keep giving CDPR money). Neither is Blood and Wine a bad expansion. I simply fear that things may go further in this direction. In which case the series is likely to lose its appeal for me.
Maybe this is the way of the future. Maybe it will lead to ever greater profits. But if Cyberpunk continues this trend, none of those profits will come from me. Like I said, I’ve gotten bored of those kinds of game plots years ago. It’s my hope that a silent majority of existing CDPR fans feels similarly. If so, maybe CDPR can be dissuaded from this course. After all, they’ve bowed to pressure from vocal fans on the internet before. Let’s find out. Do any of you feel the same way?
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