Miles Tost on Cyberpunk 2077 Game Length and Development Process

+
Just basic common sense. It seems a lot of people were unaware of the nature of game development process. How much stuff is being cut from games. I remember reading the art director of Human Revolution said that they had to cut an entire location from the game because they couldn't finish it on time and it was one of his favorites so he regretted it big time. A LOT of stuff is thrown away for various reasons. My poor boi Iorveth didn't make it into The Witcher 3 and apparently he had a series of quests.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl and Half-life 2, at least in my memory, had somewhat similar response to the beta content/pre-release footage being cut or changed. A few years ago there was a thriving modding community trying to bring back the old content and polish it to make it feel like something the devs initially planned - it was ambitious, and I they even released a big mod that recovered some (if not most or even all) of the cut features, including plot and locations among many other thigs, for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I think it was called Lost Alpha?

Much like with Half-Life 2 beta, Lost Alpha and the final release feel like completely different games with somewhat similar points here and there rather than something we lost and never got a chance to see. I don't get it why people see the cut features as necessarily good or crucial, benefiting to gameplay or immersion or whatever.

Honestly every creative endeavor is going be full of cuts and changes and radical turnarounds you would never plan initially, but love them better in the end. Or, at the very least, consider them more fitting or less nonsensical to the entire thing.

Regarding the game length - I really wonder how variable is it depending on lifepath choices and side quests, especially when they are influenced by the choices players make with skills and affiliations. I beat PREY (2017) in 30 hours, which I don't think is typical even for a thorough run, I hope I can beat at least one lifepath of Cyberpunk 2077 in less than 100 hours!
 
Much like with Half-Life 2 beta, Lost Alpha and the final release feel like completely different games with somewhat similar points here and there rather than something we lost and never got a chance to see. I don't get it why people see the cut features as necessarily good or crucial, benefiting to gameplay or immersion or whatever.

Development process can be really hard for certain development teams, that's why some of them can cooperate with other devs, to take and provide the best solutions in game development process, no matter would it be implementation of any new gameplay features, or creating game art. I know company called iLogos as such dev solutions provider, and based on their dev game projects, I can say for sure, that they know how to handle with any type of such dev issues.
 
Last edited:
I totally understand the removal of wallrunning, as it has a huge effect on map design.

On the dual-wielding though, I think CDPR made a major mistake of showing Jackie repeatedly wield 2 pistols in the videos, so people got the wrong idea. Rightfully so, in my opinion. If you show something in the promo videos, the game is expected to have it.

Wall-running could have been nice for Stealth Gameplay. Now, its gonna be pretty much the same what we have seen zillion times. Unless they did something fast-paced stuff.
 
You can keep repeating that until the heat death of the universe. People will still be "disappointed".

Human psychology does what human psychology does. Learn to manage expectations the way companies like Apple have done it.
Oh God that got me so good I can't breath *WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE* (thank you)
If your "solution" requires customers to change their behavior … it isn't a solution.
Hmmmm, kind of like when I want to repair my macbook but I can't... :coolstory:
I honestly don't get what is so hard about not hyping your game until it's mostly done - where all that's left is polishing up rough edges and fixing minor bugs; especially when you are a well known developer and don't need to struggle to get people's attention.
I mean, I kinda agree with your points, it could have been handled a little bit better, but for the most part I'm feel very positive about CDPR and Cyberpunk2077. :cool:
 
Last edited:
Miles, Senior Level Designer and frequent "face" of 2077 development, spoke on the 2077 Discord this morning, regarding some common worries.

View attachment 11064875

"No one is forcing you to buy the game day one and no one at CDPR wants you to be disappointed with a game you might not enjoy.

No one is forcing anyone on anything but pointing out that the marketing was really deceptive and scummy, just like the corpo world of Cyberpunk 2077. Decent companies shouldn't do that in real life but well we got proven wrong as customers.

Having said that, on the topic of cut features: cutting features and scope is a very normal part of development. You can witness it so openly with our game, because we happily gave in to community wishes and showed you that 2018 demo. Think about it. The game - 2 years from release.

That demo was the game 2 years ago, look at it now. Its just sad because now CDPR just lost all its reputation. Next games from the company will give people flashbacks to this.
Just imagine if Hello Games (No Man's Sky) announced a game now, 4 years after NMS, whats you first thought?
Even if they announced a game after 10 years, people will still remember what happened to their last game on release, not much what it became. Just the disaster and lies.

If you worry about the amount of content on our game, please don't. We're notoriously bad at judging how long gametime is in our games (I remember we estimated players would max out W3 at 100h), so we try not to do that anymore. But I can only keep saying what I have been saying in the past: you guys have seen nothing yet.

Well put "you guys have seen nothing yet". Really didn't age well

Would think W3 would give them enough experience on game development :disapprove:
 
Look the story is overall solid but too much is cut and you can feel it, every vehicle drives and turns like a motorcycle, AI vehicles wont ever go around you and if you look away from a car it transforms into a different one, you don't even have access to a full range of color for your hair i mean why is white not an option? custom eye colors for the special eyes not there either.

NPCS don't actually have animations for using the wheels their hands just stay in place while the wheel spins, cutscene cars literally do turns that should be literally impossible to do, V can't get in bed this all screams straight up not finished.

Then theres the flashback showing all that content which was clearly recorded from a live gameplay of said content which made me wonder why couldn't i do that? because someone thought it took too long?

The game feels and looks incomplete and there is just no getting around that, its saving grace is that the main storys are well polished and well done and the music and sound is top notch but everything else feels like it was cut and cut to the bone.

You can buy BD's but can't use them, you can visit the high end dolls for a quest but cannot use them outside of that, your apartment inventory lacks even the basic sorting that your character inventory DOES have access to.

Maybe all that could be brushed off except for the cybernetics, maybe i wanted my V to have metal based arms, perhaps she modded herself with custom ears inspired by animals to hear better, a tail perhaps not because it provides a function but because thats just how my V rolls, or perhaps raptor legs to run faster but be terrible at stealth or something else but none of that exists and maybe alone its not a big deal but all the little things add up and i hope you plan on adding them to the game eventually because it is necessary especially if you expect any sort of online to succeed.

In short you nailed the story and i love that you did but everything else..... well thats clearly unfinished and i expect it to be finished.

Edit: i forgot to comment on the lifepaths and their impact or lack of impact but thats something i could honestly overlook were it not for everything else, i don't hate your game it tells an excellent story but yeah unfinished it is.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom