But you are incorrect about things locking you out of an endgame. There are 3 things that are required to reach the Point of No Return.
...
There are a lot of branches even in the main story, and then there are side quests attached to it that expand things more and then there are side quests attached to side quests and on it goes. But there is definitely a main story that you must progress along to reach an endgame.
These are the "junctures" I'm discussing. Consider them story "nodes" rather than "chapters". This is hard to explain, as the lay terminology can easily overlap. (Along with there not being readily accepted terminology for a lot of "choose-your-own-adventure" styles of writing.)
A "story" is broken down in to many things: plot, theme, sub-themes, character evolution, internal and external conflicts, literary allusions and allegory, symbolism, satire or rhetorical devices...etc. Normally, exploring this will be done along a defined arc that leads to an ultimate resolution. The main theme and conflicts will be resolved according to that arc. The conclusion is foregone. Even if the audience does not know it yet, the content creates a very specific, dictated context through which the themes are resolved. A theme can be either an established message clearly delivered to the audience, or it can be a profound question that has no definitive answer. (The former is the most common by far...and the latter tends to drive large segments of the audience up the wall: ala the spinning top at the end of
Inception.) So, a level of interpretation is valid, but the
structure of the story -- the
plot -- is 100% defined. Chapter 1 will always lead to Chapter 2. Then comes Chapter 3 before Chapter 4. Etc. This is where the pacing of a story can be fiddled and tweaked by the author(s) until the delivery is "just so". (Most games follow this approach, while providing side content to create the illusion of player agency and choice / consequence...and often botch up the pacing a bit. "The Hunt is coming. I can feel it. The fate of the world will be decided tonight. How about a round of Gwent?"
)
Cyberpunk is very different. Arguably, the intro is fairly linear. Flavored differently with the different backstory paths, perhaps, but linear in
plot execution: meet Jackie --> meet Dex --> Arasaka and the shard --> here's Johnny! And that ends the intro. After this, there is no defined
plot arc. There are now numerous, optional pathways through the remaining narrative with no, specifically structured execution. There will be story nodes that the player arrives at to ensure their chosen plot moves forward, but how and why the player arrives at those nodes, and where the story will go from there is anything but linear or dictated. The player will create their story (from the options provided) and will resolve their chosen narrative based on the choices they make along the way. And this will all happen while continuing to engage in those wildly detailed, cinematic dialogues that conform to the choices the players have made. This is a lot harder to create than Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3...
What I don't think went over well is the likelihood of arriving at a "tragic" ending. Also, the pacing for some executions may feel rather abrupt. Arguably, that could be improved upon. But for me, I would have to argue that the endings must revolve around the central
theme. That being "immortality"...well there's not really many other places to go in terms of resolution. In a sense, this was a really smart move by the devs -- both for ensuring such a nebulous narrative remained focused enough to be viable and to present a believable resolution to the player's chosen exploration of the main theme.
So ultimately, I count that a resounding success. Mission accomplished -- endgame reached -- non-linear storyline concluded. It's simply that many players didn't like the approach to gameplay and/or the main theme.
I don't think this comparison is all that valid. You are correct in regards to your example that it is a subjective opinion, whether a steak is good or bad.
But the example doesn't really reflect the issue, I think. Because the issue as I see it at least, is if the restaurant say they are selling Kobe beef, but in fact they ain't and it's just some sad milking cow beef, then it is a problem. Obviously you as a person might not like Kobe beef regardless of it being the best quality available or not, that is your subjective opinion.
Your example is sort of like CDPR going out saying, "We are making the best open world RPG ever!!!", fair enough that is subjective. But if they go out claiming "We are making the most advanced AI in any open world game to date" and it can't figure out how to go around a parked car, then that is borderline lying. Because then it is not even remotely advanced and definitely not close to being the most advanced AI in an open world. Now being realistic, everyone know that these comments and statements are made by anyone trying to sell a product, so we accept it, to some degree. And it's not like people will sit down and dissect every little detail about the AI to figure out, whether CDPR in fact made the most advanced one to date or not.
But people will react when such statement is made, when something that is considered very basic AI in games today, seem impossible for it to do, and that will trigger people to start testing it a bit more in regards to how advanced it really is, because something about such statement seem to far from the truth that we don't simply accept it as normal "marketing selling stuff" anymore.
I bet you, that were CP's AI capable of doing what the AI can in GTA 5, no one would have bothered with it. The issue is, that if you venture to far from a claim, it becomes "bullshit" that people won't accept. To me that is the issue with a lot of the statements made about CP in the marketing material.
It's a valid comparison in terms of advertising something that's being sold. Language will be used that promote the product -- of course! But people often add their own meaning on top of what was already said, then want the businesses to answer for their imaginings. Or somehow compensate them for the "meal" if they happen not to like it.
There's the issue. These things you mention were never said (that I'm aware of!) For example, nothing was ever claimed that game had "the most advanced AI" in any open-world game. Who said this? When? Here's something that was said -- word for word:
"We have greatly enhanced our crowd and community systems to create the most believable city in any open-world game to date."
This was the plan! And it largely worked! The way crowds are created by the game feels a lot more like walking the streets of big cities like New York than anything GTA ever created. Yeah, there are issues, but take a look at the most crowded scenes from GTA 5 and start counting. There might be 10 NPCs on the screen at once. Whereas it's not hard to find scenes with nearly 50 NPCs on-screen in Cyberpunk. I've not played a game that made cities feel this populated. Some of the Assassin's Creed games may have had more NPCs...but they certainly didn't offer the sheer amount of signature environments or unique buildings as well.
Here's where the speculation and assumption starts taking over. What authority defines what makes a game city "most believable"? Is it the
number of NPCs? Is it their random
dialogue variety? Is it their
reactions? Is it how well the AI handles
traffic? Is it having every NPC follow a day-night
schedule?
Well, if it's number -- then Assassin's Creed wins hands-down. I don't think any other game has ever created crowds that huge. Even though they just walk about randomly and don't really interact with anything. And their reactions are limited to "get bumped into" and "be horrified".
If it's dialogue variety, reactions, or traffic AI, then I think GTA and Red Dead get the prize. Makes sense since almost the entire engine is built on that system, and the majority of game resources are devoted to it. But they're not RPGs. Linear story lines and minigames strung together to create a simple (if very enjoyable!) action game and sandbox. Gameplay is largely limited to drive / run and shoot / punch.
If it's about NPCs having schedules, then I'm afraid that the Gothic and Risen series are going to get the medals. No game I've ever seen has had such universally intricate schedules for literally every, single NPC.
So, Cyberpunk did its own thing. I would argue they went for the feeling of "bustling streets", and they nailed it. I've, personally, never experienced a game that bullseyes what it feels like to walk around a crowded, urban environment better than Cyberpunk does. (Hopefully, they can improve the AI, add some more dynamic reactions, make the traffic more fluent, and stop the teleporting cops. But I'd argue
mission accomplished for creating crowds that make the player really feel like they're in a
city.)
I completely agree, I was very entertained during my playthrough, in fact I played GTA 5 just before CP and weren't really caught by it due to lacking character creation, didn't really like the driving to much, the switching of characters etc. Might in fact be one of the few people, that enjoy driving in CP more than GTA 5
I would however disagree with choices mattering, I have a lot of general design issues in CP, which I don't think is good, like combat, the lack of a walking button, skill design where some of them makes absolutely no sense. Like the ability to not be spotted when swimming? I don't know how many missions people have done underwater, where they thought this was a huge issue. I did the one with Judy and then I jumped in the harbor just for fun
The crafting is broken and the list goes on. My point being that despite all these things, I did enjoy playing it, but one can't simply judge it based on that I think, but have to judge it, based on what they said and how they delivered it.
This is part and parcel for most RPGs, in some fashion. There are always some skills that seem to work better than others...certain skills that seem like they don't really serve a meaningful purpose...especially when compared to skills that are wildly effective. I can find example of this going back to the D&D Gold Box series. It happened in TW3, too.
It's just part of the creative process. People create something that seems like a really cool idea. They build in a couple of great moments where it can be used. There are plans to work it into other areas. Then...
Time. Money. Resources. Hours. Deadlines.
And...it never really gets its moment to shine. Pick any RPG in existence, and I'll show you an example of this. Action RPGs will suffer less from it (like Diablo, Dark Souls, or Destiny) because they're far more heavily focused on combat gameplay. Or there will be similar systems in games like FarCry that have ironed out their systems over multiple iterations of the game.
This again is something that is subjective I think, I don't think anyone expect games to be released 100% bug free, and if they do then clearly they are diluted, especially as you say, the scope of games today are massive. So this is obviously a scale of how many bugs do people find acceptable.
And as I mentioned, maybe the AAA industry need to change how they do things. Maybe apply the same strategy as a lot of minor studio uses, which is to start releasing games in alpha versions and keep working on them while getting feedback from players. They in return would know that it is an alpha game and that bugs exists etc.
A lot of studios seem to have success doing this...
...
I mean maybe it's time for the AAA studios to learn something from these guys.
But looking at a lot of the latest releases from some of these studios something is clearly not done correctly here, when they time after time are releasing games which just fails big time, either due to gameplay or simply doesn't meet expectations. Now CP sold really really well, so in that regard it was a hit, but in regards to PR it was a disaster. So maybe the issue is not that games have bugs during development, but rather that people get a feeling of them being solved before final release, and early access games done by good studios seem to handle this quite well.
Maybe getting a steady stream of feedback from fans during development can help guide the development in directions that players are after and sort of improve areas that are not working etc.
CDPR
was and still
is a smaller developer. Yes, there are now a lot of people working for the company, but it's still nothing compared to EA, Activision, or Epic. There are a lot of people that completely misconstrue how big CDPR is, or how many resources they have compared to long-standing AAA companies. They became more
recognized and
popular after TW3, but they only grew to cap 1,000 employees
during Cyberpunk's production. (By comparison, Rockstar Games had over 2,000 empolyees before production of Red Dead 2 even began. And look at the state it released in on PC. Look at the bugs. Look at the crazy AI behavior at times.) It's just the nature of the game being made. A game like 7 Days to Die is
far simpler in scope than something like CP2077 or Baldur's Gate 3. That's like comparing building a shed to building a 3-bedroom house.
But the concept of Early Access is almost a given, I'd say. Meaning, I don't think it will be truly possible to finish games in the future without massive, public testing. They're just getting too big for even huge studios to test effectively. Trouble there is for games that want to tell a story. Opening up the public to it will, without question, create spoilers that will spread and wind up killing the experience for many players.
So, I think we're in for bugs in the future no matter what.
