What i expected from Cyberpunk 2077

[exxxed]

I think the most probable version of what happened is this.

They sat in internal meetings and said "we would LOVE a game where you can do this, this and this". There's no malice in that, it just passionate ideas for what would make an amazing game experience.

They then started work on it but, crucially, misjudged how much of it was technically achievable. For starters, building a virtually real world sized small city by hand is a completely insane enterprise. The cities in Skyrim have, what, 20 inhabitants by comparison. To then make that city wholly interactable would not only take a decade more work, but would be likely to bring every computer and console grinding to a halt.

They then announced too much of what they were trying to do, too early.

And then they had to start cutting away at the things they simply couldn't do or didn't have time to do.

They have rightly identified that the announcements / marketing were a major misstep and that they can never do that again. That they need to change their marketing approach.

But, effectively, it sounds like they started from the same wishlist as the OP. They just failed to ground their wishlist with hardnosed realism over what it would take to get there and that, realistically, it was not sensible to try to get there.

If one follows the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42 (SHOCK HORROR, TRIGGER WARNING, RUFFLED FEATHERS) one can study and observe the amount of work that goes into such a dream project.

It's simply monumental, and unachievable by the corporate gaming scene or the market at large, that's why people are throwing money at CIG.

I honestly think that to achieve THE Night City of our dreams CDPR would have stood a better chance going with an open development process and work openly with the community, problem was, the ball was already rolling.

But I still can't believe how much my personal expectations differ from everyone else's, I followed the same hype, I was playing the trailers, songs, gameplay videos etc. on repeat, I was dreaming of roaming Night City, dreaming of what the narrative would be like, and I was pleasantly surprised.

And yes I fully expected euro jank from CDPR, anyone expecting anything else was not paying attention, The Witcher 3 had some of the worst mechanics ever, I apologize, I actually meant all of CDPR's games...

Ah well...

 

[wright1978]

I expected a lot more from Cybernetics. I expected there would be reactiom to the more modified you became.
I expected more interactivity with the world. Jackie eating noodles was nice, shame V can't do anything
I expected more from factions/gangs. Thought actions and reputation might affect them more. I didn't think they'd be one voodoo boys mission and that its done regardless.
I expected more from the choice and consequence system
I thought there would be some customisation to things like vehicles
I expected it to be easier to get a clothing set you actually wanted to wear.
Lastly and most importantly i expected my character choices to matter and not be overwritten and invalidated by a last second mission choice.

 

[BLOODREAPERIV]

My low expectation is that the game doesn't crash on next gen consoles.. that's all..

 

[BigWezz69]

I expected;

"..next generation of open world adventure.."

and

".. greatly enhanced our crowd and community systems to create the most believable city in any open-world game to date"

I also expected a game world to have more interactivity than what it does. At the end of the game, V summed up how I felt regarding the game as a whole, the story and the game systems;

"I ca-- I can't believe. Everything. All we did - it was pointless." - V

Unfortunately, CDPR ran out of time on the project which definitely seems like it was mismanaged.

 

[Delilah_]

i had no expectations for this game, watched the trailer way after it was released, just expected an immersive open world RPG with strong characters and an above average story and i got much more than that. what you cited is really beyond what the current technology has to offer, it's gonna take 2 decades maybe to have such things implemented in a video game. cool ideas nevertheless!

 

[greeks]

In all honesty, all the leaked information about terrible Cyberpunk development worried me greatly. But I was giving CDPR a benefit of a doubt, thinking that it's just my cynicism speaking. Initially I wanted a great game that would incorporate all those elements that CDPR was talking about over the years, but in the end I just wanted the game to be bug-free.


Sure, there would be voices stating that lots of promised content is not in the game, but the counter-argument would be that it gave the team time and resources needed for the rest fo the game to be perfected. Plus CDPR would most probably deliver all that missing content in DLCs and expansions. It would make perfect sense to simply enjoy what the game has to offer, while waiting for the future content to arrive.


And that's what I expected to get. A different game, but a great game nontheless. I was ready to defend the missing content with an argument of unrivalled quality. On the other hand, if the game delivered all that promised content, but THEN ened up as buggy as it is, I would defend it by saying that the game was simply too ambitious to be perfect and it will be patched up and fixed over time.


Instead of a tradeoff, quality at the cost of quantity, we ended up with two short straws, and that is unacceptable. That's why I'm so pissed at CDPR.
Instead of one good and one bad outcome, we ened up with two bad ones.