While I was waiting for 2.11, I replayed Sleeping Dogs, then beat Just Cause 3 and 4 for the first time. Afterward, I started playing Saints Row. . . Several observations! First, Saints Row the new game looks beautiful, BUT it doesn't compare to Cyberpunk 2077. It actually has more in common with Sleeping Dogs when it comes to driving. Cyberpunk 2077 set a standard that's going to box out a lot of games that won't meet such a high bar of quality and forward-thinking. However, Saints Row aside, I started thinking about a lot of technical issues and approaches that I think are missing from CP77.
NPCs in Just Cause and Sleeping Dogs do things I really would like to see in the future of Cyberpunk 2077. The technical issue is that I think that Just Cause was able to do things that weren't done in CP77 because of spacing. When the world is so spaced out, there aren't a lot of resources that will have conflicts like they tend to have in CP77. "Cities" in Just Cause are so spaced out that there is absolutely NO WAY for one city's resources to be loaded in RAM when you're in another. What bothers me about that in CP77 is that I think it's much of the reason that the world can't be as immersive as some may want.
Between Sleeping Dogs, Just Cause, and Rage 2, I think they have the most interesting "living worlds". Especially Just Cause and Rage 2. I'll contrast. In CP77 you can stand on a street corner and expect people to walk around, even drive around. if you stand in the same spot and don't interact with the world, you might see a car collision. But, in Just Cause and Rage 2, The world interacts with itself in AMAZING ways. Gun battles, shit flying in the sky crashing into other shit LOL. Cars racing one another, NPCs doing things that make you stop and say "What?!" Sleeping Dogs did some interesting stuff with ambulances coming out to rescue people that may be beat up or hit by a car. Purse snatchers and stuff like that.
My point? CP77 did a lot to make older games become "dated material". A lot of paradigms that aren't acceptable after CP77 as an experience. I never bought Starfield, expressly because I expected it to be a dated attempt at game creation and I was right. Realistically, the only games that are outstandingly progressive are CP77 and Baldur's Gate 3. I'm actually waiting to see what becomes of Stellar Blade and Squadron 42. So far, they are the only games that strikingly suggest that they may enter a competitive space with CP77.
Otherwise, Just Cause and Rage 2 aren't as intricate as CP77 when it comes to landscape and architectural details. Sleeping Dogs is OLD but the world is comparatively complicated compared to CP77. Maybe we'll have some technological achievement in computing that supports more abilities in the future of the Cyberpunk franchise.
Apparently, the devs at CDPR are pushing their system to the limits. Even with the remaining glitches, as a package, it's WAY beyond what any other game offers.
If I were to give any advice to the dev team, I'd say to look at game worlds that really do a good job of making their worlds feel like they are lived in. Specifically, worlds that put emphasis on the NPCs in the system interacting with each other, "fluidly", "independently" and without the intervention of the player. It's going to be what keeps Cyberpunk ahead of other developers when they catch up with graphical intricacy and complex worldbuilding.
I think the future of gaming will be there. The less the player feels like they are arriving at a Hollywood studio set to start acting, the better. The AI agents need to have independent even group motivations.
NPCs in Just Cause and Sleeping Dogs do things I really would like to see in the future of Cyberpunk 2077. The technical issue is that I think that Just Cause was able to do things that weren't done in CP77 because of spacing. When the world is so spaced out, there aren't a lot of resources that will have conflicts like they tend to have in CP77. "Cities" in Just Cause are so spaced out that there is absolutely NO WAY for one city's resources to be loaded in RAM when you're in another. What bothers me about that in CP77 is that I think it's much of the reason that the world can't be as immersive as some may want.
Between Sleeping Dogs, Just Cause, and Rage 2, I think they have the most interesting "living worlds". Especially Just Cause and Rage 2. I'll contrast. In CP77 you can stand on a street corner and expect people to walk around, even drive around. if you stand in the same spot and don't interact with the world, you might see a car collision. But, in Just Cause and Rage 2, The world interacts with itself in AMAZING ways. Gun battles, shit flying in the sky crashing into other shit LOL. Cars racing one another, NPCs doing things that make you stop and say "What?!" Sleeping Dogs did some interesting stuff with ambulances coming out to rescue people that may be beat up or hit by a car. Purse snatchers and stuff like that.
My point? CP77 did a lot to make older games become "dated material". A lot of paradigms that aren't acceptable after CP77 as an experience. I never bought Starfield, expressly because I expected it to be a dated attempt at game creation and I was right. Realistically, the only games that are outstandingly progressive are CP77 and Baldur's Gate 3. I'm actually waiting to see what becomes of Stellar Blade and Squadron 42. So far, they are the only games that strikingly suggest that they may enter a competitive space with CP77.
Otherwise, Just Cause and Rage 2 aren't as intricate as CP77 when it comes to landscape and architectural details. Sleeping Dogs is OLD but the world is comparatively complicated compared to CP77. Maybe we'll have some technological achievement in computing that supports more abilities in the future of the Cyberpunk franchise.
Apparently, the devs at CDPR are pushing their system to the limits. Even with the remaining glitches, as a package, it's WAY beyond what any other game offers.
If I were to give any advice to the dev team, I'd say to look at game worlds that really do a good job of making their worlds feel like they are lived in. Specifically, worlds that put emphasis on the NPCs in the system interacting with each other, "fluidly", "independently" and without the intervention of the player. It's going to be what keeps Cyberpunk ahead of other developers when they catch up with graphical intricacy and complex worldbuilding.
I think the future of gaming will be there. The less the player feels like they are arriving at a Hollywood studio set to start acting, the better. The AI agents need to have independent even group motivations.
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