I think that cutting out cinematic cutscenes is one of, if not THE biggest issue I have with cyberpunk 2077.
Why you might ask?
Well, lets just compare two scenes of actual ingame footage and the cinematic we got back in 2019.
If you havent already progressed to “The Heist”- Mission ingame and never seen the E3 2019 trailer displaying that mission, the following does contain heavy story spoilers! If you do not want to see these spoilers, scroll past that video link and read on.
If you don’t remeber the E3 gameplay, here’s a very good video (not mine) which shows ingame- and trailer footage side by side :
-SPOILER BEGINNING!-
-SPOILER END-
Now that’s a huge difference, right? No, I don’t mean the graphics, which are obiviously cgi in the trailer, I mean the emotions that those scenes trigger. Many players have a hard time connecting to “their” V and there’s a simple reason for this. To really engage to a fictional character, we need to see their emotional reactions to build that empathy needed to feel with them.
In the trailer you can see the anger, sadness and desperation in Vs eyes, whereas in the final game we’re just a pack of floating eyeballs.
Sure, the scene is still very emotional, but seeing our main character reacting to the unfortunate events would really help us bond with him/her.
Take the mass effect trilogy for example (or any other movie/game considered “great”): We feel so attached to the main character because we can actually SEE what he/she’s going through and after a certain time we can actually immerse into their view. Also no one minds seeing their hand-made character pulling of some badass moves.
While first person view really suits this game during acutal gameplay, the missed opportunity of telling this absolutely great story in a cinematic and engaging way always leaves a feeling of well....disappointment.