Why there will be at least 7-8 side activities in Cyberpunk 2077

[simonschwab]

I expect an additional 4-5 side activities to the already announced boxing, car racing and shooting range activities. If side activities are in the game to level up your skills, there must be a bunch of activities to boost all of your 12 skills.

More info in this blog post.

What side activities do you wish for in Cyberpunk 2077?

 

[Snowflakez]

I doubt it. There weren't many at all in TW3, and despite the fact that Night City is absolutely crawling with such activities from a lore perspective, CDPR has not demonstrated any interest in adding them into the game.

I was hoping for poker, pool, stuff like that, but clearly they feel those things are wasted resources, don't fit the theme of the game (Somehow), or something to that effect. I'm betting we'll walk into a bar, and not be able to interact with anything -- if you buy a drink and drink it, it'll just be an instant use consummable like it was in TW3 and other RPGs. You'll see people playing pool and cards, but won't be able to join in. Etc.

They've been asked multiple times about this and as far as I know, no matter how the question is worded, the same activities are mentioned. Boxing, street racing, shooting range, hacking minigame (which doesn't count as an "Activity," in my opinion).

EDIT: Should point out that all of this is to be expected and not disappointing to me. CDPR's games emphasize story, and try to immerse you using that and good characters. Not so much the other things.

 

[Garrison72]

Not that many, and to be honest, target shooting as a side activity sounds downright mundane. The fact we might have to do it to balance out our gun skills seems even worse. I hope there's more to it. Racing could be fun, boxing could be fun. Target shooting....

 

[CyberBobber]

Hunt down cyber psychos? More like combat oriented one. I like games where you get action whenever you want, if you start to feel bored, you can jump straight into it.

Make Music Videos would be nice out of the box idea, but dunno how they could implement it.

 

[Maelcom404]

Prostitutes and crack sniffing contests.

They should add some that we could play a bit with the aditional multiplayer (pool, etc...), but yeah, no "shoot the target", I'd rather have them put some arcade games (buy the rights to some old mame's rom? Create some?)
Just something that won't be boring after 10hours of game.

 

[SPicyBadaSS]

I doubt it. There weren't many at all in TW3, and despite the fact that Night City is absolutely crawling with such activities from a lore perspective, CDPR has not demonstrated any interest in adding them into the game.

I was hoping for poker, pool, stuff like that, but clearly they feel those things are wasted resources, don't fit the theme of the game (Somehow), or something to that effect. I'm betting we'll walk into a bar, and not be able to interact with anything -- if you buy a drink and drink it, it'll just be an instant use consummable like it was in TW3 and other RPGs. You'll see people playing pool and cards, but won't be able to join in. Etc.

They've been asked multiple times about this and as far as I know, no matter how the question is worded, the same activities are mentioned. Boxing, street racing, shooting range, hacking minigame (which doesn't count as an "Activity," in my opinion).

EDIT: Should point out that all of this is to be expected and not disappointing to me. CDPR's games emphasize story, and try to immerse you using that and good characters. Not so much the other things.

You say that they haven't went through and put side activities in TW3, however you seemed to have missed the fact that they created Gwent, and whole lore based card game, inside itself a game, and it was popular enough and hyped around so much they even released "Gwent" as a separate game entirely. I'm sure since they are headed for a new focus around this game with immersion and they at CDPR usually do things pretty interestingly, not to mention some at the studio already hinted that there would be some in trailers and posts. - sure it might not be more than 1 thing to do on the side of questing, but i'd say from the scale of Gwent, i'm thinking some people at CDPR like doing things like this. So we can hope for more I guess.

 

[BabalKabak]

I don't know which side activity I'd prefer over dozens and dozens of possible options to pick out from.

In my humble opinion, the game needs another range of activities more "static", quiet, simple to get in, like bar games, arcade and the like, less engaging, more suited for quick play. I ain't going to make a list as it would be too huge. But to me it's a required step to check if I want to keep invested for a longer time in an open-world game. I wouldn't be mad if they come in the game later as content updates.

Even a brand new board game if they believe they can make it possible after the Gwent's success. But not a Gwent clone for obvious reasons.

 

[Ambergeddon]

One of the side activities my V will be doing has already been confirmed.

I do hope we get a boxing side activity too what little of the melee shown looks super fun.

 

[Suhiira]

Ummm ...
This isn't GTA. It's not a persistent multi-player world so "side activities" aren't included/intended to provide gameplay outside questing. It's a story, it begins and ends, "side activities" exist primarily to permit/further that journey and provide a method to gain "necessary" skills or practice with the game mechanics.

 

[Draconifors]

I seriously doubt there will be that many side activities in the game. It's an RPG, it's got a story and plenty of different kinds of quests; having tons of side activities on top of all that sounds super unlikely.

I still haven't given up hope of some version of dice poker.
Racing is always fun so I'll look forward to that.

target shooting as a side activity sounds downright mundane. The fact we might have to do it to balance out our gun skills seems even worse.

Agreed. Target shooting...

 

[CyberBrett]

I had my fingers crossed for the Pool game we saw in one of the early vids

 

[DontEatMe]

I expect an additional 4-5 side activities to the already announced boxing, car racing and shooting range activities. If side activities are in the game to level up your skills, there must be a bunch of activities to boost all of your 12 skills.

More info in this blog post.

What side activities do you wish for in Cyberpunk 2077?

View attachment 11017061

What skill would racing level up? The logic seems a bit flawed here, there is nothing to indicate that the purpose of these activities is just to train skills. If anything, that seems like a side feature. If I had to guess, the purpose of a gun range is probably less about grinding xp for various gun skills, and more about letting the player test and various weapons without getting shot at. Same with boxing, it sounds like a fun minigame but I would call it an integrated melee tutorial before calling it a training mechanic.

That aside, I would say parkour/footraces for athletics, high-stakes poker for nerve, hacking is already a minigame, and for engineering?

Robot. Wars.

All I need in life is the ability to build a custom cyberpunk death machine and set it loose to do glorious battle in the sacred arena known as the nearest back alley robofight ring.

It's never gonna happen

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I don’t think they’ve revealed all there is to this, but if there really is little to nothing to do there outside the storytelling element, it really just strengthens the feeling that the open city really is just an elaborate but ultimately pointless stage decoration. If story is all there is to it, and outside missions and telling stories there’s nothing much to interact with, the game would’ve been better off as DX or DAO style hub based game (and they could’ve saved a lot by leaving vehicles and driving out alltogether along with the probably impressive looking, but dead distances and landscapes).

I would’ve expected gambling, arcade games, clubs, etc and also environmental interactivity (objects, items, NPC’s) via skillchecks (even seemingly random and mundane ones), but...

All in all, it will be a tad disappointing if the game is all about missions and scripted narrative and there’s little to no downtime to that. The bog world goes to waste, and that wastes gameplay time. It’d be a shame.

 

[BabalKabak]

That aside, I would say parkour/footraces for athletics, high-stakes poker for nerve, hacking is already a minigame, and for engineering?

Robot. Wars.

All I need in life is the ability to build a custom cyberpunk death machine and set it loose to do glorious battle in the sacred arena known as the nearest back alley robofight ring.

Bravo, you make me swearing out loud at my screen because I'd like to play these activities so bad. Like the friggin' ROBOT WARS how cool is that. Adding custom pieces on the robot fighter, like attaching weapons or any pieces that come from our crafting skills. Then painting our robot (or placing NEONS and LIGHTS omg), giving it a kewl name like "Megazord2000", fight our way to victory or destruction... and repeat. Thousands of robot combination, custom, fight, make us wanna improve our techie skills for crafting... where do I sign for this ???

Oh I'm just fantasizing on how Robot Wars could become so popular that CDPR make a standalone game out of this... (trying hard not to cry in public, lol).

 

[OneWingedHawk]

Not that many, and to be honest, target shooting as a side activity sounds downright mundane. The fact we might have to do it to balance out our gun skills seems even worse. I hope there's more to it. Racing could be fun, boxing could be fun. Target shooting....

Yeah that's what i have been thinking, if it's something like Metro games or even Skyrim where it's there for you to test your weapons and get points in a very limited way then it will be boring as hell. Now if they make it a competitive game in Night City then i think it could be interesting. Maybe something like RDR2 where you can challenge people in who is a better shot?

Games can make these mundane activities a bit more interesting just by adding story to them, that was my favorite part about Horse racing and brawling in W3, The fact that each of the encounters had a bit of story and decision to them made these super basic things a bit more interesting.

 

[ChouquetteSucree]

I don’t think they’ve revealed all there is to this, but if there really is little to nothing to do there outside the storytelling element, it really just strengthens the feeling that the open city really is just an elaborate but ultimately pointless stage decoration. If story is all there is to it, and outside missions and telling stories there’s nothing much to interact with, the game would’ve been better off as DX or DAO style hub based game (and they could’ve saved a lot by leaving vehicles and driving out alltogether along with the probably impressive looking, but dead distances and landscapes).

Couldn't agree more. A big open-world game with such a detailed and full of life city deserves some real, substancial interactivity.

I'm frankly tired of these big open-world games that just look nice, but turns out there is nothing to do in there.

I would’ve expected gambling, arcade games, clubs, etc and also environmental interactivity (objects, items, NPC’s) via skillchecks (even seemingly random and mundane ones)

Again agree 100%, the ones you described are what I would have thought about too (and don't forget that cool looking cyber-pool. Being wanting to try it since the trailer launched)

Games can make these mundane activities a bit more interesting just by adding story to them, that was my favorite part about Horse racing and brawling in W3, The fact that each of the encounters had a bit of story and decision to them made these super basic things a bit more interesting.

There is also the GTA 4 way, where you can play an activity with a companion/friend, and have some additional dialogue, exposition and character development. Too me it's the best because you can still do them anytime you want, it'snot restrictive at all

 

[Garrison72]

I don’t think they’ve revealed all there is to this, but if there really is little to nothing to do there outside the storytelling element, it really just strengthens the feeling that the open city really is just an elaborate but ultimately pointless stage decoration. If story is all there is to it, and outside missions and telling stories there’s nothing much to interact with, the game would’ve been better off as DX or DAO style hub based game (and they could’ve saved a lot by leaving vehicles and driving out alltogether along with the probably impressive looking, but dead distances and landscapes).

I would’ve expected gambling, arcade games, clubs, etc and also environmental interactivity (objects, items, NPC’s) via skillchecks (even seemingly random and mundane ones), but...

All in all, it will be a tad disappointing if the game is all about missions and scripted narrative and there’s little to no downtime to that. The bog world goes to waste, and that wastes gameplay time. It’d be a shame.

I don't think this is going to happen for a few reasons. TW3 did a good job of it, for starters. Turning off quest markers and just exploring was quite fun and varied because you can bump into a number of things. It's not on the level of a Bethesda game but it's still pretty good. They also specifically said they're trying to make Night City fun to explore with some metroid style level design, hacking opportunities, running into random events etc. On top of that, they have a dedicated team for it now, which is something they didn't have for TW3. It seems they're very aware of the cardboard cutout pitfall other open world cities fall into.

 

[MrQwerty227]

Racing is the only side activity I'm really looking forward to or care about tbh. I love racing mini games in open world games. The boxing one might also be pretty fun if they put a good amount of depth into the melee combat. Shooting range is meh. The ability to play billiards would also be cool and shouldn't be all that hard to develop. They could literally just copy the 8-ball game systems and I'd be happy.

 

[Snowflakez]

You say that they haven't went through and put side activities in TW3, however you seemed to have missed the fact that they created Gwent, and whole lore based card game, inside itself a game, and it was popular enough and hyped around so much they even released "Gwent" as a separate game entirely. I'm sure since they are headed for a new focus around this game with immersion and they at CDPR usually do things pretty interestingly, not to mention some at the studio already hinted that there would be some in trailers and posts. - sure it might not be more than 1 thing to do on the side of questing, but i'd say from the scale of Gwent, i'm thinking some people at CDPR like doing things like this. So we can hope for more I guess.

I haven't forgotten Gwent, and yet everything I said still stands. Separate game or not, it doesn't matter. It was a great game and I liked it a lot, but that does not in any way apply to Cyberpunk 2077.

You had Gwent, horse racing, boxing and.. I feel like there was one more, but I can't remember it off the top of my head. Maybe not. Anyway, that was pretty much it. Not much variety, so there's no reason to expect more here.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I don't think this is going to happen for a few reasons.

...

Neither do I, but I kinda had hoped (previously) they would at least to some degree since CP is very different setup from Witcher. A large city kinda does call for more interactivity than a foresty or rocky mountains landscape. It’s already in the theme of your surroundings there when you look around while standing in the middle of a busy streetcorner.

Not much variety, so there's no reason to expect more here.

Witcher shouldn’t be of any indication on what goes on in Cyberpunk. If the thought process is that ”we didn’t do it in Witcher, so we won’t do it here with Cyberpunk either” or that ”because we did it like X in Witcher, we’ll do it like that here too”, something has gone very wrong.