Cyberpunk 2077 world premiere: 50 minutes of William Gibson-level insanity
arstechnica.com"The trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 strikes me as GTA skinned-over with a generic 80s retro-future, but hey, that's just me." --William Gibson[1]
It's mentioned (and little more) in the article at the end, but it still seems odd to invoke Gibson's name and not talk about this more.
1. https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/1005958197654351872
Insightful :) Sold!
(I realise Gibson's remark is meant to be dismissive.)
I'm not into gaming any more but I grew up on Gibson novels and the last game I played through and through was GTA Vice City. Ergo, I'd love this.
Oh, the tune from the trailer is Spoiler by Hyper, it's rather nice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G70S5fumHso It reminds me of Pursuit by Gesaffelstein for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRSijEW_cDM
Is this really a criticisms though? I would buy that in a heartbeat, heh
Deus Ex was there in 2000, no big, open spaces and vehicles like modern open world games but political intrigue over and beyond Neuromancer and the hacking and body modification were integral parts of gameplay, System Shock 2 had those hacking/body mod gameplay features as well in 1999 but in space, so there are some great ones out there if you don't mind older games and if they run on a system you have.
Deux Ex runs on modern PCs without issue using the GoG or Steam version. I play it without visual mods, and it still holds up.
It is an evaluation. He is not impressed so he doesn't look further into it.
Unfortunately, the over-hyped cyberpunk community is on a bandwagoning trip of dismissing all criticism as gating or ignorance, even elevating the remarks of a handful people on the internet as the main criticism against the game, e.g., cyberpunk on a day is not cyberpunk.
Personally, I find the direction the developers are taking refreshing, but that doesn't mean they haven't missed opportunities or made no mistakes.
The main argument of those happy with the trailer's cyberpunk style is that the later is not a mix of cyber with outrun or vaporwave, but as the term states cyber and punk. Hence it is not limited to the dusky, rainy scenes of Blade Runner.
They forget, however, that ironically cyberpunk is also more than the sum of its parts. Even if you wish to progress this very visually demanding genre into a new direction, we still have to able to experience the feeling of low life, high tech that is so essential to cyberpunk.
So to claim that you can't do cyberpunk on a day does indeed make no sense. But to imply it is of no concern how you present your day scenes and the color pallette doesn't matter, that is even worse.
Huh. I always thought the proper palette for cyberpunk was "the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." ;-)
It's not a strong one. You could say that about any two games in the same genre - "Starcraft is just a re-skin of Warcraft". I would still buy Starcraft.
He's not half wrong - too little cyberspace internals in the trailer. Makes me wonder how this will be resolved, given that the game is based on Cyberpunk 2020, a tabletop rpg game written well before the mobile and blockchain revolutions.
Before blockchain revolutions? I don't see how the blockchain would impact 2020/2077 in any way
No sci-fi writer predicted bitcoin mining. The rulebook vaguely stated that a cyberpunk knows a few unlawful ways to get money, so should a game such as Cyberpunk 2077 include a subplot based on simply publishing images bugged with Monero-generating code (to use just one recent example)?
Also, a friend of mine has an idea that the first true unkillable AI will run inside a blockchain, and it would be economically infeasible to hack it as it would require owning more than 50% of its infrastructure. But that's still sci-fi.
>No sci-fi writer predicted bitcoin mining.
Diamond age had a distributed tuple space, which was kind of similar in effect, enclaves that made their living off of work their computers did for digital pay.
Of course, the standout thing about cryptocoin by comparison is that there's no real useful work resulting from all the absurd amounts of electricity being used to mine it.
Don't so easily underestimate the longterm utility of money outside government and corporate control.
Centralised money, like dictatorships, is only good when benevolently ruled.
For the majority, money is wielded more against than for their interests.
I'm reasonably skeptical of cryptocoin but I think it's absurd to judge utility of a work product so soon.
They have some utility, if you're willing to ignore the majority use case (get-rich-quick schemes), but ultimately, they're like decorating by hanging pictures on quadcopters instead of nailing them to the wall. The pictures are technically hanged, but it's kind of a dumb use of energy.
Yeah, it’s only been about a decade right? :|
Maybe blockchain technologies go the way of the car phone. That is, they were novel and useful for a time but other advancements rendered them obsolete. Or, maybe future fiction doesn't need to account for every possible future technology and instead will feature fictional things/ideas the author simply thinks is cool/interesting to play with.
Cryptonomicon did
You'd better try Diamond Age, which came out earlier. However, still not early enough to predate Cyberpunk 2020, which is the main issue here.
The Witcher 3 and its expansions are probably my favorite game of all times, and I've been gaming voraciously since the late 80s. The story, the connection to the characters, the feeling of immersion into the world, and the character of Geralt himself are not something I've seen in many other titles. Somewhat reminiscent of Final Fantasy 7 in terms of its impact on me as a participant to the experience.
The pressure on that studio to deliver something amazing couldn't be any higher.
Its NPCs having real backstories that didn't feel like fetch quests provided a very nice level of depth, and made you care about what happened to them. I got the bad ending, and my jaw was legitimately agape for a few minutes as I processed what just happened, after playing through for as many hours as I did.
If it makes you feel any better, the more canon ending would likely be that brutal and painful given how the books were supposed to end the story of Geralt and Yennefer. Even the full trilogy ending seems to mock the player for being desperate for a completely “happy” ending - even that one can’t possibly be the happiest thing for Geralt if you ask me because we have lost so many good friends / colleagues probably to get there. The fact that the writers don’t even dwell on these losses too much actually makes the losses more brutal - you aren’t told how you should feel telegraphed in any way. Part of what makes the series so engaging is very similar to what made the Sopranos on TV so good - it is actually following the ups and downs and successes and failures of an active, dynamic life. I believe this was described by Kurt Vonnegut as such anyway.
It’s unfortunate a lot of people that hate on games won’t be able to sink their teeth into the really fantastic writing that went into that game and its expansions.
Same, that ending messed me up for a little while, but I was fine with it. The expansions helped me forget about it more or less.
Do I need to play Witcher 1 and 2 first?
Not at all, I tried to get into 1 and couldn't, it was too rough around the edges for me. 2 was much better, but I got distracted a few hours in. 3 felt like a completely different universe quality-wise.
Could you be more specific? My girlfriend loves 1, and says 2 was a major step down for her in gameplay.
1 and 2 are frequently sold at heavy discount so I already bought them both. I haven't gotten to try 1 yet as it doesn't have a Linux version.
I played through W1 (for the second time) in 2017, W2 in Jan (only got 1/3 of the way through originally), and W3 in March (first time). Each game approaches combat in very different ways in terms of mechanics but I felt that each contained the same core essence. I preferred the combat in W2 but I could absolutely understand why someone would prefer W1. I would say that W1 is a deeply flawed but still great game, W2 is simply a great game, and W3 is one of the best games ever.
Had trouble getting into Witcher as well, and it's weird because I normally love action RPG games. I might have overdosed on Fallout 3 and its expansions too much just beforehand, though. The combat in Witcher 1 in melee felt looser/slidey for lack of a technical term and I had gotten used to the precise control of your player actions in Fallout 3. YMMV, it could just be in my head.
No.
It doesn’t have enoigh rain to really feel cyberpunk.
... on a side note, I just realized we’re now as far away from cyberpunk in time as cyberpunk was from the golden age of sci-fi. That also feels wrong somehow.
Reasonable, but it is in LA, and the rain in Bladerunner was always unrealistic (baring unpredictable effects of climate change).
To be honest, after a few hours into observer_, I started to hate the constant rain. That and that random glitch effect.
Night/rain/neon is great, don't yet me wrong, but in small doses.
CDPR the old Blizzard looking forward to this.
I hoped for a better graphics :( The initial trailers were more life-like.
Yeah. I preferred the original aesthetic too, feels far too cartoonish now.
The original trailer was completely CG done by an animation studio. This trailer is rendered in engine.
One of the selling points at early stages of development was that what they shown in trailer should look exactly as game play. That's why it is now such a disappointment.
The old trailer was done in 2013, real proper development started in 2017. What are you actually disappointed about, that it's not dark and gritty all the time?
I'm so sad they chose a first-person view. I can't play in first-person view more than 20min without feeling nauseous. I'll have to skip the game just because of my condition… :/
I used to play FPS shooters relentlessly and competitively. Somewhere around Quake 2/Quake 3/Halo I started to get severe motion sickness playing games and had to stop. For years I thought I would never be able to really enjoy FPS shooters again. I stuck mostly to RPGs as they weren't as intense.
These days, if I know I'll have a couple rare hours to myself where I can play video games I'll pop a Dramamine. I've also found that ginseng pills, sea bands, colder air, lots of water, lots of rest, good food, fresh air, and playing frequently enough to build up a tolerance but not so often that I'm over doing it help. This may be just be the placebo affect, but it seems to work.
I still get motion sickness occasionally, and I stop playing when I do, but it's far less severe.
There is a good design reason behind it and that is that augmentation are supposed to have a direct effect on how you see the world.
Also since there is gun play third person shooters tend to essentially boil down to cover shooting which gets boring really quickly and you need a very sticky camera and a boring level design to prevent players from exploiting the fact that you can easily see behind corners.
I think fpp -> tpp mod is easier than other way around.
If I don't play fpp for few months I find it hard to look at (no nausea though). I adjust after few hours.
I have similar issues, but only on low FOVs, framerates and motion blur. A lot of console games have a ridiculously low FOV that fails to match reality when you turn the camera; causing nausea. But on PC playing on 90+ at 60FPS+ with no motion blur is fine. For me the sweet spot is around 110 FOV.
As others have said, FOV is one of the biggies, but also tons of fresh cool air blowing around is helpful, as is chewing on some ginger gum. And make sure you're sitting far enough from the screen--that was one I didn't realize but that made a huge difference.
Another first-person shooter. :-(
They spend all that money and time creating worlds, it'd be nice to have another Skyrim or two some day. Set in a cyberpunk world. There aren't enough RPGs made anymore.
A) This studio’s 3 previous games were all third-person RPGs, including Witcher 3, which was well-reviewed as GOTY when it released.
B) this game is similar to Skyrim in that it’s first-person
Skyrim is merely a FPS with swords. It has dialogues, but so does this game (and apparently a lot of them).
It's actually a first-person RPG.
> it'd be nice to have another Skyrim or two some day
Starfield is likely roughly a year out. So that’s pretty exciting.
I'm sorry but what is this based on? Bethesda showed a logo and a pre-rendered video of a planet. I have a feeling we're far more than roughly a year out from Starfield releasing.
Pete Hines said it needed “some time and attention after this year”, “it’s playable”, and (in so many words) “it’s next after fallout 76”. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XA6YHeaOO-Y So that sounds like 1, maybe 2 years.
It all boils down on the ratio between shooting and interacting with other characters, exploring the world etc. I wouldn't mind being 1 hour cowboy if I could also live 5 hours as explorer. For instance, I loved Mass Effect 1 and 2 for having just the right balance between action and the rest.
I don't know, it seems more intense as an FPS than Skyrim:
"Cyberpunk 2077 diverges from that series in a few major ways, and the first is with brutal high-speed gunplay. "
I played warsow and watched some quake 3 ctf with cpm physics, so I have to say the only thing that is going to be fast here is the guns.
Was looking forward to this till I heard it was first person perspective.
Just can't play first person games on console with a controller. Lost all interest in it now.
I'd at least give it some time, watch a few streams of it before turning your back on it, cd projekt red might release something beautiful, it's not even complete yet and you could potentially have the options for 3rd person perspective.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/16c2wk/cyberpunk_20...
hidden image in the trailer.
Xbox is supposed to get official support for mouse and keyboard. For now there's some unofficial hackery going on.
it will also be on PC.
Unless these myriad of dialog options lead somewhere meaningful, it's not much different from Mass Effect or the even older Knights of the Old Republic and other precursors.
I'd take reskinned KOTOR in a heartbeat. If the quality of writing is consistent with Witcher 3 that would be even more awesome.