CD Projekt Reveal Cyberpunk 2077 Trailer
I’ll be honest with you; I’m not a huge fan of some of the larger developers. I’m not trying to jump on any type of wagon, certainly not ones with a band on it (unless it’s Journey), it just rubs me the wrong way with which most of them treat on disc “DLC”, and just their customers in general.
CD Projekt on the other hand, is my Manny Calavera. Not everyone has heard of them, but by the gaming gods are they awesome. If you haven’t played either of The Witcher games, then for the love of Samus Aran go and buy them immediately. Not only do they make great games, they also release huge updates, and guess what? They don’t charge for them! That’s right folks, they don’t charge for DLC. Even better than that, they also don’t force you to use worthless DRM which does absolutely nothing but annoy legitimate customers.
All ranting aside, you can see why I love CD Projekt, speaking of, here is a new reason to love them. They revealed some time ago that they were working on a new RPG with a cyber-theme, so here it is, Cyberpunk 2077. Set phasers to awesome.
“In Cyberpunk 2077, the player will be thrown into a dark future. The metropolis of Night City is a stage set to tell the tale of one individual, raised on the streets, who tries to lift himself up from the gutter and find a way to survive amongst boostergangs and megacorporations in a city of filth and sin. Drugs, violence, poverty and exclusion haven’t disappeared by 2077, as people stayed they were for centuries – greedy, closed-minded and weak. But not only ghosts of the past trouble mankind, but new issues have appeared. Psychos go on rampages and the streets are filled with junkies addicted to a new form of entertainment – the braindance, a cheap way to experience the emotions and stimuli of someone else, someone living a more exciting life.
Braindances are digital recordings of a person’s experience. The viewer can stream a braindance directly into his neural system via special brain augmentations, called a BD player. Braindances allow the viewer to experience all brain processes registered, including emotions, muscle movements and all stimuli perceived by the recording person.
The range of themes of these recordings varies from simple braindances made by megacorporations, which e.g. allow the viewer to feel the full experience of an explorer with all its thrills, sweats, smells, views, sounds and the real feeling of curiosity that pushes men to go beyond the horizon against fear and physical weakness. But there are also more controversial sides of braindance, because some recordings are created illegally in the underground. Entering the mind of a serial killer means not only seeing the monstrosity he performs, but also living his lust to kill and fulfillment.”
Some other little snippets of information from CVG reveals that CD Projekt named the enforcement officers you see as ‘MAX-TAC’ (Maximum Force Tactical Division), affectionately named the Psycho Squad.
“The Psycho Squad specializes in combating ‘psychos’ — individuals who overuse implants and substances that boost or otherwise alter the human body.”
So what we see in the trailer is how they might gather a new member for the team. It’s highly unlikely that they are recruited for their charming personality, but they look like they would make a good bullet sponge.
CD Projekt also commented that the game was a “multi-thread, nonlinear story designed for mature players” and that “Players will have a chance to freely roam the open-world environment and visit places well known from the pen-and-paper RPG ‘Cyberpunk 2020’, including a combat zone completely taken over by gangs, the legendary Afterlife joint and the nostalgic Forlorn Hope,”
This really gets my nostalgic Shadowrun days flooding back to me. I’ve been waiting for something like this for a very long time, and I really couldn’t be happier with who is handling it.
The ‘Braindance’ sounds like a great plot point as well as, I assume, an interesting game mechanic. Add to that the dark rainy city setting, violence, drugs and a character growing up on the streets, and you have great RPG material.
Unfortunately there isn’t really any gameplay details yet as it seems to be a ways off being completed, but CD Projekt did let slip about another RPG they are working on, and a little part of the Cyberpunk 2077 video (as pointed out by a post on NeoGAF) seems to hint at The Witcher 3.
To my ears this is all great news, hopefully more and more people will become interested in what is a really great developer with a superb attitude toward their fans.
To be honest, they had me at Cyberpunk.