NSFW for you, at least. For me it’s perfectly fine, both because watching this gameplay demo is my job and because I work from home, where anything goes. Regardless, there’s a naked woman in this new gameplay trailer for Cyberpunk 2077, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s played The Witcher games before. Be prepared, however: it’s a long way from the romance novel style of CD Projekt Red’s previous work. More “amateur morgue,” really. Regardless, it’s only in the first part of an extensive gameplay demo. Watch it here:
Stylistically, this was about what I expected, though it’s still impressive to see the thing in action: other responsibilities mean I missed the E3 demo. It’s an immersive-sim style RPG strongly reminiscent of the Deus Ex series, which remains likely the most prominent cyberpunk title in the video game world. There have been some concerns about the first-person view from Witcher fans, but hopefully those will melt away as soon as anyone sees what the camera does for the world. You just can’t beat looking out of your avatar’s eyes for immersion, and it’s working beautifully here. We’ve got all the neon-drenched body-modifying grit and grime we’d expect out the genre, as well as some looks at the combat as well. Little canisters that your character hits with their thumb seem to figure prominently.
What impresses me most are the crowds: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen quite such naturalistic-looking street scenes I’ve ever seen in a game, and many, many developers have tried. CD Projekt Red are world builders first and foremost–world adaptors more accurately, I suppose–and those skills are on full display here. Like with The Witcher 3, what we can see here so far is a deep, broad world itching to be explored, and that’s the focus more than any particular RPG or combat system. Dialogue trees hint at a shocking amount of recorded voicework, as well.
Combat and action-wise, Deus Ex remains a useful touchstone. We’ve got modifications and items that look like they’ll allow us to use a combination of stealth, combat, hacking, exploration and social skills to navigate encounters any number of ways. It’s a well-established formula, but a very difficult one to pull off. It’s also difficult to really see working in a demo situation, for obvious reasons: everyone likes to promise a branching world of infinite possibility, but of course, there are limits. It still looks promising, though. I can’t wait to sneak around and whack people in the back, which is always how I approach this sort of thing. The combat definitely looks more advanced than some similar games, however.
CD Projekt Red was clear in the stream that this is a work in progress and subject to change, and the game might still be a ways off. As we can see, however, it most definitely exists. The entire game is playable from start to finish, the developer says, and so I’m going to go ahead and expect a 2019 release date. The developer is targeting current consoles, which is an impressive thing, looking at this demo. I’d also expect to to be cross-gen once we hear about the next PlayStation and Xbox, however.
