[tomdale]

I'm really happy to see this. As fumbled as the launch was, I played it on PC and found the world and its characters to have more depth than I'd personally experienced in a video game before.

What broke my heart was to feel viscerally how much time and love the developers had poured into the game, dedicating years of their lives, only to have it all overshadowed by a disastrous, rushed launch. I for one am glad to see the game getting a shot at redemption, and I'm glad more people are getting to experience what IMO is a masterpiece of digital storytelling.

[Calavar]

There's a kernel of a good game in there. But the big issue in my opinion is that outside of the main story missions, the world feels completely dead.

Night City is huge and you can tell that there was a lot of passion and care put into the design, at least from an art perspective. But the player has no incentive to explore it.

I see three main reasons for this:

1. You don't stumble upon content organically. Every event is premarked on your map and will remain frozen in time until you get there. And I mean every event. Even firefights between different NPC factions. They don't happen randomly/organically. They happen at premarked spots on your map. You're a tourist with an itinerary in an amusement park as opposed to a person navigating a living, breathing city.

2. There is zero reason to go anywhere without a quest marker. You aren't rewarded for peeking into random corners, for going off the beaten path, like you are in a game like Skyrim. If you do, you are met with an eerie sort of emptiness. Just lots of RNG NPCs, and a feeling that you were never meant to go there.

3. If you follow the markers to the side content, it's pretty hit or miss. There are a few extended, multimission side quests that are legitimately interesting. But the regular side missions (called "gigs") all sort of blend into one. They sort of remind me of COD missions: Exposition is thrown at you like a firehose with a monologue, then you kill a dozen NPCs, and only after the smoke settles do you realize that one of them happened to be the big baddy. And then the mission just sort of ends. And none of the characters involved ever come up again beyond a passing mention in conversation (usually). Sure, the story is there, but it doesn't feel like it has any relation to the gameplay.

So what you're left with is a city that is nothing more than a backdrop for a fairly linear main quest, which while decent, isn't all that remarkable on it's own.

So much was left on the table. I hope CD Projekt make a sequel where they take the time to really flesh out the world. They could have a classic on their hands if they do.

[bakuninsbart]

This for me is one of the reasons why Diso Elysium is such a masterpiece. There is no corner in the game without a secret, yet it never feels like it forces gameplay into these corners, the mystery appears naturally and implicitly in everything.

Very different type of game compared to CP77, but it has become my gold standard of RPG storytelling.

[BaseballPhysics]

> Very different type of game compared to CP77, but it has become my gold standard of RPG storytelling.

Well yeah. That's because it's basically an interactive book. "Very different type of game" is putting it pretty mildly!

Personally, I found it utterly exhausting (if I want to read a book, I'll just... read a book!), but to each their own!

[studmuffin650]

yeah I almost completely agree. I feel almost no need to do any side quests (of which some are impossibly difficult until you've passed the end game). The thing that really bugged me more than anything was I just thought the controls for the game weren't very tight. Driving felt a bit too floaty and the gun controls on PS5 were very lacking (compared to say GTA5). There is glimmers of greatness, I just think they bit off more than they could chew.

[izacus]

The side quests each have bunch of interesting world building and great stories in them.

I don't understand your approach - you refuse to engage with the best parts of the world and then call it dead?!

[Apocryphon]

> I hope CD Projekt make a sequel where they take the time to really flesh out the world.

Sounds more like they should go back to making more expansions (they had planned three, it's been cut down to only one) to really flesh out this game, rather than dumping it and starting from scratch. Seems like a waste otherwise.

[cwkoss]

I don't think expansions would solve this.

What the world needs is random NPC events and non-quest things to find in the world.

- Overhear conversations about someone going to do a clandestine deal, then rob that person and the person they are trading with for way more money than a typical NPC and a neat item.

- Random gang-v-gang or gang-v-police turf war battles should pop up. NPC's should notice when you're 'helping' and not attack you.

- NPCs should occasionally try to rob you or sell you sketchy stuff.

- NPC should be doing interesting things, but all their animations are just 'walk around' or 'standing still'. You should be able to follow an NPC to get a peek at their life so they don't seem like arbitrary robots.

- Hidden caches with actually-useful or amusing items to encourage exploration

- Build out spaces that aren't used in quests, so exploring doesn't feel like you've just given yourself spoilers.

[Apocryphon]

Couldn't all of that be added in via expansions, DLC, or patches (what's the difference anyway) without changing the underlying engine? It's just strange that a game that was worked upon for so long (including after its release) is seemingly unsalvageable. I would think that they could expand more.

[cwkoss]

All of that should have been integral to the initial version of the game. I'd balk at a game that lets you play singleplayer but you have to pay extra if you want the world to feel real.

[Apocryphon]

Sure, but 1) you'd have to pay for a sequel anyway and 2) there's still the possibility of free DLC/patches.

My main question is does anyone know if 2077 is just so technically broken, systematically, that it's impossible to patch in all of that. Was it just improperly designed from the ground up to support its ambitions. Because if not, then I view throwing away all of the work done for the existing game, in order to start a new one, seems like a waste and another potential boondoggle.

[izacus]

I'm very sure that CDPR never wanted to create a GTA full of random crap happening on the street with no story connections.

I think a lot of you misunderstood what kind of games CDPR makes. You also didn't get randomly mugged on the streets of Novigrad just to be hunted by the guards.

[imbnwa]

>Overhear conversations about someone going to do a clandestine deal, then rob that person and the person they are trading with for way more money than a typical NPC and a neat item.

The plot to Way of the Gun

[TigeriusKirk]

How moddable is the game? Can users do any of this?

[theshrike79]

The latest update added an official modding API, we'll see what comes out of it.

[EamonnMR]

The open world was an albatross they should have ditched in favor of the main quest; the campaign is cinematic and awesome, the combat is bomb, but the world is... well, you traverse it, and that's about it.

[atoav]

To be honest I was so amazed by the feel of the world that I completed the mainquest (and all side quests) by either walking or driving there. I rarely used any form of waypoint to skip the inbetween.

I think the architecture, the roads and the districts are very well designed. I think the quests take you to interesting no places and show interesting perspectives on life in sich a city.

What the game lacks to some degree are more emerging observable things with the NPCs moving throughout the city. There should be more things happening. Be it quarreling couples in 100 variations, a car crash that is being locked down by police or emergent behavior between police, gangs, emergency services, hookers, onlookers. Create situations that emerge from the systems of the city.

[EamonnMR]

I played the same way. Well, I took a motorcycle because the traffic was always way too slow. Sometimes I'd stop to Judge Dredd some random Crims if it was on the way. The world looked pretty, but the traffic and pedestrian AI was just so weirdly silly that it wasn't exactly an immersive experience. Relaxing to blast through traffic at 120kph on an Akira bike though.

[izacus]

The world is full of small stories and big - from environmental storytelling to chunks of short gigs each showing a slice of the world and people in it.

It's kind wierd to skip the part that this game is best at (just like Witcher 3 was).

[outworlder]

> I'm really happy to see this. As fumbled as the launch was, I played it on PC and found the world and its characters to have more depth than I'd personally experienced in a video game before.

I think it pales in comparison to many other games. Including The Witcher 3, another CD Projekt RED creation.

However, I also agree that it got unnecessary hate. Sure, it was a bad decision to launch it on the previous console generation. There were some bugs, but I haven't encountered any show stopping bugs when playing on day 1 _on Linux_ even!

[theshrike79]

Especially on the original PS4, it's almost a decade old(!). The Pro is a lot better.

I played it through on the Xbox One X and and very few performance issues considering the graphics quality.

[chrisco255]

Yeah I gave it a second try this past summer after buying it at launch, playing three hours, then getting frustrated at the crashes and general gameplay. Once I got past the prologue, I think the game really started to get interesting. I sort of had the impression it was a "cyberpunk" GTA before, but the depth of the story as it progressed gradually won me over.

[azalemeth]

I tried it, expecting it to be awful. I actually really enjoyed it. It's not an FPS and they probably over-hyped it but the world was very engaging and the story I believed. To be honest, I'd have preferred it without the guns, but maybe that is just me…

[Melatonic]

Those first 15 hours or so were amazing - the rest of it less so but still great. If they had just kept up the prequel level of storytelling it would have been mindblowing. Still a great game.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

That main quest line is a masterpiece and the rest of the game is pretty great as well.

I was moved to tears at a few points. Phenomenal.