Earlier today, CD Projekt RED, the company behind the brilliant ‘Witcher’ series of games, popped up a message on their Twitch stream titled “DATA TRANSMISSION IN PROGRESS_”. Clearly, it was going to be something from their new game, ‘Cyberpunk 2077’, but would it be some new footage or a new trailer? Well, for those of us not lucky enough to be at E3, it turned out to be the entire 48-minute gameplay demo which was shown to a few lucky press people at the gaming expo earlier this year.
For those unfamiliar with ‘Cyberpunk 2077’, it sees CD Projekt RED take all the 3rd person RPG skills they learned in ‘The Witcher’ series, and move them into an open-world, first-person shooter, RPG game set in, as the title rather suggests, a “cyberpunk” futuristic setting.
Set in the same universe as Mike Pondsmith’s classic pen & paper RPG system, Cyberpunk 2020, you play as V, a hired gun on the rise, who just got their first serious contract. In a world of cyberenhanced street warriors, tech-savvy netrunners and corporate life-hackers, the game takes you on your first steps to becoming an urban legend.
Like most RPGs, you pick your character (male or female) and set your usual stats (strength, agility etc…) What you don’t pick is a class, as the class system is flexible and changeable throughout the game. You can also set up a backstory, which alters how people react to you in the game. Then the video goes into the main gameplay, starting off with a mission to rescue a girl.
The demo above gives you a glimpse into the world of perils and possibilities that is Night City, “the most vibrant and dangerous metropolis of the future.” As they strongly stress at the start, the video contains work-in-progress gameplay, so everything you see is potentially subject to change.
‘Cyberpunk 2077’ does not yet have an official release date. All CD Projekt RED will say is “when it’s done.” That is believed to be some time before 2021, although it could be as early as next year. We’ll have to wait and see, but I’d rather they spent their time getting it right than rushing things.
