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Cyberpunk 2077: ‘We're not settling for 'OK"

CyberPanda

Banned
Besides looking like one of the best games of the next year, Cyberpunk 2077 gave us arguably the most memorable moments of E3 2019: Keanu Reeves’ surprise on-stage appearance at the Xbox conference and the crowd heckler he engaged with.

In an interview at the show, CD Projekt Red spokesperson and UI coordinator Alvin Liu wouldn’t be drawn on the merit of shouting at stage presenters – which developed into something of a theme at subsequent publisher briefings – but he had plenty to say about Reeves, who by all accounts doesn’t sound like the only Hollywood actor set for Cyberpunk 2077.

“Practically everyone at the studio is a fan of his prior works, whether that’s The Matrix or Johnny Mnemonic, so for us it was just a perfect match,” Liu says. “He thought it was a good role for him and to that effect we were really happy to have him.”

See our full interview with Liu below, in which he discusses Reeves, possible online modes for the game, plus The Witcher 3’s impressive Nintendo Switch port.

Keanu Reeves stole the show at E3 2019. What does he bring to a game like this that you wouldn’t otherwise get with an unknown actor or digital creation?

We approached Keanu Reeves because we thought he would be a very good match for our franchise. Practically everyone at the studio is a fan of his prior works, whether that’s The Matrix or Johnny Mnemonic, so for us it was just a perfect match. He’s obviously a very talented actor and he’s been very diligent with working out how his character would approach certain situations.

He’s thinking about how to portray this character, Johnny Silverhand, who is kind of this badass, ‘against the man’ sort of figure who’s always fighting to bring down the corporations. He thought it was a good role for him and to that effect we were really happy to have him.

Is the performance in the game by Reeves or is it just his likeness that he’s contributed?

That’s actually a really good question. I’m not sure! I’ll get back to you.

In the demo we noticed he often appeared as a glitched aberration…

The least spoiler way I can explain his character is that he’s a digital ghost in the system. Honestly, I can’t say any more! But he is not a normal person – there’s something going on there. I think uncovering that story is going to be a lot of fun for players.

Do you think Hollywood actors can help further broaden the appeal of games in terms of the mainstream media etc?

I will say that CDPR is a video game company first and it’s very important to us that the match works. If it was a random celebrity that just wouldn’t work with our franchise, like Britney Spears or something, we wouldn’t pursue that opportunity. So for us, we pursue it because it’s a great match for the game and not necessarily because we want to accomplish some goal with reaching a different audience or anything like that.

“If it was a random celebrity that just wouldn’t work with our franchise, like Britney Spears or something, we wouldn’t pursue that opportunity.”
Are there any more surprises to come in terms of actors appearing in the game?

Uh… I can’t comment on that! You guys are going to have to wait and see.

Keanu’s appearance at the Xbox E3 briefing inspired another memorable moment: the now infamous heckler, who you rewarded with a free copy of the game. One thing we noticed in all of the conferences after that was it seemed to encourage a lot of shouting over the top of speakers… how do you balance that in terms of how you engage with your community?

I’ve not seen the other conferences, but I think we have a very talented community team at CDPR. As a developer I’m a bit further removed from that, but as a fan of games I love the excitement and energy of E3. That’s a really fascinating problem for me: how do you that? It’s definitely not my job – I’m a developer and designer on the game. But I’m curious what they’ll do.

Your April 2020 release date is a little sooner than we expected. So you must be pretty far into development?

As an artist and designer, we always have to have something taken from us or we’re never finished with it! We’re always trying to update and make small little tweaks. So for me, there’s always room for improvement and there are still things that I want to fix. I even saw small bugs in the E3 demo and thought, ‘I can make that better.’ In that regard, we want to deliver a top quality product.

You gave out feedback forms to everyone who watched the demo. What kind of feedback are you looking for at this late stage?

CD Projekt is a company that’s full of gamers: we’re making games but also playing them. So to that effect we’re listening to everything and if you have comments about the game’s audio, we will pass it on, and if you have comments about lighting, we’ll send them to lighting. We just want to make a top notch product. Very few people at CDPR are settling for ‘OK’ – we’re trying to do something exceptional here. In terms of feedback, we’ll listen to whatever you have – good or bad!

But you aren’t expecting significant changes based on that feedback, this late in development?

We are a bold company. Maybe it’s too late to set the game in medieval Europe – that might be too late! But we would never say never. We are looking forward to seeing the feedback from the demo.

We’re assuming you’re targeting current-gen only with this first release?

Yeah, we’re focusing on delivering a really good experience on current-gen consoles. When the next generation happens, we’ll assess and figure out the best way forward. I would say that we are not a greedy company, so fans should expect a very fair offering with whatever we decided to do. Currently we’re expecting to nail our current-gen productions.

With Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, we’re not doing anything special. We’re not turning features on or off. We’re going to make sure that the core experience is strong and then if there is additional performance available it will be used to enhance rather than turn things off or on. We’re not focusing on a texture pack or anything.
“Very few people at CDPR are settling for ‘OK’ – we’re trying to do something exceptional here. In terms of feedback, we’ll listen to whatever you have – good or bad!”
CDPR has said in the past that it will be well prepared for the arrival of new consoles, technology wise. Is that still the case?

We’re all just working hard on the game right now, so I don’t actually have an answer for that question. We have very talented engine programmers and I think they’re going to take a hard look when we get more information about the next generation. But I would not worry about leaving anyone in the dust or anything like that.

But with confirmation of backwards compatibility, it’s good news that your release will be able to play day one on new consoles anyway.

That’s going to be really good for gamers I think, yeah.

There’s still some confusion about the possibility of online functionality in the game. What can you tell us about that?

It’s very important to us and we’re still working on it, but it’s very much in research and development right now. We’re focusing heavily on the single-player experience, but we’re thinking about what it means to be online. We’ll talk about that after we finish the game. It’s very much in research and development right now.

In terms of art, how useful was the experience of creating The Witcher 3 in preparation for Cyberpunk?

We developed a whole new version of our engine to support what we wanted to do in terms of vast, sprawling cities where you can ride an elevator right to the top of buildings, to also the first-person genre stuff.

The engine has unlocked a lot of new opportunities for us, for example our dialogue system is much more enhanced now. Because we are in this first-person perspective we have situations where you can whip out your gun and start combat at a moment’s notice, where as in The Witcher 3 the camera would have to pan out, or back in. Our engine has allowed for a lot more immersive storytelling as well, I think.

The Witcher 3 is looking impressive on Nintendo Switch. What can you tell us about that?

Yeah, we’re really happy with how Witcher 3 is playing on Switch. It’s still at a quality that we’re proud of, but we also understand that there were hardware trade-offs that we had to do, in terms of performance versus graphics. Right now there’s a bit less foliage and some of the draw distances are lower… but it still looks amazing. I was very impressed. Unless you pointed a lot of changes out to me I probably wouldn’t have noticed them.
You’ll get the full Witcher 3 and all expansions. We’re not really cutting anything. The biggest changes that we made involve the user interface and how you interact is a bit different on the Switch compared to other versions. I think if this is your first experience with The Witcher 3, then you’re going to be really thrilled and enjoy it. Our company is pretty proud of what we’ve accomplished.


I can't wait for this game! CD rocks.
 

Justin9mm

Member
I'm worried about the statement about not doing anything 'special' for the X and Pro. Pro and X owners paid for a semi upgraded system to get a better experience. They did confirm X is going to do some sort of 4K, not sure if they can achieve it with the Pro, probably not!
 

EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
I'm still getting this on PS4 as I don't think the PS5 version will be drastically that different for me to care. From what I've read, its basically open world Deus Ex and the combat from the impressions sounds very, very basic and bland. I'm 100% fine with that though as this whole PR stuff of "not settling" is simply that, PR talk. Are they going to tell us that they are settling and are ok with bland dated combat? lol Not really, so I take what any developer states like this with a grain of salt. The impressions show this game isn't revolutionary, isn't changing much if anything we haven't already seen in other titles and basically is bigger Deus Ex.

That is ok with me. Not going into it being GOTY or "revolutionary" etc as I don't really fall for PR stuff like that. Give me hard numbers on its scale, give me actually new features and maybe we can talk, but the fact that they should CGI at E3 and hid the demo from fans, maybe tells me this might be exactly what those impressions where telling us.

Bigger Deus Ex, no more, no less. So its a wait and see and it wouldn't be the first time they've told us something and it wasn't 100% the truth, ala the whole downgrade thing on Witcher 3. So I'm not really falling for anything they say, show me features and factual information and we'll see.

Talk is cheap folks. Same guys told us no downgrade was happening.
 
S

SLoWMoTIoN

Unconfirmed Member
I remember their previous games getting a visual downgrade, either way I'm waiting. I bought W2 and 3 and like TLoU it wasn't the best thing since sliced bread.
 

xviper

Member
Witcher 3 is my favorite game in probably a decade, but i still believe that it's a one time thing, CP2077 looks ok, it will be good but the hype will effect it negatively like it did with Fallout 4, people expected too much and got disappointed.
 

Kadayi

Banned
I'm honestly gonna wait for the PS5 version with the DLC included and remastered graphics.

giphy.gif
 

Ballthyrm

Member
From what I've read, its basically open world Deus Ex and the combat from the impressions sounds very, very basic and bland.

A lot of RPG have terrible controls and yet people still love them. Skyrim for example or Witcher 3 also don't have very good controls.
I'm in your camp, don't think we will get a game as revolutionary as Deus Ex was, they literally pushed every boundary at the same time.

As for the Cyberpunk circlejerk, people are building another No man Sky, all hype "game of your dreams" stuff.
As amazing as CD project are as Devs they aren't going to be "magical thinking" amazing.
You would think people would stop building the game in their heads, just wait for the game to release and judge that.

PS: i don't understand why the journalist is even asking about the Witcher III port, Cd project Red aren't the ones doing the port.
Credit should go to Saber Interactive. They are the magic wizards here.
 

Tesseract

Banned
imma be super bummed if the mechanics aren't there

what i'm hoping for is a skill point crawl into advanced mechanics, sorta similar to a metroidvania (minus the loot creep)

nobody has done that yet
 

scalman

Member
I remember their previous games getting a visual downgrade, either way I'm waiting. I bought W2 and 3 and like TLoU it wasn't the best thing since sliced bread.
downgrade comes from weakest platform that there is ...not from devs
so this time if anything just blame xbox one . because game will need to be optimized for it too.
 
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Ballthyrm

Member
Downgrade comes from weakest platform that there is ...not from devs

Downgrade is such a silly term though, video games is one of the only industry where we are shown unfinished products.
Usually they show the build they have on a powerful Desktop PC and then people go up in arms when they don't get exactly what was shown 2 years ago on a console 3 times less powerful.

People are silly creatures. Yes, you could get what was shown, it would run at 15 fps.
The 2 years was not a downgrade but an upgrade from an unplayable game to a playable one.
 

scalman

Member
i never blamed ubi for game downgraded because its all for weakest platform and people just go furious about it ... some brain usage would help there a lot.
about this and what devs said here means game will be pretty much same on all platforms means we will all play just xbox one version ... ? why not use more power to get better picture ? now question comes does pc verion will look like x1 version too ? again blame weakest platform then.
 
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Kadayi

Banned
As for the Cyberpunk circlejerk, people are building another No man Sky, all hype "game of your dreams" stuff.
As amazing as CD project are as Devs they aren't going to be "magical thinking" amazing.
You would think people would stop building the game in their heads, just wait for the game to release and judge that.

Hype for NMS never made sense because they were a tiny development studio. CDP on the other hand have a pretty successful studio going.

I'm not sure whether CP2077 will be the second coming but at the very least I'm expecting a competent RPG on par with the Witcher 3 set within an underused genre setting. That's enough to qualify for a certain amount of hype.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
I'm worried about the statement about not doing anything 'special' for the X and Pro. Pro and X owners paid for a semi upgraded system to get a better experience. They did confirm X is going to do some sort of 4K, not sure if they can achieve it with the Pro, probably not!

He means they won’t gimp the original base level systems with effects turned off, of things you can only see on Pro/X. At best you’ll get a resolution bump or more consistent frame rate. But no new textures or effects as to not take anything away from core user.
 

Tesseract

Banned
the most exciting thing here is project's charitably re: patches and content updates, it's gonna be a lot of fun to play this over time if it gets the same treatment witcher 3 got
 

EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
A lot of RPG have terrible controls and yet people still love them. Skyrim for example or Witcher 3 also don't have very good controls.
I'm in your camp, don't think we will get a game as revolutionary as Deus Ex was, they literally pushed every boundary at the same time.

As for the Cyberpunk circlejerk, people are building another No man Sky, all hype "game of your dreams" stuff.
As amazing as CD project are as Devs they aren't going to be "magical thinking" amazing.
You would think people would stop building the game in their heads, just wait for the game to release and judge that.

PS: i don't understand why the journalist is even asking about the Witcher III port, Cd project Red aren't the ones doing the port.
Credit should go to Saber Interactive. They are the magic wizards here.

I agree with most of your post. "A lot of RPG have terrible controls and yet people still love them. Skyrim for example or Witcher 3 also don't have very good controls." Well I not worrying about other "people", I'm worried for me. So yes, Witcher 3 didn't have very good controls, so that is worrisome when I reading impressions that show with this game its just as bad. Lots of RPGs have bad controls yes, no reason for this to be one of them.

Nier Automata clearly destroys Witcher 3, no reason this gen to legit be having controls soooooo bad. At the very least Elder Scrolls has the excuse of you have a make a player set up with many classes, guilds etc. YOU DON'T HAVE THAT IN WITCHER 3, you are basically stuck with the same set up. So I'm fine with Elder Scrolls having ok combat if I have a massive variety of classes, guilds, weapons etc. Don't have that with Witcher annnnnd still plays terribly.

I also agree with what you are saying regarding folks hyping this up in their heads, until they give us hard facts about the games features, size etc to me, its just bigger Deus Ex, that is what I've heard a PC Gamer journalist stating on their impressions, that is what I'm accepting. Some have made just dumb statements as if they've never played game before. "oh he was on the phone and sometimes the NPC don't pick up doe...WOOOOOOOOOW" stop, just stop folks. When I hear anyone stating this as its some revolution in design, it tells me they've never played GTA or MOST open world games, thus are marveled at literally dated mechanics. Its still a day 1 for me, but I'm not in the group that worships this game or developer to be out here acting like sheep regarding anything this developer does lol If they make a statement, I'm taking it with a grain of salt and want to hear from a 3rd party source and not them.

Their job is to sell the game. They'll say anything to sell it, thus their statements won't help me get how the game actually might be. PC gamers statements on the other hand......it helps. I better understand with a grounded impression with no fanboy glasses on to get how the game will be vs WOW a phone exist in the game..>WOOOOOOW lol
 

dirthead

Banned
They didn't settle for "OK" with Witcher 3 last time...they settled for janky trash combat mechanics.

And really, what we've seen of this one so far suggests that you're in for more jank.
 
I'm 100% fine with that though as this whole PR stuff of "not settling" is simply that, PR talk. Are they going to tell us that they are settling and are ok with bland dated combat? lol Not really

That was what I was thinking. It’s almost an unnecessary statement to say they’re not settling. If they’re doing their jobs, surely they are aiming for greatness …
 

johntown

Banned
I really never had any concern about this. They have a proven track record of quality and from what I have seen so far Cyberpunk is on par with that.
 
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