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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

I feel totally out of touch with all the hype around the game, in particular the aesthetic choices is actually what disappointed me the most. The name of the game, as well as the design to me looks quite literally as if someone designed the most generic 'cyberpunk' game possible.

It looks like the cyberpunk version of GTA, which is ironic because cyberpunk is supposed to be transgressive, yet nothing what I've seen about the game is surprising or going into any new territory. The trailer just featured a few lines about unemployment, the most dangerous city to live in, almost as if someone had written a generic script you could apply to everything that is cyberpunk.

It's a little bit like scyscrapers in Dubai, which look like someone in the 90s read sci-fi from the 60s, rather than futuristic it looks retro and nostalgic, missing the entire point.

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A. CD Projekt Red is really good at telling stories, period.

B. Open world 1st person games are uncommon, especially big-budget ones

C. The Cyberpunk style universe is pretty uncommon as well, especially in real-time RPG/action games.

Yeah the universe is a little "standard" cyberpunk, but I think this is good simply because the standard view of this universe is very under-represented, and there is a lot of room to tell some very interesting stories in a real-time format.

> B. Open world 1st person games are uncommon, especially big-budget ones

Pretty much all the Elder Scrolls (quite a lot), Fallout 3 and newer titles (quite some), Mirror's Edge Catalyst and the Stalker series come to mind ... probably more if I put more than 5 seconds of thought into that. Can you elaborate your statement?

Most of those came out over a decade ago.

Skyrim, The Witcher 3.

I'm actually surprised how many there are.

I would actually say they are not so much uncommon, as much as that they are infrequent and don't come out very often.

You probably feel that way because the tabletop game that CD Projekt's game is based off of kind of defined the genre.

Calling Cyberpunk cliche is like calling Lord of the Rings cliche; it makes no sense because they invented the cliches.

I was under the impression that Gibson's Neuromancer defined the genre, but I'm not very knowledgeable about Cyberpunk so I might be wrong.

The genre is defined by many things.

Visual aesthetics in particular can only be defined to a certain extent by a book.

Maybe I should have said "one of the things that defined the genre".

High tech, low life.

A.K.A the Seinfeld Effect

This is a refresh of the old Cyberpunk 2020 franchise. They maintained much of the style, which was created in the 80's, so it appears cliché to your eye.

> This is a refresh of the old Cyberpunk 2020 franchise.

Well, Cyberpunk 3.0 if you want to take the most recent TTRPG version, or Cyberpunk 2013 if you want to take the post-CP2020 retconned name for the original.

Because it’s not developed by Rockstar, I don’t have that fear. If you have played Witcher 3, you will have the idea of the quality of even the side quests.

The gfx style look great, not generic at all to me, the detail is amazing.

Honestly, a cyberpunk representation of the future from a present-day lens doesn't interest me very much. We are living that reality. It's the cyberpunk interpretations from the 90s, back when computers and technology still felt promising, that I want to play in.

cyberpunk that isn't edgy, daring or truly political doesn't deserve the moniker. It needs to be taking some kind risk. Going through the motions of tepid imitation (read:unoffensive to the largest target market, follows precedents from similar open world games) isn't true to the genre.

Tell me, what kind of statement do you think this game could possibly make that would be memorable? or is it simply a skin on a familiar game mechanic and engine.

Blade Runner had nice visuals, but it wasn't just about the visuals. It also presented a provocative question and politics that all those nice visuals were centered on.

Cyberpunk will provoke the fantastic question of ‘what if we take the current trend towards multinationals consolidating to the logical extreme, and make them rule the world’.

Do you think this game is going to explore that question in a way that changes or challenges you, or is it going to simply make a facile nod & gesture, while portraying some kitschy logos.

Do you think its actually going to attempt to challenge corporate culture?

Thing is, real life also provokes that same question.

It's rare to see something as mass market and expensive as a modern AAA open world game making a "statement" that isn't extremely watered down and tepid - there's just too much at stake. And a piece of media that's fully embedded in multinational corporate culture is unlikely to seriously challenge that culture either. You'll have to look to the indie space for that.

Blade Runner was provocative, but it was also a box office bomb. Both times. The aesthetics of cyberpunk have broad mass market appeal - that much is certain. Yet the more philosophical, political and artistic questions and themes that define the genre, maybe not so much.

Looks like both versions were profitable (according to Wikipedia), but maybe there's more to it than that?

Well, some people were surprisingly upset that in the game (set in a world where body modification was commonplace) gender selection, body shape and voice were not linked together, so players can mix and match.

Unfortunately when called out on it, the developer defended it as a simple development convenience.

That said, most cyberpunk is rather light on the social upheaval and philosophical questions, and are mostly just repeating the same questions from the 1980s updated where real life tech has already overtaken 1980s futurism.

One of the reasons why I loved the Mass Effect Games (as well as KotOR, Jade Empire, Fallout) is because finally RPG set in something else besides D&D.

I get it, you want something even more ground breaking or maybe in your eyes people should be hyped about a game which makes even bolder design decisions than Cyberpunk 2077. But maybe you are asking for too much.

There’s only really Shadow Run and Deus Ex to compare it to. When you think in those terms, which I do, you must at least try to be content we’re getting a big story driven RPG set in the future which has a big budget and is being made by a company with a great track record.

To be sure, I want weirder games with great design and vision. But let’s try to be happy.

Well, if you are going to build a game of this scale and budget, you have to appeal to a mass market, so making it too "weird" is an unacceptable risk unfortunately. That's why the weird-but-sometimes-wonderful ideas are left to lower-budget indie titles, which can be successful even if they only find a niche audience...

I'd also add System Shock and Bioshock to your list (Ok, arguably not really RPGs).

What CDPR is doing with buildings alone, adding verticality to cities, is worth being excited about.

Like, I love CRPG games for the core mechanic or design philosophy. And I love that we are finally branching out of standard fantasy.

As much as 2k games love to shoot them selves in the foot and violate their reputation, adding a story with rpg mechanics into basketball was a great decision. I’d love to play a game where you role play as a boxer, or a soccer player.

Basically I’m always stoked to play a progressive RPG. Fantasy is great but I for one can burn out on it pretty quickly.

CD Projekt Red's amazing execution and story-telling on Witcher 3 earned them a lot of faith. I think that's where most of the hype is coming from, rather than from what's in the trailers or even gameplay videos.

Yep, I really loved Witcher 3. What they achieved is combining an game that allows you to explore area without much limitation with a great storytelling.

I'm a little bit of nervous, because this story is very different. What I really liked about Witcher 3 that it created atmosphere of folklore, and while it is fascinating, it's also dark. Especially when you go to Velen. People there are also complex, for example Bloody Barron, you know the guy is a son of a bitch, but you also feel sorry for him after learning more about him.

And that's exactly the kind of storytelling that works very well in cyberpunk. Back in the 1980s or early 1990s I heard it described as its morality not being black-and-white, as it generally is in fantasy, but many shades of grey (a phrase that took on a life of its own since then).

In that case it sounds great. I really want them to succeed. I enjoyed Witcher 3 and wouldn't mind another great game.

> It's a little bit like scyscrapers in Dubai, which look like someone in the 90s read sci-fi from the 60s, rather than futuristic it looks retro and nostalgic, missing the entire point.

So, kind of what you'd expect of an adaptation of the world of a late-1980s, intentionally highly-generic cyberpunk TTRPG?

> It's a little bit like scyscrapers in Dubai, which look like someone in the 90s read sci-fi from the 60s, rather than futuristic it looks retro and nostalgic, missing the entire point.

Keep in mind this game is loosely based on a 90s role playing game. Sure they probably have a lot of leeway in art direction but there’s probably some faithfulness to the original setting they want to keep (which is a little bit like skyscrapers in Dubai[0]).

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0274/0781/products/NightCi...

> It looks like the cyberpunk version of GTA

I'm affraid so. It looks like every NPC you meet is a primitive asshole, who just make me angry. I don't get why people would want to spend time in a game like that.

Why would they give away the innovative features in trailers?

Because they must. The economic forces at work are strong.

trailer theory by Adam Kennedy

• https://web.archive.org/web/2005/http://use.perl.org/~Alias/...

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7O_gTyQKs

Spot on. It's so bright, glowy, and kitschified. there's none of the dark intrigue or aesthetic depth of something like blade runner

Cliche is exactly what gave blade runner depth. The juxtaposition of cliches that don't normally sit side by side was novel, the noir detective in a future L.A. was new, but it was deep because we already know the tragedy of the bitter drunken antihero gumshoe and the femme fatale, we already know about doomed rebellions, about evil corporations, about environmental destruction and desperate colonists fleeing a dying earth. If you can show us these things side by side, you don't need to explain, we recognize. though we've never seen a replicant bounty hunter getting korean noodles in the rain, we know all the pieces, we remember so much, that we only need a glimpse and we build the depth, the depth is in our shared memories, not on the screen.

It is based on Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk 2020, which is the reason for the name.

Hipster

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