Cyberpunk 2077 the Most Played Single Player Game on Steam
twistedvoxel.com
twistedvoxel.com
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.
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.
It's kind wierd to skip the part that this game is best at (just like Witcher 3 was).
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.
I don't understand your approach - you refuse to engage with the best parts of the world and then call it dead?!
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.
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.
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.
The plot to Way of the Gun
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.
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!
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!
I played it through on the Xbox One X and and very few performance issues considering the graphics quality.
I was moved to tears at a few points. Phenomenal.
More importantly, not sure why you brought up the "primarily single player games" part, given Cyberpunk 2077 is a single-player-only, while both Civ 6 and Football Manager 2022 have pretty active multiplayer usercounts.
So if we count single-player-only games, as the title implies, it all seems correct.
Mostly because of the incredible, and plausible, features they promised but didn't deliver and the fact that some things in the game are still in many ways broken. A few versions ago perks that sped up your reload speed did literally the opposite which was surprising to say the least.
But to me there exists nothing that holds a candle to its cyberpunk world. Both the general vibe and execution in-spite of it's well known flaws.
Its a very polarizing kind of game. But those who like it, love it. Those who dont, dont buy the game.
It's still very difficult, but I think if you find a good walkthrough, like FightinCowboy, it makes the game a lot more approachable.
I think the quest system was a glaring failure that did not translate well from the previous games, where you were all but guaranteed to stumble into NPCs just by going this way or that. Without checking the wiki I probably wouldn't have completed many. That aside, it's a huge success with a ridiculous amount of content. An average FS game would take me 40-50 hours, this one took 120+ to complete, and that's skipping some catacombs.
I hope Witcher 4th can match 3rd
I've been really happy with my first run, really liked the story and graphics
But I didn't have motivation to try other styles seriously :P
Witcher 3 had only one. GTA V had one, run away from the cops.
Between dodge, parry, counters and the abilities I find that they can be pretty engaging. Unless you go on button smashing mode, that's indeed boring.
I personally found the opening of Witcher 3 so utterly boring I gave up playing, and in general folks seem to agree that a) it's pretty damn slow to start, and b) coming into the story having already experienced the franchise makes it a lot easier to get through those first 5-10 hours.
But I did know all the main characters when I came into 3, and so I did understand the stakes from the beginning of the game.
On the other hand you MUST follow the main plot to get anything significant out of it.
On the other hand the main plot is level-gated so that you MUST do the crappy side quests or you'll get steamrolled by enemies in the main plot.
Go in expecting a good story in an open world and you'll have a lovely time.
Cyberpunk 2077 beats Elden Ring, but is far from the most played single player game on Steam.
Which means Factorio and Civ6, among others, are right out of the discussion. Because those games support multiplayer, even if its relatively rare to have multiplayer games on those.
When exactly did you see these promises that multilayer will be somehow important in the game?
I think there would be a lot less toxicity and all of us would be better off if gamers stopped taking developer plans as gospel and 'promises'. Plans change. Scope changes. Specification changes.