Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most anticipated games of 2020. Partly, we're looking forward to it so highly because it was announced so long ago. But it also looks awesome and cool. It's a high-action RPG from the developers that brought us The Witcher 3. Before The Witcher was a trend-setting Netflix series, it was a groundbreaking game, full of amazing new features, and, most importantly, a long and complex campaign.
Now it looks like they've put the same effort into developing Cyberpunk 2077. The game looks like it's bursting with great design features. Here are ten of the features we're most looking forward to. Of course, many of these features come from the recent gameplay demo, and we've been warned that it doesn't reflect the final game, so these might be subject to change.
10 Night City
Cyberpunk 2077 will be set in the same place as most of the adventures from the classic Cyberpunk 2020 role-playing game. Night City is a large, sprawling metropolis in the Free State of Northern California. CD Projekt Red has worked hard to create a detailed, immersive environment. There's custom music attributed to the rocker Johnny Silverhand.
The generic advertisements that are background in most games have been replaced with relevant in-game ads that can direct you to actual vending machines, shops, and other locales you can interact with. The crowds are full of a dazzling array of "real" people going about their lives to help the game feel like a full, lived-in space.
9 Character Customization
Being able to customize your character is one of the most important aspects of a role-playing game. You don't just want to feel like you own the character--you want to feel like you are the character. In the definition process, you can choose backstory elements that will influence the ultimate gameplay.
You can customize your character's abilities, and the process for customizing appearance is extremely detailed, including body type, skin tone, tattoos, makeup, and more. Also, note that there are no classes to choose from. The game uses a fluid class construction: you're defined by your skills, attributes, and actions, not by some label.
8 Street Cred
The designers talk about something called "street cred," which is influenced by your appearance. The aspects of your character's appearance will influence the way that other people interact with you. This means that the clothes you wear don't just give you armor points, they represent you to the world, and will change how people interact with you.
This is in keeping with the original RPG, which says, "In Cyberpunk, what you look like is what you are. Fashion is action, and style is everything." It will be fascinating to see how this plays out in the game.
7 Keanu Reeves
It would be wrong for Cyberpunk 2077 to ignore the cultural changes that have occurred since the initial RPG launched in the late 80s. One of those changes is that for a generation of fans, The Matrix defines cyberpunk. It's hard to argue that the stylish 1999 action hit didn't both take its cues from cyberpunk and reinvent the genre.
As part of a nod to that, the game features voice work by Keanu Reeves, who reportedly loved the game so much he asked to have his role doubled.
6 Vehicles
It's hard to imagine an action RPG set in a modern world that doesn't involve extensive driving. First of all, driving is just something modern people do all the time. But also Grand Theft Auto redefined the action RPG, so we expect to be driving. In Cyberpunk 2077, it looks like there will be extensive action sequences involving car chases, which look exciting and impactful.
A note on the rumor that Tesla's Cybertruck will be in the game: it might be, but most cars in the game will be powered by CHOOH² ("Chew-two"), a type of alcohol-based fuel. After all, this is a dystopia, and having efficient, clean, and powerful EVs would be out of character.
5 Free Love
While the future may have its problems, the developers made it clear that in the future, people are free to love as they want. If people want to be sexual, they can romance whomever they want, without respect to gender identity.
The game has sexual scenes, and these were reportedly made using motion capture technology. We don't know just how much and how detailed the sexual content will be, but the gameplay demo was certainly not shy about nudity. Hopefully, this aspect of the game is well integrated.
4 Multiplayer
Any game with a richly developed world seems ideal for multiplayer. If you love the world, why wouldn't you want to hang out there with your friends? Unfortunately, it's likely that the multiplayer portion of the game will be delayed, and will launch some time after the initial game. How long? That we don't know. We also don't know how extensive the multiplayer version will be.
While some people have expressed concerns about online aspects of the game being foregrounded by the company, most people are excited by the prospect that this game can live beyond the basic campaign.
3 References to the Classic RPG
Some were worried that the new game might not be true to the spirit of the RPG. However, it seems that the designers are going out of their way to capture the true feeling of the game. We've talked about several aspects of the RPG that have been incorporated, like the setting of Night City, the rocker Johnny Silverhand, and the use of alcohol-powered vehicles.
It's likely that we'll come across more of these references in playing the game, though it seems clear that the in-game slang has a very different flavor from the RPG.
2 In-Game Surgery
Cyberpunk takes body modification seriously. The game is dedicated to the notion of posthumanity, where we don't accept the human body and mind as it evolved,but try to evolve it further through deliberate modifications.
In Cyberpunk 2077, getting body modifications seems to be more than just picking upgrades from a list. Surgery on your body is a genuine experience, and while you might be able to skip the experience later in the game, the significance of modification will remain. However, we don't know the extent to which the game will deal with cyberpsychosis: the tendency to lose touch with humanity as we become "more machine than man."
1 Replayability
When you invest in a game like Cyberpunk 2077 (and we're not just talking money here, we're talking the emotional investment of waiting almost a decade), you want it to reward you with hours of entertainment. It seems that Cyberpunk 2077 will do that by offering very high replayability.
While the main quest of the game is reportedly shorter than that of Witcher 3, it's designed to be more highly branching, with diverse choices making for an entirely different type of game. With the eventual addition of multiplayer, it's clear the game will make for many diverting hours spent in Night City.