Cyberpunk 2077 is easily the most awaited and ambitious of video game releases in 2020. While the polish developer and publisher company CD Projekt Red (mostly known as the creators of Witcher RPG game series) have pushed the original launch date from April 16th to September 17th of the same year, this shouldn’t sound discouraging. The more time developers spend on the game, the more polished and richer it will be on release. For those wisely considering to pre-order Cyberpunk 2077 GOG key, here’s a quick rundown of what the latest sci-fi RPG from CD Projekt Red has in store!
Origins and history of the franchise
Before discussing the setting of the game, it is worth considering its origins. The Cyberpunk franchise was created by an author and illustrator Mike Pondsmith. The project started as a table-top RPG game first released in 1988. Cyberpunk RPG had many iterations throughout the following decades but never before was it realized in the video game format.
Who’s better for the job than the Polish video game developer CD Project Red? The studio has brought The Witcher III: Wild Hunt to the gaming arena, and in a lot of circles, the very title is often considered to be the greatest RPG video game of all time. From what we’ve seen so far, Cyberpunk 2077 has a great chance to completely surpass its sibling, from game design, to sheer scale and size of the project.
The original goal of Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk tabletop game was to capture the main themes of cyberpunk science fiction sub-genre as a whole: rise of international mega corporations, radical forms of capitalism, consumer culture, social inequality, loss of privacy and personal boundaries in the digital age and of course – the blurring of the line which separates human from machine.
Huge names are working on the project, including the mentioned original creator of the franchise as well as the Hollywood superstar Keanu Reeves. The actor has performed various cyberpunk roles in the past, most notable being Neo from The Matrix Trilogy, and he even presented the game personally in the E3 2019 video game convention!
Living, breathing Cyberpunk city
Night City serves as the main setting of Cyberpunk 2077 and sometimes CD Projekt Red representatives joke around by saying that the city itself is the true protagonist of the game. Such a statement is not without merit however, considering the massive scale of the game. The size of Night City shouldn’t be measured by the amount of space it occupies, but by the density of this fictional world. While the map is technically smaller than the Continent of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, Night City has much more layers, much more verticality, much more content and holds an untold number of possibilities.
From the standpoint of the lore, the construction of Night City was privately funded by corporations and it was built on the U.S. West Coast, between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The government had absolutely no say in the construction of the Night City, as the national states in this future dystopia hold no influence anymore, mostly due to socio-economic collapse of the global infrastructure in the early 21st century.
The city is divided into 6 districts, each with its unique history. It should be noted that all these zones will not be separated by loading screens unless the player chooses the fast travel. All in all, Night City is a harsh, crime-ridden, almost 3rd world place infested with gangs, corrupt elitists and mercenaries, among whom is the heavily customizable Cyberpunk 2077 protagonist V. On the other hand, Night City is a place full of opportunity and promise, as the main plot of the game follows V’s story of looking for a microchip which provides immortality. In this exciting journey, the main character will be accompanied by a digital ghost of Keanu Reeves’ character Johnny Silverhand.
Futuristic Cyberspace
The setting of the game is not limited to the city itself. In some interviews, the CD Projekt Red quest designer Powel Sasko has obscurely mentioned about the occasional possibility to actually leave the Night City. There are also talks about sub-urban underground sections of the game world, but probably the most impressive of all the invisible dimensions of the game is the futuristic version of the internet – Cyberspace.
In Cyberpunk 2077 timeline, the collapse of international infrastructure at the beginning of the 21st century also meant the collapse of the world wide web. For this reason, every city and region rely on privatized local networks. This particular situation was created by a legendary hacker launching malware that devasted all of the virtual reality.
To mitigate the damage, corporations funded Netwatch – a version of police force made up of expert hackers, cybersecurity specialists, and netrunners. This organization is responsible for establishing the Black Wall, the most powerful cybersecurity measurement in history. No netrunner has ever returned after venturing beyond it, as it protects users from rogue A.I. constructs that are hostile to human beings.
Black Wall closes off uncharted regions of the net and holds a lot of valuable information, including data from historical eras before the great collapse. It’s possible that at some point in the story the main character V will have to go there by logging in through his or her neural implants, just like in The Matrix or William Gibson’s classic cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. An interesting note – every person who ventures into Cyberspace experiences it differently. These differences of perception are determined by the individual brain of the user as well as their psychological profile.
Character customization
Speaking about psychology, Cyberpunk 2077 will include an extremely detailed character customization menu. Earlier reports of the game talk about possibilities to select gender, body type, tattoos and different voices, but customizations will not be limited to mere cosmetic presentation. The player will be able to choose different childhood idols and even different biographies of the main character, just like it was with Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series. These options will determine the mentality of the Cyberpunk 2077 protagonist V, along with the dialog options available to him or her.
The game will feature a fluid class system that will not limit players to a specific build. V will be able to possess skills, each of which may belong to different, preset class templates based on different factions of this sci-fi universe. A familiar skill system to this one was realized in BioWare’s game Mass Effect: Andromeda back in 2017 and it’s possible to see something similar but way more elaborated in Cyberpunk 2077.
As of yet, CD Project Red has introduced two main character builds that define the tendencies of V’s customization. First one is the solo build that relies on brute force, military-grade cybernetic augmentations, specializations in weaponry (that also include melee weapons like katana or nanowire) and strength-enhancing drugs. The second one is a traditional cyberpunk hacker role called “netrunner”. These characters rely on stealth, hacking and digital warfare – good choice for pacifist runs, likely inspired by a cyberpunk video game classic Deus Ex.
What about the multiplayer?
While Cyberpunk 2077 is first and foremost a single-player experience, CD Projekt Red has confirmed that a multiplayer mode will also be also available. It will launch separately, sometime after the initial release of the game. This was most likely decided with the purpose to fully realize the single-player campaign before anything else. From what is known so far, the multiplayer mode of Cyberpunk 2077 will not be related to the single-player campaign in a direct way. Their relationship will be analogous to a distinction between Rockstar’s GTA V and GTA Online – same game, same setting, but a different story and a different experience altogether.
Good news for those who want the game cheaper!
Considering the massive scale of the latest CD Projekt Red game, it’s undoubtedly worth every single penny, however, if getting the game cheaper is amongst your priorities, know that you can save money if you choose to pre-order Cyberpunk 2077 GOG key code at the Eneba game store! While you’re at it, why not check out the awesome selection of other games on the website? There are great deals available, including a significantly cheaper selection of sci-fi, RPG, open-world and cyberpunk games that can make the wait for the September 17th Cyberpunk 2077 release a lot easier to bear…