I just walked out of a 1 hour demo of Cyberpunk 2077 and boy oh boy was it a nice one.
We were seated in a cinema, in a room full of games press / media. It was a very exclusive behind-closed doors event and as of this writing, no gameplay has yet been shown to the public. This was truly a first look at a Cyberpunk 2077 that does not yet have a release date, and which is still in an early build. We weren’t allowed to take photos of the game session, just some of the city images in the waiting area.
The demo started off with character customization. You can choose between a male and female and completely fine-tune their looks. This includes facial details, hair, colors, and certain RPG attributes. Whether you play as a male or female will actually change some scenes in the game, especially sex scenes. Needless to say, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game intended for mature audiences.
After the customization we started out in an enemy hideout with “V”, our main character (he/she is called that regardless of what gender you pick), and his/her buddy Jackie, a muscular male who brings heavy weapons to the fight and provides V with backup in combat. Our objective was to rescue a woman from a hideout filled with enemies and get her medical help. She’s rich and could afford the “platinum” package which comes with emergency rescues and special medical care. A full medical team was standing by in a VTOL nearby, ready to extract her when we cleared the place of foes.
First, we went in the hideout quietly and stealth-killed one of the people there. We put his head underwater and shot him in the head. The shot was silenced from the water, quite a creative stealth kill.
In the next section we were spotted by enemies. V took out her pistol, which shoots with rapid fire, and we slowed down time and went for some headshots. The environment gets noticeably destroyed when you (or enemies) shoot at it. You can fully destroy walls and shoot through them. Slowing down time is a very prominent feature in the game. This was used regularly throughout the game.
After killing a bunch of level 2 enemies, there was a big guy with a Gatling gun shooting at us from behind a wall. The wall was getting shredded to pieces. We quickly flanked and shot him from the side, at the same time our buddy Jackie tackled him to the ground (seemingly all automatic).
After that we found the wounded woman in a bathtub, fully naked. Nudity is in every corner of this game. We connected to her brain via a cable to access the damage and then carried her out to the roof where a chopper landed. The medics told us to step back 5 feet and then put something futuristic on her body as first aid, then flew her away.
Mission complete!
The next morning, we see V burned the cash from this job on some male prostitutes. She wakes up half-naked while her male companionship leaves the apartment. Had we chosen a male V at the start, he would have ordered female hookers. V’s apartment looks fantastic and the soundtrack fits the game beautifully. We opened the shades – the apartment overlooks the city and the first look at it was breathtaking – it cries “next-gen” when you see it. Futuristic music kept playing in the background on V’s apartment radio.
Next we went to her weapon closet to pick up her quickfire pistol. She takes this one everywhere it seems. Then we put on a jacket. What stood out here is that the jacket had actual resistance attributes, such as chemical resistance. So your “jacket” acts as armor in this game, but in a stylish way.
Now we stepped out on the streets. And that’s when it really hit me why they went first person ego-shooter mode with this one. In third person you couldn’t have captured the depth of the city the same way. It looks similar to stuff out of the Netflix hit series Altered Carbon. A very futuristic and vibrant city that feels truly alive. It’s easily the most beautiful looking futuristic city in a video game so far.
You see cyborgs (humans with robotic enhancement) walking around the streets. Pretty much everyone has some form of cyborg implant. Everyone looks very stylish. We went over the market square to meet with Jackie. He told us to go check in with Dexter, a quest giver. On our way we also got to see ads on the street. A cool feature is that you can interact with everything in the game, even the ads. If you hold the interaction-button on it, it will mark the location where the advertised product can be bought. A neat little feature! Oh, and in 2077 the printing press seems to be still alive, there was a newspaper self-serve shop on our way.
Dexter’s body guard was waiting around the corner and let us in Dexter’s car. He’s a big man with a gold chain around his neck. He wants V and Jackie to get a spiderbot for him – an attack robot that runs and climbs like a spider. Many different dialogue choices presented themselves by this point. The ones that affect the future are colored yellow. These can totally change the course of a mission, even the rest of the game. More on that will follow in later sections.
We accepted Dexter’s quest and now went to see our Ripper Doctor “Vicktor”. He’s a black market dealer for body upgrades. Want better eyes with zoom capability? Give your underground ripper doctor a visit and he’ll hook you up with it in a few minutes, so long as you got the cash. The money in Cyberpunk 2077 is called the Euro-Dollars.
To the left of Vicktor’s entry door sits a cute little cat. Our demo presenter debated shooting it or not and held off in the end. So it would seem there are animals (at least pets / cats) in the game, and they can probably be killed (although it wasn’t shown, this was indicated).
We sat down in Vicktor’s shop and ordered two upgrades. One was a new right arm that helps with weapon use and the other the new eye that allows to scan enemies for their weaknesses, resistances, level and highlights them in the game world.
V had to jump into a chair and get strapped in. Then our robodoc shut us down for a moment while the new body parts were being installed. We only installed the Mk. 1 upgrade tier. The upgrade menu showed there are many more tiers and different starting upgrades. So not only do you get different things to choose from, you also get to upgrade them further.
All right, upgrades done. Now we go to Jackie’s car (our big buddy). He drives a black muscle car that looks like a hybrid of batmobile and night rider. What’s noteworthy is that although the on-foot sequences are all first person, the driving can be switched between first- and third person mode. We drove some in first person and some in third.
Our next stop was an agent in an alley. We scanned her and her goons. Turns out, they are high-level and we wouldn’t possibly stand a chance in open combat against them. So we opted for the smart route and tried the nice approach. We revealed ourselves, after which we were greeted with her bodyguard’s gun in our face. By this point the quest REALLY can change directions. You can either grab the gun and start a fight, which will most certainly end in your death. Or you can opt to take a quest for them, as part of that the agent gives you a chip with 50,000 credits on it. V could use that to go buy the spiderbot that Dexter wants (that’s our main objective after all). Or we could not take the chip and then we’d have to find another way to get the spiderbot or we could take the chip and do the errand as we’re told instead of stealing the money. So many choices, so many possible outcomes.
We went with her request and accepted the chip. We then chose to ask a yellow-colored question about what else is on the chip. The agent was evasive, V knew there’s more to it than the money.
With the chip in hand, we could either do the agent’s bidding, thus side with their faction. OR we can go to the illegal arms dealer that sells the spiderbot and give the credits to them, thus side with that faction. We went to give the arms dealers a visit. The demo presenter noted that had we not taken the 50k from the chip, an alternative would be to then fight the arms dealers. Trouble is, they are in a really well-guarded fortress so it would be a tough fight early on. Taking the $50k to them seemed like the easiest choice.
Once we arrived, the arms dealers were suspicious. Their boss “Royce” came out and asked who we were. We told him we have the money, they put up their guns and Jackie quickly put up his. The stalemate standoff was followed by a set of yellow dialogues. Again, these would REALLY change the outcome of the mission and shape the rest of the game.
We could shoot the arms dealers right then and there. We could give them the money and tell them there’s more on the chip (a virus). Or we could give them the money but hide the fact there’s something more on the chip, so the virus would bring down their entire computer systems and take them out of business. We chose to tell them what’s on the chip, thus siding with the arms dealers faction.
They were most happy, ran a check and said this virus is nuclear and they will send it to a rival. We were given the spiderbot and sent on our way to leave.
On the way out, Jackie noted that we could turn around and kill them all, thus getting our chip with 50k credits back and also keeping the spiderbot OR we could just leave in peace. We went the violent route this time, killing the unexpecting arms dealers when they were standing out in the open. Got back our chip but Royce (arms dealer leader) escaped. He triggered an alarm and we were locked in the room. Depending on your skill build there are different ways to get out. You could hack a console or change out some wires to open a path, and there are probably more paths still.
After we were out, we got to see more high-end skills.
There is a ricochet targeting system. You can shoot walls and the bullets will bounce off, thus hitting enemies behind cover. It shows you the bullet trajectory while you aim at the wall, plus the enemies are marked behind cover. So this makes it incredibly easy to kill foes.
One enemy dropped a big katana. It can be used as a melee weapon but also to create a sphere around us that blocks all bullets. We slid into an enemy and cut him – one hit one bloody kill. When other enemies fired at us we used the Katana’s shielding sphere to stop the bullets.
We also injected soldiers with a computer virus so their weapon would jam and used the razor-blade arms that were seen in the teaser trailer. They stick out of the back and are metallic, sharp extra arms like swords. You can cut enemies up close or drop on them from above for instant kills.
We also got a shotgun. It can be charged by holding down the firing-button, this way it deals double damage (while still consuming only one shot). There was also a scoped long range rifle. All weapons that were shown used real bullets, not energy or laser weapons.
After fighting our path through the alerted hall of enemies we tracked down the last survivor – Royce – the mission boss. He was our first boss fight – so yes, I can confirm there are actual boss fights in the game. He couldn’t be damaged at first. We had to hit a weak point on his back and only then he would become vulnerable. So we did and we picked up a military grade weapon along the way, which deals much more damage than the default ones. We had to use cover to our advantage this time. With normal enemies we could pretty much rush into a room, slow down time and kill them all. Royce had a lot more health though so we took a more strategic approach. It took about a minute total to kill him with a myriad of weapons.
Boom – mission complete!
We went outside and told Dexter we got his Spiderbot. This increased our Street Credibility to Level 2. Apparently, this allows you to access more missions and more parts of Night City, so it sort of tracks your story progress. Increasing this stat is mandatory to progressing the story.
Here the Cyberpunk 2077 logo popped in, the crowd gave their applause, and the demo ended. It lasted about an hour total.
VERDICT: Hype Level 10/10
It looks like next gen, first person is indeed the right choice for this game as it captures Night City much better than a third person view could have, there were no bugs, it ran smoothly, the city is alive and vibrant, there are lots of weapons and body upgrades, lots of RPG stats and your choices totally change the course of the game. There will be a lot of replay value to this game and I can totally see myself walking around town for hours just to take in its beauty. This is an ambitious one-of-a-kind game unlike anything ever before. After reading headlines like “it’s not what you expected” I was skeptical but after seeing it first-hand my worries have been blown away.
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