The biggest surprise is that the gameplay is almost entirely first-person. With a helluva lot of guns to fire and damage values popping up as your bullets hit enemies, the combat plays out more like Borderlands or Deus Ex than it does The Witcher 3. There are tons of abilities to use during combat, including bullet ricocheting and a bullet time slow down that came in handy quite a bit during the 45 minute demo I saw.
The shooting looks solid as well, though it’s always hard to tell without going hands on. Shotguns, pistols, and an enemy-seeking rifle all had kick and feedback to them that I maybe wasn’t expecting from the studio behind The Witcher. It seems slower than something like Borderlands, but definitely faster than Deus Ex, and using abilities in conjunction with your guns clearly seemed important.
And while we saw a bit of stealth, and I’m sure using the Mantis arm blades and a late game wall run ability will help facilitate that, our demo was mostly guns-blazing. One cool moment was when the player took out an enemy stealthily, then jacked directly into him to get a schematic of the base they were fighting through, hacking various systems to cause havoc.
Outside of the heat of battle, however, Cyberpunk’s RPG core shines bright and clear. You take quests, talk to NPCs with branching dialogue options, and explore an open world only limited by your “Street Cred” value -- which can be increased by doing jobs, or even by putting on sweet looking cloths, like a leather jacket that had a 5% increase to Street Cred in addition to other stats.
Player choice seems incredibly important to Cyberpunk
That scanning is important, because there appear to be four different types of damage in Cyberpunk 2077: Physical, Thermal, EMP, and Chemical. Scanning shows you what damage the enemy uses, as well as what they are weak or strong against.
Yes, you can drive in this game.
Having finally seen Cyberpunk 2077 in action, I’m more excited for it than ever.
Cyberpunk 2077 is definitely not just “Cyberpunk Witcher,” it’s something a whole lot more than that. The core of what I loved about The Witcher is clearly there, but in a wild and exciting new shell that stands as something wholly its own. Questions about how free its open world feels, the quality of it stories, and if the guns are actually good to shoot when they are in our own hands persists, but having finally seen Cyberpunk 2077 in action, I’m more excited for it than ever.
IGN