As a game designer and avid gamer, I've been keeping my eye on Cyberpunk 2077 for a while now. On one hand, I'm always interested in tabletop RPGs being converted into video games, because my games are mostly of the dice-rolling variety (and all my current projects are such).

On the other hand, Cyberpunk 2077 promises to be a game that lines up fairly closely to my description of my dream game, so I'm also curious about it just as a gamer.

Below you can see the full video, and after the video I'll leave my thoughts. As a heads-up, Cyberpunk 2077 is headed for an M rating, and you get to see all the disparate parts that will earn it that rating in this video. Not safe for work–though I'd imagine most bosses frown upon 48-minute long videos that demand your full attention.

Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay demo by CD Projekt Red

Alright, that's a bit of a wild ride.

I'm going to break down a few things that I notice.

No Class Lock

One of the things that is interesting to me is to see that CP2077 is not going to have a class system that requires players to commit to a single path.

This is a pretty natural fit for a single-player game with a strong protagonist focus, and I think it's a good idea. However, one of the defining moments of Cyberpunk is the role system, which pushes players toward a particular point in play.

They reference these roles at various points in the video, and the character creation process makes some mention of them as well, but they skip past it.

It's likely some of these mechanics haven't been made yet, but at one point they do mention the character being a "Solo", a sort of high-tech cyberpunk combatant built to take on a lot of enemies solo.

What exactly this will look like in practice is a little unclear.

Lots of Guns

We only saw a few weapons in V's hands over the course of the demo; a machine-pistol, shotgun, smartgun, and a rifle, but we did get to see a lot of weapons in use by others, including one boss who was using a weapon to shoot straight through walls.

That was in a scripted scene, so it's a little unclear how much of the world will be physically destructible and how much will rely on simply "punching through" objects without causing them to change meaningfully.

Still, it looks like there's at least some weapon variety, and more importantly it was clear that the weapons handled differently. One of my gripes with the Witcher games is that combat felt samey, and the more intense setup with lots of guns and cybernetic enhancements looks like it's fit to help fix some of that.

Hardcore First-Person

The only small scene we saw in the demo that was filmed in third-person was a driving segment, with the rest of the game being entirely first-person.

I think that's a good fit for immersion, and it's also something that makes me wonder about something like VR compatibility. I know that it's a bit of a long shot, but c'mon. There's nothing like a cyberpunk game to lose yourself in VR for.

With that said, I think it also helps to distinguish Cyberpunk from other looter-shooters, which are increasingly seeming to prefer a third-person viewpoint (the only exception to this is perhaps Borderlands, but we haven't seen any action on their front for a while).

Another thing that struck me is that Cyberpunk looks like a passable shooter. I was a little disappointed when I was watching the machine pistol in the earlier parts of the game, where it looked like it was taking a long time to do anything, but the later weapons looked suitably punchy.

Setting Immersion

I'm a big fan of the cyberpunk genre, though I'll admit to being a little less into Cyberpunk the game itself (not that I don't like it, I just haven't had a chance to play it and get familiar with it).

However, I think that what we saw of the setting does a really good job in two ways: responsiveness and depth.

The responsiveness side is something that we sort of have to take the developers' word for. They say that all of these particular actions will lead to certain things, but that's something that could be scripted for the demo. CD Projekt Red isn't known for that, however, and it's actually one of the noted strengths of the studio that they do a really good job of crafting their worlds.

The depth of play itself, however, evokes Deus Ex in all the best ways, while also promising to offer a more expansive world and more opportunities to make decisions outside of the core narrative, with a character that is more closely attuned to what the players want to see.

One concern I've heard about Cyberpunk is that its dialogue system as shown in the demo is a little subpar, which I have to agree with. However, that's perfectly likely to change, and if Cyberpunk ends up with an equivalent level of modding to the third Witcher title, then it could be fixed by modders even if CD Projekt Red decides to go with the short dialogue hints instead of full quotes (something that was a mod for Fallout 4 before the game even received modding support!).

With the potential for shifting dialogue between now and the release date, this wouldn't even surprise me as being intentional at this stage.

Depth is another thing that really impressed me. Cyberpunk 2077 showed off a lot of vibrancy, and while we'll need to see how open its open world really is (you probably can't just walk into random buildings and expect any meaningful exploration), we did get to see environments that were very dynamic, with AI that responded to the events going on around them.

Again, with the nature of the demo it's hard to guarantee that this isn't scripted, but CD Projekt Red certainly has the chops to do it if anyone does.

Graphics

I didn't find the graphics to be that incredibly stellar on the software side (but I've been spoiled by watching a lot of RTX demos recently, and the video may not show off the full capabilities of the game), but the actual aesthetic and art assets look fantastic.

I think that there's a lot of procedural generation going on under the hood to power the crowds and cities, and even the day-time scenes manage to evoke a sort of cyberpunk vibe; perhaps a touch closer to Judge Dredd than Blade Runner, but certainly one that has the busy nature of life in a cyberpunk dystopia down pat.

The UI in particular is pretty minimal (whether this will be the standard mode, an optional mode, or entirely different in the final game is not entirely clear), but I like the overall aesthetic that it has, and the integration into gameplay elements.

There's also a pretty strong focus on details, which is always nice, and I'm a sucker for all the corporate branding and neon lights that come with a cyberpunk setting when they're pulled off in a way that adds to the experience. We didn't get to see much night-time footage, which is where the city will doubtless shine, but what we did get to see of interiors and exteriors evoked some of the best cyberpunk films and art out there.

Another thing to remember is that we're looking at things that are placeholders; so a lot of things that we see in the demo will presumably improve. I'm looking forward to the final game, obviously, but I still think that it's able to compete with pretty much anything out there; especially with regards to how many details there are in the scenes. While some individual elements may not outshine the competition, it definitely pulls off things that other games don't; Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, for instance, were great at pulling off the cyberpunk aesthetic, but were heavily focused on smaller scenes and didn't have crowds or open worlds on par with Cyberpunk, at least outside of pre-rendered cutscenes.

The Setting and Plot

Obviously we know certain things about the setting just by nature of what it is, and also because of what we've seen, but I think that the stories that we see in this demo are classic cyberpunk staples. I think that detracted a little from CD Projekt Red's storytelling excellence, since neither of the snippets we saw were particularly deep (shoot through baddies to recover missing person, buy stolen drone from baddies and get screwed over by megacorporation) but they indicate that the designers are paying attention to the genre.

I was really pleasantly surprised by the depth in the characters, though a demo obviously doesn't show that much of any one character, and how V and those around her drew connections to each other.

The thing that I'm really excited about is that we see some real hints that CD Projekt Red knows how to create a story with a punk aesthetic; going beyond simply having the darker tone of the Witcher to including the elements of struggle and division that make the cyberpunk genre work, and having both the dreams and cynicism of the world carry into the game.

We'll see how it turns out, but I'm optimistic.

Overall

I think that if you can watch this demo and not be excited about Cyberpunk 2077, you need to have your eyes checked. Some of the excitement will naturally be for things that are yet to come, but I also think that Cyberpunk's video game adaptation promises to provide a new twist on a familiar genre, without forgetting its roots.