There’s no doubt that Skyrim is one of the best RPGs on the market. The expansive, seemingly never-ending homeland of the Nords housed numerous expansive quests, bolstered by its free-form RPG mechanics that allowed for unique characters. While sword-wielding warrior builds were probably some of the more common progressions in Skyrim, the melee combat did have its fair share of functional clunkiness. Now, it seems Cyberpunk 2077 is tackling a similar issue with its own melee combat.
Granted, in all fairness, crafting a fully-fledged RPG in a cyberpunk setting means nailing down the gunplay and the unique cyberware abilities first. Even still, one of the most common complaints from early previews of Cyberpunk 2077 has been the lackluster melee combat in the game’s current state. Visual feedback and evoking weight in melee combat was an issue in Skyrim that CD Projekt Red will likely need to address with Cyberpunk 2077, despite being so close to release.
For RPGs, it’s tough to balance the priorities in development depending on what type of game is being made. For Cyberpunk 2077, melee combat will be just as much of a core gameplay mechanic as the gunplay is. Multiple media previews of the game consistently praised the gunplay as being pretty fantastic for an expansive RPG that’s also a first-person-shooter. As for the melee combat, the general consensus is that it’s sub par and doesn’t necessarily have enough weight or visual feedback behind it for bare knuckle brawling to be enjoyable.
Skyrim evokes a similar problem too, as melee combat just doesn’t have enough weight to punches or attacks. Across all weapons, visual and audio cues that make a hit seem strong and impactful just aren’t really present in Skyrim. Enemies all start to feel like butter that the Dragonborn is slicing through, and not because the player’s character is overleveled. Opponents don’t always flinch or fall over when attacked, so combat ends up looking like a World of Warcraft combat scenario where one person swings and then the other swings. The player and the enemy’s health gauges deplete over time, but the game doesn’t evoke the feeling that either is truly fighting another person.
CD Projekt Red’s development team has recognized this feedback and has stated publicly it wants to make improvements to Cyberpunk 2077‘s melee combat in the remaining development time before launch. That gives about three months time for the team to make any tweaks/adjustments before Cyberpunk‘s November launch window. Cyberpunk 2077‘s senior gameplay designer Pawel Kapala has stated that the team has fully recognized the issues with melee combat and has already made great strides towards improving it. Kapala specifically mentions visual feedback and the weight of connecting hits on an enemy, a common criticism of Skyrim‘s combat.
Of course with Skyrim, the fix nowadays is just to mod the game, which frankly is acceptable for a Bethesda game that’s nearly 11 years old now. But for Cyberpunk 2077 and CD Projekt Red, that’s not the answer for a game that has quite good gunplay already. Plus considering The Witcher‘s solid sword fighting combat, settling for subpar just isn’t the move here. CD Projekt Red and Kapala theoretically have enough development time between now and release to hone and refine the combat to evoke a more natural feeling.
Now that’s not to say melee combat will become a simulatory UFC-like experience, as any kind of animation overhaul would take far too long at this point in the development cycle. More than likely the existing combat animations and fighting systems already in Cyberpunk 2077 will receive visual and haptic feedback changes to make melee combat more natural. That could be anything from enemy behavior when getting hit by light/strong attacks, adjusting the blocking animation, camera behavior during fistfights, and numerous other minutiae. Often it’s the little details that players don’t even think about that can bring combat down.
Honing and refining the existing animations and combat feel is all that’s likely for now, but it should be enough to make melee combat serviceably good in Cyberpunk 2077. Hopefully, CD Projekt Red makes enough adjustments so melee doesn’t become a damper on what would otherwise could be many’s game-of-the-year pick this fall.
Cyberpunk 2077 launches on November 19 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Stadia, PS5, and Xbox Series X versions are planned to release in 2021.
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