CD Projekt Red’s upcoming RPG Cyberpunk 2077 is so hotly anticipated that even Obsidian gave a tongue-in-cheek shout-out to the hype in the launch trailer for its game, Grounded. CD Projekt Red has long stated that it is determined to redefine the storytelling capacity of the first-person open-world RPG genre, with every quest feeling like its own full story.
However, it was Skyrim almost ten years ago that made that genre what it is today, and there are a few key areas where Cyberpunk 2077 still resembles some of Skyrim’s limitations. Here are a few of those similarities and ways CD Projekt Red could perhaps avoid problems with them in the future.
Many have consistently pointed to melee combat as a weakness of Cyberpunk 2077. Fortunately for Cyberpunk, there’s likely to be a far greater number of players who want to play with the games’ expansive gun collection than those who wanted to stick to archery in Skyrim.
The game, like Skyrim, has been said to have melee combat which doesn’t necessarily feel weighty enough to deliver truly cinematic combat in Cyberpunk, and it’s worth mentioning Cyberpunk’s dev team has already stated that it wants to improve melee combat in Cyberpunk 2077 before release. However, the game has already been delayed multiple times during its development cycle, and it is far more likely that these changes will be primarily aesthetic, such as improving sound effects and animations.
Aesthetics, however, can be a very powerful part of immersion, and this might be enough to at least make the melee combat feel more natural, even if it is one of the less enjoyable combat styles. The good news, however, is that the developer has already confirmed that enemies with high health won’t simply be bullet sponges in Cyberpunk 2077, so for the gunslingers among the fans, combat will likely still be satisfying as they progress through the game.
It has been confirmed that Cyberpunk, like Skyrim, will limit which NPCs can be killed, and this applies primarily to NPCs who are deemed necessary to the story and to children. While some fans might find immortal kids immersion breaking, the developer is unlikely to hear too many people demanding that they’re able to attack children in Cyberpunk 2077 compared to story-essential NPCs.
Having story NPCs who cannot be killed can be immersion breaking. Considering the emphasis CD Projekt Red has placed on Cyberpunk as the new defining next-gen RPG, many fans will have hoped that if they killed an NPC in the story the narrative would adapt around them, or at least have consequences in the game world itself rather than the game preventing that character’s death. These are lofty hopes, however, something that may not quite be seen in gaming just yet.
CD Projekt Red has also confirmed that leveling skills is similar to The Elder Scrolls in a few ways. The main way to level skills in Cyberpunk will simply be to use them; for example, a character who fires pistols a lot will get better at firing pistols. This isn’t a bad idea in and of itself. However, Cyberpunk will need to avoid Skyrim’s trait system, which generally encouraged the player to be a jack of all trades rather than rewarding specialization. These playstyles are not impossible in either game, of course, but it takes someone knowing what they want from the get-go to have a natural progression.
Cyberpunk 2077 is said to have extremely immersive dialog, where players have to remain aware of their surroundings. According to some, the player could even be having a conversation with a Cyberpunk NPC and notice a suspicious car pulling up, and, if they’re quick enough, might realize that the NPC is preparing to attack them.
This would be one of the best Skyrim features, as interactive dialog also occurred there, to take and run with, and a great way to help players fully immerse themselves in the world of Cyberpunk. However, players should hope that the player character, V, has plenty of lines recorded on launch. In Skyrim, the lack of a voiced player character enabled modders to quickly add many more dialog options for every NPC simply by taking advantage of the reused voice actors, while the PC could say anything new as they didn’t need a voice.
Due to the fact that V will be voiced in Cyberpunk 2077, this will be far more difficult for modders to achieve. However, there is a greater concern for the modding community, and CD Projekt Red’s approach to it could determine the longevity of the game, especially compared to a game like Skyrim which still has a vibrant modding scene nearly ten years after its initial retail release.
The success of any open world RPG in the long-term is deeply tied to its ability to grow and maintain a modding community. Some fans were disappointed to learn last year that Cyberpunk won’t feature mod support at release. However, the developer did express interest in supporting mods in the future, and Skyrim’s Creation Kit did not come out until 6 months after its launch, helping to make modding far more accessible.
In the long term, therefore, this could be a good point of similarity between Cyberpunk 2077 and Skyrim, and could go some way to helping fix some of the other potential problems mentioned above without demanding additional work from the studio or another delay to Cyberpunk’s release date.
Cyberpunk 2077 is bound to have plenty of similarities to Skyrim, because it is still Skyrim which provides the main template for a hugely successful first-person open-world RPG experience. Fans hope, however, that many of these systems will have been developed to improve upon Skyrim’s problems. Whether CD Projekt Red will be able to pull it off and deliver the genre into the next generation, however, remains to be seen.
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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