Crazy to think how long it's been since the first Night Citywire event, huh. When we first got an indepth dive into the world of Cyberpunk accompanied by actual hands-on impressions by members of the media. I remember the excitement bubbling around that event and how truly pumped the world was to see exactly what it was we'd be getting our hands on, what we'd waited all these years for, what we'd preserved ourselves for. That was months ago, almost 3 of them in fact, and now we're practically in the home stretch. Hell, it feels like a lifetime has passed since then, and we've spent that lifetime stuck firmly indoors. (Sure, why not.) Now, ahead of schedule from when I expected it, we're getting a 3rd dose of goodness regarding game details and I'm deathly excited to consume it all right this very second. Unfortunately, this first paragraph is being written approximately 7 hours before the event so I'm going to have to use the 'wait' function. Over to future me-
Thank you, past me, so 'Videogames'; the medium of the future. Through this most engrossing of platforms we can delve into experiences beyond the average imagining, and in no manner is that greater symbolised than in the humble video game worldspace. (Like our very own Isekai moment.) Thus it was nice of this episode of our regularly scheduled update news to focus on the distinct districts of Night City, the gangs who pollute and rule those streets, and an update on how the OST- wait... I'm hearing that they cut the OST segment after having announced it just a few hours earlier. ('Kay, better luck next time I suppose.) I'm not too bummed, more time with the city I love is enough for me and we have another final Night City Wire in, I guess, about a month, so no harm no foul.
The thing I was most interested in, however, was the promised tour of the city because; can you really blame me? Nightcity appears to be this wondrous achievement of design that I totally buy with just about every facet. I mean, someone I know did point out how there appears to be no one under the age of 21 in the city, but I think we can all agree that's for the best. (We don't want morality crawling in the way of our inevitable massacres, do we?) As it would happen this tour took form of an introductory trailer to the city where the team went out of their way to justify the 'Dystopia' tag on their Steam page. They detailed a city of huge disparity between classes, massive unemployment, exploding crime rates, and a city life ruled by chaos and carnage. Even the few shots we saw of police trading fire with gangers across streets that look like blown-out warzones was sufficient enough to get across the message; Nightcity is not for the faint of heart. If you wanted a more traditional tour, however, like I did; then you can actually visit that website they mentioned on the trailer 'www.Nightcity.Love' (Yeah, it's real.) It makes for a chuckle worthy parody of the tourist sites of the future, complete with pop up advertisement windows featuring such wonders as holographic samurai bed-watchers. (A must have!)Again the standout feature here is how real the city looks and feels, to the point where you can make out the versatility that the developers tout. Hanging walkways, gardens, public-use elevators, there many examples of the way that this city is stacked up upon itself and overcrowded, of course paving the way for a lot of the societal problems with contextualise the crisis state of Night City. Additionally, looking at the different districts that make up Night City really highlights how different they all feel and look, rewarding the inquisitive explorer. They spoke about how they've labelled every street, not just for narrative consistency but for genuine navigation too, and even how the garbage littering the streets is handplaced. Do you have any idea how insane that is! These world designers must be literal psychopaths, there's no way you handplace an entire city's-worth of ambient clutter and don't lose your mind.
Next up was their exclusive piece about the many gangs who populate Night City and this was the trailer in which we got ourselves a very in depth look at the fantastical and grounded big players that we'll undoubtedly become familiar with in the story. Unlike in many other open world games, the gangs here don't just serve the role of whack-a-mole badguys that you have to shoot down for every mission. (I mean, I'm sure they are that as well, but there's also a little bit more too them.) V, being a mercenary, has the tendency to work with whoever has the money to pay him/her and, like it or not, gangs tend to have a lot of capital to put towards merc work. Basically this means you'll likely be working alongside, or for, these gangs just as often as you'll be shooting them, making the act of learning about them actually very informative to the folk we'll end up choosing between in the actual narrative.
Of course the most visually alarming of the pack is the Maelstrom gang, which is essentially Cyberpunk's version of Deus Ex's Harvesters, only a lot more hardcore. We've seen them in several trailers before and they always stand out due to the way they've modded themselves to the nines with cybernetics. (Visually, one of my favourites I have to admit.) But even though they stand a bit out compared to their slightly more grounded peers, that doesn't make those gangs less interesting. The Latin-inspired Valentinos, Haitian Voodoo boys and Japanese Tyger Claws reinforce the cultural clash you'll find in a city as big as this one; whilst the 6th street, Moxes and Animals represent the clash of extreme ideals. It makes for a solid formation for interesting and potentially complex relationships to be formed between the groups in question and V themselves. And that's not even taking into account the two big Nomad tribes that I haven't even got a clue about just yet when it comes to motivation. (Except, of course, how big they all are on Vin Diesel's favourite word: "Family".)
So that's everything which was covered in today's Night City Wire. Not a great deal but then, we've another finale to save for next month. Besides, Night City Wire wasn't the only info dump we received due to a heavily overlooked Q&A from a few weeks ago which bore the title; "Russian Community Developer Q&A" (You can see why people didn't pay it the most amount of attention.) So no, it wasn't a translation of previous interviews like one might assume, but a brand new Q&A on new topics in which the questions just happened to be in Cyrillic for some reason. (The man even answered in English, I really didn't get the Russian themeing at all.) Here we learnt about some of the steps the team took to make the city more immersive, such as dynamic street population depending on the time of day, place in the city and certain events in the story; the way food can be used to provide bonuses to stats; how aesthetic gear may provide small stat bonuses, but at the end of the day they're there to offer visual choice; how you can't kill everyone you meet; (The Outer Worlds, style) and actually a lot more. It's a really indepth video, I'd recommend watching it if you're as helpless addicted to this game as I am.
Just like any addiction I'm getting to the point where I can barely be sedated with these slight teasing glimpses anymore. I want to really delve into the heart of Cyberpunk with something substantial or the game itself; in fact, if this next Night City Wire will be as tame as this last one was, I may just prefer they don't have an event at all. Just to be clear, my excitement for this game isn't wavering, I'm just getting to grips with it, I'm managing the urge to bounce up and down like a lunatic every moment of everyday. (Getting hard into Jojo helps with that quite a bit.) I don't have much more to really express on the title aside from the fact that I'm really digging the OST so far and genuinely loved that 'Hole in the Sun' track they released, can't wait to hear more. 61 days to go and counting.
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