The Road to Cyberpunk: Less than 1 month to go

 By my own rules I can't quote my favourite line up here; but it was a good one!

Yeah, I know that's not the most impressive sounding subtitle but I wasn't really given a choice now was I? At least it seems that from this point on CDPR's hands are well and truly tied and they cannot get out of it; December 10th will be the launch date of Cyberpunk 2077 and that judging by the way all the other titles have been announced, this puts them firmly out of the running for Game of the year 2020. (Still deciding whether or not I'm going to cover the game awards this year, maybe not) To celebrate we had one last Night City wire to send things out with a bang, this one covering the two things we must wanted to hear about (or at least I did, anyway) story and music. Thus allow this to be my last dive into my thoughts on Cyberpunk before the game is out as which point I'll be far to busy to keep updates coming. (Everyone would be too busy to read those updates anyway)

First let me start by saying that I'm honestly surprised by how much detail this video went into in regards to story, they pretty much laid the entire first chapter of the game out for us. (Okay, maybe more the 'prologue' first chapter, but in TV show terms that's still like an entire introduction episode.) Albeit we did know much of the story for a while now thanks to a rather straightforward Steam page which mentioned the 'Chip which contains the key to immortality', now we know what that means and how it has the potential to affect the story. (so turn away if you want to play the story fresh. But if that's your prerogative, I don't know why you're reading this anyway, come back in December.) Now we know that this chip does indeed contain the digitised soul of Johnny Silverhand, and it's his influence which will try and make V destroy the megacorp who created the chip, (not sure why) whom I believe to be Arasaka. Thus the beginning of this quest will likely turn into something of a power struggle between Johnny and V for direction as Johnny tries to coerce the player's body into acts of terrorism whilst the player tries to be rid of him. (Rather antagonistic, no?)

Honestly, as someone who had quite some qualms when wondering what the scope of this story might be, I'm quite happy with what the team has settled on. There's plenty of breadth to go practically any direction with this, and I'm already envisioning some Metal Gear Solid level showdowns between V and Johnny wherein they struggle for control of V's soul, whilst there could be other directions which would be entirely distinct. The promise of a story like this told within gaming is that the narrative could potentially go any which way, and I want to see them all! (Although if there's a chance to have a metaphysical death-fight against Johnny I'm probably going to B-line for that questline, personally, I love all the metaphorical transhumanist stuff!)

Apart from that, this Nightwire really put into focus the importance of Johnny Silverhand as a sort of secondary protagonist, instead of just a drop in sidekick who offers a funny situational quip every now and then. (That being said, one of his more vulgar lines from this event was truly brilliant, I hope there's more in the full game.) Keanu Reeves took the spotlight to talk about his work and I have to say, quite contrary to my original thoughts, I genuinely think he's thrown as much of himself into this as he could. I'll admit that when the initial shock wore off I did slightly role my eyes and go "Star power, eh.", but seeing these brief glimpses of his performance has really put that to rest, I really think he may have instilled the energy and passion to bring this icon of anarchism to life. He needs to have, because I have a feeling that winding ourselves to the heart of Mr Silverhand is going to be one of the big payoffs of the narrative, so it has to be worthwhile.

Aside from that there was some sections about the soundtrack and ways in which the diversity of the situational suite aims to range from location to location. Now admittedly, that alone isn't exactly the most revolutionary thing that we've ever heard out of these conferences, it sort of goes without saying on a triple A project this huge, but it's nice to have that officially confirmed, I guess. Seeing the artists that are working on the official OST soundtrack was also rather interesting, if just for the range of musicians we saw up there. But of course the highlight interviewees were Grimes and Run the Jewels; the former of which encapsulated all of our excitement rather succinctly whilst the latter diffused that balled up anticipation coolly. Needless to say, the soundtrack is really going to make or break the atmosphere of Nightcity and I'm over the moon to see how seriously the team are taking it. Also, it's nice to finally hear why this version of Cyberpunk feels different to the one I'd seen pictured, it was a move from 80's aesthetic to 90's, I could never quite put my finger on it!

As a consummate curiosity hound, I love all the glimpses into the behind-the-scenes tech to make stuff work, and the JALI face animation stuff was just amazing. The last time I remember sound based facial animation tech really standing out to me was back in the Fallout New Vegas Modding days, and this is several hundred steps beyond that. I really does go to show how natural facial animations can look even when handled by an AI, where subtlety and understated movements can sell the illusion. Think the exact polar opposite to Mass Effect Andromeda and that horror-show of a facial suite. Of course, at the end of the day this is still notably inferior to full-facial tracking, as you see from other (smaller) triple A games, but in a manner that I can see myself forgiving pretty quickly. (Heck, I tend to play with subtitles on anyway, I won't notice anything.)

And then there was the gameplay trailer, likely the final trailer we're getting out of Cyberpunk 2077 (at least until the inevitable TV spots) and again it was a delightful visual treat to behold. Taking a sort of condensed evolution upon the 'everything to expect' trailers that Ubisoft makes, (which is funny considering that CDPR literally just copied that formula for the Witcher 3, and now they're subverting it) this is pretty much the perfect trailer to show to someone who has no idea what Cyberpunk is and needs a crash course as to why it should be in their library ASAP. (More marketing teams need to take note, this is how you sell your game!) I'd like to say that I'm not excited, because I've been burnt out of that enthusiasm, but darn it I am. (You keep hurting me and I keep coming back, CDPR.)

Again, this is probably going to be the last blog I make on Cyberpunk until the game releases (excluding one I've already scheduled for next week which isn't strictly about the game itself, so doesn't really count.) So let me take this opportunity to say, my vibes are feeling good about this game, and they've been that way for a while. I'm going to put my weight behind it and say that I think Cyberpunk is going to be the experience that it promises and likely reshape the mould for the industry as it goes. I really hope that's the case at least, else 2020 will have really taken all joy from the world and left us in perpetual darkness. Be the light at the end of the tunnel, CDPR, please! (Oh, but no pressure or anything...)