For reals, though?
So it's been over a year since Cyberpunk 2077 has landed in our collective psyche to teach everyone a very valuable lesson with a real-life 'be careful what you wish for' parable. Everyone wanted this game to come out so badly that no one ever stopped to ask whether or not it should, and just like with Dr. Ian Malcom's example, the result has been a disaster of biblical proportions. (Or would that be pre-biblical? This analogy has run away from me a little.) But CDPR have asserted time and time again that this wouldn't be a defeat they'd take lying down. Yes, they overestimated what their team was capable of, yes they never really apologised for knowingly overselling the product for months straight, yes the game is now already released which makes it absolutely impossible for the game to be retrofitted into the promise they made no matter how much post-launch development time they're given. But they've got vim and vigour and I guess someone at CDPR thinks that's enough to rescue this embattled RPG instead of cutting losses and moving onto the next game.
When last I touched on these guys and their game it wasn't to speak of them directly, but more to balk at the fact that some impossible how Cyberpunk had scored itself a spot in the list of 'Best RPGs of the year'. An undisguised insult to all the actual roleplaying games that dominated this year including the several CRPGs that I guess just don't have an awards category in Keighley's show given that their supposed domain is overrun by action game roleplayer wannabes like Cyberpunk. They didn't win that award, but Cyberpunk did get Game of the Year from one Japanese branch of a popular reviewers outlet, proving that you can lie and cheat your way to popularity and someone somewhere in the world is always going to reward you for it. (They even acknowledged the many shortcomings and lies in the description for the award, and gave them the honour anyway. There ain't no justice, I tells ya.)
But that hasn't been the only news out of Cyberpunk by any stretch of the imagination, I just didn't feel like covering them. On wider news, the game has been receiving stability updates pretty much every month since launch, all of which seem to be slowly stripping away ancillary elements from old gen versions of the game until the frame rate hits something approaching steady. Currently those versions of the game features a very unique vision of Night City that is a total ghost town wherein it's a rare treat to see another pedestrian on the street let alone a car not on the highways. Which, to be honest, is probably for the best as the team seem to have just washed their hands of wider world systems altogether. With a game this tightly wound, I wouldn't be surprised if most substantial gameplay systems are intrinsically tied to core programs somehow and trying to even tweak their AI in the slightest degree would immediately corrupt the data and brick the console. (Okay so that's probably an exaggeration. But I bet not too much of one.)
We've also seen the first bit of new DLC content drop for the game and it's the free stuff that was promised all those eons ago when we were still innocent loved-filled creatures, before the bad old times came. I may have touched on this, I can't remember, but the DLC was just some new clothes and small items you can buy at the shop, and despite being free the public remained utterly non-pulsed to mildly hostile regarding the update. Which kind of highlights hypocrisy for a crowd that drooled over the Witcher 3 for offering DLC content that was similarly light, but I guess people are just waiting for the magic moment the team flip the switch and conjures that infinitely tactile and dynamic, endlessly branching, RPG which they've probably got tucked in a cupboard somewhere over in CDPR head office. (Just give them time, it'll pop out in a sec.)
Now there is an actual inciting incident which led me to man this blog for this particular topic, and if you've followed CDPR even a tiny bit you might know what I'm talking about. It's a recent stream hosted by key CDPR staff that extracted quite the 'gotcha' sound bit that people are lambasting the wider team for despite the fact that A. does CDPR really need more vitriol after the year they've had and B. this was a bit of a blunder that is totally understandable and in no way worth making mountains out of. And you know me, I ain't a CDPR defender. And on the otherside, I'm someone who actively disagrees with the widely swept presumption of 'gamer entitlement' bridging from the rather sound standpoint of- hey, these are super expensive entertainment products that we have to buy with our actual money, that kind of gives the consumer the right to be pissed if the value of the product isn't worth the price, wouldn't you say? And yet I find this recent bout of CDPR controversy to be a tad asinine if not just needlessly mean spirited.
Cyberpunk's lead quest designer, Paweł, likes to stream the game sometimes and answer the odd question, a suitable way to spend an afternoon given that he just comes off as a nice and personable guy. But the soundbit which did the round came in response to a query from someone asking rather directly why there are no car chases in Cyberpunk outside of missions, quoting how every other open world games has them. Now personally, I don't really like these sorts of questions. It's kind of like going "Why is this bad thing bad?" You know the answer in broad strokes and the way you've framed it really doesn't make it sound like you're digging for a genuine mechanical discussion on the technological shortcoming of the game engine. It's just kind of a dick question. Paweł gave them the time of day, despite noting they'd commented this quite a bit and likely seeing how it wasn't really being asked in a constructive manner, and is being lambasted for his slightly goofy response.
So he took the petty road and basically said 'not every open world game has chases. Sonic probably won't, Elden Ring won't!' A silly comparison, and odd considering he picked Sonic Frontier, a game which is a year away and no-one has a single clue what that game might have in it, (Eggman robos might have a dynamic chase system built into the overworld for all we know) and Elden Ring, a game which has been played extensively and actually does have a low-key chase system through the passive caravans that came after you if you upset them. (It's splitting hairs, but so was this entire line of the contention) But that's neither here nor there, the point is that it's really a none challenge to the question because obviously a freakin' crime-centric Cyberpunk simulator game set in a bustling corrupt city should have something of a dynamic police system. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (a better example he totally missed) doesn't have that sort of system, nor a equivalent of it, because it's a fantasy exploration survival game. False equivalence makes one seem infantile, but can you really blame him?
I'm being serious, we're talking about the lead quest designer for a game that has been raked across the coals for a year straight. They've had everyone question their competence at even the most basic level (you know, despite this being the team that made The Witcher 3!) and he's being repeatedly goaded in chat, whilst playing that very game, by someone looking for a fight. Of course he's going to be a little defensive, of course he's going to be a little less than professional, and of course he's not going to think up some carefully worded statement to an off-the-cuff encounter. I just don't know why this had to be scooped up and rang around the community with an air of "Look, we got him boys! CDPR are a bunch of spineless, whiny, excuse makers, you've seen it here first!" I have no respect for CDPR as a company after the lies they coordinated in feeding to their public, but I have all the sympathy in the world for an individual who's just gently biting back at a bully. Maybe not in the most gracious of ways, but who gives a crap- the guy's on break!
I'm not about to start saying it's time we move on and let bygones be bygones and I'm very much being serious when I say I probably won't trust CDPR with any future game they're hyping up ever again, but that doesn't mean I'm going to turn around and start condoning playing stupid for gotcha points. Heck, that's what most people are criticising Paweł for in the first place whilst ignoring the fact they themselves are doing exactly that in divorcing context and situation. Can a guy riff on stream with his audience without causing an industry scandal from a single string of poorly chosen words? He even went on to actually answer the question he was being asked in a sound and concise response, but I guess everyone is busy cherry picking the guy the don't like for his cherry picking. Just a healthy reminder that Reddit is a cesspool sometimes, I guess.
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