The next step for Cyberpunk

 One last hurrah

It's funny, you go so long looking at something down on it's knees, grovelling in the dirt, and it's easy to forget that the game wasn't always there and can't always be. Either the developer is going to give up and move on, or they're going to do their damndest to make up for lost time. Whilst it is true that at least a portion of CDPR has done their duty and moved fully on from Cyberpunk so that they can start work on The Witcher 4 (>sigh<) we've still got that one DLC of Cyberpunk to get through before that project can be laid to rest, and though we know quite a lot about it thanks to the fact that Keanu Reeves' very few lines were recorded so early in advance that they could be datamined, we can all turn around and feign surprise at those brand new update for the cool stuff it's providing as well as the sad break-up which should have come before the relationship ever began. 

Firstly, the Cyberpunk anime is finally out! And it's only been two years... handily that was enough for the show to skip right past a lot of vitriol and now become a beacon of things perhaps turning around for the battered video game franchise. If, indeed, turning around is what people want for Cyberpunk. (A lot of people like to wallow in the misery of a failure. I'll admit, I see the appeal.) Having actually watched a lot of the previews for the anime whilst it was in production I'll be the first to say that the actual animation looks fantastic, with so much clean movement and gorgeous shifting lines and shapes, it's some of the best I've seen. Is that enough to make me want to watch?... I don't know, there hasn't really been that spark of intrigue ignited up by any of these preliminary action sequences. Heck, two years of teases and they didn't even tease what the show was even about, which makes me kind of uninvested in watching it. I want to say I'll get around to it but... there's a lot of other shows that are taking precedent. Maybe I'll skip it, honestly.

And now there's an update to Cyberpunk celebrating this anime through clothing items and a weapon, both of which are fine, and somewhat beyond the call of duty, for what the game needed to do; but this drop coincides with another significant quality of life update for the game. What is added? Well... nothing that changes up the heart of the game, obviously, but just some doubling-down elements. That long-requested Transmog system which allows armour to display different skin so that people can dress how they like with the stats that they need (in a first-person game...) and then there's some more customisation variety included in the game's Ripper clinics that cannot be accessed in the in-game mirror which provides a small sprinkle of that role-play value people felt was originally missing from the base game. Oh, and this is the final update that will be coming to last gen consoles as everything in the future, including the DLC, is for the newer current generation only. (I said there would be a breakup.)

It was probably greed that convinced CDPR management that there had to be a last gen version of this game in order for it to sell well, which in turn became a lightning rod for a lot of the technical issues that the overall development process encountered. Of course that wasn't all, and it doesn't excuse the abject lies that their marketing department dished out, but it's certainly one factor in a equation of mess-ups. Cutting off the last gen is a step that was long overdue and hopefully without them Cyberpunk can start making real splashes with future content. Although we have heard that CDPR are killing off all their work on the engine that made CDPR after this coming DLC, so maybe that's a bit of overly wishful thinking. We're never going to get that open-world simulation we were promised, are we? Not that I honestly still expected to after all this time to be perfectly honest.

But what we are getting is a brand new DLC which is going to go all 'Spy' on us with codenames and pledges to protect the America and all that cool 'James Bond but American' stuff. According to leaks the expansion itself isn't going to take us very far out of Nightcity, which is a bit of a shame, but instead explore some parts of the City that were undeveloped in the course of the main game. What I really want to know, however, is whether or not it will explore buttloads of conspiracy theories translated into video game format specifically so that Cyberpunk can start stepping on Deus Ex's toes. I have to ask because it was only a couple of years ago where a key original Deus Ex developer bemoaned the seriousness with which a modern audience has taken to his fantasy-themed video game and wished he had never written the thing in the first place. Are CDPR bad enough dudes to ignore his warning and throw fuel onto that flame?

Honestly I'm actually quite excited to see a substantive chunk of content hurling towards Cyberpunk 2077 for the first (and likely last) time after launch; as it gives the team an opportunity to really demonstrate what the recent screw-up has taught them about their approach towards development and delivery to their fans. Who can really say what CDPR are cooking up in their lab to wow and shock the world? If this is going to be their only go around, I fully expect it to be at least comparable to the amount of effort and love that went into 'Blood and Wine', in not in size than at least in depth. This might be CDPR's last chance to prove they have their heads on straight before the multiyear wait to hear about their next project, and it would be really nice to end things on a high note!

Obviously we know that Keanu's contribution to this DLC is going to be limited, with Johnny Silverhand's interference being muted during the content through some special McGuffin. I only hope this doesn't end up making the DLC feel like an obvious insert that doesn't gel with the rest of the main story, which I would imagine being a real issue given that the core narrative of Cyberpunk is rather centrally focused around Johnny to the point where the main character sort of gets back-seated by him for some of the runtime. This does leave space for other characters to jump up and become the nagging voice in the player's head, however, which makes a great opportunity to expand out this world to other characters that might actually be able to be bought back in a Cyberpunk 207- whatever sequel ten-or-so years down the line.

In the absence of Deus Ex and the disappearing of all those small indie projects that strutted their funky stuff when Cyberpunk was first launched, this remains the only big proponent of Cyberpunk video gaming in the world right now and I'm happy the game is somewhat back on the way up. The disappointment lingers, of course; but a CDPR that makes the happy headlines is always going to be preferable to the one squabbling in it's own faeces trying to play off the mess as 'not as bad as it looks; guys!' It's just a shame that this seems to be the last step on a road to bettering the game, not the first big one; but then I suppose it only makes since that the team had to cut themselves off somewhere else they'd be tinkering and muddling with this game for as long as the Star Citizen team have been bumbling on; and nobody wants to miss their moment as much as Cloud Imperium has, and continues to do.