Current Events > I'm sad for everyone that was hyped about Cyberpunk but I think there's a lesson

(+) Yeah! (+)

in gamers expecting "freedom" all the damn time. What made the Witcher 3 special wasn't that you could be anything, follow lots of choices, exist in a big open world and do anything anywhere. Hell the open world in that game felt entirely incidental to the rest of it.

Gamers constantly want "freedom" but how often does that actually work out? Most of the best games I've played didn't give you freedom. They just gave you choices. Hell, some of the best best games didn't even offer that.

Games that offer you lots of choices don't always give you a lot of freedom, either. Like Divinity Original Sin leads you down a pretty strict story, with strict encounters. You don't get to just rabble off into an open world and do whatever in that game, despite the seemingly endless amount of choice.

Not exactly covering any new ground here but maybe the idea that a game has to let you play it however you want to is a meme that people need to stop getting excited about. The impression I get about Cyberpunk is that they tried to do everything and ended up half assing it all.

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no the real lesson here is for people to stop building unrealistic and extremely idealized expectations for any type of media and reserve their judgement for when they're actually released

I just stopped playing for the night and I'm loving the game. I don't know what you've been hearing but the game is running smoothly and, outside of the oclverworld ai, really damn good.

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I was reasonably hyped until they confirmed that most of the 3rd person stuff in the game had been removed, and the hype just kept deflating from there.

That gameplay showcase back in 2018 or whenever was the high point. After that, basically every new announcement just made me more skeptical.
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Reis posted...

no the real lesson here is for people to stop building unrealistic and extremely idealized expectations for any type of media and reserve their judgement for when they're actually released

That too

kirbyakaZ posted...

I just stopped playing for the night and I'm loving the game. I don't know what you've been hearing but the game is running smoothly and, outside of the oclverworld ai, really damn good.

A persistent complaint is that people were expecting diverse life paths you can choose from, but in game it all amounts to basically the same thing

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I think it's a little bit of everything itt. I talked to someone the other week and they said "yeah I cant wait to play as a pop star in the game" and I was like what in the fuck kind of game do you think they're making? Lol but they definitely could have made a better game with what they had but instead ended up just putting some stuff together to make a passable game that could be a solid 8/10 if it ran properly and had less bugs.
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Every time a new big game comes out, people rush to attack it over real or perceived ills. "We we're too hyped, and it bit us in the ass, we should learn from this and temper our expectations."

I have seen the above, or variations of it, a couple times a year, every year for the last 25 years. One generation will learn, but there will always be a next generation unwilling to listen to the lessons of their betters.

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Smashingpmkns posted...

I think it's a little bit of everything itt. I talked to someone the other week and they said "yeah I cant wait to play as a pop star in the game" and I was like what in the fuck kind of game do you think they're making? Lol but they definitely could have made a better game with what they had but instead ended up just putting some stuff together to make a passable game that could be a solid 8/10 if it ran properly and had less bugs.

It's like people expected a Sims game but also an RPG, a shooter, a story driven epic, a bioware-style choice system...

I know we're talking about a AAA studio here but has ANY game ever been made that nails every single genre all at once, lol

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Reis posted...

no the real lesson here is for people to stop building unrealistic and extremely idealized expectations for any type of media and reserve their judgement for when they're actually released

This. People were expecting a revolutionary rpg experiance to push the medium forward. What they got was a good game(on adequate hardware)

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I do wish some games had more restraint. My favourite type of RPG is still that classic Bioware game that's like 25-50 hours. Now every game needs to have some massive scale and open world and it's really hard to keep a game like that focused or consistently good.

Maybe Cyberpunk 2077 would be better if it was structured like Deus Ex but this game had 8 million preorders while Mankind Divided flopped so what do I know.

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pinky0926 posted...

It's like people expected a Sims game but also an RPG, a shooter, a story driven epic, a bioware-style choice system...

I know we're talking about a AAA studio here but has ANY game ever been made that nails every single genre all at once, lol

Exactly. But I do think CDPR takes most of the blame here of course when they're putting out these insane bi-weekly updates showing crazy shit you can do in the game and alluding to nearly endless possibilities then completely under delivering on every front. Any gamer that saw those YT vids had their imaginations going wild I'm sure. They should have really hit the brakes with their marketing and reworked basically everything in terms of messaging like 2 years ago.
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I was barely hyped for cyberpunk at all until like a week or so before release when I decided to buy.

Got really hyped a day or so before release and preordered it

Loved it ever since

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honestly im pretty bummed about it, makes me feel like we have hit the peak for game design. when i was a kid i envisioned future games having amazing AI and a million player choices and a real feeling world etc etc, in reality the best we will probably get is something like TLOU2 where the grass is animated and there's ps3 gameplay

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I had never heard of Cyberpunk prior to a few months ago but once I saw how hyped people were about it and what their expectations were, I pretty much expected it to be another No Mans Sky situation. Maybe not as bad but regardless, people clearly had too high hopes for this game. Expecting a million different choices all with different outcomes is simply not realistic. Hell we barely have games out that give you 2 or 3 choices only that still typically come to (almost) the same conclusion ultimately.

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Romulox28 posted...

honestly im pretty bummed about it, makes me feel like we have hit the peak for game design. when i was a kid i envisioned future games having amazing AI and a million player choices and a real feeling world etc etc, in reality the best we will probably get is something like TLOU2 where the grass is animated and there's ps3 gameplay

I think we're in a bit of an awkward teen phase with things like AI and "real feeling world". I think part of the problem is this idea that games have to do literally everything, which I think just...isn't fun?

But it's telling that some of the best games that I've played the last couple of years have been 2d platformers.

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People were expecting a simulator and it was never going to be that.

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Twin3Turbo posted...

I had never heard of Cyberpunk prior to a few months ago but once I saw how hyped people were about it and what their expectations were, I pretty much expected it to be another No Mans Sky situation. Maybe not as bad but regardless, people clearly had too high hopes for this game. Expecting a million different choices all with different outcomes is simply not realistic. Hell we barely have games out that give you 2 or 3 choices only that still typically come to (almost) the same conclusion ultimately.

Nier has 26 endings i believe.

Cyberpunk has 5 which is pretty good. It'll be interesting to see what the dlc adds too.

Around 5 is a good number typically for an rpg. Around choices.

What people didn't understand though imo is that cyberpunk2077 wasn't going to immediately take and use all 100% of the ps5 out of the gate. It seems like every new gen there's that one game that seems like it will and it let's people down somehow.

A cross platform launch game is never going to blow the specs straight off a new system.

I will note that I do love this game and would buy a sequel, prequel, anything really. Also plan on playing it through multiple life paths

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