Developer Spotlight: Of Witchers and Cyberpunks
Damien Monnier, gameplay designer talks to us about Cyberpunk 2020's first foray into video game form and all of it's awesome technological glory.
Gamersaurs: The Cyberpunk table top game has been around for a long time. For people that don't know much if anything about the tabletop game: What is Cyberpunk all about?
Damien Monnier, gameplay designer: Cyberpunk is about saving yourself, as Mike Pondsmith once said. It’s about staying human in a world which has the technology to dehumanize your body and the society which takes your psyche away. That’s what Cyberpunk is all about.
Imagine a future in which we have made substantial advancement in almost every field, but the social problems and decay just got worse. It’s putting the cybertechnology in the punk nature of man.
Our Cyberpunk world is based on a pen-and-paper system by Mike Pondsmith and will be set in 2077’s Night City, a large American city of the future, somewhere between San Francisco and LA.
Gamersaurs: Like most table top RPG's, Cyberpunk 2020 gives players a lot of room to create the character players want to play. From cop roles to reporters. How much, if any character and play style customization will Cyberpunk 2077 offer players? Will the role or play style a player chooses affect the story?
Roles and customization will be very important for both the story and the gameplay. One of the main rules of Cyberpunk is style over substance, and we have this always at the back of our heads. Also, we are CD Projekt RED! You can be sure that many thing will affect the story, from tricky moral decisions during quests to the way you look; the game world will adapt and change around you depending on how you choose to interact with it.
Gamersaurs: If we were to take a lovely stroll through Night City, what wonderful and terrible things could we expect to see and do?
The streets of NightCity are very harsh and reflect some deep and very, very dark social conflicts. Some districts may be ruled by gangs, others will be under the influence of Corporations. Those worlds will have to meet at some point; and will do so whether the player is around to witness it or not. Our goal is to have this living city that can change and evolve with or without your help as well as rewards for exploring and understanding what NightCity is. Something that is omnipresent in NightCity, whichever part you choose to explore, is Braindance. Braindance is a new fad which has everyone hooked up. In a nuthsell, Braindance allows you to record your feelings and visual experiences, so they can be packaged and sold on to other people. Some are legal, others not so much, depending on the sort of ‘experience’ you want. Tou might trip over a Braindance junkie that was thrown out of their home as they were too hooked to Braindances, hooked to somebody else’s more interesting life.
We will also have psychos, whose bodies simply cannot handle having any more implants added to them; that’s what drives them crazy. Then of course we have Max-Tac, the special unit in charge of exterminating any Psychos.
Gamersaurs: Cyberspace is kind of a big deal in most any Cyberpunk setting. How will it be represented in Cyberpunk 2077 and how would a player go about accessing it?
It’s too early to talk about cyberspace now. But we can assure fans that we know how important it is for the settings.
Gamersaurs: While looking through some information on Cyberpunk 2020 I stumbled across something called Braindances. The general gist of it, at least what I gathered, it looked like you could actually live someone else's life, experience everything that they did. It's the ultimate form of putting yourself in someone else's shoes with a great chance for things to go horribly wrong. These, on their own, seem like they could be an incredible addition to the game, especially when performing investigations. Can you explain more about braindances and how will they be handled in Cyberpunk 2077?
The most important thing for the player that we can talk more about is the mentioned social status of braindances. I’ve already talked about the fad and junkies, but it’s also worth mentioning that BrainDance built a whole industry around itself. We call it something like New-Holywood with its own stars and celebrities and productions. But there’s also an underground producing illegal productions, with more unique and disturbing themes.
Braindance is an invention that changed the world and is one of the most important advancements in 2020.
Gamersaurs: From watching the teaser we saw what could happen to any person in the Cyberpunk 2077 that abuses augmentations, substances and generally over indulges in the great new pleasures of the future. That being said, there aren't many games that include a sanity system that changes a players perceptions of the world or takes some degree of control away from them like Amnesia has. Is there any chance that a player could turn into a psycho for a while and then realize just what they've done?
The systems for becoming a psycho are tested. We have to have some sort of side effect for overdosing on implants, for pushing your body too far, but we can’t talk about the details now.
Gamersaurs: Night City looks like quite an impressive place to wonder around in, judging from the teaser trailer, but what about the world outside? Will we get to see places beyond night city on release or is this being left as room to grow for Cyberpunk 2077 with expansions?
Who knows? you’ll have to check it out when the game comes out, when it’s ready.
Gamersaurs: Gameplay is the most important thing in any game. At the moment not much is known about Cyberpunk 2077 other than it will adapt the Cyberpunk table top RPG into a video game. Can you give us an idea of the sort of gameplay we will be seeing in Cyberpunk 2077?
It will be definetly an RPG. We are working really hard to adapt the rules of the pen-and-paper system to a video game. Our ideal is to create a title which plays great in front of a screen, but with a character that can be printed out and then played with your friends. Of course, not all systems from the original pen-and-paper game can fit our game, but our job is to experiment and bring players the most fun possible.
Gamersaurs: Last but certainly not least are the graphics. I heard that the graphical goal of the game is to get as close to the graphics of the teaser as possible. Given how incredible that trailer looked. How close does it look like tech will be able to support this graphical fidelity and what kind of system specs would be required to run Cyberpunk 2077 at full blast?
CG quality is our goal. Our engine team is working on a new renderer for the REDengine 3. This will be used also in The Witcher 3 and I think that new hardware will support us. So just wait and see…
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