By Nathan Grayson on October 19th, 2012 at 11:00 am.
Man, what even is a Cyberpunk? CD Projekt announced that it was making one earlier this year, but tossed us back into the rain-slick, neon-bathed streets starved for details. For the longest time, I assumed it was some kind of cleaning device – perhaps a rival to the Dirt Devil – but eventually came around to the idea that it could also be a videogame. Turns out, the latter is correct, as CDP’s finally seen fit to toss a few chunks of concrete information our way. For one, the decidely un-witchy RPG’s full name is now Cyberpunk 2077, catapulting it forward in time from the pen-and-paper game’s 2020. Also – perhaps most tantalizingly of all – it’s one-upping The Witcher’s non-linear ways with a full-blown cybernetic sandbox.
The news emerged during a recent CDP/GOG news-a-polooza, during which it was also revealed that Cyberpunk’s sandbox will center around Night City – with locations ranging from “a combat zone completely taken over by gangs” to “the legendary Afterlife joint” to “the nostalgic Forlorn Hope.”
Combat, meanwhile, will be based on the pen-and-paper game’s core mechanics, but with an eye toward, well, actual structure. CDP explained in a post on the new Cyberpunk 2077 blog:
“This is why adapting pen & paper rules to video game is not as easy as it can appear at first glance. The flexibility of an in-person RPG has to be replaced with a strict set of rules. Every skill, attribute and game mechanic has to have a clear definition and place in the game.”
“For example, the Cyberpunk 2020 “Wardrobe & Style” skill governs the knowledge about the right clothes to wear, when to wear them and how to look cool even in a spacesuit. As you can see, this skill covers quite a big area of lore and can be interpreted differently, depending on the situation and the players. In Cyberpunk 2077 this skill has to be tied to a specific gameplay mechanic. And all of these mechanics have to be clearly defined so they can work well with other elements of the game and, at the same time, be easy to understand for the player. After all, we don’t have a referee or game master to explain or interpret the rules as you go.”
For now, CDP isn’t talking exact specifics of how it plans to grapple with that issue. However, original creator Mike “my buttery rasp is humanity’s most inspiring moments given voice” Pondsmith is heavily involved in the process, so there’s a definite focus on adhering to his original vision as closely as possible.
By the looks of things (and by “things,” I mean nothings, as we still haven’t seen any screenshots or videos), Cyberpunk’s still very early at this point. If nothing else, though, CDP’s obviously starting to ramp up its efforts, and CEO Marcin Iwinski did tell us during E3 to expect more toward the end of the year. So then, 2077′s a long way off, but hopefully, it’s a little closer than we think.
19/10/2012 at 11:06 Ninja Foodstuff says:
This is going to be incredible. I don’t think I’ll need any other games once this is out.
21/10/2012 at 19:15 Shralla says:
You don’t even know anything about it yet. Calm down.
22/10/2012 at 01:41 DrSlek says:
I’m currently treating this as Transmetropolitan: The Game
Gimme a spider tat and a bowel disruptor and I’m good to go!
19/10/2012 at 11:08 Harlander says:
Are they going to be dealing with the weirdness that came up in Cyberpunk 203X, which pushed the game into an interesting post-cyberpunk direction, I wonder
19/10/2012 at 11:12 Ninja Foodstuff says:
It appears that they want to make it more based on how the world is right now, extrapolating forward from our current time to 2077 “looking to extrapolate current trends and fears”.
They also hinted that it would tie into the nuked Arasaka building.
19/10/2012 at 12:56 greg_ritter says:
Oh man, i’d prefer the world after Datacrush, because the sole idea of Datacrush is unbelievably awesome.
But alas, Arasaka it is.
19/10/2012 at 13:18 TormDK says:
I have no clue what so ever what you just noted.
Could you give some settings background on why this is important please? :)
19/10/2012 at 13:23 mrwonko says:
Was about to ask the same, google won’t help me. Sounds intriguing, whatever it is.
19/10/2012 at 14:03 Ansob says:
Arasaka are the big bads of 2020, a Japanese-born transnational megacorp in the traditional 80s cyberpunk vein.
With Cyberpunk 2030 (the next version of the game), R. Talsorian progressed the plot to the 2030s (duh), and set the game after a virus erased 99% of the world’s data (that’s the Datacrush). 2030 is set in a post-Datacrush, post-apocalyptic society with a heavy emphasis on Diamond-Age-style nanotechnology, whereas 2020 is all about Chiba City and Ono-Sendais, if you get my drift.
(If you don’t get my drift: 2020 is what people expect when they hear “cyberpunk,” i.e. Neuromancer/Snow Crash.)
19/10/2012 at 15:00 TormDK says:
Thanks much for the response!
So the Datacrush period would be considered “low tech” – given that information went *poof*?
You went over my head, but I don’t follow alot of the cyberpunk stuff, but it sounds like an interesting setting
19/10/2012 at 16:26 Ninja Foodstuff says:
“DataKrash”. Basically an anarchic computer virus that swapped files belonging to different people around, in an effort to aid free speech. Kind of like wikileaks, but without the “opting-in” part.
19/10/2012 at 17:11 greg_ritter says:
Datacrush is a virus, created by some deranged genius, who wanted to make all information free. His reasoning was that the information would become free if it was worthless.
Datacrush swapped or rewrote all information in the Net, thus making it impossible to know for sure the history and culture of humanity. You can’t verify anything, even with old-timey books, because on every argument for your point of view there are hundred false facts in the net.
Alexander of Macedonia destroyed Babylon with nukes, Jesus was an alien, americans went to the moon to war with the Nazis – these facts are all true, because there is no way to prove them wrong.
Essentially, the world of Cyberpunk now have no past. You just create your past as you like it.
That leads to new cultures, new religions, new philosophies.
The world is not low-tek, it’s just something comletely new and insane.
That’s why Datacrush is the best idea ever
19/10/2012 at 20:24 Aedrill says:
Oh shit, now I MUST get this CP book and start playing! It sounds absolutely great!
19/10/2012 at 11:26 Tyrmot says:
Words cannot describe the mouth-watering anticipation I am feeling for this one!
19/10/2012 at 11:31 vonkrieger says:
Here begins Cyberpunk’s sprawl over the industry.
19/10/2012 at 11:47 felisc says:
Don’t get me started on the cyberpuns
19/10/2012 at 11:55 Zanchito says:
I hope it’s not just hack and slash.
19/10/2012 at 12:43 Ninja Foodstuff says:
Mind if I chip in?
19/10/2012 at 13:50 phlebas says:
You’d better not or I’ll deck you.
19/10/2012 at 14:40 The Random One says:
If this game is as Sterling as I think it will be I’ll Neal down and pray in thanks, and then I’ll play a guitar solo on my Les Paul.
Wait I think I screwed something up here
19/10/2012 at 16:00 Arglebargle says:
Les Paul??? In the future we will all be playing our Neurocasters!
19/10/2012 at 12:53 El_Duderino says:
Since it’s CDPR I wonder if we get half naked women or if they go with some kind of neuromances.
19/10/2012 at 13:20 Hoaxfish says:
They’ve already got a cybernetic girl in her knickers as a wallpaper on their website
19/10/2012 at 16:14 Ninja Foodstuff says:
Well, not that I’m excusing it, but it’s supposed to be a tribute to an infamous picture from the P&P Cyberpunk 2020.
20/10/2012 at 11:53 Andrew says:
I don’t think a cybernetic girl in her knickers needs excusing.
19/10/2012 at 14:17 D3xter says:
If this is anything to go by, you bet your ass they will: http://wpc.4d7d.edgecastcdn.net/004D7D/www/cyberpunk/img/1920x1200_GIRL-CP77.jpg
And I love them even moreso for it, they won’t let some fake moral outcry influence them as they’ve made abundantly clear in the past.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/21/cd-projekt-on-game-of-thrones-sexs-place-in-gaming/
Now I just wish there were more great Eastern European dev studios like them making more games of the same calibre.
19/10/2012 at 14:58 The Random One says:
No no no! This is the pun thread, not the gender issues thread! If you mix them up, the subject will be too broad to- DAMMIT LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO
19/10/2012 at 15:53 Totally heterosexual says:
Well that looks lame. I love futuristic eroticism, but that just looks kinda half hearted.
19/10/2012 at 16:21 Ninja Foodstuff says:
This is the image from 2020 it’s a tribute to.
You have to bear in mind, the original RPG (and the cyberpunk genre in general) has a fair amount of sex in it. There’s a “seduction” skill in the core ruleset for example. It doesn’t seem surprising therefore that there’s an edge of sexism to it.
19/10/2012 at 16:53 Totally heterosexual says:
Well that’s already better I guess? I just think that cyberpunk has many ways to go in terms of erotic artwork and way too often it just falls under ” a sexy lady with some robot bits in her”.
19/10/2012 at 11:34 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
I’m only just discovering William Gibson, so this really couldn’t come at a better time. Let’s just hope they don’t just go the physical cyberpunk route, as DX:HR did, if you know what I mean.
19/10/2012 at 11:43 Cinek says:
I think to a degree they will – that’s part of the universum after all.
19/10/2012 at 12:23 iniudan says:
They will most likely will, since one of the concept art was a woman with quite visibly artificial body that had secret compartment in her forearm from which blades were out from.
20/10/2012 at 02:02 The Random One says:
I don’t know if I know what he means, but I think he’s referring to how DXHR! wore the trappings of cyberpunk, but didn’t carry the themes to the end. Which is not surprising – under the traditional cyberpunk mythos it’s very obvious that HR’s villains should have been the high tech corporations that are creating the augmentations, and that’s shaky ground when the game was developed by a high tech corporation and published by another. That’s why the guy that’s opposing augs is a Jack Thompson style religious luddite whose viewpoints would surely be forgotten in due time. If I was writing it the anti-aug faction in the game would have turned out to be secretly funded by Sarif Industries itself to have people who oppose augments be associated with a group that hates progress, and in the end you’d meet a Richard Stallman like figure who doesn’t have a problem with augs per se, but wants to ban them because they essentially allow big corps to remotely shut down your legs.
tl;dr DXHR looks cyberpunk but doesn’t feel cyberpunk; if it did, it’d be a thinly veiled fable against DRM
20/10/2012 at 20:50 tormeh says:
DX:HR, the way I see it, isn’t cyberpunk, it’s just science fiction. Brilliant science fiction. It neatly includes and summarizes all the key arguments in the post-humanism debate (yes, there is one and it’s dead serious); that non-augmented humans would be left behind, the inherent security risks of depending on technology you can’t fully control for basic functions and the incredible potential of the technology (though the game mostly explores that in a military context). It went way over the line and into the absurd with the whole project doom-thing, but it’s otherwise great.
SF doesn’t need to be either “everything’s shiny and spandex!” or “corporations are evil!”. Space Opera and Cyberpunk are but two of SF’s subgenres and arguably not the most exciting ones. I like it better when SF is thoughtful and try to illustrate a novel concept or idea rather than just expressing genre dogmas.
20/10/2012 at 21:05 x1501 says:
I really hope you mean it’s a brilliant science fiction game, because, compared to a good book, the overall quality of DE:HR’s writing is anything but brilliant.
21/10/2012 at 22:22 tormeh says:
The storyline and the characters were bad writing. The setting, however, was brilliant. The way they actually bothered with all the fashion stuff was very nice. If you want good story and characters in video games then there’s no way getting around The Longest Journey or, more recently, The Witcher (Roche in the sequel is one of my favourite characters). The settings in both cases weren’t anything to look at though.
It would be cool if someone managed a good setting AND a good story/characters. Yeah, I know, Torment, but a more recent example would be nice. Unfortunately, Project Eternity seems to safe it out with some variation of high-fantasy. Sure, the story’s probably going to be great and I’m backing it but I wish they were more daring. The world has enough high-fantasy worlds. And space opera for that sake. Mass Effect’s setting bores me to death.
19/10/2012 at 11:35 Dances to Podcasts says:
“Man, what even is a Cyberpunk?”
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. http://vimeo.com/50829258
19/10/2012 at 12:05 SAM-site says:
Sony Walkman is cyberpunk. Confirmed!
19/10/2012 at 12:29 Cinnamon says:
Sony walkman and casio digital watches are about as cyberpunk as you can get. Welcome to the phuture!
19/10/2012 at 12:27 Tyrone Slothrop. says:
I can’t contain my enthusiasm as a tremendous fan of William Gibson, Blade Runner, Deus Ex, System Shock and Human Revolution (I love the game so much I feel it deserves special mention, as to merely say ‘Deus Ex’ could suggest only the original). I do almost wish CDP would have abstained from a reveal for some time as the prospect of this endeavour is just too tantalising and there are too few details with which to manage expectation; will it even be first or third-person for instance? It’s just too far away as it is.
19/10/2012 at 12:44 Ninja Foodstuff says:
Nothing beats Snow Crash.
19/10/2012 at 12:57 Tyrone Slothrop. says:
I greatly enjoyed Snow Crash but Gibson’s writing in Neuromancer is unmatched as prose in the entirety of science-fiction in my opinion, it’s just so inherently beautiful and poetic, owing a great deal to William S. Burroughs’s landmark Naked Lunch and Raymond Chandler yet possessing its own modes and rhythms.
If you’re talking about literature generally… I personally think that proposition is really untenable, in so far as for the sake of argument it’s possible for one book to ‘beat’ another.
19/10/2012 at 13:03 Ninja Foodstuff says:
No, I was thinking in terms of pure cyberpunk porn.
19/10/2012 at 13:31 Malibu Stacey says:
Then you’re still wrong.
19/10/2012 at 14:52 Harlander says:
Snow Crash is great (with the possible exception of that tedious digression by the virtual librarian) but it’s almost a pastiche or affectionate satire of cyberpunk. Neuromancer, while not the first in its genre, is probably the most iconic.
19/10/2012 at 13:49 Lagwolf says:
Yes Gibson early body of works tweaks Snowcrash by just a hair. I am a cyberpunk fan & even written cyberpunk novels myself. I hope they keep this true to the cyberpunk ethos & yes I am very much looking forward to it.
19/10/2012 at 16:05 Arglebargle says:
An interesting note: Sterling and Gibson were writing Schismatrix and Neuromancer at the same time and trading chapters for comment and critique. They found they had actually come up with some of the same slang independantly.
19/10/2012 at 21:27 Rise / Run says:
I personally prefer Hard Wired to Neuromancer, but that’s just me. The original cover is also amazing in an ’80s kind of way.
19/10/2012 at 12:40 Cytrom says:
Shut up and take my money!
19/10/2012 at 12:47 Gira says:
Come on, really? I once joked that every single RPS comments thread would have at least one instance of “shut up and take my money” and one instance of “yes yes a thousand times yes”.
I guess it was not a joke after all.
19/10/2012 at 14:49 Sparkasaurusmex says:
they also like to throw stuff at the monitor
19/10/2012 at 17:52 sinister agent says:
It’s as funny now as it ever was.
19/10/2012 at 18:22 AlwaysRight says:
I’m throwing memes at the screen but nothings happening except people realising I am too stupid to make up my own jokes!
20/10/2012 at 08:49 AngoraFish says:
I realised that you were stupid the minute you felt the need to point out someone else’s alleged failings to make yourself feel better. Snap. Yeah, I guess this applies to me to.
19/10/2012 at 12:49 fitzroy_doll says:
That’s quite an auspicious date in the Fallout universe: 2077 .
19/10/2012 at 13:05 Jakkar says:
Well spotted. Which reminds me, there was something about the classic Fallouts which did have a strong touch of the cyberpunk about it, particularly around the Boneyard, manned by Regulators, ringed by barbed wire fences, with the Gun Runners just outside. An urban, dirty, very coldly real feeling totally missing from the modern games, even NV.
I want Fallout to feel like nuclear winter again. Cold, grey, dirty, sad and threatening, rather than an exploration themepark of glowing orange sunsets and cheerful cliche. The slip began with Fallout 2… I miss that original harsh atmosphere.
19/10/2012 at 20:58 Bart Stewart says:
And comes just five years after The Hacker encounters SHODAN in System Shock in 2072.
I’d like my military-grade neural implant now, please.
19/10/2012 at 13:26 El_Duderino says:
Speaking cyberpunk, I wonder when we get a game based on the Takeshi Kovacs novels. Rarely have I read anything that could so readily be transferred wholesale into a computer game while still being great reads.
19/10/2012 at 22:18 wu wei says:
George Alec Effinger’s When Gravity Fails series is the most underrated cyberpunk around.
20/10/2012 at 05:12 ghost55 says:
Plussity-plus-plus-mutherfucking-plus!
19/10/2012 at 13:41 Coroner says:
At first that P looked like an F to me, which really got me excited, but I guess this is OK as well.
19/10/2012 at 13:55 MistyMike says:
I hope they will explore the idea of how clothes influencing people’s reactions and skill of the PC. In games there’s only ever plates, mails, tactical vests blablabla
19/10/2012 at 14:09 Nameless1 says:
A sandbox like It was for Bloodlines would be just perfect imo.
I f* love those guys.
19/10/2012 at 14:09 MikoSquiz says:
Are they seriously implementing the Wardrobe & Style skill in game? That’s.. unexpected.
22/10/2012 at 22:05 Josh W says:
And with a subsystem too! Will they have subsystems for every skill?
19/10/2012 at 17:00 Brainkite says:
Looks a lot Blade Runner-ish
AWSOMEEEEE !!!!
19/10/2012 at 17:43 Yosharian says:
Fucking awful title.
Game is going to be utterly brilliant.
20/10/2012 at 05:11 ghost55 says:
I now have a massive, raging cyberboner.
23/10/2012 at 00:38 Grapeykins says:
Well this doesn’t look exactly like every other T’n'A sci-fi aesthetic before it at all.