Night City Wire: Cyberpunk 2077 Prologue Impressions

Night City Wire Episode 1

As part of the ongoing All Digital E3 Replacement Events this week we had CD Projekt Red’s Night City Wire. This will be a video series to highlight updates around Cyberpunk 2077. As part of this week’s video, CDPR announced that Cyberpunk 2077 will be playable on both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X when the game launches on November 19th. In addition to that, an anime will be coming to Netflix in 2022.  

After today’s Cyberpunk 2077 Night City Wire update, content creators were released from an embargo and allowed to talk about their four-hour gameplay preview. A small number of outlets were given complete access to the game over Nvidia GeForce Now. Nvidia’s new top of the line streaming service. We have collected and rounded up some of the best of that content. Each outlet seems to have their own take on how things went.

During the demo, influencers were tasked with creating their player and progressing through the prologue. Players had to choose between Nomad, Corpo, and Street Kid classes. Along with the classes, players customized their looks, perks, and gender. Here is a collection of their thoughts with links to their video impressions. As well as, the entire Night City Wire video.

Player Creation

• You will play as either a male for female V in appearance. No matter which looking V you choose you will still have the option to toggle genitalia on and off. In addition to that, modify the genitalia and its specific details.
• For the face, you have six skin colors, 25 hairstyles, 17 eyes, eight eyebrows, 17 ears, eight bits of Cyberware, nine different scars, six tattoos, and 11 piercings.
• For the mouth, you have 17 different mouths, 17 jaws, five different types of teeth, and five different lips.
• To add makeup to your look there are eight variations of eye makeup and three different blemishes.
• For genital and gender options you have three types of nipples, two penis types, a vagina option, two penis sizes, and five types of pubic hair. 

Player Skill Trees and Attributes

• You have to select one of three different backstories. The Nomad, The Street Kid, and The Corpo. This will impact the story of Cyberpunk. 
• You select from five “core attributes” each with their own set of three perk related skill trees. 
• The five core attributes are Body, Reflex, Intelligence, Technical Ability, and Cool.
• The Body attribute deals with strength, health, opening passageways, pulling people out of cars, and melee. For example under Body, there are three skill trees. Brawler, Athletics, and Annihilation. Each of these three perk trees has about 20 upgrade slots. 
• The Reflex Attribute deals with coordination and speed. Things like, critical hit chance, attack movement, evasiveness and reload speed.
• Intelligence attributes deal with intellect and memory. That includes reducing the hacking difficulty, shortening upload duration, more memory and dialog options.
• The Technical attribute will handle the player’s technical aptitude. Things like increasing crafting abilities, proficiency with tech-based weapons, and additional dialog options.
• Cool is the attribute for self-control and willpower. This is described by CDPR as, “the player’s ability to handle dicey situations.” The attribute improves stealth, critical hit damage, assassin skills, and effect resistances. 
• There will be about 20 Cyberware slots for more upgrades and customization. There are three types of Cyberware, active, triggered, and passive. This can be installed in limbs or even in things like respiratory and nervous systems. 

Story

• The Nomad story starts out in the Badlands: an area outside of Night City. You start ripping a badge off your vest from your current gang and head into the City alone. You run into Jacky as the story begins. 
• Nomads have car customization options. It’s not clear if the other classes are locked out of modifying cars or need to work with other Nomads to modify cars. 
• The Street Kid starts out in the center of Night City. You meet Jacky during a botched carjacking. 
• The Corpo is a former successful corporate employee. Things go wrong and you lose everything. When the story starts you are already friends with Jacky.
• Each story starts differently. Each story will have different branches of the story arc. They all seem to come together involving Jacky in the prologue.
• The prologue is locked to one district, depending on the backstory selected during character creation.
• We won’t know until after launch how much replayability these branching stories will give the game.
• Keanu Reeves has the second most dialog in the game. The only character with more dialog is V.
• Seemingly, every detail is fully flushed out. Technology has backstories, the music in the game comes from artists that now exist in the universe.
• The game will have more than one ending, there are also branches to these different endings.  
• There are heavy adult themes in the game. This includes sex, nudity, sex work, and genital augmentation. 
• Missions can go a number of different ways and have a number of different outcomes. 

Gameplay

• One of the core mechanics shown during the preview was the Brain Dance. This is very similar to the Witcher Sense and the Detective mode in the Batman games. You are able to relive someone’s memories, senses, and feel their emotion from a recording log. The prologue has a tutorial on the BD, as well as a mission. 
• Almost all of the players noted a sense of uncertainty around the shooting action. The first person shooting combat does not feel as strong as games like Doom, Halo, and Far Cry. CDPR noted that this is a tried and true RPG and that all skills need to be developed. You start out in the game “not good” at the shooting and melee. There is close to an hour of combat videos out there. You can see it for yourself. The shooting isn’t that fluid. 
• Nearly every influencer noticed that they experienced bugs. This was both a mix of the streaming service and an early build. Notably, Blessing from Kinda Funny Games mentioned the game did not run very well. It put him under the impression they might not make November. The overall feedback does not indicate to me that the game is in trouble. However, I am under the impression the game is not ready today due to bugs and there will be a crunch to the finish line. Who knows how old this build is. 
• CDPR is pushing controller use for the game. The preview build for the streaming app locked out mouse and keyboard. 
• There are friendly and romance options based on your character’s personality and gender traits. There will be NPCs that prefer you and some that won’t be based on your build. 
• Nearly every player noted a very generous aim assist. Nobody was able to confirm if you could turn this on or off. 

Scope

• You are able to seamlessly walk around the environment, hijack cars, talk to NPCs, enter shops, bars, and restaurants. The open-world experience is similar to games like Grand Theft Auto, The Witcher, and Skyrim. Most of the preview players noted, the open-world is very dense.
• CDPR said that the overall game will be 50-60 hours.
• You have your own apartment and garage. You will be able to keep cars there as you steal them, unlock them through the story as well as side missions. 
• The map legend shows markers for locations and quests. This includes Main Quest, Side Quest, Gun for Hire, Search and Recover, Thievery, Agent Saboteur, SOS Merc Needed, Special Delivery, Cyber Psycho Sighting, Slot in Progress, Clothing Store, Techie, Weapons, Trainer, Food, and Bars.

Environments and Locations

• The map consists of the Badlands and six districts in Night City. Watson, Westbrook, Pacifica, Santo Domingo, Haywood, and City Center. 
• The Badlands are Mad Max-like outskirts where the Nomad story begins. 
• Westbrook is very much like an abandoned Las Vegas. 
• City Center is the heart of Night City, this is where the Street Kid story begins. 
• Santo Domingo has towering vertical buildings, tens of thousands of apartments, power plants, and factories. 
• Pacifica is a run down take of Night City’s vacation resort. Also, It’s controlled by the Voodoo Boys, one of Night City’s most powerful gangs. 
• Haywood is full of corporations so of course, this is where the Corpo story begins.

The Full Episode of Night City Wire: