When CD Projekt Red finally showed off gameplay of the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077, there was a palpable sense of tension from a certain number of gamers.
After all, there are plenty who consider The Witcher 3 to be one of the finest RPGs of all time, so many were disheartened to see that Cyberpunk looked a lot like an FPS first and foremost, albeit one with clear RPG elements.
Perhaps sensing this, CD Project Red’s Quest Designer Patrick Mills has shared some important details in a great new interview with Official Xbox Magazine, stating that Cyberpunk is very much an RPG before it’s a shooter.
When asked why the game’s character customisation options were so robust for an FPS, Mills responded:
Well, it’s an RPG. It’s an RPG before it’s a shooter. And it’s really about making a character and inhabiting that character and living in this world and making choices from not just the point of view of that character but also of yourself. With The Witcher, you had Geralt, and Geralt had history. He had decades of books, games, comics and even a television series, with a new one on the way, and it was about guiding him through his story. But with this, we want it to be your story. So really, putting you in first person is the only way to do that.
For those who feared the game might move away from the epic sci-fi RPG we were promised, this is great to hear. Of course, Mills and his team have been talking up the RPG elements of Cyberpunk for a while now, so this shouldn’t come as a massive surprise to many of you.
As you’d expect from an RPG of this scale, we can also look forward to dynamic weather, day/night systems, deep side quests that impact the story and world, and of course; romance options.
You can read the full interview with Mills right here, for more info on quest design, the open world, social commentary, and plenty besides.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.