After the enormous critical and commercial success of The Witcher 3, it’s no surprise that Cyberpunk 2077 – the next game from CD Projekt – is one of the most anticipated games of the generation. Announced in May 2012, Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person, open-world RPG adapted from the tabletop game Cyberpunk 2020. It had been years since we had heard anything about the game, but the developer finally began showing off actual gameplay footage at E3 2018 behind closed doors. Then this Monday, everyone else finally got to see the footage.
What you’re about to watch is 48 minutes of gameplay taken from a recent build of the game. As the narrator says on more than one occasion, the demo doesn’t necessarily represent the final look of the game, which has yet to be given a release date. And be warned, there’s plenty of violence, nudity, and cursing throughout.
Unlike The Witcher series, Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t follow a pre-made character. Instead, you’ll be making your own character from scratch with a robust character creation system. You can be male or female, choose your backstory, modify your face and body, and customize your initial attributes (like a pen and paper RPG).
Once the character has been created, the demo jumps straight into a mission near the beginning of the game, where V (the main character) and her partner Jackie have been tasked with finding a missing person. This is our first look at the game in action (even if the final shipping game looks significantly different). It’s a first-person shooter with dozens of RPG mechanics, more like Fallout or Deus Ex than Skyrim or The Witcher.
Once the mission is over, V returns home, where we see her wake up next to a stranger in her bed. Apparently, you will be able to “interact” with the people of Night City (the game’s setting) in a variety of ways. The rest of the video is dedicated to showing off the open world and how single missions as well as the entire story can shift and change based on the decisions you make. It’s hard to doubt the team that made The Witcher 3.
