Imitation is often the sincerest form of flattery, but in this case, it’s more like using the same recipe for the cake and changing the frosting from red to purple. Such is the metaphor that is given to CD Projekt Red who is attending Gamescom 2018 to promote their upcoming futuristic open world game, Cyberpunk 2077. The game has caught a lot of peoples attention ever since it was given that epic teaser trailer at the end of the Microsoft Press Conference at E3 2018. Little to no information has come out since then, and the only thing that we did get was some new screenshots earlier this week, although they do look amazing.
However, we finally received some more information from the developer today when PCgamer.com spoke with Quest Designer, Patrick Mills, who compared the quest’s complexity, philosophy, and progression to their other popular video game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
What I would say is I’d expect something to similar to The Witcher 3, particularly in terms of playtime and in terms of quest complexity. Specifically, I’d even look more at the expansions than The Witcher 3 base game because that’s really where the quest design philosophy that we’re using now came from—it was developed later in the expansions.
Their shouldn’t be any surprise with this line of thinking, as the quests in the expansions, Heart of Stone and Blood and Wine, were some of the finest video game writing we’ve ever seen. The players progression is obviously key to the overall experience, and the quests in those games were perfectly orchestrated to refinement. For example, if a player stumbles into an area for a quest they do not have, they can still explore the area to their hearts content, and find items related to the quests as well.
CD Projeckt Red is still staying silent on other details pertaining to Cyberpunk 2077. We’ll have to see if they have any more reveals during the remaining days of Gamescom 2018, but until then, lets just stare at the beautiful screenshots that they released.