cyberpunk genre

[Bassit]

Do you need to like the cyberpunk genre to really appreciate this game?

Personally i love the cyberpunk genre as well as this game but i wonder if this is the reason why so many people dislike this game.

Whats your thoughts on this?
Do you like the cyberpunk genre and the game?

[fauxpas]

I love the cyberpunk genre so no, the criticism the game gets is because it's a shallow looter shooter when people were expecting an open world rpg.

[Zebedee]

Game is a huge homage to cyberpunk as a genre, including influences such as film noir. I think the endings are really where some people bounced hard off the genre's tropes. No clear happy ever after ending, what influence V has had on the world isn't really perceived, and so on.

Think most criticisms of the game come/came from the place of 'I wanted CDPR not to make a game like TW3'. Which is fair enough, albeit white noise at this point if it doesn't engage with the flaws of TW3.

[Bogmore]

It's just a futuristic RPG, you don't have to like cyberpunk to play it, just as long as you don't hate it specifically you will be fine. But if you do like it then it's more immersive.

[easy_going]

I dislike bugs and technical issues. I have nothing against anything else about the game, although I often use crappy story telling, linearity and other world-building issues with the game as argument. If CDPR sacrificed technicalities so they can pull off truly non-linear RPG with choices and consequences, with deep and well thought out gameplay mechanics, I would understand why people sometimes call Cyberpunk 2077 a "rough gem". But no. CDPR sacrificed everything, both technical and story side of things so they could release the game at the time of the highest hype, for some quick buck.

[Bogmore]

Why are you answering a question the OP didn't ask?

[easy_going]

Just to explain my point of view: it doesn't matter what genre or franchise it is, as long as the final product is high quality.

[CloudSeeker]

I think a lot of people disliked the game because they destoryed themselves over hype. People thought it was going to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. People also seemed to think the game was going to be a new and better version GTA 5. Heck Yahtzee Croshaw from Zero Punctuation even thought being a Merc in the Cyberpunk setting is being a criminal and it isn't.
The fact the game was buggy and tried to be playable on old consoles didn't help. Especially when it turned out that CDPR had lied by omission. Yes. Cyberpunk 2077 is able to "run" on the last console generation. It runs like garbage, but it technically "runs" on the consoles.... if you ignore all issues.

I think a lot of people simply are so called "normies". They can't think into the world Cyberpunk has. Cyberpunk is a very niche genre. The setting envisioned by Mike Pondsmith even more niche. So in order to understand this world, they interpret it into something they understand. Something which have nothing to do with the setting at all and does in fact clash with it hard. Like Yahtzee thinking you are just a criminal doing criminal things like in GTA, Saints Row or Yakuza. Why should a criminal work with the police for bounties?
This is why the Edgerunners anime gave the game such a popularity. It brought the kind of idea of what the world and setting is about into peoples head. Something they can relate to and understand it.

Does the game have flaws and is undercooked in many ways? 100%.
Did the game live up to the hype? No way. That should have been impossible for any game.
Is the game garbage and totally irredeemable? No. It has many really good aspects and it does in fact have a pretty good story. I just think it wasn't what people expected.

[easy_going]

If what you just said is the case, then Cybeprunk 2077 did a very poor job at explaining itself in-game. It would appear that a lot of people wanted to go as much spoiler-free as possible, and didn't watch any of promotional materials that explains who you are in the game.

But if that's the case, and people didn't watch the promotional materials... how did they get overhyped? It's a bit contradictory, don't you think?

[Bahamut_A6M5]

Considering CP2077 is based off a setting and TTRPG dating back to the 80's, with several iterations (2.0.1.3., 2.0.2.0., v3, RED) and additional suplements expanding the lore and possibilities of the setting, the game is going to do a very poor job at explaining itself because of the sheer amount of source material there's to explain.

Issue with people is they got hyped because they took CDPR words for what they wanted them to be, not for what CDPR actually told, people got hyped with promotional material when it was a WIP, not final material ready to be released and things like that.

The real problem CP2077 has is, if you've been "hanging around" in that world for years, everything is fine and you know what's going on. Gonk pozers, on the other hand, have no clue and shards barely get them to understand what's the setting about.

[CloudSeeker]

Originally posted by easy_going:

If what you just said is the case, then Cybeprunk 2077 did a very poor job at explaining itself in-game. It would appear that a lot of people wanted to go as much spoiler-free as possible, and didn't watch any of promotional materials that explains who you are in the game.

But if that's the case, and people didn't watch the promotional materials... how did they get overhyped? It's a bit contradictory, don't you think?

Nope. That is not a bit contradictory at all as you assume that watching promotional materials are spoilers. Which they are not. The only contradiction here is why you assume promotional materials spoils anything which isn't discovered in the early game.

[easy_going]

Because some people like going in blind. Google it if you don't believe me. Some people don't want to know nothing about the game before they play it themselves. Nothing about in-game mechanics, initial levels, skills, areas of the game. Not a thing.

[Torpex]

Yes, you have to like the genre and be relatively familiar with the lore to truly appreciate the level of detail in the game.

Otherwise, it's just a good fpv RPG.

I also like voice acting and writing. There is even voiced NPCs talking to each other just to create an illusion that this is a living breathing world.

I wish they did not botch the launch the way they did, 6 more months would've done wonders to the reception and sales. This is easily one the best game in the genre on par with Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Shadowrun Dragonfall and HK.

Not directly related to the game, one of my favorite novels in the genre is "Snow Crash".

[easy_going]

If initial impressions are to be believed, the game needed additional 3 years of development.

[Torpex]

The game was playable on PC. Consoles release for then dated generation was a disaster.

Of course i didn't role play a murder hobo and hated car driving so didn't get to experience all the problems with those two.

[Silverbane7]

Originally posted by easy_going:

Because some people like going in blind. Google it if you don't believe me. Some people don't want to know nothing about the game before they play it themselves. Nothing about in-game mechanics, initial levels, skills, areas of the game. Not a thing.

Thing is.... You don't/didn't need to be spoiled by the in game mechanics, levels or skills ect by avoiding the games Info.
There were plenty of ways to learn about NightCity without learning deets that would spoiler you for the actual digital game.
You could just visit Wikipedia and look at the general info about the tabletop game, and you would learn something about the place.
No stats (other than maybe a timeline that would be out of date when the game dropped, statistics like population ect) and most of the info would be outdated
(Ie, based on the 2013, 2020, 203X or Cybergeneration versions)

I think most of the issues come from folks getting confused by exactly *what* they though the genre *was*
Same as the suits and shareholders/investors. Some gonk tried explaining to them what 'cyberpunk' was, but ended up with "its kind of like GTA, but with futuristic weapons and robot parts"
The suits saw $$ thinking of the GTA in game currency stuff and started drooling (lol) imagining the 'online multiplayer' that never hit.

Going in totally blind is kinda a problem. I know, I did it with world of Warcraft and it burned me (starting playing knowing zero lore, but wanting to roleplay, is the pits)

And yeah, you can appreciate it more if you know the game world, even if its just a little.
My input gifted me the game, but he went into it a little after launch knowing zero about the game world, other than it was 'a bit like the Matrix, a bit like bladerunner and a bit like the Ghost in the Shell anime'
He fell for it after trying a second time to play thru. (First play he thought Johnny was just a ♥♥♥♥. Second playthru, he took his time, learned more about the world and took the time to get to know Silverhand. His opinion changed lol) tho not as much as me.
But I kinda *live* in NightCity.... Which was why he gifted it me just after edgerunners dropped, because he knew I wanted it, but was broke and umm'ing and ahhh'ing about the price. One 50% off sale later and bingo, there was my birthday and Christmas gift and I have only stopped playing due to hot weather, and Tears of the Kingdom lol.