Project Orion theories?

[Marcowarrio]

exactly the title, what do yall think that Project Orion will be like?

[Silverbane7]

Depends on how long it takes to create.
On which gets done first, storyline or world building.
On what 'has' to be included, versus what 'has' to be excluded.

Just going to have to wait and see.

[Tokenn]

Any answer to this will be purely guesswork. I made guesses about what Phantom Liberty would be like,,,and every one of them was wrong.

IMO we will see Night City a few years in the future, expanded and more deeply detailed. The empty, unused areas at the edge of the city will be filled in...Megablocks will have many new areas to explore. Dogtown might be abandoned and a wasteland. Perhaps there will be much more underwater (They took them out of 2.0 but remember how many Oxygen Boosters you used to get and barely ever use?) V will be a Legend in the Afterlife, but have no significant presence in the game.

If there are Lifepaths, they will be different from the 3 we currently have. Soldier, cop, ganger? If so, I hope the paths are a much more different experience from each other than in the current game. The new protagonist will have a new story, new goals, new experiences. In this way, it will resemble Phantom Liberty, where nothing that happened in the main story will have any significant bearing on the new content.

It's _possible_ that the sequel might give us a recap of 2077 and establish a canon ending to V's story...or conceivably could allow us to chose our own 'canon' ending...so certain characters from 2077 would survive and reappear in the new game. (Highly unlikely, but...) I'd like to see slider controls for nudity and coarse language (like the difficulty settings), ranging from 'church mouse' to 'anything goes'...but this would add a great deal of complexity that might not be worth it.

In short, the sequel would resemble the current game in overall structure, but with added layers and many new features. But anything is possible, and I have no particular expectations. Phantom Liberty was more and better than anything I imagined it might be. Orion will most likely be the same.

[Marcowarrio]

exactly, its pure guesswork, and tbh, thats what will make this fun

[Marcowarrio]

morgan blackhand will probably play a role, maybe we could see something similar to MGSV, where you are actually blackhand, just stripped of chrome and memory

[Silverbane7]

Originally posted by Marcowarrio:

morgan blackhand will probably play a role, maybe we could see something similar to MGSV, where you are actually blackhand, just stripped of chrome and memory

I doubt Morgan will show up, he's Mike's character, and Mike has something planned in the tabletop for him, I think.

Agree with Tokenn that NightCity will be there. The City itself is the real main character if cyberpunk tbh.
But I'm doubtful of anything like a 'this is what happened' thing about 2077, and V.
Get the feeling they will want to go full on new blood, new protagonist with it.
They can't do what they (probably) want, if they go with V.

Most I could hope for is for the game to check your save file, see what you did as V, and slip some colour into the city.
Graffiti. Gang stuff, rumour and tall tales. Maybe a couple of items behind glass at Afterlife.

[EricHVela]

It'll be UE. The gameplay should be quite different unless they want to spend a lot of time (and $) learning to do the same tricks in completely new ways without trying to resort to the same tricks that will work but not work right.

It's a new team chosen for UE development. The gameplay is likely to be different. Different country, different culture, different personnel. I highly doubt they'll have the same approach to Night City (or the Cyberpunk setting in general).

Because UE is so versatile, I couldn't even guess what kind of gameplay it'll be. We're talking about a video game engine that's being used to make movies beyond just what it does with virtual production like the Volume but make movies completely in-engine. It's been used for the first electric Hummer as the driver assistant software. It does side-scroller. It does fight-sim. It does board-game sim. It does RTS. It does turn-based. It does isometric. There's no telling how it'll be used in Orion.

It also doesn't stop someone from doing things wrong and ending up with a piece of garbage, which is why migrating from another engine to UE is hazardous as the old tricks are a bad bet in UE. (Even migrating from UE 4.25 or earlier to 4.26/4.27 was tricky given long-deprecated stuff finally cut altogether in 4.26.)

Without knowing what they'll do in UE, I have only wild guesswork.

• They'll make player Cyberpsychosis a thing without completely taking away player agency. How? No idea, but it was a thing in the tabletop game that was missing from CP'77. Its design in the tabletop takes away player agency which doesn't mesh well with videogames, but the Orion team will figure something out and the majority of players will enjoy it.
  
• The protagonist will still be visible in RTX reflections in first person (with a head, though the way that RTX shortcuts stuff with its own special hacks for faster RTXing, it'll be tricky—pre-RTX texture hacks to make first person reflections in those games don't work in RTX).
  
• The protagonist will also be available in 3rd person gaming. (Far less tricky with RTX reflections.)
  
• Flying transit will be a thing, but outside of a couple of specific jobs or gigs where something special is required or something goes seriously wrong, it'll be automated transit. (Those exceptions will be the most replayed gigs and jobs.)
  
• V's legend will be vague mentions of just things that will happen in all playthroughs of CP'77. In time, V will be mostly forgotten so Orion won't be riding anyone's coattails.
  
• The cities of Cyberpunk will still always win, but unlike CP'77, the protagonist will be able to continue the journey in an Orion sequel. (Given how REDengine and UE handle resources, it would be a nightmare to interpret CP'77 files into something that UE can use with fewer translation errors. V's story is done.)

Sidenote: Any Orion sequel will have some story-related reason why the protagonist has a setback in abilities and such. Ex: Neuromancer begins with an expert hacker who had all his abilities taken away after getting caught. Trivia (found in the books cover description): He also was on a timetable after someone granted his abilities back. What they did to him wouldn't kill him, but he'd be back to useless NPC permanently if he didn't finish in time. (Cyberpunk is (supposedly) not inspired by Neuromancer, but the worlds can have some easy translation between them.)

• Night City and its surrounding area won't be the only location. (Tabletop has several places defined on- and off-planet.)
  
• There will be a silly mission involving extraterrestrials or supernatural stuff that will be rendered non-canon by some lore-abiding story beat.
  
• Some people will complain that it's not just more of CP'77 that they expected rather than the fact that it'll be more than CP'77.
  
• Modding will be unsupported but not blocked. Updates will break most mods.
  
• Multiplayer won't be a thing in Orion. It might be in an Orion sequel as optional co-op.
  
• There will be a popular VR mod that will inspire an official VR-only side-story of the game not involving the Orion protagonist.
  
• The Blackwall will take a bigger role in the story, but not be the villain.
  
• The Blue Eyes faction will be a frenemey that can be assisted or fought with wildly different results that'll carry into the Orion sequel.
  
• Gang reputation will have a larger impact on what the player can do and some gangs' reputations will be exclusive to each other with some gangs not having any major beef with another, allowing the player to be favored by those amicable gangs together.
  
• Corporations will have the same reputation system as gangs.
  
• It will have an NG+ that goes back to the beginning of the protagonist's story.
  
• The tutorial won't be the protagonist and will be skippable on subsequent new playthroughs (and auto-skipped on NG+).
  
• The protagonist will start in prison and be involved in a prophecy. No. That's an Elder Scrolls thing.
  
• There will be 5 secret endings that are all difficult to discover. Three of these will be non-canon and the game will explain why. The other 2 will also be really difficult to accomplish. There will be no cheevos for any of them.
  
• There will be 6 non-secret endings.
  
• There will be 2 other ways to end things badly that will not be able to carry over into the Orion sequel for obvious reasons that will be shown.
  
• Instead of Tarot, the story-progression collectible will be missable news broadcasts.
  
• PC players will have the ability to create folders in the game's Documents folder that can be populated by format-specific audio files that will appear as radio stations with optional .ini files providing some neat station-identifying features. Some players will include funny news announcements.
  
• Players on all platforms will be able to link in specific audio streaming services and select playlists, channels, or categories as news stations. This will be done in settings.
  
• Quicktravel will be available only after getting any ending once (even the bad no-continue endings). Otherwise, walking, driving, or public transit will be the method.
  
• Birds will return, bringing natural foliage back to Night City and the surrounding areas. Other locations will already have natural beauty excepting the locations overrun with development.
  
• Weather will have more reaction from NPCs rather than in CP'77 where some of them hold an umbrella like it's only for fashion and there's no wind (even though there is)
  
• Crowds will be thick crowds and a stampede will be a dangerous stampede. Be careful when, where, and how you instigate violence.
  
• Wholescale murder will be a thing (and only essential NPCs will have Trauma Team platinum for some story-explained reason). Sorry kids. You're license to live is being revoked.
  
• Some NPCs will have infants.
  
• Everyone (and I mean everyone) will react extremely poorly to news of the player character killing kids and infants... even by accident. Watch your AoEs and splash damage. Kids are stupid and won't properly evade that stuff. If Cyberpunk has any rules that are unbendable (and usually it wouldn't've), it's that you don't go killing kids and get away with it (no matter how horrible those little brats can be).

As for story-specific stuff? I dunno. I didn't expect CP RED and CP 2.0.2.0 lore to be implemented how it was in CP'77. I couldn't even venture a guess.

[Silverbane7]

EricHVela : 'Modding will be unsupported but not blocked. Updates will break most mods.'

this. this is the only true thing you can rely on.
that updates will break mods... (and that players WILL find a way TO mod on pc)

oh...and rain. 100% rain. cyberpunk without rain? only in spaaaace.....(and then it rains metor showers :p )

[Marcowarrio]

not sure but i hope it will include full body replacements and more character customization, imagine a chromed out furry femboy nuking arasaka tower and beating up {REDACTED} with a slaughtomatic

[Silverbane7]

Originally posted by Marcowarrio:

not sure but i hope it will include full body replacements and more character customization, imagine a chromed out furry femboy nuking arasaka tower and beating up {REDACTED} with a slaughtomatic

Could have done that back in the 'golden years' of 2010-2020.
But the Red caused a lot of problems.
The reason why so many normal (non gang member) folks on the street have such basic cyber wear is that the good stuff stopped coming.
First there was the Red (2023-2033) ten years of red sunsets and sunrises
Then there was a stock market crash, years of recession and a hell of a lot of poverty.
Cyber wear is just starting to catch up again.

(Having said that.....you can do that right now with a couple of mods. One turns Johnny into a fox, and Kerry into a wolf iirc lol)

So I'm not sure if the 'exotics' as things like this were called, will be on their way back, lore wise.
Guess some lucky choom trash diver could have dug up an old warehouse someplace, filled to the brim with Pre Red exotic tech, and flooded NightCity with the tech...

[Bjørn]

I wouldn't mind some form of prequel, where we get to spend a lot of time with Jackie (if it's the same voice actor)

[EricHVela]

Originally posted by Bjørn:

I wouldn't mind some form of prequel, where we get to spend a lot of time with Jackie (if it's the same voice actor) :dssmile:

Jackie still in the Valentinos gang but has a friend (the protagonist) outside the gang. This could be why and how Jackie leaves the gang, ending with meeting Misty a year prior to CP'77.

This would let the CDPR UE devs get their toes wet with a Night City within UE before jumping in with both feet. (The Witcher is a different tone style gameplay everything compared to Night City. They might as well be learning the engine all over again after the Witcher.)

There are only two ways for a prequel like that to end: The protagonist leaves or dies... unless you can think of other ways for the protagonist to be unavailable during CP'77. (Night City never loses. The most people can hope is to stop playing NC's game, but that's not the same as beating Night City. Night City wins by default, then.)

Maybe, it wouldn't have everything that we could expect from Orion (and shorter, too), but the techniques and lessons they learn from that would build a stronger foundation/framework for a fully-featured Orion. CDPR would need to clearly and loudly explain that it's not everything we can expect from Orion and sell it at a lower price than Orion... a side-story.

It could also help players transition their expectations from REDengine Night City gameplay to UE Night City gameplay before Orion.

[EricHVela]

Theory:
The loading screen for reloading a checkpoint after dying during a job/gig will look like rewinding video/BD (just in appearance and noise but not with any accuracy to the actual events, could just be a long loop of pre-rendered ultra-fast incomprehensible reverse-like video that'll start at different points in the loop for variety)... at most, a brief speed-up of the last few seconds before going into the impossible-to-see video before pausing at the checkpoint to continue the video rather than trying to store all the events that happened. (Yikes!)

The game will use the trope that it's told from the viewpoint of reviewing things that already happened. (Like King's Quest 2015-2016 and Dragon Age: Kirkwall {DA2}. KQ used a "that's not how it happened, Grandpa, if you're sitting here telling the story" return-to-checkpoint mechanic. "I was just seeing if you were paying attention, now where was I?")

[Marcowarrio]

Originally posted by EricHVela:

It'll be UE. The gameplay should be quite different unless they want to spend a lot of time (and $) learning to do the same tricks in completely new ways without trying to resort to the same tricks that will work but not work right.

It's a new team chosen for UE development. The gameplay is likely to be different. Different country, different culture, different personnel. I highly doubt they'll have the same approach to Night City (or the Cyberpunk setting in general).

Because UE is so versatile, I couldn't even guess what kind of gameplay it'll be. We're talking about a video game engine that's being used to make movies beyond just what it does with virtual production like the Volume but make movies completely in-engine. It's been used for the first electric Hummer as the driver assistant software. It does side-scroller. It does fight-sim. It does board-game sim. It does RTS. It does turn-based. It does isometric. There's no telling how it'll be used in Orion.

It also doesn't stop someone from doing things wrong and ending up with a piece of garbage, which is why migrating from another engine to UE is hazardous as the old tricks are a bad bet in UE. (Even migrating from UE 4.25 or earlier to 4.26/4.27 was tricky given long-deprecated stuff finally cut altogether in 4.26.)

Without knowing what they'll do in UE, I have only wild guesswork.

• They'll make player Cyberpsychosis a thing without completely taking away player agency. How? No idea, but it was a thing in the tabletop game that was missing from CP'77. Its design in the tabletop takes away player agency which doesn't mesh well with videogames, but the Orion team will figure something out and the majority of players will enjoy it.
  
• The protagonist will still be visible in RTX reflections in first person (with a head, though the way that RTX shortcuts stuff with its own special hacks for faster RTXing, it'll be tricky—pre-RTX texture hacks to make first person reflections in those games don't work in RTX).
  
• The protagonist will also be available in 3rd person gaming. (Far less tricky with RTX reflections.)
  
• Flying transit will be a thing, but outside of a couple of specific jobs or gigs where something special is required or something goes seriously wrong, it'll be automated transit. (Those exceptions will be the most replayed gigs and jobs.)
  
• V's legend will be vague mentions of just things that will happen in all playthroughs of CP'77. In time, V will be mostly forgotten so Orion won't be riding anyone's coattails.
  
• The cities of Cyberpunk will still always win, but unlike CP'77, the protagonist will be able to continue the journey in an Orion sequel. (Given how REDengine and UE handle resources, it would be a nightmare to interpret CP'77 files into something that UE can use with fewer translation errors. V's story is done.)

Sidenote: Any Orion sequel will have some story-related reason why the protagonist has a setback in abilities and such. Ex: Neuromancer begins with an expert hacker who had all his abilities taken away after getting caught. Trivia (found in the books cover description): He also was on a timetable after someone granted his abilities back. What they did to him wouldn't kill him, but he'd be back to useless NPC permanently if he didn't finish in time. (Cyberpunk is (supposedly) not inspired by Neuromancer, but the worlds can have some easy translation between them.)

• Night City and its surrounding area won't be the only location. (Tabletop has several places defined on- and off-planet.)
  
• There will be a silly mission involving extraterrestrials or supernatural stuff that will be rendered non-canon by some lore-abiding story beat.
  
• Some people will complain that it's not just more of CP'77 that they expected rather than the fact that it'll be more than CP'77.
  
• Modding will be unsupported but not blocked. Updates will break most mods.
  
• Multiplayer won't be a thing in Orion. It might be in an Orion sequel as optional co-op.
  
• There will be a popular VR mod that will inspire an official VR-only side-story of the game not involving the Orion protagonist.
  
• The Blackwall will take a bigger role in the story, but not be the villain.
  
• The Blue Eyes faction will be a frenemey that can be assisted or fought with wildly different results that'll carry into the Orion sequel.
  
• Gang reputation will have a larger impact on what the player can do and some gangs' reputations will be exclusive to each other with some gangs not having any major beef with another, allowing the player to be favored by those amicable gangs together.
  
• Corporations will have the same reputation system as gangs.
  
• It will have an NG+ that goes back to the beginning of the protagonist's story.
  
• The tutorial won't be the protagonist and will be skippable on subsequent new playthroughs (and auto-skipped on NG+).
  
• The protagonist will start in prison and be involved in a prophecy. No. That's an Elder Scrolls thing.
  
• There will be 5 secret endings that are all difficult to discover. Three of these will be non-canon and the game will explain why. The other 2 will also be really difficult to accomplish. There will be no cheevos for any of them.
  
• There will be 6 non-secret endings.
  
• There will be 2 other ways to end things badly that will not be able to carry over into the Orion sequel for obvious reasons that will be shown.
  
• Instead of Tarot, the story-progression collectible will be missable news broadcasts.
  
• PC players will have the ability to create folders in the game's Documents folder that can be populated by format-specific audio files that will appear as radio stations with optional .ini files providing some neat station-identifying features. Some players will include funny news announcements.
  
• Players on all platforms will be able to link in specific audio streaming services and select playlists, channels, or categories as news stations. This will be done in settings.
  
• Quicktravel will be available only after getting any ending once (even the bad no-continue endings). Otherwise, walking, driving, or public transit will be the method.
  
• Birds will return, bringing natural foliage back to Night City and the surrounding areas. Other locations will already have natural beauty excepting the locations overrun with development.
  
• Weather will have more reaction from NPCs rather than in CP'77 where some of them hold an umbrella like it's only for fashion and there's no wind (even though there is)
  
• Crowds will be thick crowds and a stampede will be a dangerous stampede. Be careful when, where, and how you instigate violence.
  
• Wholescale murder will be a thing (and only essential NPCs will have Trauma Team platinum for some story-explained reason). Sorry kids. You're license to live is being revoked.
  
• Some NPCs will have infants.
  
• Everyone (and I mean everyone) will react extremely poorly to news of the player character killing kids and infants... even by accident. Watch your AoEs and splash damage. Kids are stupid and won't properly evade that stuff. If Cyberpunk has any rules that are unbendable (and usually it wouldn't've), it's that you don't go killing kids and get away with it (no matter how horrible those little brats can be).

As for story-specific stuff? I dunno. I didn't expect CP RED and CP 2.0.2.0 lore to be implemented how it was in CP'77. I couldn't even venture a guess.

if all of the factions have reputation systems, heres what i think the reward for maximum reputation would be and the negative consequences for high reputation (night city only, i might make misc factions rewards if i feel like it):

Arasaka: Siding with 'Saka will decrease your reputation with literally everyone else, it unlocks orions version of the devil ending where orion protag basically becomes adam smasher 2
Militech: siding with milipigs will unlock a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of gear for orion protag (no full body replacement tho) and unlock an ending where you raid 'saka tower, starting a 5th corporate war (if it hasnt already started yet)
Netwatch: Siding with nethogs will SEVERELY decrease your rep with blackwall and getting max rep will allow you to receive a full body replacement thats basically a wiseman on steroids, no ending tho
Blue Eyes: If Mr. Blue eyes is some sort of AI reincarnation of Richard Night, getting maximum reputation will unlock a secret ending where Orion Protag makes him the president/dictator of night city
Blackwall: siding with the blackwall will basically send your reputation with netwatch to rock bottom (committing the slightest misdemeanor will immediately have top tier netwatch gonks on your ass), but if you manage to get a maximum reputation with the blackwall, you will be able to receive a blackwall enhanced, RMC Wiseman full conversion, using this in one of the endings will unlock a secret ending where Orion Protag breaks the blackwall (not just a tear in the blackwall, i mean ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ANNIHILATING THE WHOLE THING) allowing all the AI's to go free

[EricHVela]

One thing I started to notice is how CDPR has been referring to Orion. They are deliberately avoiding calling it a sequel, preferring "follow-up" instead. My guess is that they're either not certain if they want a direct sequel or if they already decided it won't be a direct sequel and haven't decided what they want to do in the next CP, but that's a guess.

Avoiding calling it a sequel is noticeable, though.

[Silverbane7]

Originally posted by EricHVela:

One thing I started to notice is how CDPR has been referring to Orion. They are deliberately avoiding calling it a sequel, preferring "follow-up" instead. My guess is that they're either not certain if they want a direct sequel or if they already decided it won't be a direct sequel and haven't decided what they want to do in the next CP, but that's a guess.

Avoiding calling it a sequel is noticeable, though.

well hopefully, its that they have yet to decide on story/protagonist/antagonist ect.
but are working on environment, in world storytelling, and learning the new engine.
at lest that way, once they make their minds up, NightCity (and plus maybe) are ready for them to drop whatever into.