Cognition Dissemination: Why Does Cyberpunk 2077 Have a Character Creator?
When CD Project RED released a lengthy demo for the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 last year, a small part of it was detailed the “deep” character creator for protagonist V. It was promised to be one of the better creation systems to grace a game, with the option to modify basic attributes like the hairstyles, eye colors, and race, with deeper options like modifying the body type, tattoos, and bodily scars. It will also come with the feature to modify behavioral attributes for differing player interactions with NPCs, but it’s clear the appearance options will be the focus for a lot of players when they tinker with it. Personalization will be important for a character within a cyberpunk setting, given the number of styles that have been represented in the genre since it came to prominence in the 1980s.
But recent news has me wondering why it will even be there. The developers haven’t shied away from saying and showing how this will primarily be a first-person experience, but the same demo contained a sequence where the protagonist awoke from her apartment bed and prepared for the day ahead while listening to the radio. This gave the impression that interstitial cutscenes showing the main character will be included in the game despite the primary perspective. That impression was unfortunately misguided, at least in the game as it currently stands.
In response to recent social media and message board speculation regarding just how many third-person scenes will be included in Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt RED global community lead Marcin Momot took to Twitter to provide clarification. He said the development team made the creative decision to “go 100% first person” thanks to the importance of player immersion, which they believe will benefit the gameplay and story experiences. But that should be “almost 100% first person,” since the player character will be viewable in the inventory screen, during driving sequences (presumably on motorcycles and in convertibles?), in the mirrors, and in select cutscenes — perhaps including the one from the demo. Still, players won’t be seeing much of them.
I’m not sure what the purpose was in implementing a detailed character creator when you’ll barely see your creation. It will be nice when you can see them in certain sequences, but outside that, you’ll have to imagine what they resemble as they interact with the world. The protagonist’s sporadic appearances will apparently be on par with the main character’s from the 2017 Prey reboot, which allowed for players to choose their gender but didn’t include customization. It will be tempting to simply stick with the default option here, outside possible features involving NPCs commenting on their appearance.
In fairness, a multiplayer portion is due to release after the initial single-player game, where other players will be able to see your creation assuming it will allow for the same created characters. But it won’t be coming for a while, and everything we’ve seen has shown how the character creator was made for the single-player campaign. This particular issue is also primarily about players seeing their own avatars throughout the game, and not others.
Many players disappointed about the creative decision tend to prefer third-person titles, like The Witcher titles from this same developer. They weren’t looking forward to experiencing a first-person game, but at least wanted the occasional reminder of their digital avatar’s presence.
The Deus Ex series indirectly provided a false impression of what to expect from this game’s presentation. The two recent games in the series, Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, were primarily first-person experiences, but let players see protagonist Adam Jensen several times throughout the game. There’s a good look at him in important and semi-important conversations, in cover, during melee attacks and action sequences, and in cutscenes. This unfortunately won’t be the case for Cyberpunk, which will take more from a standard first-person shooter or adventure in terms of its perspective.
Though the developers are saying this is a creative decision, there’s reason to believe development resources are also a culprit. The team likely considered that including several third-person views to show the protagonist would have taken too much extra development time without the team overworking themselves and potentially crunching to make the release date. This is a project that’s already been in development for a long, long time. It was announced in May 2012, just prior to E3 that year — before current-generation consoles were even revealed, let alone released. They absolutely cannot afford another delay after so much time. It would be nice if they came out and admitted that it would have been too resource intensive, but there’s a chance a vocal portion of the internet’s worst gamers wouldn’t understand it.
The lack of third-person perspectives will be a disappointment for anyone who wants to see their cyberpunk-fueled creation throughout Cyberpunk 2077’s duration. But the sacrifice for immersion could be worth it from the scenes shown in the older demo, and the most recent one posted online last Friday. The game will finally release on April 16th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
