I’ve always loved this game, but it’s never felt quite right.
When Cyberpunk 2077 had its big redemption arc thanks to post-launch patches and the Edgerunners anime, I scoffed—this game was always this good, glitches or last-gen console performance notwithstanding, but those vaunted updates never quite got at the real malaise at the heart of its RPG system: character building and gear that never felt substantial or rewarding, and always served as more of a drag on Cyberpunk’s great combat, stealth, and storytelling.
A post-Summer Game Fest interview by VGC, though, has my hopes up: creative director Pawel Sisko and quest designer Despoina Anetaki described « all the core main systems » of the massive RPG as having been « redone or updated in a major way » for upcoming expansion Phantom Liberty.
Sasko says that the game’s enemy AI and especially the NCPD will be overhauled, and he described multiple alert levels and a greater variety of units from the cops that sound more in line with the Grand Theft Auto games. That certainly sounds nice, but the police AI in Cyberpunk never bugged me the way it seemed to grate on everyone else—maybe I’m just too much of a good noodle and never got in enough trouble to notice.
The more enticing proposition for me is what Sasko said of upcoming changes for character building: « The biggest [main system changes] are the perks and skill trees, which have been rebuilt completely. » While Cyberpunk offers this dizzying array of viable playstyles for V, a lot of the skill trees behind them boil down to « +3% headshot critical hit chance while airborne »-style nonsense.
