When you read previews of Cyberpunk 2077, they’ll likely be focused on the action or the RPG elements of the game. That’s no bad thing – the shooting is snappy and the role-playing in-depth and meaningful. But one new feature shown during the hands-on deserves to be talked about in detail – the Braindance. In …
When you read previews of Cyberpunk 2077, they’ll likely be focused on the action or the RPG elements of the game. That’s no bad thing – the shooting is snappy and the role-playing in-depth and meaningful. But one new feature shown during the hands-on deserves to be talked about in detail – the Braindance.
In Night City, the setting of Cyberpunk 2077, Braindance is all the rage. These are virtual reality ‘videos’ that have been recorded using the cybernetic implants of real people’s experiences. Night City’s denizens can hop into the body of a porn star for a full-immersion experience to get their rocks off, for instance. Those with more heinous taste might want to relive some poor soul’s last moments in a high-fidelity snuff movie. Then there’s how V, the game’s protaganist, uses it.
To understand the utility of Braindance, it’s worth looking back to CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher 3. Combat, exploration and chatting in that game were frequently divided by investigation segments where Geralt would use his heightened senses to inspect his surroundings, using a ‘Witcher vision’ that highlights points of interest in red. This has been common in games for a while, of course, with the next most famous recent example the ‘detective vision’ of the Batman Arkham games.
This serves a few purposes in the game, of course. It’s a chance to explore the world and examine it more closely – a time for environmental storytelling.
