After months of anticipation, CD Projekt Red has finally shared the first gameplay footage of Cyberpunk 2077. The developer’s mysterious Twitch livestream, which kicked off earlier in the day and cryptically broadcast lines of code being typed out on a screen for several hours, concluded with an extended look at the upcoming open-world sci-fi RPG, and it was certainly impressive.
The footage on display during the stream was taken from the same gameplay demo CD Projekt Red showcased to press at E3 and Gamescom 2018. The demo begins with V, your customized protagonist, traveling to a gang hideout with her ally Jackie to locate a missing cyborg. That mission quickly escalates into a firefight with the gang members, showing off Cyberpunk 2077’s RPG-rooted take on gunplay. Later in the demo, V is given a quest to acquire a drone, which takes her and Jackie into the compound of the Maelstrom gang. Perhaps most impressive, the footage also provides a much closer look at Night City, the sprawling and richly detailed futuristic metropolis that serves as the game’s setting.
“What we’re releasing today was recorded from a game deep in development,” game director Adam Badowski said in a message accompanying the release. “Since many of the assets and mechanics in the current version of Cyberpunk 2077 are most likely to be modified, we initially decided to show this gameplay only to media. Elements like gunplay (both in terms of visuals and how RPG stats influence it), netrunning, car physics, or the game’s UI–everything’s pretty much still in the playtest phase and we felt uneasy about publicly committing to any particular design. Animation glitches, work-in-progress character facial expressions, early versions of locations–all this made us hesitant to release what you’re about to see.
“However, we are also well aware that many of you want to see what the media saw. Although this is probably not the same game you’ll see on your screen when we launch, we still decided to share this 48-minute video with you. This is how Cyberpunk 2077 looks today. Let us know what you think!”
Despite being announced several years ago, Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t formally unveiled until E3 2018 this past June, when CD Projekt Red shared the first cinematic trailer for the game during Microsoft’s E3 press conference. The developer also showcased nearly an hour of gameplay footage to press during a behind-close-doors demo at the convention, which was so impressive in its scope and detail that it solidified Cyberpunk as one of our four favorite games from the show.
“The E3 2018 demo for Cyberpunk 2077 was overwhelming with all its detail, but it did give us the impression that there was a large world with all sorts of systems to explore and mess with,” GameSpot’s Alessandro Fillari wrote in reaction to the demo. “The setting and some gameplay ideas are certainly a big departure for CD Projekt Red, but it also has a number of cool and visually stunning details that show off an incredibly rich world to jump head-first into.”
CD Projekt Red would give fans another glimpse at Cyberpunk 2077 at Gamescom last week. During the convention, the developer released a handful of new screenshots that showed off some characters and environments from the game. The studio also shared several pieces of Cyberpunk 2077 concept art that contained a hidden link to another image that displays the phrase “more than meets the eye.”
Cyberpunk 2077 is in development for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. CD Projekt Red hasn’t announced a release date just yet, but the developer says the game is already playable from start to finish–although it still doesn’t have all of its assets, nor have all of its bugs been addressed yet.
We got a chance to speak with Cyberpunk 2077 producer Richard Borzymowski at Gamescom. During our interview, Borzymowski discussed how the studio was able to switch gears from the fantasy universe of its other notable video game franchise, The Witcher, to the sci-fi world of Cyberpunk. He also talked more about the move from the third-person perspective of its previous RPGs to Cyberpunk’s first-person viewpoint.
