The world finally saw the gameplay demo that we’ve been raving about since June for CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077, and honestly, we can’t stop talking about it. With the in-depth review of how the game works, including that stunning character customization reveal, it’s hard not to get amped about what’s to come. But while many were “ooh-ing” and “aah-ing” over the stunning graphics, others were diving deeper to uncover a few hidden messages, one including a cheeky nod to their other RPG series: The Witcher.
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In true CD Projekt RED style, the team wanted to take a sneaky approach to a heartfelt thanks. It’s a game about cyber technology, so an encrypted message only makes sense!
A ‘Thank You’ From the Team
In the final frame of the demo, one Reddit user translated the heartfelt “thank you” from the studio. According to the translation:
“Sorry to have kept you waiting for this for so long!
Did you like what you saw? Because for us, the fact that we’re finally showing you Cyberpunk 2077 is HUGE. Please go to our forums, twitter, facebook, discord, and do tell what you think. Is the game world how you imagined? Do you see what we meant by ‘immersion’ when we talked about CP2077 being an FPP RPG? How does our vision of “cyberpunk by day” make you feel? We really want to know.
Aside from that, we think we owe you a few words of explanation on why we’re showing you this gameplay now, some time after industry professionals and media saw it at E3 and gamescom.
Each time we discussed the idea of showing the game to you (and we discussed this idea a lot), we were ending up in this “we’re not 100% sure” limbo. Why? Because (for most people), when a game dev shows gameplay footage from their game, it means that this is how the game is going to look or play like. It’s not the case here. Cyberpunk 2077 is deep in development. We have a lot of design ideas, a lot of mechanics being playtested, but we don’t know what we’ll end up with at launch. This makes publishing videos like what you just saw risky –we don’t want gamers saying ‘but in that previous video that gun was shooting differently’, or ‘why did you change the interface?’. Change is inherent to game development and there’s a ton of things being modified each day. Our fear was (and kind of still is) that you’ll think what you just saw is how Cyberpunk 2077 will look like 1:1.
What gave us that extra confidence to show you a work in progress game? Good initial feedback from people who are accustomed to see games at various stages of development. What they told us (and they told us they really liked what they saw) gave us the boost we needed to show the current version of Cyberpunk 2077 to the most passionate and insightful audience –you.
So… here’s what Cyberpunk 2077 looks like today (or rather looked like when we recorded the video). We sincerely hope you liked it.
Again, thank you for your patience and all the thoughts you shared with us.
Yours,
CD PROJEKT RED”
The Second Hidden Message, ‘The Witcher’
Though the first hidden message was a sweet adage to fans, the second is a more cheeky throwback to their other major RPG: The Witcher. Though Geralt of Rivia’s story may be done, he’ll forever live in our hearts — and our screens — and CD Projekt RED won’t let you forget it.
Cyberpunk 2077 easter egg in loading of gamplay, it means in Polish “The Witcher 3 is the best” 😀 from r/gaming
The above message was found in the loading screen before the reveal kicked off. It also references a joke video, which can be seen here.
According to one Redditor, “It is actually a reference to Polish YouTuber klocuch who made video parody of biggest Polish ‘Gaming Television’ called TVGRYpl (translates to TVGAMESpl) in which he showed how their journalists choose topics for their next videos. 3Wiedzmin3najlepszy (You can read it as Is the Witcher 3 the best?) was a joke about how many videos about Witcher 3 they made. Most of his videos have english subs.”
“Klocuch is an interesting character here. He’s kind of meta youtuber who never revealed his identity. His character (or maybe he?) using squeaky childish voice reviews particularly old games, makes dub for turkish dramas, nostalgic rap songs and short vlogs. He’s not that popular comparing to biggest Polish YouTubers (only ~300k subs) but mystery around him and his persona made him one of most recognisable YouTubers in Poland. A lot of Polish YouTubers watch his work and refers to him in their videos. How his joke got there? No freaking idea,” the redditor continued.
Either way, we doubt we’ll forget The Witcher any time soon — even though they did confirm they don’t want Ciri anywhere near the new title.
‘Cyberpunk 2077’
We unfortunately still don’t have a release date, but you can learn more about the game itself, as per the studio over at CD Projekt RED, below.
“The game follows the story of V — a hired gun on the rise in Night City, the most violent and dangerous metropolis of the corporate-ruled future. A robust character creator will allow players to choose V’s gender, visual appearance, character class, as well as historical background — all of which may influence the shape of the game,” the summary reads.
“With dozens of hours of main story arc quests, and many more of additional activities, there’s always something to see and do in Night City. Players will experience all of it entirely through V’s eyes, with an interactive dialogue system that gives them greater narrative agency,” the summary continues.
