'Cyberpunk 2077' Devs Compare Skill Progression to 'The Witcher'

Now that fans everywhere have enjoyed over 45 minutes of glorious Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay action, it's time to dive deep into the specifics. Though this highly technical game will be much different that CD Projekt RED's The Witcher series, that doesn't mean that the RPG elements won't retain some similarities.

Thanks to a recent Q&A hosted by the studio, many of our burning questions have been answered, and one in particular about the game's progression system. Game Designer Philip Weber answered the call.

"The actual shape of skill progression is still something that is in full development, what we know is that there are the 3 directions that you can take. The Solo direction, the Netrunner direction and the Techie direction," Weber said.

He then added a quick comparison to Geralt of Rivia's story.

"Compared to The Witcher, we have much more freedom on what these skills can do and how varied they can be, in Witcher 3 all the skills had to make sense to what Geralt, a witcher, can do. Having this freedom also means that now we can solve quests in many more different ways," Weber added.

"We can have strong solos, if you want to make them kinda tanky with big weapons," Weber said in response to a separate question. "You can also have a character that you want to be more like the major from Ghost in the Shell, basically a cyberninja, there are skills for that as well."

In the same Q&A, Weber also addressed the devastating consequences failed missions can have on the game.

"Yes, you can fail quests. What we don't have however is a game over state, the only game over that you will get is when you die. So when you fail a quest then it's now part of the story, you have to deal with the consequences," Weber continued.

This matches up with something the creative team said when we sat down with them during E3 earlier this year about how one choice, one response, could drastically change the outcome at any given moment. With such a vast array of characters to meet and missions to undertake, the journey to crawling out of the gutter and into a higher place in society will be far from easy.

Just in the gameplay demo alone, we saw how differently character interactions can go. Players can condemn an entire sect of people with a simple "no." Like any good RPG, this keeps players invested, emotionally and with their time, making the immersion with the character V much more apparent and the potential to be infinitely rewarding.

We unfortunately still don't have a release date, but you can learn more about the game itself with our community hub right here!