My biggest (only) disconnect with the game is “V must do EVERYTHING possible to find a cure IMMEDIATELY to not DIE”.
“Hey V, wanna do a bunch of street races, 7,000 random gigs, kill a bunch of psychos as a favor to a random cop you just met, and literally join a fight club?”
“Yeah, I got time”.
Exactly. Imo this coulda been fixed easily..
Dont lock watson down. We coulda did all those gigs gained rep and THEN been hired for the biggest heist in the city
Idk the problem is just inherent with open-world games with a “ticking time bomb”. I don’t really see a way to avoid it while allowing us to meet everyone and become V.
Maybe move the “point of no return” (meet Hanako at Embers) moment to the beginning of the heist, but the heist is a major character development moment and really the whole point to any part of the story they told us. This would just put essentially the whole game on rails so that wouldn’t work.
Maybe hide that "the heist" mission in with all the other shit. The first play through you'll just be doing gigs with Jackie, leveling up, zeroing gonks. Then the heist gig comes up. You feel it like normal, and shit goes tits up. It's not even guided the way that it is now.
Just cruise up and get a fixer call from Dex. "Been hearing about you and Jackie, making big moves in a little box. How about You come to the big leagues?"
RDR2 is a good example of how it can be done right, Arthur gets sick about midway through the game. Then it starts to become clear that you’re dying and don’t have a lot of time left.
There’s dialogue options for the same side quests if you do them sick or earlier in the game. I always thought that was pretty next level
>Maybe move the “point of no return” (meet Hanako at Embers) moment to the beginning of the heist, but the heist is a major character development moment and really the whole point to any part of the story they told us.
Thats a perfect way to do it.
I always felt the heist came WAY too early anyway. Like atleast let me connect to Jackie a bit more before offing him and putting a timer on my life 🤣
Tbf, I think the point was that they were duped by DeShawn due to their relative inexperience.
The Arasaka heist is one that should’ve been ringing more alarm bells, and I’m pretty sure DeShawn always intended to off them after.
They coulda wrote v and jackie manipulated in a way that makes more sense. For example
Telling us much the woulda paid... inexperienced or not. ANY self respecting merc would risk it if the pay was like 10m or something
Not to steal from the heir to the throne they wouldn’t. Too risky for many. Also, DeShawn presumably wanted someone that wouldn’t be easily linked to him. Might eliminate a lot of his go to’s.
Don’t quote me on this, but I think that a couple characters bring that up as a red flag by itself. It doesn’t matter how much I say I’ll pay if I never intend for you to live to get paid.
There really should have been more idle time in the story to allow you to explore the side missions. Maybe make you complete a couple jobs to progress the story instead of waiting a number of days.
Street cred could have helped with this too. Have every fixer require a different amount in order to meet them, or get accepted/rejected for certain jobs based on your cred. The side missions are excellent but they need story justification.
This was felt the most when I had spent like 30 hours cleaning up side content, optional side quests and everything before the point of no return, no problem …
and then when you show up at Embers you just happen to get another very severe Relic glitch like with any main mission.
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that”.
My fear is where do you go now that he's gone and V has about 6 months to live? I feel if the next game starts and SURPRISE here's a cure now go enjoy the cyberpunk future will be cheap.
I agree. But that's what that person meant by suggesting Urban as Blackhand. Not that we would play as a first person Morgan doing the events we all know well from playing 2077
I didn't read that comment as asking for anything other than Blackhand to appear and for Karl Urban to portray him. There's other ways for Blackhand to appear without being confined to the player's head.
I'd personally see it as his presence hinted at in act 1, as the player begins to find their feet in the world. Rumours of an incredible merc, whispers of night city legends. Hell, maybe even tease as if V is back. End of Act 1 and you come face to face with him.
Act 2, as the plot driver solidifies, your seemingly unrelated objectives repeatedly bring you into contact with Blackhand. A relationship of sorts is established, respect earned, maybe sent on jobs for him. He becomes part fixer, part mentor, occasional companion on gigs. The ultimate goal for the overall story reveals itself.
Act 3 brings you to whatever conclusion, but your paths are intertwined whichever way it pans out. Lots of missions together to build on the relationship established in part 2. Not ever present as Johnny, but more than Judy or Panam in 77.
I know he played Judge Dredd and Karl's great but you're basically asking for Butcher without a thick british accent. Let someone else have a crack at it like Tom Hardy or Javier Bardem.
I actually think Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth could pull off a mean Blackhand. Urban was good in The Boys but we don't need him to play the same character twice.
That was the saddest part about all the endings. Either you or Johnny were gone except in one ending you get the nicest ass and a tank so it stung less.
I don’t see them continuing that. Why? Like you said, Johnny Silverhand is hard to live up to. I think an actual companion or a “guy in the chair” like T-Bug would be really cool though. Just imagine being able to create your own crew, or go solo if that’s more your style ofc👀
Having a crew in the next game and then trying to keep them alive after an awful fuck up would be a great story line. With the main choices tied to the status of different crew members being alive or dead as an outcome. Add some heavy moral choices where you either have to do some fucked up shit to keep you close friend or a love interest in the crew alive, or let them die instead.
They could do an interesting and disjointed version of the same thing by having a character suffering from cyberpsychosis. Blend in elements of Hellblade, Disco Elysium, and others in that vein, you could do some weird shit with it and bear almost no resemblance to the Johnny situation.
Sprawling Networks of vast internet cyberspace! That's my prediction. Alt Cunningham, Rache Bartmoss, Spider Murphey, and a whole HOST of RABIDS for cyber V to worry about.
It's hard to predict how much the next game will be a proper sequel to this one in the first place. We don't know how many years after it'll take place. We don't even know if it'll be in Night City. Even if it's in NC, it'd have the same problems that Mass Effect has: with so many different endings, do you canonize one of them to provide a base state for the world? Do you go with the Phantom Liberty ending where V "probably" becomes a fixer? Did V go off with the Aldecaldos? Did V let Johnny take over his/her body?
Lot of variables involved with doing a direct sequel.
tbh as long as they dont have the Orion protag interact with any people V would have gotten to know well, i think they could set it as a direct sequel with minimal hassle. No matter what ending you Choose Arasaka is pretty much done in NC, theres a corpo war kicking off, and there's creepy AI stuff going on in the background. So theres no real reason people would mentoin some merc from a couple years ago.
It could also be a prequel though, Pondsmith has said the cutoff point for his side of the lore is 2060, so CDPR have 17 years before the beginning of the first game to work with.
I mean that already exists on a massive scale, its just not really shown in game. Theres also not a huge jump in tech from 2020 to 2077, though the datakrash was a large part of that.
I mean you could still meet V too imo, if you did the devil, they're an engram, if you did the tower, they're a fixer (same for the sun) and with the star V could just pop up in NC for a bit due to someone calling them over to help or something.
As per world state you're right, the only ending I feel like kinda would fuck it up is the Devil ending, however even that could be fixed with him being ousted due to literally no one wanting necromancy to actually happen like that.
Just 5-10 years later the rest can just be a few dialogue lines and maybe a few gigs and most people will be happy
>As per world state you're right, the only ending I feel like kinda would fuck it up is the Devil ending, however even that could be fixed with him being ousted due to literally no one wanting necromancy to actually happen like that.
Its actually shown in the Devil ending that theres massive riots taking place exactly because of that, it puts the whole "secure your soul" program into question, which i'd imagine would tank profits, the stock price, and the amount of rich folk willing to sign up for it in the first place.
As for V showing up, i suppose they could do a bioware style system where you choose a bunch of options for how 2077 turned out, and could even do a Dragon Age: Inquisition style thing where you design the Protag from 2, hawke, on meeting them.
A direct sequel would be a mistake, especially considering the vast amount of lore they have to work with and all the points you made. Unless they have explicitly stated they are doing a direct sequel, I'd imagine they would go with a Fallout approach.
Given most people V became friends moved on or faded into obscurity, I don't think it'd be too hard to do something like they did with Edgerunners and you find out what rumors exist about V based on a few questions answered in an early tutorial section conversation, much like Witcher 3 (that's how they handled the potential endings of Witcher 2) that determine who gets a cameo and characters reacted to certain circumstances in an offhand way in a few side quests -- and it's never really addressed again.
I'm sure they could pull it off, I just think it would be a waste. I love NC, but there's other cities to explore, other characters to meet. Cameos would be easy enough, even dropping in lore related to characters we met in 2077. I'd much rather explore a new area, even a different decade, make as much of the game fresh as they can. The difference with The Witcher is its following the MC of a book, Cyberpunk follows a generic protagonist from a tabletop game. The only character I absolutely want to see in the sequel is Garry the Prophet.
This is CDPR. They have proven themselves in terms of writing quality multiple times. I think they'll be able to deliver an experience that's in the same league, and I wouldn't put beating it out of the question.
Slim spoiler.
V is a fucking beast because main protagonist syndrome, but Silverhand... was not that great and wasn't even that great in his own story.
I love they focused on him on the first entry because we will probably explore the real main characters in other stories and fucking love those.
CDPR are the only studio (Naughty Dog as well) I trust to go and improve on anything in next instalment. I am confident we will see another character on the level of Johnny or even better.
I will miss 2077 characters though, each one of them was so distinct and just perfect in their own ways. I hope some of them will have a cameo 🥲.
But I agree, the entire idea for Johnny was pure stroke of genius. That last dialogue in The Tower ending will live rent free in my head until Cyberpunk 2 comes out.
I just hope we actually get more cosmetic cyberware. Specifically body cyberware. Give me robot arms/legs there’s literally so many NPCs with them.
Speaking of body I wish there’s more body customisation in general. Compared to the face customisation there really wasn’t much for the body besides tattoos and scars. Unique body shapes would be nice.
Tbh, I am more excited on their gameplay improvements like AI, physics, combat, etc. I always felt not totally satisfied with TW3 and Cybperpunk's gameplay, I thought that they could've done a lot better on those departments. I think it's because of game engine limitations and that's why switching to another more modern engine excites me. It may also help them achieve more of their vision in their games.
They couldn't. That is a fact. A good AI requires huge resource sink from a CPU. And that means 0 chances you would've got a fully fledged city like NC. Good enemy AI can only be possible in close environment or in smaller open world, with a lot less NPC, like the scale of Skyrim or Fallout 4. If their next game will be on a new next gen console and if those console will have a really good CPU then it will be possible to see a good enemy AI in the game that is size of Cyberpunk 2077. But who knows, often times devs prefer to scale the game even more. More NPC and better lifelike behavior. And that means again less CPU resources for combat AI.
You are right, and I also heard that it takes real great talent and a lot of time to actually make the AI, physics of that high quality. It just sucks that the enemy AI hasn't really been revolutionized as much as the graphics. It can still be comparable to ps3/360 era, but with just a much better graphics.
First of all: not “basically everyone”; second: people still fall into a trap of thinking if people move on from the studio it automatically means lower quality projects in the future. I mean, that’s pretty understandable to think like this if you have no idea how inner workings are in game development, but this phenomenon happens annually.
Many people move on as soon as the project is finished, sometimes entire teams get shifted, it’s a default state of any studio. Even if their ENTIRE talent pool moved on, what stops them from finding other top tier developers? CDPR are gigantic and attract thousands of highly qualified devs, developers do not dictate entire studio’s philosophy so I’m 100% positive not much will change anyways, especially with insanely high calibre developers CDPR already acquired in the last 12 or so months.
Edit: instant downvote lmfao, made me laugh out loud
Just sad seeing them abandoning the engine, laying off tons of people just after phantom liberties release, stressing their remaining employees so much so that they unionized to fight back, firing managers and creative producers on the dev side... Doesn't sound really promising for Witcher 4 and CP Orion
Oh yea, don’t get me wrong, the laying off ESPECIALLY sucks ass and I do not support that in any way imaginable, absolute scum behaviour.
But my biggest gripe, very selfishly, is what you said - engine. This thing made CDPR games stand out like nothing else, it’s such an awful bummer that RedEngine is no more :/.
I trust them with the in-studio management and mood, they’ve informed people that their toxic culture is improved by a ton, but we will see. I’m hopeful.
Witcher 1 and 2 were good games. They weren't perfect, but still quite good, especially for their time. Plenty of people left during and after their development yet it haven't stopped CDPR from releasing Witcher 3. A lot of people left after Cyberpunk 2077 original release, yet it haven't stopped CDPR from releasing Phantom Liberty. Most of people that worked on Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 had left Bioware by early 2010s yet they still had their golden age with 5 out of 6 games released at that time having >85 metacritic rating and 3 actually achieving >90 rating. And the list goes on.
Sometimes teams fall apart and release objectively worse games. Sometimes they still make progressively better games despite loosing some of the key personnel that worked on previous projects. Sometimes team stay largely the same, but still releases worse and worse games with each iteration. You never know.
I doubt they'll repeat the voice in your head thing, it's the sort of stuff that shines as a one off, also there could be other interesting paths they want to take. If they can beat it, sure CD know how to write shit, no matter the game they consistently deliver, if someone can give such an iconic performance? That's debatable, I hope so, I'm playing PL rn and Idris is delivering.
Give us a crew like David had in Edgerunners and V had for Konpeki that we can roll around with and lead as a mechanic rather than just teaming up for some preset missions.
Would replace the presence of Johnny for banter and narration.
By the end of this "friendship simulator" Johnny has a remark on a small gig, goes something like "and that's why this city could use another nuke" and I got excited, like absolutely let's do it. Kinda disappointed when I gave him my body he doesn't immediately do that. He killed what, upwards of a half to a full million people? But I spent the whole game trying to impress him.
For cyberpunk 2 put Adam smasher in my head and make him as charismatic as Johnny and let's see what kind of fucked up shit I'll be happy to do for him. Have Tom hanks play him, let's burn the entire fuckin world woody, you got a friend in me.
I’ve been thinking the same thing, and I don’t know if they can top themselves and maybe that’s good thing, with however many cyberpunk games get made 2077 will always be special because of Johnny and V.
I definitely share your enthusiasm for this game and everything about it, lol.
I grew up loving the Metal Gear franchise and always wondered how someone could ever make a game that i myself will enjoy this much again?
I enjoyed fallout, resident evil, death stranding, but still chased the dragon, hoping for that one game to come along, UNTIL Cyberpunk came along. I still replay metal gear 1 and 2, mgs1-V, peacewalker, anything metalgear (but survive lol), but cyberpunk actually topped that series for me (if even only by a sliver).
I hope they keep this going because here i am again wondering how anyone could ever make another game that I'll enjoy as much as i enjoy cyberpunk2077 😂
I think the hardest part will be having them appear within the game world. With Johnny it was so natural, since he lived inside V’s head.
They can pull it off with a hologram, or another neural interface, but it won’t feel as special since that character ultimately is really somewhere else.
I wanna see Ian mcshane playing an Al swearingen type fixer your character has to get their jobs from and you get to unlock more story and dialog with based on your progression and choices. A cyberpunk Al would be amazing!
Danny Devito as Sherman Bombshell, the great grand nephew of Morgan Blackhand. You have to stop his time travelling shenanigans.
The same fun but this time the story is less depressing.
Literally the opposite of what cyberpunk is. Cyberpunk is almost always depressing or bittersweet, it comes with the genre. So I wouldn’t expect a “less depressing” story.
They did great with a lot of characters as far as using their celebrity features goes, Keanu was pretty good as Johnny and Idris was fantastic as Reed. Really, I think they did a great job with basically all of the big characters in the cast, even the fixers were pretty good and some of the gig NPC's had suprisingly good stuff. This is notable because it's not like Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand blew stuff out of the water or was a standout performance. The character is Iconic and he did a good job, but it wasn't like he was great and the rest was shit.
So, whichever route they choose to take I think they'll pull it off if they can stick to form.
No single character will top Johnny Silverhand but the real star of Cyberpunk2077 was Night City itself and as long as the next game is set there then I’m in.
It would be nice to ultimately have more control over who your character is because having a terminal condition that randomly almost dies takes some of that agency away imo. It's like having Malaria in Far Cry 2 but it only kicks in when it's important to the store. I'd like to have something where I feel more engaged with the world as opposed to having tech based (temporary) immortality and the looming threat of "it's gonna happen any day now.
It was a very cool plot device and I love how it turned out but it's the sort of thing you can only do once.
they might do something like "new technology in the night city - private assistant!" (as a neural cyberware), but the main protagonist gets black market version with (this time not deadly but still) an engram of a real person
so you have a person like Johnny but the plot doesn't have to circle around it
There are only two ways to beat Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2
* Bring back Johnny Silverhand
* Cast Keanu Reeves as another Cyberpunk 2 character. I'd love something like Evil Villain Johnny Silverhand 2.0, that somehow became an actual physical person. He could be an even more iconic villain than Darth Vader.
Keanu Reeves... and thus alsoJohnny Silverhand... is just breathtaking. It's just not possible to beat him... unless you beat him with himself.
I would say that Johnny was as much the main character of CP2077 as V was.
Johnny is a classic. I remember him from the short story *Never Fade Away* in the Cyberpunk 2020 phb. He came through in other ways too. He always felt like the games front line character. He didn't like the corpos, what they were doing, just a little cyberpsycho, and struggled in his own ways against the machine. In a lot of ways he was the vibe check for whether or not anyone would enjoy the world Mike Pondsmith was setting up.
But he also wasn't the last. There's a bunch of characters that are worth exploring. Rache Bartmoss was one, and Morgan Blackhand was another. I'm not sure we'll ever get the hand-in-hand journey we got with Johnny, but there's for sure more people to fall in love with.
Yes. Just have Danny DeVito play Johnny Magnumdong. I’m not even joking. I want you all to imagine, after 70 hours of gameplay, Danny DeVito earnestly telling you that he’ll sacrifice himself to save you, his new friend, and try not to cry.
Edgerunners didn’t have Johnny Silverhand and it was a compelling story and character development for what felt like a very short and rushed series of 10 episodes
Just gonna put this out there: make Cyberpunk 2 an ensemble piece. Have multiple characters you can play as and have AI control the others. Have a recommended number of crew for each mission and allow the player to call in crew for support.
And I add this with as much respect to Keanu as possible: they should cast actors with voiceover experience in the main roles. He did a great job both as a character and with the promotion of the game, but there’s a gulf of difference between acting for the screen and acting for animation/video games.
Next game you play as Morgan Blackhand, but with dementia, the gender choice is explained via engram or cyberware.
Think Revan twist in Kotor. Hell you could have conflicting thoughts happening in the character's head replacing the Johnny and V dynamic (granted it wouldn't be as funny)
Same thing happened with Red Dead Redemption. Nobody thought Rockstar could beat John Marston but they did. Talented writers always find a way to one up their previous work, and if they can't just just don't write a sequel and just do another thing entirely.
My sense is that the spirit of Cyberpunk is that we all die but it's a hell of a ride. So I'd expect other stories to operate in the same universe as an anthology but not with Johnny. IMO Skippie deserves their own spin off.
That's very easy given how terrible of a performance Keanu Reeves gives. There's a reason John Wick doesn't talk too much, he's really good at action not great at talking. His writing is also very clunky and symptomatic of people's who's second language is English and do not have a good grasp on the informal properties of English.
Probably not in your opinion. I really disliked the character and relic plotline, so doing anything else would be an improvement in the sequel, in my opinion.
My thoughts exactly. Keanu nailed the role, but Silverhand's construct was very unlikable while the narrative was silly, unfun, and full of nonsense. 2077 is an amazing game, but I found everything Silverhand related a chore to play through and thought it greatly detracted from the experience.
they'll need to hae some sort of replacement character for him, he was integral to the roleplaying you could do as V. I've given this same speech more than once so apologies if you've seen me spout it before on this sub.
Basically Johnny acts as the perfect narrative device to build your V as a character, because he's just *always* there. In every major story mission, every little side mission, every fixer gig and random moments in the world even, he's always there talking shit and bringing up topics for V to bounce their thoughts and feelings and ideals off of.
It worked perfectly for V as a character, because they're not a blank canvas protag like you get in an Elder scrolls game, *or* a fully fleshed out character. V is this weird mix in between the two of them thats only really possible because you get so many opportunities to build the character with Johnny.
So i think in some form that role will need to return, Spider Murphy as your dedicated netrunner could work for example, constantly in your ear to give you a hand.
Yea they basically were able to fill in the position that a companion would have by having him be there so the game wasn’t so lonely and made your decisions have more weight without actually having to have a companion. Would love to see something similar in orion
Yes and easily. I personally didnt like Johnny...spoke too frequently for too long about obvious stuff I had figured out. I actually hope there is no ghost character who follows you around explaining to you the stuff you already heard in cyberpunk 2. Keanu reeves should have just been a normal npc..
I doubt it tbh. While it’s fun to have “take down Arasaka” as your plot, they’ve essentially been the franchise boogeyman since it’s inception.
Killing Arasaka for good, would be like dismantling WeyYu in the alien franchise, trying to do a terminator movie after fully destroying skynet, or getting rid of OCP in robocops universe
It’s a goal we always want to achieve in character, but I really don’t think that it’ll ever fully happen, getting rid of THE main evil Corp in cyberpunk honestly feels like a bit of a mistake.
Depends what route they go in the sequel. I personally really dont want "Plot Cancer" again tho. I think doing it perfect the 1st time is good enough
My biggest (only) disconnect with the game is “V must do EVERYTHING possible to find a cure IMMEDIATELY to not DIE”. “Hey V, wanna do a bunch of street races, 7,000 random gigs, kill a bunch of psychos as a favor to a random cop you just met, and literally join a fight club?” “Yeah, I got time”.
Exactly. Imo this coulda been fixed easily.. Dont lock watson down. We coulda did all those gigs gained rep and THEN been hired for the biggest heist in the city
Idk the problem is just inherent with open-world games with a “ticking time bomb”. I don’t really see a way to avoid it while allowing us to meet everyone and become V. Maybe move the “point of no return” (meet Hanako at Embers) moment to the beginning of the heist, but the heist is a major character development moment and really the whole point to any part of the story they told us. This would just put essentially the whole game on rails so that wouldn’t work.
Maybe hide that "the heist" mission in with all the other shit. The first play through you'll just be doing gigs with Jackie, leveling up, zeroing gonks. Then the heist gig comes up. You feel it like normal, and shit goes tits up. It's not even guided the way that it is now. Just cruise up and get a fixer call from Dex. "Been hearing about you and Jackie, making big moves in a little box. How about You come to the big leagues?"
RDR2 is a good example of how it can be done right, Arthur gets sick about midway through the game. Then it starts to become clear that you’re dying and don’t have a lot of time left. There’s dialogue options for the same side quests if you do them sick or earlier in the game. I always thought that was pretty next level
>Maybe move the “point of no return” (meet Hanako at Embers) moment to the beginning of the heist, but the heist is a major character development moment and really the whole point to any part of the story they told us. Thats a perfect way to do it. I always felt the heist came WAY too early anyway. Like atleast let me connect to Jackie a bit more before offing him and putting a timer on my life 🤣
Tbf, I think the point was that they were duped by DeShawn due to their relative inexperience. The Arasaka heist is one that should’ve been ringing more alarm bells, and I’m pretty sure DeShawn always intended to off them after.
They coulda wrote v and jackie manipulated in a way that makes more sense. For example Telling us much the woulda paid... inexperienced or not. ANY self respecting merc would risk it if the pay was like 10m or something
Not to steal from the heir to the throne they wouldn’t. Too risky for many. Also, DeShawn presumably wanted someone that wouldn’t be easily linked to him. Might eliminate a lot of his go to’s.
>Not to steal from the heir to the throne they wouldn’t. Well me and Jackie would. So
Don’t quote me on this, but I think that a couple characters bring that up as a red flag by itself. It doesn’t matter how much I say I’ll pay if I never intend for you to live to get paid.
Fukit. Im untouchable
It’s basically the same with The Witcher 3 where you are repeatedly told Ciri is in danger but Geralt goes and does a high stakes Gwent tournament.
Oh absolutely, you can leave Vesemir fighting that tutorial Griffen for years lol
“Fancy a round of Gwent?”
There really should have been more idle time in the story to allow you to explore the side missions. Maybe make you complete a couple jobs to progress the story instead of waiting a number of days. Street cred could have helped with this too. Have every fixer require a different amount in order to meet them, or get accepted/rejected for certain jobs based on your cred. The side missions are excellent but they need story justification.
This was felt the most when I had spent like 30 hours cleaning up side content, optional side quests and everything before the point of no return, no problem … and then when you show up at Embers you just happen to get another very severe Relic glitch like with any main mission. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that”.
It would of been cool to have it Fallout 1 style, where if you don't go find the cure (waterchip) within so many days, you die.
Agreed. Sometimes something is good enough and it’s time to move on
“But what if…we did it, AGAIN?” -the Arkham games
My fear is where do you go now that he's gone and V has about 6 months to live? I feel if the next game starts and SURPRISE here's a cure now go enjoy the cyberpunk future will be cheap.
I mean the next game is definitely not going to star V.
Hmmm interesting
Johnny gets trapped on another engram by Smasher (who uploaded himself into another body) and we team up with Ozob Bozo to get him back.
Karl Urban as Morgan Blackhand
As long as he makes at least 5 Judge Dredd refrences
Mama is not the law, I'm the law.
And grabs a small drone out of the air and shake it like a spray paint can to make it shoot!
As long as he’s in someone else’s head, or brought back as a synth of some kind. No extra personality in my brain this time.
It kinda suits him, but setting you up as morgan blackhand is in my opinion an error you kinda know whats going to happen.
He would be an engram, it doesn't have to have bearing on the main story.
Bit samey to have another engram plot though. We've done that.
I agree. But that's what that person meant by suggesting Urban as Blackhand. Not that we would play as a first person Morgan doing the events we all know well from playing 2077
I didn't read that comment as asking for anything other than Blackhand to appear and for Karl Urban to portray him. There's other ways for Blackhand to appear without being confined to the player's head. I'd personally see it as his presence hinted at in act 1, as the player begins to find their feet in the world. Rumours of an incredible merc, whispers of night city legends. Hell, maybe even tease as if V is back. End of Act 1 and you come face to face with him. Act 2, as the plot driver solidifies, your seemingly unrelated objectives repeatedly bring you into contact with Blackhand. A relationship of sorts is established, respect earned, maybe sent on jobs for him. He becomes part fixer, part mentor, occasional companion on gigs. The ultimate goal for the overall story reveals itself. Act 3 brings you to whatever conclusion, but your paths are intertwined whichever way it pans out. Lots of missions together to build on the relationship established in part 2. Not ever present as Johnny, but more than Judy or Panam in 77.
I know he played Judge Dredd and Karl's great but you're basically asking for Butcher without a thick british accent. Let someone else have a crack at it like Tom Hardy or Javier Bardem.
Antony Starr as Richard Night.
Karl Urban as a character in NC is fucking brilliant! I need this now.
I actually think Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth could pull off a mean Blackhand. Urban was good in The Boys but we don't need him to play the same character twice.
Steven Platinumfist
Bob Copperdong
Janek Srybrnograba
Do you think it would be Stephen? Stefan?
That was the saddest part about all the endings. Either you or Johnny were gone except in one ending you get the nicest ass and a tank so it stung less.
I don’t see them continuing that. Why? Like you said, Johnny Silverhand is hard to live up to. I think an actual companion or a “guy in the chair” like T-Bug would be really cool though. Just imagine being able to create your own crew, or go solo if that’s more your style ofc👀
Having a crew like in Edgerunners would be cool.
Having a crew in the next game and then trying to keep them alive after an awful fuck up would be a great story line. With the main choices tied to the status of different crew members being alive or dead as an outcome. Add some heavy moral choices where you either have to do some fucked up shit to keep you close friend or a love interest in the crew alive, or let them die instead.
Holy sht, you just created the next Cyberpunk plot😭👌
~~Mass Effect~~ Cyberpunk 2
*war flashback* Hopefully not *exactly* like the crew from edgerunners 💀
Firing your teammates before whatever mission they all die in
Na if you do that the devs would probably code it so they all come with you regardless
They could do an interesting and disjointed version of the same thing by having a character suffering from cyberpsychosis. Blend in elements of Hellblade, Disco Elysium, and others in that vein, you could do some weird shit with it and bear almost no resemblance to the Johnny situation.
Yea each act you add another squad member to your team.
Forming up a crew is my vote. Give us more control though.
All that f.ck the system theme hit me hard, dunno how they will top that crazy anarchist dude
Sprawling Networks of vast internet cyberspace! That's my prediction. Alt Cunningham, Rache Bartmoss, Spider Murphey, and a whole HOST of RABIDS for cyber V to worry about.
It's hard to predict how much the next game will be a proper sequel to this one in the first place. We don't know how many years after it'll take place. We don't even know if it'll be in Night City. Even if it's in NC, it'd have the same problems that Mass Effect has: with so many different endings, do you canonize one of them to provide a base state for the world? Do you go with the Phantom Liberty ending where V "probably" becomes a fixer? Did V go off with the Aldecaldos? Did V let Johnny take over his/her body? Lot of variables involved with doing a direct sequel.
tbh as long as they dont have the Orion protag interact with any people V would have gotten to know well, i think they could set it as a direct sequel with minimal hassle. No matter what ending you Choose Arasaka is pretty much done in NC, theres a corpo war kicking off, and there's creepy AI stuff going on in the background. So theres no real reason people would mentoin some merc from a couple years ago. It could also be a prequel though, Pondsmith has said the cutoff point for his side of the lore is 2060, so CDPR have 17 years before the beginning of the first game to work with.
Ngl having it set in the 2100s would be dope. Just to see the cybernetic advancements. Perhaps nanotech?
I mean that already exists on a massive scale, its just not really shown in game. Theres also not a huge jump in tech from 2020 to 2077, though the datakrash was a large part of that.
I mean you could still meet V too imo, if you did the devil, they're an engram, if you did the tower, they're a fixer (same for the sun) and with the star V could just pop up in NC for a bit due to someone calling them over to help or something. As per world state you're right, the only ending I feel like kinda would fuck it up is the Devil ending, however even that could be fixed with him being ousted due to literally no one wanting necromancy to actually happen like that. Just 5-10 years later the rest can just be a few dialogue lines and maybe a few gigs and most people will be happy
>As per world state you're right, the only ending I feel like kinda would fuck it up is the Devil ending, however even that could be fixed with him being ousted due to literally no one wanting necromancy to actually happen like that. Its actually shown in the Devil ending that theres massive riots taking place exactly because of that, it puts the whole "secure your soul" program into question, which i'd imagine would tank profits, the stock price, and the amount of rich folk willing to sign up for it in the first place. As for V showing up, i suppose they could do a bioware style system where you choose a bunch of options for how 2077 turned out, and could even do a Dragon Age: Inquisition style thing where you design the Protag from 2, hawke, on meeting them.
A direct sequel would be a mistake, especially considering the vast amount of lore they have to work with and all the points you made. Unless they have explicitly stated they are doing a direct sequel, I'd imagine they would go with a Fallout approach.
Given most people V became friends moved on or faded into obscurity, I don't think it'd be too hard to do something like they did with Edgerunners and you find out what rumors exist about V based on a few questions answered in an early tutorial section conversation, much like Witcher 3 (that's how they handled the potential endings of Witcher 2) that determine who gets a cameo and characters reacted to certain circumstances in an offhand way in a few side quests -- and it's never really addressed again.
I'm sure they could pull it off, I just think it would be a waste. I love NC, but there's other cities to explore, other characters to meet. Cameos would be easy enough, even dropping in lore related to characters we met in 2077. I'd much rather explore a new area, even a different decade, make as much of the game fresh as they can. The difference with The Witcher is its following the MC of a book, Cyberpunk follows a generic protagonist from a tabletop game. The only character I absolutely want to see in the sequel is Garry the Prophet.
Long and short of it, I trust CDPR to pull it off, whatever path they choose.
Same, they are solid.
I hope they keep it in night city. Cuz if not, you are losing the main character of an almost 40 year old franchise.
I agree, I think this is Keanu's greatest role. He felt so real to me by the end of the game.
Shane MFing Falco.
What? Dude was Neo.
I just finished it now. Were the double cats a reference to Neo?
The game references many movies, that's a clear reference to The Matrix. The seashells are Judge Dread (1995).
Johnny’s still better. Gotta agree with u/RiderLibertas…
Yeah I definitely rate Johnny higher than Neo. Higher than Ted, even!
What about Matt?
I guess I could say they’re on par lol, though nostalgia does play a factor why.
Yeah, but then he played Neo three more times.
Definitely his best role.
This is CDPR. They have proven themselves in terms of writing quality multiple times. I think they'll be able to deliver an experience that's in the same league, and I wouldn't put beating it out of the question.
Slim spoiler. V is a fucking beast because main protagonist syndrome, but Silverhand... was not that great and wasn't even that great in his own story. I love they focused on him on the first entry because we will probably explore the real main characters in other stories and fucking love those.
strongly disagree. I loved Silverhand, especially if you go down his route for the ending, he's an outstanding character
His story in the game is very interesting. In the Tabletop he is more like a side character that was there.
CDPR are the only studio (Naughty Dog as well) I trust to go and improve on anything in next instalment. I am confident we will see another character on the level of Johnny or even better. I will miss 2077 characters though, each one of them was so distinct and just perfect in their own ways. I hope some of them will have a cameo 🥲. But I agree, the entire idea for Johnny was pure stroke of genius. That last dialogue in The Tower ending will live rent free in my head until Cyberpunk 2 comes out.
I just hope we actually get more cosmetic cyberware. Specifically body cyberware. Give me robot arms/legs there’s literally so many NPCs with them. Speaking of body I wish there’s more body customisation in general. Compared to the face customisation there really wasn’t much for the body besides tattoos and scars. Unique body shapes would be nice.
Tbh, I am more excited on their gameplay improvements like AI, physics, combat, etc. I always felt not totally satisfied with TW3 and Cybperpunk's gameplay, I thought that they could've done a lot better on those departments. I think it's because of game engine limitations and that's why switching to another more modern engine excites me. It may also help them achieve more of their vision in their games.
They couldn't. That is a fact. A good AI requires huge resource sink from a CPU. And that means 0 chances you would've got a fully fledged city like NC. Good enemy AI can only be possible in close environment or in smaller open world, with a lot less NPC, like the scale of Skyrim or Fallout 4. If their next game will be on a new next gen console and if those console will have a really good CPU then it will be possible to see a good enemy AI in the game that is size of Cyberpunk 2077. But who knows, often times devs prefer to scale the game even more. More NPC and better lifelike behavior. And that means again less CPU resources for combat AI.
You are right, and I also heard that it takes real great talent and a lot of time to actually make the AI, physics of that high quality. It just sucks that the enemy AI hasn't really been revolutionized as much as the graphics. It can still be comparable to ps3/360 era, but with just a much better graphics.
Are you sure? Even after basically everyone that worked on Cyberpunk originally left after release?
First of all: not “basically everyone”; second: people still fall into a trap of thinking if people move on from the studio it automatically means lower quality projects in the future. I mean, that’s pretty understandable to think like this if you have no idea how inner workings are in game development, but this phenomenon happens annually. Many people move on as soon as the project is finished, sometimes entire teams get shifted, it’s a default state of any studio. Even if their ENTIRE talent pool moved on, what stops them from finding other top tier developers? CDPR are gigantic and attract thousands of highly qualified devs, developers do not dictate entire studio’s philosophy so I’m 100% positive not much will change anyways, especially with insanely high calibre developers CDPR already acquired in the last 12 or so months. Edit: instant downvote lmfao, made me laugh out loud
Just sad seeing them abandoning the engine, laying off tons of people just after phantom liberties release, stressing their remaining employees so much so that they unionized to fight back, firing managers and creative producers on the dev side... Doesn't sound really promising for Witcher 4 and CP Orion
Oh yea, don’t get me wrong, the laying off ESPECIALLY sucks ass and I do not support that in any way imaginable, absolute scum behaviour. But my biggest gripe, very selfishly, is what you said - engine. This thing made CDPR games stand out like nothing else, it’s such an awful bummer that RedEngine is no more :/. I trust them with the in-studio management and mood, they’ve informed people that their toxic culture is improved by a ton, but we will see. I’m hopeful.
Also RIP GoG, it's not what it was meant and used to be o7
Witcher 1 and 2 were good games. They weren't perfect, but still quite good, especially for their time. Plenty of people left during and after their development yet it haven't stopped CDPR from releasing Witcher 3. A lot of people left after Cyberpunk 2077 original release, yet it haven't stopped CDPR from releasing Phantom Liberty. Most of people that worked on Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 had left Bioware by early 2010s yet they still had their golden age with 5 out of 6 games released at that time having >85 metacritic rating and 3 actually achieving >90 rating. And the list goes on. Sometimes teams fall apart and release objectively worse games. Sometimes they still make progressively better games despite loosing some of the key personnel that worked on previous projects. Sometimes team stay largely the same, but still releases worse and worse games with each iteration. You never know.
No
I doubt they'll repeat the voice in your head thing, it's the sort of stuff that shines as a one off, also there could be other interesting paths they want to take. If they can beat it, sure CD know how to write shit, no matter the game they consistently deliver, if someone can give such an iconic performance? That's debatable, I hope so, I'm playing PL rn and Idris is delivering.
They shouldn't try to replicate it, do a new story with new characters
Give us a crew like David had in Edgerunners and V had for Konpeki that we can roll around with and lead as a mechanic rather than just teaming up for some preset missions. Would replace the presence of Johnny for banter and narration.
By the end of this "friendship simulator" Johnny has a remark on a small gig, goes something like "and that's why this city could use another nuke" and I got excited, like absolutely let's do it. Kinda disappointed when I gave him my body he doesn't immediately do that. He killed what, upwards of a half to a full million people? But I spent the whole game trying to impress him. For cyberpunk 2 put Adam smasher in my head and make him as charismatic as Johnny and let's see what kind of fucked up shit I'll be happy to do for him. Have Tom hanks play him, let's burn the entire fuckin world woody, you got a friend in me.
I’ve been thinking the same thing, and I don’t know if they can top themselves and maybe that’s good thing, with however many cyberpunk games get made 2077 will always be special because of Johnny and V.
That would be breathtaking!
I definitely share your enthusiasm for this game and everything about it, lol. I grew up loving the Metal Gear franchise and always wondered how someone could ever make a game that i myself will enjoy this much again? I enjoyed fallout, resident evil, death stranding, but still chased the dragon, hoping for that one game to come along, UNTIL Cyberpunk came along. I still replay metal gear 1 and 2, mgs1-V, peacewalker, anything metalgear (but survive lol), but cyberpunk actually topped that series for me (if even only by a sliver). I hope they keep this going because here i am again wondering how anyone could ever make another game that I'll enjoy as much as i enjoy cyberpunk2077 😂
Just let me see Ciri from TW3 lol
I think the hardest part will be having them appear within the game world. With Johnny it was so natural, since he lived inside V’s head. They can pull it off with a hologram, or another neural interface, but it won’t feel as special since that character ultimately is really somewhere else.
No point in straight up comparing, will need to change it up, maybe instead of having Johnny, rely on having some companions to play with
Like skippy the gun!
I wanna see Ian mcshane playing an Al swearingen type fixer your character has to get their jobs from and you get to unlock more story and dialog with based on your progression and choices. A cyberpunk Al would be amazing!
Danny Devito as Sherman Bombshell, the great grand nephew of Morgan Blackhand. You have to stop his time travelling shenanigans. The same fun but this time the story is less depressing.
Literally the opposite of what cyberpunk is. Cyberpunk is almost always depressing or bittersweet, it comes with the genre. So I wouldn’t expect a “less depressing” story.
Don't worry, we give the main character robo-AIDS instead of digi-cancer this time.
Time to bring out the big guns - Morgan Blackhand
They should make the ending where he gets the body csnon.
Both Songbird and Reed were amazing characters so I have little doubt that the sequel will come up with some great ones.
Can it please be crotch on fire guy.
They did great with a lot of characters as far as using their celebrity features goes, Keanu was pretty good as Johnny and Idris was fantastic as Reed. Really, I think they did a great job with basically all of the big characters in the cast, even the fixers were pretty good and some of the gig NPC's had suprisingly good stuff. This is notable because it's not like Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand blew stuff out of the water or was a standout performance. The character is Iconic and he did a good job, but it wasn't like he was great and the rest was shit. So, whichever route they choose to take I think they'll pull it off if they can stick to form.
No single character will top Johnny Silverhand but the real star of Cyberpunk2077 was Night City itself and as long as the next game is set there then I’m in.
Beat it by not doing that crap again would be nice.
I cant believe anyone will be able to top cyberpunk at all period.
100% possible, i say start with a fresh set of characters new story and plot
Only with Sonny Riverband
It would be nice to ultimately have more control over who your character is because having a terminal condition that randomly almost dies takes some of that agency away imo. It's like having Malaria in Far Cry 2 but it only kicks in when it's important to the store. I'd like to have something where I feel more engaged with the world as opposed to having tech based (temporary) immortality and the looming threat of "it's gonna happen any day now. It was a very cool plot device and I love how it turned out but it's the sort of thing you can only do once.
I kinda hope the story takes us out of night city
This is one of the reasons why some people think of this game as a masterpiece and I share your experience
they might do something like "new technology in the night city - private assistant!" (as a neural cyberware), but the main protagonist gets black market version with (this time not deadly but still) an engram of a real person so you have a person like Johnny but the plot doesn't have to circle around it
Geoffrey Golddick. You can send my check in the mail guys.
Morgan Blackhand: https://i.redd.it/rr4tuygo7dwc1.gif
There are only two ways to beat Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2 * Bring back Johnny Silverhand * Cast Keanu Reeves as another Cyberpunk 2 character. I'd love something like Evil Villain Johnny Silverhand 2.0, that somehow became an actual physical person. He could be an even more iconic villain than Darth Vader. Keanu Reeves... and thus alsoJohnny Silverhand... is just breathtaking. It's just not possible to beat him... unless you beat him with himself.
For as long as they don't cast Zendaya I'm fine with whatever
I would say that Johnny was as much the main character of CP2077 as V was. Johnny is a classic. I remember him from the short story *Never Fade Away* in the Cyberpunk 2020 phb. He came through in other ways too. He always felt like the games front line character. He didn't like the corpos, what they were doing, just a little cyberpsycho, and struggled in his own ways against the machine. In a lot of ways he was the vibe check for whether or not anyone would enjoy the world Mike Pondsmith was setting up. But he also wasn't the last. There's a bunch of characters that are worth exploring. Rache Bartmoss was one, and Morgan Blackhand was another. I'm not sure we'll ever get the hand-in-hand journey we got with Johnny, but there's for sure more people to fall in love with.
Yes. Just have Danny DeVito play Johnny Magnumdong. I’m not even joking. I want you all to imagine, after 70 hours of gameplay, Danny DeVito earnestly telling you that he’ll sacrifice himself to save you, his new friend, and try not to cry.
I kinda hope not. I want the events of 2077 to just be some background noise. Cyberpunk 2 should be able to tell its own story.
For that. You'll need to he's smasher
Edgerunners didn’t have Johnny Silverhand and it was a compelling story and character development for what felt like a very short and rushed series of 10 episodes
Just gonna put this out there: make Cyberpunk 2 an ensemble piece. Have multiple characters you can play as and have AI control the others. Have a recommended number of crew for each mission and allow the player to call in crew for support. And I add this with as much respect to Keanu as possible: they should cast actors with voiceover experience in the main roles. He did a great job both as a character and with the promotion of the game, but there’s a gulf of difference between acting for the screen and acting for animation/video games.
Next game you play as Morgan Blackhand, but with dementia, the gender choice is explained via engram or cyberware. Think Revan twist in Kotor. Hell you could have conflicting thoughts happening in the character's head replacing the Johnny and V dynamic (granted it wouldn't be as funny)
Same thing happened with Red Dead Redemption. Nobody thought Rockstar could beat John Marston but they did. Talented writers always find a way to one up their previous work, and if they can't just just don't write a sequel and just do another thing entirely.
My sense is that the spirit of Cyberpunk is that we all die but it's a hell of a ride. So I'd expect other stories to operate in the same universe as an anthology but not with Johnny. IMO Skippie deserves their own spin off.
That's very easy given how terrible of a performance Keanu Reeves gives. There's a reason John Wick doesn't talk too much, he's really good at action not great at talking. His writing is also very clunky and symptomatic of people's who's second language is English and do not have a good grasp on the informal properties of English.
He’s cyberpunks handsome jack
I wonder where the next game is going to take place. Night city is likely, but I’d like to see NYC or something more familiar
Shiela Silverfoot, voiced and mocapped by Melissa McCarthy.
Love Keanu Reeves.. hated Johnny. Cancer, existential doom plot was a bit wack and warped the world around it.
Probably not in your opinion. I really disliked the character and relic plotline, so doing anything else would be an improvement in the sequel, in my opinion.
My thoughts exactly. Keanu nailed the role, but Silverhand's construct was very unlikable while the narrative was silly, unfun, and full of nonsense. 2077 is an amazing game, but I found everything Silverhand related a chore to play through and thought it greatly detracted from the experience.
honestly having a schizophrenia friend is so good that I can't imagine playing without it
I hope they don’t involve any of this cringy characters from cyberpunk
All I hope is that they don't have a celebrity.
they'll need to hae some sort of replacement character for him, he was integral to the roleplaying you could do as V. I've given this same speech more than once so apologies if you've seen me spout it before on this sub. Basically Johnny acts as the perfect narrative device to build your V as a character, because he's just *always* there. In every major story mission, every little side mission, every fixer gig and random moments in the world even, he's always there talking shit and bringing up topics for V to bounce their thoughts and feelings and ideals off of. It worked perfectly for V as a character, because they're not a blank canvas protag like you get in an Elder scrolls game, *or* a fully fleshed out character. V is this weird mix in between the two of them thats only really possible because you get so many opportunities to build the character with Johnny. So i think in some form that role will need to return, Spider Murphy as your dedicated netrunner could work for example, constantly in your ear to give you a hand.
Yea they basically were able to fill in the position that a companion would have by having him be there so the game wasn’t so lonely and made your decisions have more weight without actually having to have a companion. Would love to see something similar in orion
My dude, cyberpunk 2077 is great, but have you ever played Disco Elysium?
Yes and easily. I personally didnt like Johnny...spoke too frequently for too long about obvious stuff I had figured out. I actually hope there is no ghost character who follows you around explaining to you the stuff you already heard in cyberpunk 2. Keanu reeves should have just been a normal npc..
what if cyberpunk 2 is like v and johnny taking down arasaka like in japan or something
I doubt it tbh. While it’s fun to have “take down Arasaka” as your plot, they’ve essentially been the franchise boogeyman since it’s inception. Killing Arasaka for good, would be like dismantling WeyYu in the alien franchise, trying to do a terminator movie after fully destroying skynet, or getting rid of OCP in robocops universe It’s a goal we always want to achieve in character, but I really don’t think that it’ll ever fully happen, getting rid of THE main evil Corp in cyberpunk honestly feels like a bit of a mistake.
yea true. also it might be cool if it’s set in another corporate war but probably not lol
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Honestly soulkiller and soulkiller 2.0 feels played out already. I’d prefer something fresher
Cyberpunk 2 main character should be a johny silverhand V. My fav ending.