Is Cyberpunk 2077 an RPG?
The first of many! Find out if I think Cyberpunk 2077 is an RPG!
Cyberpunk 2077 was highly anticipated as the next masterpiece from CD Projekt Red, following the success of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. However, its development took about 8 years and the game was released in a disappointing state.
Despite its rocky start, CD Projekt Red has significantly improved the game since its release, fulfilling many of the promises made back in 2012.
Character Customization
In Cyberpunk 2077, players take on the role of V, a character whose story they can shape according to their preferences. Players can choose from three character backgrounds, known as Lifepaths:
Nomad: V leaves their nomad family and ventures to Night City in search of work.
Streetkid: After returning from out of town, V navigates the streets they grew up in.
Corpo: V lives a busy life as an Arasaka counterintel agent, aiming to climb to the top.
Each Lifepath influences V's starting point in the game, including their personality, past experiences, and relationship with their best friend, Jackie. These choices also affect gameplay later on, unlocking certain actions or dialogue choices.
Character creation in Cyberpunk 2077 offers a decent amount of customization options, from body type and voice to tattoos and genital sizes. However, there are limitations, such as the inability to adjust height and only having male or female body types with no in-between options like being slightly skinny or chubby.
You can create interesting-looking characters with the customization options, but not too much that your V’s appearance ventures off the cyberpunk aesthetic and into fantasy realms.
Aside from your appearance, you can also allocate up to 7 Attribute points to 5 different Attributes at the beginning of the game: Body, Intelligence, Reflexes, Technical Ability, and Cool. These points are earned by leveling up.
Attributes, Perks, and Skills
Attributes influence specific actions in the game. For example, having a high Body Attribute lets you open doors forcefully, while a high Technical Ability helps you override digital locks. Each Attribute represents a different playstyle which serves as a substitute for traditional character classes or archetypes.
Each Attribute also has Perks, which provide passive or active abilities like increased movement speed or more combat maneuvers. You spend Perk points to upgrade these abilities and also gain them by raising your character level.
Additionally, there is another system called Skills that offers passive abilities. Skills are pretty similar to Perks but without the point distribution. Instead, you level them up through repeated actions.
Overall, Cyberpunk 2077 reimagines the traditional implementation of Stats, Skills, and Abilities through its Attributes, Perks, and Skills system. These systems determine your health, abilities, and skills without requiring you to allocate points to the traditional Stats and Skills systems which simply show Health, Stamina, Mana, Skills, and more.
Quests, Choices, and Solutions
A key aspect of modern RPGs is the range of choices and solutions available in dialogue and quests. While I haven't kept track of the exact number of quests with varying choices, I can confirm that there are a lot of them.
Despite this, there are four main problems I found with the quest design:
Most of these quests revolve around combat.
The easiest solution is almost always combat.
The non-violent choices and solutions often require a much higher level or stat.
Most of the choices do not greatly affect the outcome.
The majority of the quests in Cyberpunk 2077 revolve around combat or avoiding combat. While combat is an important aspect of RPGs, many quests result in direct combat if a more diplomatic or stealthy approach fails. Most of the time, it's even easier to complete the mission by simply eliminating your enemies.
This is partly because of the Attributes, Perks, and Skills system, which strongly favors combat. While you have the option to choose non-violent paths, most quests are easier to complete through violence, or the requirements for a non-violent approach are often too high.
An example of this is seen in Act 1's main story mission, The Pickup. Most choices you make lead to fighting either the Maelstrom or Militech right after your conversation with Royce. The only peaceful resolution is the least obvious choice.
When opting for non-violent choices, you would either take a stealth approach or negotiate your way out of combat.
However, most side quests lack dialogue options that can resolve conflicts or help you reach your objective peacefully. Instead, you often end up resorting to stealth, which can lead to combat if you fail.
Even when dialogue options are available, choosing the correct ones rarely leads to resolving the quest without violence. Most of the time, it simply alters the sequence of events or the enemies you encounter later on.
This is apparent in Takemura's main story quests: Down on the Street, Gimme Danger, Play It Safe, and Search and Destroy.
None of these quests can be completed without violence, and the dialogue choices only change insignificant parts of the quests.
While there are limitations to the solutions and choices in each story, there are different Main Story paths you can take in each Act with their own variants. One of these paths involves following Takemura's storyline after completing all of his main story quests.
Main Story, and Branching Paths
The Main Story path you choose is determined by the character you select for the final Main Story mission, and each path also leads to different endings. These endings vary widely, with variants based on the choices you make at each one.
Regarding the Main Story, it's relatively shorter than The Witcher 3 if you choose to play it without getting sidetracked. However, it's still quite long with many cutscenes, character dialogue, and complex quests involved.
Storytelling, and Pacing
A good RPG requires a good main story, and Cyberpunk 2077 delivers an emotional and moving one. Its main theme is life and imminent death.
What will you do with the time you have left? What things matter the most when your life is slipping away? Who do you seek out? Where do you go? Will you fight, or simply accept fate? Will meanings change, or will things remain the same?
These are the main questions that arise when roleplaying as V. I like it, and the storytelling is done well.
My only small gripe is that the choices that actually affect the Main Story are very few. Again, this isn't a big deal. I think having too many choices that matter can dilute the storytelling and structure, but having too few can feel like we're simply watching a movie. Cyberpunk 2077 tried to strike a balance, and it's good enough in my opinion.
The quality of pacing in Cyberpunk 2077 can vary based on how players approach the game. The pacing of the main story alone is fine, but the inevitability of exploration and sidetracking in Cyberpunk 2077’s open-world setting can ruin this.
Open World Design and Detail
The open world setting of Night City and its outskirts is well-crafted, featuring intricate details in both large structures and small set pieces.
However, there are some areas where details seem to be lacking, such as the Laguna Bend Dam where you can see a sea of trash floating if you venture down.
Of course, this begs the question, "why would you even go there?" Simple, curiosity.
Unfortunately, you also can’t get out of this sea of trash, forcing you to reload from a previous save file.
Despite this flaw, Night City retains its vibrant yet gritty atmosphere, with dirty alleyways and littered sidewalks contrasting against bright city lights and billboards.
Random Encounters and Sidequests
Night City and its outskirts are also filled with various side quests to complete. While you might expect most of these to be dynamic and random encounters since Cyberpunk 2077 is a modern game, all side quests are scripted one-off events.
Most of these side quests are also marked on your map without reason, but there are some you can discover organically by getting close to them. With numerous side quests to complete, it can take around 50 hours to finish them all, and you may even forget that they are not fixed events.
As mentioned before, the nature of gameplay in an open-world setting can ruin the game’s pacing and make it feel bloated and never-ending. At its worst, players may feel fatigued by the sheer amount of content they feel obligated to complete.
Although the open-world setting is not inherently a design flaw or a forced system that players must engage with, its inclusion and the level of detail put into it often encourage players to explore and interact with it.
Choosing not to engage with the open-world aspects of the game can sometimes leave players feeling as though they are missing out on something significant.
Is Cyberpunk 2077 an RPG?
I understand, there are many features and content I haven't covered. However, delving into each system would make this post excessively lengthy.
The systems I've mentioned are, I think, the most crucial aspects of the game and are the ones I think shape Cyberpunk 2077's identity as an RPG.
At the most basic level, Cyberpunk 2077 has all the features of a modern RPG game from character customization, stat progression, and a compelling story, to different choices and solutions, as well as branching paths.
The downside, however, is that some of these features fall short in giving Cyberpunk 2077 a more RPG experience. But that might just be how they intended the game to be.
Character customization provides players with ample freedom to role-play as themselves while embodying the character of V. The Attributes, Perks, and Skills systems offer a refreshing take on the traditional class and archetype system.
However, Dialogue choices that are intended to have a significant impact on the story often do not matter.
Additionally, there is a notable lack of reactivity among NPCs who should be influenced by the player's decisions. Even more concerning is the indifference displayed by NPCs who are related or connected to each other, as they frequently show little concern when another NPC dies or experiences significant events.
The feeling of bloatedness and incoherent pacing isn’t a flaw in Cyberpunk 2077 itself, but a flaw of open-world game design. As far as I know, no game has fully solved this issue aside from downsizing the map or separating the whole setting into one or multiple semi-open world regions instead.
Another problem is that all systems encourage combat as the strongest option, and almost all quests make it so combat is the easiest solution, the only solution, or the default fail state of a non-violent solution.
This includes your Attributes, Perks, and Skills, all of which improve your combat capabilities whether stealthy or not.
While I understand that RPG games have always presented combat as a large part of the gameplay loop, particularly in solving quests, gaining experience points, and unlocking content, combat in Cyberpunk 2077 is so extensive that it often leads the game more towards being a pure action experience rather than an RPG.
By this nature, I classify Cyberpunk 2077 as an Action-RPG set in a sci-fi setting.
It's not necessarily that the game lacks RPG systems and elements, but rather that the implementation of these systems, alongside quest design and the predominant gameplay experience, often makes it feel more like an action game than an RPG.
RPG Percentage, Scoring, and Rating
If you haven’t seen my RPG reviewer, you can check it out here. It is my way of measuring the RPG elements of a game.
This reviewer of mine found Cyberpunk 2077 to have 80% of Modern RPG Core Elements.
While Cyberpunk 2077’s non-RPG elements may sometimes dilute the overall gameplay experience, I think that there are enough systems in place to support the RPG experience. Despite the game often deviating into an Action-FPS or Hack n’ Slash, the gameplay loop still retains elements of an RPG when it matters most.
In conclusion, I firmly believe that Cyberpunk 2077 qualifies as an RPG game. However, I can totally see why some do not consider it as one. That is perfectly fine.
PS.
The elements of Cyberpunk 2077 I took note of are the:
Character Lifepaths
Character Customization
Attributes, Perks, and Skills
Dialogue and Quest Design
Main Story and Endings
Open-World Exploration
RPG Elements and Combat System
I could have talked more about romance options, potential companions, weapons, clothes, and armor, but I don't think they significantly impact whether Cyberpunk 2077 is considered an RPG. In my opinion, they don't affect its RPG status enough to make a positive or negative difference.
Here are more Cyberpunk 2077-related posts if you are interested!