few days back we were given an Official Unlisted Q&A Youtube Video with Philipp Weber. Answering questions from the Russian Cyberpunk 2077 Community about the game. During this Q&A, a few new tid bits of information were revealed with an official confirmation that the Photo Mode is indeed in the game, and from the sounds of it will probably work pretty similar to what you can find in games such as Doom Eternal.
The Video doesn't give you english translations for what questions are actually asked....but thanks to Reddit community member ColdFir3_, We now have the full transcripts which I will list below which you can go along with the video if you'd like to have full context to what is being asked when he answers back. Cheers!
Q1. Are there Russian speaking characters or someone related to Russian culture?
Yeah, there's actually quite a bunch of Russian influences because Night City is basically influenced from cultures all around the world. So you… specifically Russian influences, you might notice a few details like, as an example, specific graffiti that might have some Russian slang on them, you know, specific little nods to Russian culture and literature. Or to, you know, to Russian youth culture. And there's also a gang that we, you know, usually call the Scavengers which have lots of Russian influences… like to listen to, you know, Russian music, have some Russian graffiti. So I think you might find lots of nice little details and secrets.
Q2. Will it be possible to do mundane tasks, like eating or taking shower, without a quest attached to them?
Yeah! So you can actually do quite a few things; so you can of course eat and drink. We're not making a survival game so you don't have to drink and eat in regular intervals, but of course, you know, eating and drinking can give you special bonus in combat, or you know, for your stats. So it's always useful and sometimes, you know, you just want to do it for flavor. So as an example in certain scenes when you're eating with a character you can choose to eat with that character or have a drink or you can choose not to do it. And of course if you're in your apartment you can turn on the shower, the toilet, or you can even use a mirror if you want to. So we want to give you some opportunities to try and, you know, live that cyberpunk life. You can go and buy some nice things or you can maybe sometimes sit down on a bench and just enjoy the view. So we want to just give you that opportunity to role play a little bit like that.
Q3. How densely Night City is populated? Will it depend on time of the day or story progress?
Uh, it always depends on a few factors. So of course, you know, the weather depends if it's raining. Not that many people want to be outside or at night in some parts of the city not that many people will be outside but at other times, you know, if there's big nightlife there will be even more people. So we just try to keep it really natural. So sometimes streets will be kind of empty if there's nothing much going on or, you know, if it's a dangerous area not many people want to walk around. But there are also areas in our game where it's really full of people and, you know, sometimes—and I don't want to spoil you the story—there might be a special story events that also cause huge crowds. So we just try to kind of keep it natural and have people wherever it makes sense.
Q4. Can you have sidekicks, other than Jackie? How many potential sidekicks are in game?
There actually are quite a few people that you can, you know, play different quests with that are very important to the story and also come with you on specific missions or, you know, just for having a drink on a drive and, you know, like Jackie they will be very important. And there's actually lots of them and quite important ones that we haven't shown yet at all. So i'm really looking forward to people meeting these characters and finding out what they're all about and, you know, some of these characters depending on your choices, you might like and they might like you, and some of those characters might become your foes or your enemies. So it's of course, you know, we're making a role-playing game so it's all up to you… and sometimes you might make a friend or a lover and sometimes you can make an enemy. But it's really important for us that we have these, you know, important characters that can be with you in your story and wherever it makes sense for them to be.
Q5. Can you side with any of the gangs?
So yeah, there are many different factions in the game, but you can decide how you act with them. V is a mercenary so you're mostly independent and you take jobs from all different directions. But within these jobs of course you have a lot of choice. So as an example, if you might have a job with a Maelstrom Gang that involves them, you might have to take something from them… you can decide to be, you know, bad, kill them all or, you know, say some bad things or you can try to be a bit more, you know, clever and maybe later people from this Maelstrom Gang that you treated well might actually be much nicer to you and now you have some friends in that gang. But we didn't want to have you, you know, join specific gangs because that's not what our story is about. We try to keep it, you know, very realistic—what you as a character would do—even if we give you a lot of choice. But you can really decide how you act with these different gangs and of course that will also influence the story.
Q6. Can you side with any of the corporations?
Yeah, it's very similar to the gang. So there are many very important corporations in the games, as an example, Arasaka, Militech or, you know, Russian corporation Soft Oil and… you can decide how you act with them; if you want to be more friendly to the Corporation. Of course, if you choose the corporate life path you might have some previous experience that might make these things easier and, you know, what to tell these corporations so they like you. But of course you can also decide to, you know, not trust them that much and try to, you know, look for your luck somewhere else.
Q7. Can you play as a "bad guy"?
Uh, you can decide to make many very bad choices and pretty much whenever you want to, kill people, but, you know, we we don't let you just murder everyone in the streets because first of all we try to tell a story and if you could just kill everyone and just blow up the whole city that wouldn't work very well. But also, you know, there are people in the city that try to stop you. So as an example, if you just shoot people out in the open the NCPD—so the police—might actually put out a contract on you. So people actually would get money for killing you and then of course they hunt you down. But at the same time you actually can benefit from that as well; if there's some gangster who has a big, you know, money reward on him if you take him out that money is yours.
Q8. Can you remain a good person and not kill/rob anyone? [I guess it's about beating the game like that]
Yes, you can actually go through the game without killing anyone. However you can't be a full pacifist, so, you know, there might always be some opportunities where you do have to use violence, or, you know, you just have to knock out someone or take them down, but you do not have to kill anyone. Because the thing is V is, you know, living in a very violent world. V is a Mercenary, so we always might have to use violence, but you can always be very clever about how you do it. And as an example, you can use non-lethal weaponry, or of course you can use stealth to circumvent certain areas, or sometimes if you, you know, use your choices really well in dialogues you can also just skip some areas completely, or find completely peaceful solutions.
Q9. Can we drink alcohol, for example, in bar?
Yeah, there you can drink alcohol if you want to, uh, we basically give that you as a role-playing choice because of course, you know, there are many people that might want to have a drink with you. And you could choose whether you want to do it or not, and of course, characters can react in a natural way to them if you would want to do that. Of course there's also, you know, some other substances that you could choose to take or not and we basically leave that up to you. But of course, you know, there's also many important drinks in the world of Cyberpunk, as an example, Johnny Silverhand has his own unique drink so, you know, it was very important for us to make that very realistic.
Q10. Will CP77 resemble Witcher3 in player's choices and consequences?
Yeah, choices are still very important to us because, you know, especially me as a quest designer we're basically working on trying to build on our foundation that we made with the Witcher: Wild Hunt and we always want to have our choices to be very important and very impactful and… it's very important for us that, of course, you never know the outcome. Sometimes, you know, a choice might be not that important, it's just something nice you can say to a character and they might react to it later—or not—you know, sometimes it's just role-playing. But very often we really want to have those consequences and sometimes, you know, that might be a small consequence. Sometimes it might just come up later again, someone might like you a bit more or a bit less. But sometimes these can also be really, really big consequences. And for us, like with the Witcher, we want to do it in a way that you never know when. So you basically always have to be on your toes. Also, of course we never tell you, you know, this is the good choice… this is the bad choice… this is a funny choice… you basically just have to use your head, and you have to read characters that you're talking to. Sometimes saying the same thing to two different characters might produce a completely different outcome and, you know, it was always important for us to handle it like that, because that basically means that you really try to play as your character, and you think a little bit about what you're saying, so you can't just always think, “oh, i'm making all the good choices.” Because sometimes you try to make a good choice… but through a logical consequence of things maybe sometimes it might have a bad result.
Q11. Can character become a cyborg?
So you can actually get tons and tons of Cyberware and, you know, of course also different Cyberware that gets progressively better. But if you're, let's say, thinking about someone like Adam Smasher, that you might have seen in one of our trailers, uh, V specifically isn't going that far just yet because, you know, it's not part of the story we're telling that you're becoming like this huge colossus that's basically not human anymore. Also Adam Smasher, you know, he needed 50 years to get that far… eh, but definitely you can actually change your body quite a lot. And the thing is Cyberware in Night City isn't just about, you know, specific abilities that make you stronger, better, faster—Cyberware is also just fashion, it's like, you know, having an iPhone! So pretty much almost everyone in Night City has some kind of Cyberware and sometimes it's just for looking cool and, you know, some of those Cyberware things might also just, you might want to have to just look cool.
Q12. How can we change V's appearance through the game?
So we want to give you actually lots and lots of different options in your character creation, so you can pretty much create the character you want to create. You can choose your body, your face, your voice… and of course, you know, we want to give you lots of different choices within these things so, you know, lots of different hair, makeup, noses, eyes, and so on, but the thing is after the game starts and you create it the way your character wants to look like, of course, you know, we offer you lots of different clothing styles because, you know, style is very important in Night City. And you can choose to, as an example, where a cool jacket, or you can role-play as many different directions, so as an example, there might be outfits that look more corporate if you want to look like that kind of character. And we don't want to limit you in a way that, you know, as an example, you have to wear this jacket because it gives you 50 more armor—we don't do it like that—we basically give you slots so you can modify your clothing and of course the clothing can have very good effects on you, but, you can still choose what clothing you use for that, so it's very important for us that you can actually choose the way you look like in a way that is cool for you because of course you also might want to show off your character. You can of course see your character in mirrors, the inventory, you can look down at yourself and we also want to offer a really deep photo mode; where you can then of course put your character into different cool scenes, so that's why it was very important for us that you can actually choose the way you want to look like.
Q13. Will it be possible to redistribute skill points/attributes through out the game?
Yes you can absolutely read a street, uh, redistribute them because we want to give you a fluid class system that allows you to basically create your character in any way you want, so as an example, there are many different perk trees and attributes you can choose from. As an example, if you want to be more like a Netrunner… you can use lots of Netrunning skills. You can lots of, use lots of skills from the stealth tree. But we want you to be able to experiment because we don't have these fixed classes. We want to have you be able to choose anything you want and of course sometimes you might choose something you don't like, or you want to just try out something else, and that's why it was important for us that you're able to also redistribute your attributes later on.
Q14. Weather! Will it change and how? What weather we can expect? Something like acid rains?
So as like in the Witcher it's very important for us to really give you this dynamic world, so it of course means there is a dynamic day and night cycle, but also dynamic ways in the way the weather can change. So sometimes you might have nice sunshine, sometimes it rains, or is foggy, or, you know, there might be some big storms out in the Badlands. And of course, sometimes through, you know, the environment not being that nice in the future of 2077 there can also be acid rain.
Q15. What transport we will be able to use in CP77?
So there's many different vehicles in Night City, of course you as a player you can drive many different cars, yeah, you know, you might start with a car that's not so nice… but later in the game you can, as an example, buy really nice sports cars, or of course, you can get cars sometimes as a reward for certain quests, or missions. And of course, there's not just cars but there's also motorcycles that you can buy and you can drive around the city. There's also some more vehicles, like as an example, there's these huuuge big AVs that you can see in the sky above Night City, or these smaller AVs that fly around, as an example, limousines. But we want to keep those for specific story moments and you might wanna, you might ride in them with someone else steering them but we don't want to let you pilot them yourself.
Q16. Will we see any utility vehicles?
There's some utility vehicles like that. So as an example, there might be AVs that are there to just transport, eh, big freight containers, but there's also taxis, as an example, without spoiling too much there's an A.I. taxi company called Delamain, and you might have some adventures with that Delamain, but I don't want to tell you yet how those look like.
Q17. What other types of income V will have in game, other than contracts.
So of course V is basically a Mercenary in Night City and the main income of a Mercenary is to do different jobs for Fixers. And Fixers are basically people that work in different parts of the city. So, as an example, Dexter DeShawn… and they get jobs from people that can pay a lot and basically the Fixer's job is to find a Merc like you who can do that job. And… basically the better you are as a Merc; the more jobs you do, the more street cred you earn and basically they give you better gigs. So basically if you're a more famous Merc, the Fixer trusts that you can do some better work and of course then you can do some gigs that get you more money. But there's also some other ways to make money, as an example, as part of the story sometimes through some means you might earn some money. Or as an example, you can try to do some fighting; some fist fights, or some car racing. And the thing is, there's also some other systems in the world. As an example, you know, crime is a very big problem in Night City and the police is pretty corrupt, so there's also solutions, like as an example, big criminals have money on their heads. So if you take out those criminals you can kill them, or you can do it with non-lethal means, you might gain the reward.
Q18. Will there be people of other ethnicities and nationalities who will speak their native language?
So yes, there's a very strong cultural influence all over Night City because there's basically many people from all around the world. As an example, you have parts of a city like Japan Town, that of course, you know, have strong influences from Japanese culture. And the thing is, there's also some people that still speak, you know, their own language; as an example, if you saw our Deep Dive last year, you might have met the VooDoo Boys that still speak in their Haitian creole accent, and the thing is… since this is Cyberpunk you can actually install Cyberware that gives you real-time translation of those different languages.
Q19. Can NPC become hostile to player?
Yes, of course! So as an example, this can just happen out in the world, if you commit some crimes, if you just suddenly become violent, then people will respond to that. So as an example, you know, the NCPD might start chasing you… civilians run away or, you know, if there's a gang nearby they might also just start attacking you. But of course, it can also happen in the story if, you know, there's a certain scene where you say something wrong… people might start attacking you. And of course, you know, we don't want to tell you, “oh, this choice makes those people upset,” you of course have to just use your head a little bit. If you want to be aggressive and, you know, this is something you want—and you can play the game like that—but if you want to be more diplomatic you can, of course, always choose to say some things that might make people not become, you know, aggressive towards you.
Q20. Would like to know about death mechanics of the game. How it would work?
So, you know, character death in our game is basically always a game over. You have to load your save game… of course, you know, there can be many different ways, as an example, in the story where we get, you know, really badly injured that then we might use in, you know, creative ways but we want, we really wanted to say that player death is game over… but also, very importantly is that “mission failure” isn't game over. There are ways that, as an example, you can fail a story mission, or you can make mistakes, but the game just doesn't end you don't have to replay the mission. Now, basically you have to live with those consequences… and if you fail some task, this will now have consequences for the rest of the game and will of course, you know, change the story.
Q21. There were a lot of mysterious quests and locations in Witcher3. Will something like that be in CP2077? What about horror?
Of course I don't want to spoil specific missions for you… but the thing is if you read, you know, lots of different cyberpunk books or watch movies or play games, you can see that within the cyberpunk genre there are many different stories that you can tell, and of course, you know, some more philosophical stories have a place there. Or, you know, maybe something that's more like horror. Or of course, you know, also straightforward action… and it was really important for us to really, you know, tell those different stories because, for us as developers that's the most important thing! That's the most interesting thing for us to do. When we really come up with, you know, quests we think, “so what is a quest, that, why is this quest special?” Or, “why does this quest need to be in the game?” And often, one reason is that this is just a very important and interesting topic that we want to work with, and we that we want to show players. And of course, that can also means that there's some more, let's say, you know, mystical topics. But at the end of the day, eh, cyberpunk isn't a fantasy game so it will still be, you know, rooted in the cyberpunk science fiction world.
Q22. Does story have linear progression or multiple events can happen simultaneously in game?
So we're trying to make the game really non-linear, so you can basically choose however you want to play the game. Of course, you know, there are main story missions that you have to do… that are kind of linear, you know, as an example, at the start, but then the game opens up a lot. And the thing is, you know—you might all already know from the Witcher: Wild Hunt—we try to tell very nonlinear stories even within our quests. So you as a player have lots of choice and these consequences can change the story and… they can change the story in a way that, you know, you might not see complete storylines, complete quests at all, because of decisions that you made. And we actually think that's a really good thing because we want to have it in the end… that you have your own experience of cyberpunk—you played it in a way that no one else played it. And that's why it's very important for us to make it non-linear—and yeh, of course that means that some quests, many players might not even see, but we actually think that's a pretty cool thing because that just makes them much more special for the players that do.
Q23. Will there be multiplayer and when?
Sooo, we can't talk about multiplayer a lot yet. We can say that there are people working on something for multiplayer of cyberpunk, but right now, we are still fully focused on delivering the proper single-player rpg experience.
Q24. CP2077 by its core is a first person shooter or a role playing game?
So, we still think of cyberpunk as a true and proper rpg, and we actually want to show that a lot with our fluid class system. So we actually want to give you even more depth than in previous games to really define your character. So, you know, you have lots of attributes, perks, you know, of course different items… so we actually still think cyberpunk is a truly proper rpg. But it also means that, you know, let's say, if you do want to shoot, we wanted to make the shooting feel really good. We didn't want to make it in a way that, “yeah, this is an rpg, and you can shoot two but, you know…” We really wanted to make it a true and proper rpg. But if you shoot, it should feel good enough to be, you know, good enough for a proper shooter.
Q25. Can you burn that city?
Eh, that's a very difficult question because, you know, giving you a proper answer might be spoiling some events of the game. But the thing is of course, you know, in the open world you can cause some mayhem, you can burn down some things, you know. You can blow up cars… you can just shoot around. But the thing is also, you know, the story of Cyberpunk is mainly, like the cyberpunk genre, like Mike Pondsmith said it really nicely; that “…cyberpunk is about saving yourself.” So it's more about you, V, saving you, and not that much about, you know, like the big picture, like the big city. You do interact with these things a lot, but, you know, all the things that you might interact with, still are very deeply ingrained in your own personal emotional journey. And maybe the journey might lead to, you know, some bigger things happening… ehh, especially because, you know, you are connected to Johnny Silverhand, who—as some people who know the pen-and-paper Cyberpunk 2020—likes to, burn down the city, eh, so…there might be some things in the future that you might find interesting.
