The Cyberpunk 2077 Deep Dive Demo

Hey folks! It's been a couple of weeks, I know, life happens. Anyway, it's finally here! The Cyberpunk 2077 demo that was shown at E3 has been put online for us to see. Well, sort of. It's actually only fifteen minutes of footage with some voiceover. The reasoning is that what was shown is midway through the game and involves some heavy spoilers. That's fine, I still want to talk about this. Yes, I'm aware there's been some more controversy regarding this game recently, no, I'm not going address it, because I find the whole thing stupid. Alright, lets dive in.

We open to see V (female) stepping into a bath full of ice-water, she's then jacked in to the local network, the screen begins to shift. V finds herself in the Data Fortress of the people she's working with (I believe it's the Voodoo Boys gang), overlooking the bridge to the Deep Net. We cut to some quick scenes of driving and combat before a voiceover welcomes us to the Cyberpunk 2077, 2019 Deep Dive Video. The voice informs us that this demo will show a couple of the playstyles available in the game. Specifically, a female Strong Solo build and a male Netrunner build. The Strong Solo focus on blunt force and a head on, guns blazing approach. The Netrunner takes advantage of stealth, hacking and "battlefield control using malicious software." The two builds have the following stats.

Solo - Body 09. Intelligence 04. Reflexes 07. Technical 09. Cool 04.

Netrunner - Body 04. Intelligence 09. Reflexes 04. Technical 07. Cool 09.

The demo will show us the district of Pacifica, two of the gangs, the Animals and the Voodoo Boys, and Johnny Silverhand, the Keanu Reeves character revealed at E3. A warning appears that spoilers will follow, although the footage has been edited to show as few spoilers as possible.

Pacifica is one of Night City's six districts. Originally built as a high-class tourist hotspot, but investors pulled funding, leaving most buildings incomplete. Constant gang wars, and unwelcoming to outsiders, Pacifica is dangerous even by Night City Standards. If you want to move safely through the district, you'll need a motorcycle or an armored car. I'd personally take the armored car. However, Pacifica has a local market full of illegal and rare hardware. We arrive in front of an abandoned mall that's been taken over by a gang that calls themselves the Animals. The Animals are the rivals of the Voodoo Boys.

A gang profile of the Voodoo Boys pops up. We learn that they're the best Netrunners in Night City, and close with the local Haitian community who make up most of Pacifica's population. V needs to earn the trust of the Voodoo Boys, so V agrees to do a job for them, find out what the Animals are doing in Pacifica.

Now we get a gang profile of the Animals. They're all about melee combat and used a combination of implants and a hyper-steroid called juice. They all look like baseball players on steroids. So, you know, basically the entire MLB. They do a lot of work as bouncers, selling drugs, and underground fight clubs. They're led by a giant of a woman named Sasquatch. It's V's job to get to her.

We get a brief look at character creation and the three background options: Nomad, Street Kid, and Corporate. Depending on your past, you can unlock different dialogue options with certain NPCs. The character creation shows tons of options with body type, appearance, eye color, hair color, skin tone and surface wiring. You can adjust your starting stats, and we get a brief look at the abilities you can unlock and upgrade.

First, we checkout the female Solo build. A high strength allows V to rip a turret off its hinges and use it against the Animals. Enhanced strength will also let V force open doors, and we see her tear a door open. V can even grab an enemy and use them as a human shield. This build unlocks melee combat cyberware, letting V take down opponents like Sasquatch. Sasquatch knocks V over and starts to hack her, but by hitting a power pack on her spine, V can take her down. You now have the choice to kill or spare Sasquatch. I'm sure both choices will have consequences later.

Now we go to the male Netrunner. V hacks into enemy tech and uses it to his advantage. At one point he hacks into a weightlifting machine and overrides the safety, crushing the gang member using it to death. V can hack into local networks using a cable in his left wrist. The higher your skill, the more parts of a network you can hack, so not just cameras, but potentially turrets and robots as well. We see V hack a training bot, and it punches the human opponents head clean off. Almost everything appears to be hackable in this game, allowing you to create distractions and all other types of mayhem. Which brings us to…

Cyberspace. All kinds of enemies exist on the net and will fight you. Netwatch is one such organization, whose main purpose is maintaining order and keeping hackers from reaching too far into the deep net. We see V hack a Netwatch agent.

The demo ends with the voice over telling us every decision has consequences which will shape how the world changes. This will affect relationships with people, including Johnny Silverhand, the AI living in your brain thanks to a microchip you can't get rid of. But even Johnny has his own agenda. End Demo.

And that's the Cyberpunk 2077 E3 footage. I won't lie, I was hoping to see more, but everything in it excited me. I can't wait to play it. What do you guys think? Are you more or less excited now? Sound off!

One final, non-Cyberpunk 2077 thought. I've recently become aware of an upcoming RPG called GreedFall. It looks to be in the style of Dragon Age Inquisition. Check it out, I think it's worth keeping an eye on. See you next time folks.