#I have committed the exact same crime with the Witcher if that helps

[in-tua-deep]

So I followed you years ago for the first season of tua. It has been years and now tua has come to an end. I just watched the final season. Did you or will you watch it? I might not be able to recommend it. Which is such a shame. The first season was amazing and will be forever one of my favorite shows.

I have a terrible confession to make…

I’ve only fully watched season one of the umbrella academy. I started season 2 and haven’t finished it yet 😭

[eccentrick-ramblings]

The visage of love has long been elusive. It is a shape-shifting word, exalted and cursed in the same breath, but wistfully longed for once it's gone. Love is feared and shunned, exiled for crimes committed against the heart. 

Jaskier can go on about love for hours, if he has to. He knows enough about it, in fact, that he calls himself something of an expert. The thought of love crosses his mind often. Too often, if his witcher has anything to say about it besides his signature grunt. 

But, if you had invisible shards of glass shredding the soles of your feet and intangible thorns wrapped between your toes, ready to draw every ounce of punishment for wanting more, you'd have to have something on your mind too. 

Sometimes, he asks himself, why? What about this land, this wretched continent in all its hideous glory, made him long for legs? To be able to walk on two feet? He can't remember the exact moment he decided he wanted to leave the sea behind, not in so many words or moments. What was even appealing to him at the time? The shores bloodied by war, or perhaps the burning lights of the pyres? 

But, every time he finds himself close to regret, the world reminds him, brings him back to himself. A child shyly asking for a song, giving Jaskier a toothy smile as he starts a silly ditty. A peasant family feeding him when the rotting fruit thrown at him won't suffice, or he has no stale bread to stuff in his pants.

Or, a witcher who helps those who scorn him. 

You can say that the witcher only does what he does for the coin; it's in the 'code' Geralt keeps invoking even when Jaskier knows it's a crock of bullshit. But he's been there during lean times; when even Geralt is going hungry, his body still strong but heading towards gaunt, where all Jaskier can hope for in taverns is a bowl of watery stew and a bed to rest his weary head. During those times, Geralt does what he can do to help, since lean times means necrophages and wraiths, and only asks for payment when he knows they are able. Usually, he asks for grain instead, for Roach, or cured meat for him and Jaskier. 

The witcher is an ass, granted. Jaskier will never deny that.

"Can we please stop for the night, Geralt? Geralt. Geralt. Can we stop for the night? I can keep this up if you need me too. I know how much you love my fillingless pie of a voice." 

Jaskier can see Geralt's grip on Roach's reins tighten for a moment before he loosens it. From the broad of his back, Jaskier can deduce that he's irritating the witcher. Good. His feet feel like they've swollen to twice their size, the glass and thorns drawing no blood but creating an ache in his veins regardless. They've been walking for hours, and he knows there's a decent sized town ahead. If they keep this up, the pain will crawl up his legs and settle in his hips, so that even laying down to sleep will be agonizing. 

He walks faster despite the screaming in his feet and sidles up to Geralt, "Look, even Roach is tired! Right, Roach?" 

Roach lifts her head up and down, side to side in a horsey agreement. 

"Don't think I don't know you've been bribing her to agree with you," Geralt says, but he doesn't sound too put out. 

Once the town is in sight Geralt stops without any long suffering sighs, so Jaskier suspects he's tired as well. Or perhaps, wants to have his own room away from Jaskier, but he doesn't want to think about that. He hums to himself, thinking about getting his lute out of its case and playing a set in the nearest tavern. 

The town is big enough to have two, so Jaskier goes to the loudest one, leaving Geralt to brush Roach down and get her settled in a stable. Once he steps into the rowdy tavern, his heart drops.

If it was any other person, Jaskier would praise the fact that she can stand out from the crowd with barely a glance. But Yennefer, with her long locks of black hair and striking purple eyes lined with thick eyelashes, does not bring out awe in him. 

Oh.

So that's why Geralt was so willing to stay here.

He knows he can't avoid her, and as he walks over to her table in the corner (why do Geralt and Yennefer have this strange thing in common? Are they brood-sexual? Is this why they're so hot for each other?) the pain in the joints of his feet double. 

"Bard." Yennefer greets. It holds less bite than usual. 

"Witch." 

Her nose wrinkles as Jaskier sits down across from her. "If I can smell you across the room, I fear what Geralt will reek of." 

Jaskier is suddenly too tired to be offended. He probably does smell. He just wishes such a simple thing wouldn't have the power to make him feel even worse when coming out of the witch's mouth. She knows she already won. Why must she rub it in?

She tilts her head. "What, no quip? Snarky come back? I thought bards are supposed to be witty." 

"Not quite in the mood," Jaskier says through gritted teeth. Any good humor has left him. His feet throb. 

"How disappointing. Tell me, how are your feet?"

Jaskier freezes, his heart tumbling in his chest. 

"I know they must be aching-"

"Yen."

Jaskier is both relieved and horrified at the sound of Geralt's voice. At the way the nickname -- one that only Geralt can use while keeping his balls -- sounds so soft, yet firm. Fond. 

"I do hope you have a bath waiting," Yennefer says by way of greeting. Her face is still hard, without the minute lessening of tension that usually happens in Geralt's presence. 

"Hmm, I'll ask for one if you quit badgering the bard. I hope you know I'm not into feet that way." 

A small smile graces Yennefer's face. "Does it matter if you aren't?" 

Geralt grunts. "I'll be upstairs." 

There it is. A shape of love. Twisted and forlorn, two broken pieces forging new peaks. Is it healthy? Jaskier doesn't know. But he knows it hurts, his jagged edges becoming smooth under the rough waves pushing against his heart. Most would view the erosion as a good thing, fingers less likely to get cut when its cradled. But Jaskier knows that it simply means he's worn down. 

In that moment, sitting in the corner alone as Yennefer brushes past him with purpose, he misses the sea more than anything. 

--

Tagging: @jaskicr @stitchedopen @lookingforblessedsilence @negativenuggetz @captaindixiejoy

This was supposed to be a warm-up. Maybe 500 words. Lemme know what more you guys wanna see! I'm up for mer!Jaskier ideas if you guys want to see anything specific. I tagged those who showed the most interest in a mer!jaskier au or want to be tagged in general but you can ask me if you want on or off of it anytime.

[des8pudels8kern]

The Witcher, after season 1, no warnings. Inspired by that post about a mysterious stranger setting down a pouch heavy with coin on the table in front of you.

-----------

The bar’s entrance was well off the main road, in the alley behind a side-street in the seedier part of Vizima. No sign marked the door leading down into the basement rooms. The people who came here knew what they were looking for.

Per straightened his back as he went down the stairs and held his head high when he pushed open the door and stepped into the candle-lit din. Unlike some people who came to spend money in this hole in the ground, he wanted to be seen.

Most of the small tables were empty or boasted single occupants who had looked up at his entrance and returned to nursing their drinks, not seeing whom they were waiting for.  In one corner, half a dozen people were clustered in a corner, engaged in a game of Gwent. The pile in the middle boasted rings, necklaces, tiny gem-encrusted boxes and other small, precious items that could so easily stick to one’s fingers without their owners noticing. No one here would ask about provenance, especially not the trader Per recognized watching the game form a corner who’d pay the winner a fair enough price and be out of town in the morning, to fence his wares somewhere they would not be recognized.

Per found himself an empty table and sat down, back to the wall and eyes on the rest of the room. He raised a hand to flag down an ale, and Ina, the stout, scarred woman behind the bar nodded, poured him a mug, and then pushed it towards a hooded figure sitting at the bar, who looked up and followed the line of her arm where she pointed at Per.

Seemed like this one had come looking for someone like Per.

The figure - a man, Per guessed from the size – wove around the other tables, plopped the ale down in front of him, and sat himself at an angle from Per. Not so close beside him he’d be within easy reach, but neither leaving his back entirely open to the room. Not stupid, then.

“Kacper,” the man said. A statement, not a question.

Per’s eyes flicked to Ina, who shrugged. Someone who’d come looking for him specifically, then, not asked for someone like him and gotten his name from her.

“Who’s asking?”

The man pulled an arm free from the folds of his cloak. In his gloved hand he held a leather pouch, non-descript but sagging with weight, that he dropped down between them. It settled on the table with a promising chink.

“Does it matter?”

Per took a slow drink from his ale, taking the time to size up the man who had come to offer him a job.

His cloak was simple; little signs of use but dirty from the road. He wore black leather gloves, snug and well-made and still slightly stiff. The cut and exact style of his doublet remained covered and the low lights helped disguise the details, but the cloth was woolen, dark grey or blue, with a pattern woven into the fabric. All new, Per wagered, all pricy enough, and carefully selected to not stand out and remain unmemorable. Likewise, the man had not removed his hood, keeping his hair and half his face hidden in shadow. The eyes looked dark, but beneath the hood and in the gloom of the basement all eyes would. No scars where Per could see, closer to youth than to old age, and a blond goatee that could either be a deliberate change from his usual habits or something he couldn’t change without drawing undue attention when he returned to where he came from.

There was nothing more to gauge from looking at the man. Per put down his ale and reached for the pouch instead, opening it where it sat. He knew better than to pick it up before any deal was done; this was a place of business, albeit not a respectable one. A generous sum. Nobility, possibly. Monied, definitely. He moved his hand through the coins, digging deep to check they were all the same.

“No need for that, my good man.” The man bared his teeth in a grin. “If we reach an agreement, payment will be upfront. You’d find any copper at the bottom long before you’ve done what I want you to.”

This was enough for Per to withdraw his hand and sit back. Upfront either meant a simpleton, or trouble.

“That’s a lot of money on the table, and a lot of trust you are willing to put in me. Who did you say gave you my name?”

“I didn’t. And it’s necessity. I don’t intend to stick around to wait for your return, so I am choosing to believe in your reputation. This, for the job, and for your silence.” The man shrugged. “Just trust that I’ll find out if you take the money and don’t uphold your end, and ask yourself, if this is what I’m paying you, how much will I offer someone else to track you down if you stiff me?”

Well. He wanted something taken care of, and he didn’t want to be around for the fall-out. Per inclined his head, interested – how could he not be, with that amount of coin? – but not ready to commit blindly. There was little honour amongst Per’s kind, but even less so with the courtly folks. Inbreeding brought out the worst in people.

“What’s the job then? If you want a killer, you’ll find people with fewer scruples for half of what’s in that pouch. “

“Nothing like that.” The man leaned in. “I need you to find someone. I know where he was two days ago, and I know where he is going. You need to track him down and tell him to not go where he is going. He won’t find whom he is expecting to find. And give him this.” The man put down a small, dark bottle next to the pouch. “Deal?”

Per deliberated for a moment. Politics, a secret lover found out, simple crime – who knew. Per had made a name for himself as someone who did clean work and kept his mouth shut, and this man was willing to pay well for his services.

“Deal,” he agreed. Where am I looking, and whom am I looking for?”

“Maribor two days ago, aiming for Vengerberg. You’ll know him when you see him. Yellow eyes, white hair.”

Witcher. Well, that would be easy to track.

The man raised a finger. “Others might be looking, so don’t draw attention. Listen, don’t ask.”

That much was obvious, but Per still nodded dutifully.

“Tell him what I told you to,” the man continued, “he won’t find whom he is looking for in Vengerberg and needs to avoid it. Absolute discretion. Understood?”

“Clear.” Per reached for the pouch, weighted it in his hand for a short, satisfying moment, and then let it disappear under his own cloak. “And the bottle?”

“Ah, yes, the bottle.” The man picked it up and turned it over in his hand a few times before putting it down before per with a smile.

“Please give it to him, and, just in case he can’t figure out what it is from the smell,” and here the man’s voice rose in exasperation, “tell him to dye his fucking hair.”

----------

Late, but I made it! Day 7 of my 500-words-challenge, 1227 words.

Set post-S1 and enriched with book!Jaskier background as a spy, who undoubtedly has access to information and knows a thing or two about what to do when you need to travel incognito. Like e.g. dyeing your hair blond, growing an equally dyed beard, and shedding your usual bright clothes, because it’s public knowledge that you have been travelling with a suddenly very wanted man for 22 years and you are famous enough that people know what you look like. Geralt, on the other hand, is a disaster witcher who only knows how to kill monsters, will try to cross the Continent looking like his conspicuous self, and also follow a carefully spread rumour claiming his known associate and powerful sorceress Yennefer is returned to her hometown of Vengerberg.

Jaskier may still be hurt mad and not ready to see Geralt, but he will not stand by and do nothing when news of the trap waiting for him and his newly adopted Child of Surprise just happens to fall into Jaskier’s unsuspecting hands. At least now he knows why people are after him - known associate, could lead them to Geralt or be used against him.

[itsclydebitches]

Just casually playing Gwent and thinking about this messy situation again. Even if this blurb horribly mischaracterizes why Dettlaff killed the knights and attacked the city, it does raise a good point. Like... okay. We all know that Anna Henrietta is beyond biased when it comes to her sister. The second she learns Syanna is involved her entire attitude changes. If she’s the beast---the one in charge even if she’s not doing the killing herself---then suddenly the order changes from “Bring me the beast’s head” to “Promise me she’ll come to no harm.” She’s greeted with hugs at the castle, safely tucked away from her responsibilities, if you let her live she’s forgiven and if you let her die Anna Henrietta can’t face the fact that she was the fifth victim. My dear Syanna would never, ever do that, even with proof of the act staring me in the face. She is entirely ruled by emotion when it comes to Syanna and concepts like logic, fairness, or justice simply don’t come into play. 

Which raises the question of why she doesn’t... thank Dettlaff? Pre-Night of Long Fangs anyway. Because our entire sympathy for Syanna rests on her presumed mistreatment by the knights. If Anna Henrietta changed her tune in regards to everything else, why not this? We start the contract with her trying to avenge these heroic men, but once she finds out Syanna is involved---and she’s claiming those men harmed her, that she was enacting revenge, that they weren’t, in fact, heroic and more pressingly weren’t heroic towards her---Anna Henrietta shouldn’t have given a damn about them anymore. Good! You hurt my precious sister, you deserved to die! That’s precisely the sort of stance she’s taken in regards to everything else. The wine maker being the perfect example. It’s because of the wine that Anna Henrietta suspects Syanna is involved and that’s the exact same quest where her more ferocious side starts shining through. This guy, who was only engaging in a bit of theft, is charged with treason and, I would assume, executed for that. Not because Anna Henrietta cares that much about her alcohol---especially when she’s known this guy so long and he’s honest about his reasons for needing the money---but because his actions are a part of the plot that’s endangering her sister. So he has to be punished to the fullest extent, fairness be damned. 

It just creates this strange and contradictory setup. If we support Syanna to the extent Anna Henrietta does then we should want those knights dead for their crimes... yet we (and she) should simultaneously want Detlaff to pay for enacting that justice? That doesn’t make sense. Especially when his own reasons weren’t only morally sound on their own (keeping any kidnap victim safe is good) but were also, simultaneously, in service of helping Syanna as an individual. You can view his actions as a way of keeping an innocent safe while being manipulated, or as carrying out deserved revenge. Either way by Witcher logic Dettlaff is in the clear up until he commits his own crimes free of Synna’s influence. Pre-massacre Anna Henrietta should be Dettlaff’s biggest fan given that he both protected her sister and did precisely what she would have done herself if given the chance, execute those who hurt her, and the fact that he’s not just speaks to how biased and illogical the whole ordeal is. Because he’s a vampire. Because he’s a convenient and needed scapegoat. Because if he’s not the Beast of Beauclair then that means someone else is... namely Syanna herself. Praising or forgiving Dettlaff in any way remains a threat to the one thing Anna Henrietta cares about the most: her sister. He has to be framed as the villain in order to keep her as the victim. 

So yeah, there’s this time between when the plot is revealed and Dettlaff enacts his own crimes on the city where Anna Henrietta’s folly really shines. She calls for the perpetrator’s head, but when she learns the perpetrator is her sister that order is cancelled, despite citizens pounding on the gate demanding justice. She believes it’s justice to charge a guy who stole wine with treason, but also justice to execute the guy who did the dirty work she wanted. She claims to protect the people and then risks them all to keep just Syanna safe, tucked away in their nostalgic fairy tale. 

What I’m getting at in all these ramblings is that Anna Henrietta is a really bad ruler. Human! Oh so human! But dear god so bad at her job. I mean really, she’s the embodiment of believing only what you want to believe, whether we’re talking about her sister’s innocence or the idea that she could take care of a higher vampire with some royal hounds. She’s a biased mess and this little Gwent blurb emphasizes that perfectly. She’s out there ordering executions, hiring killers, protecting another killer at the expense of so much else, but Dettlaff is still, to her mind, the only potential villain here. 

[terryblount]

Cyberpunk 2077’s UI coordinator talks about gangs, romance, difficulty & more

Alvin Liu, UI coordinator of Cyberpunk 2077, has spoken to wccftech about their upcoming role playing game. First of all some bad news; no Lady Gaga folks. I hope Liu is toying with us, even if it sounds definite. I would love to see Lady Gaga and Keanu Reeves together in the game.

Liu claimed that each individual gang will have different characteristics and goals, meaning each encounter will most likely feel unique and decisions will probably have more weight for the player. Now that’s something I really like.

Romancing in video-games was never intriguing to me, until I played The Witcher 3 as its characters were extremely well made and fleshed out. Take Yen and Triss for example. Those two had completely different personalities and choosing between them was a very hard decision mainly because of who they were rather than simply choosing between a black-haired and a red-haired. As such, it makes me very happy reading that CD Projekt RED is following the same romancing example for this title.

Moreover, it seems that the game’s world will be… open, meaning there will be no restrictions of where you can go. Of course there will be areas with powerful enemies but the UI will help guide you. Chances are you will die painfully when you visit higher level territories, however the option will be available to players.

There will be multiple difficulty settings and the game will even have a hardcore mode which sounds similar to Metro’s ranger difficulty, where the UI is disabled for maximum immersion. I really like the sound of that.

Of course if you are not keen with shooters and you just want to enjoy the story, there will be a setting or settings for you; you can even use the smart gun we saw last year and make firefights even easier. To be honest I wouldn’t recommend it since the firefights looked awesome but I understand we all have our personal preferences here. Who knows, if the shooting mechanics are terrible (fingers crossed it won’t) maybe everyone will end up using the smart gun.

Of course, the big reveal at E3 was Keanu. Can you talk a bit about how that happened?

Absolutely. What we wanted to do is to find the right celebrity match. It couldn’t just be someone from a romantic comedy movie or something.

Yes. I mean, there were rumors about Lady Gaga!

She’s pretty cyberpunk, so she could fit in! But um, yeah, no Lady Gaga. A lot of people in studio love The Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, Speed and all that stuff and he was just a really good match for our game genre and what we’re trying to do. When we approached him he was like ‘Yeah, I understand the artistic vision behind this, I can get behind it.’ He was just on board with it, which was great.

I’m wondering whether this is something you have been planning for quite some time, or is it more recent?

We’ve been keeping it a secret for definitely many months. I don’t recall exactly when, it’s hard to pick an exact time when it first started. But everything was very smooth. And it was great. I think keeping it a secret was super hard. I remember the first time I heard someone told me and I was like ‘Really?!?’

Keanu’s character, Johnny Silverhand, is also deeply rooted in Cyberpunk lore, correct?

Yes. Johnny Silverhand, he was like a super rebellious Rockerboy who is very against mega-corporations, he would happily run in and torch the lobby of a mega building, just throw the torch in the grounds and go ‘Screw you guys!’. He’s very different than real life Keanu Reeves.

He actually represents what we call Rockerboy from the tabletop Cyberpunk game. That was one of the classes, basically a rockstar. That’s a lot harder for us to do in the game we’re trying to make, you know, you can’t spend eight hours talking about preparing for a tour and going across, but we wanted to keep the spirit of the lore, so that’s what he represents.

He’s also supposed to be long dead in Cyberpunk 2077, right? So he’s kind of a digital ghost.

Exactly. So this is like 50 years from when he disappeared. I don’t want to spoil it, but being a digital ghost allows him to not be you know, like 80 or 90 years old. But there’s a lot more for you to discover about what’s happened to him.

I noticed that in the E3 2019 demo, the dominant theme was attempting to upload human consciousness into machines to attain immortality. Is this going to be prevalent throughout the whole Cyberpunk 2077?

There’s a lot of things we’re trying to do. The Voodoo Boys specifically are very obsessed with that, but other gangs such as the Maelstrom gang we showed last year, they want to be like, the ‘perfect humans’. So their theme is like making them solve this, you know, like replacing an eyeball or something, because, you know, it’s better to see the doctor. And they’re the most the best in the Superman realm. And it really depends on which gang you talk to. But we explore it all, it’s going to be a very big game, we’re going to go to look at different storylines, different characters, and we’ll talk about, you know, transhumanism, we’ll talk about what it means for a company to come in and be very greedy. And you can have romances in the Night City, for example.

Since you mentioned it, can you talk a bit about how romances are going to work in Cyberpunk 2077?

I don’t want to do spoilers, but we want to write very strong characters. We want to have personalities that you can interact with. If you remember from The Witcher 3 where Yennefer and Triss had very different personalities, it was interesting navigating how you would talk to one or the other. So to that effect, we’ve selected some NPCs who’ll have very rich relationships. But we also have, since it’s a modern world, you know, one-night stands exist, so something like that is also possible. And also like in the real world, you can also just exchange money for sex.

Earlier we were talking about corporations. Can you tell me how many will be in the final game?

That’s a good question. I don’t think anyone stopped to count because we have both big and small corporations. We have Militech, they’re kind of like the American military kind of corporation because the government military doesn’t really exist anymore. But people sell them, you know, name, tags and security. So this company kind of represents that. We also have Arasaka and in our history, those companies had a huge fight and that resulted in someone setting up a nuclear bomb in the city. That’s a large Japanese company, very secretive, they do a lot of secret projects. There’s also Orbital Air, they handle space, airplanes and stuff like that. There are so many companies in Cyberpunk 2077.

Right. And of course, beyond the corporations, you also have the gangs in Cyberpunk 2077. Are there any other factions in the game, though, beyond the corporations and gangs?

Yeah, we also have, obviously, the people just trying to live and you know, stay alive in Night City. We also have what we call the Nomads. Outside the city, we have people who just don’t want to live in the city for whatever reason. Maybe they have some very strong family ties in their community, or maybe they hate the idea of, you know, being a corporate slave, working for gangs, and they want to be strong and independent instead.

Does that mean we’ll get to explore the outskirts of Night City, too?

Absolutely. You’ll be able to go out in the desert of California and view things like power plants, abandoned highways and stuff like that. So you’re not just limited to Night City. It’s a really cool place to use our cars and drive them fast, as it’s hard to go super fast in the city. We do have street racing, though.

If you commit crimes, is the police coming after you? How does your ‘outlaw system’ work?

The way that works is that they are basically up for hire, basically, the laws exist to take bribes from corporations. So a corporation might pass a law that you can’t sell medicine anymore, and they’re going to enforce it. The only reason they got that law passed was that they bribed the government and they’re only using it as a proxy. So it’s not a place where you want to trust the government necessarily. There probably are some good people out there also, but it’s a city of people trying to constantly get one up on each other.

We have a system that we’re still iterating upon. People will, you know, not be nice to you if you start killing many people. There are some people you can’t kill because that might have blocked a quest and that’s just by design, but it’s not what our game is based upon. So I would compare it to The Witcher 3 where if you chopped off the head of a villager in the middle of nowhere the guards wouldn’t show up out of nowhere. But if you’re in a big town and someone from the guard sees you and the people nearby run away screaming for help, people will come and try to stop you and they’re going to be usually pretty powerful. We also have what we call the Trauma Team.

Oh yes, I recall them from that memorable trailer.

Yes, they are a sort of police/medic ambulance. They come in and help save you as long as you have their coverage plan, then you’re taken to a medical facility.

Is it possible to get arrested and go to jail after committing enough crimes?

Sorry, I can’t spoil anything about that.

Okay, sure. I assume you’ll have dynamic weather in Cyberpunk 2077, right?

Yeah, we’ve got acid rain as well. Night City is a very polluted city and we’re also exploring that kind of stuff, pollution and global warming and everything.

The NPCs will scatter around when that happens, I reckon…

Yep, that was happening in The Witcher 3 too. When the rain came, people would seek shelter. Generally, we’re trying to make the NPCs very believable, we want it to feel like this is a world where people actually live in, which would make players want to spend time in the world as well.

I imagine the NPCs have daily routines, too.

Indeed. Of course, if you followed someone for fifteen hours, you might see the same thing repeated a few times. But we’re trying to make them do interesting stuff. Again, I think the best comparison would be Novigrad from The Witcher 3.

In terms of the overall scope of Cyberpunk 2077, what are the main tenets you laid out for yourselves during development?

Three things, we’re going to do a really awesome open world that players just want to live in and we’re going to do a very strong story. In Cyberpunk 2077 we’re going to add this new layer of how you make your character and how you want to play the game. So you can play as a hacker person from the outskirts and you learned how to hack you know, from like, scavenged devices. And they really want to hack with a vengeance because they want to, you know, avenge someone or something. Or you can play as like a someone who loves swords and just loves running in and chopping people off with swords. That, I think, will add a whole other layer of how you experience the game yourself. Right? You’re going to be able to live in this world, play how you want with your character but also be involved in this really deep and engaging story.

Sounds great. Is the whole of Night City open from the start? Or is it like unlocked over time?

We’re not going to have this locked, invisible wall where you can’t go past it because we show a message on the screen saying you must go back. It doesn’t make sense, right? It’s like I just crossed the street, what’s the issue? So we won’t have anything like that.

But you might venture into some places where enemies are way tougher than you can handle.

Yep. We have UI to help lead players. Actually, in the demo, you can see the NPCs levels and that will give you a quick gauge of how to make sure that you want to engage. We are an RPG after all and that’s one of the implications of an RPG, you want to do progression. But like in The Witcher 3, you could always just run to Novigrad, you could have skipped the Baron quest, you could even go to Skellige if you managed to get enough money to pay for the boat. That freedom in an open world is pretty awesome and I think Cyberpunk 2077 is going to be very similar. But of course, you know, in The Witcher 3 when you were like level one and went to Novigrad you didn’t have a very fun time. You might expect something similar here, but you can still go if you want to.

Will there be multiple difficulty settings as in The Witcher 3?

Yes, of course, of course. The most fun one I think will be the Hardcore setting where we turn off the UI you live as well. And that will be a real challenge for a lot of players. Also, at the same time, if you want to play more casually for the story and maybe you’re not experienced with shooters, which was a real big concern for us. We want to tell a story and maybe you’re a big fan of The Witcher and you’re not comfortable playing a shooter, we have settings available for that. We even have weapons for that. If you recall from last year’s demo, we had a weapon called the smart gun, which helps you aim. The bullets were much slower and usually a bit weaker. But if your aiming isn’t your forte, you can always pick up the smart gun.

There was a bit of negative feedback regarding your choice to go with a first-person view only for Cyberpunk 2077. Some people also have issues with nausea and similar medical conditions.

We’re going to have many settings for that, starting with a Field-of-View (FoV) slider. We’re also considering accessibility at a very strong level, including stuff like subtitles for people who might have trouble reading some of the text in our game. That’s very important for us. But with the first-person perspective, we are able to do a lot of new stuff, we can do much more immersive dialogue for example compared to the last game (The Witcher 3) where it was kind of obvious when you were going into combat because you saw the black bars, the camera would move… But in this game, since it’s first-person, literally you can shoot someone within a second. You pull the gun and you’re immediately shooting people. That to us is really important and really immersive because it feels like danger. It was one of the big reasons why we actually switched from third-person.

There are still times when you see your character though, right?

Yeah. Even in the demo we saw today, a lot of people might have missed it, but driving was in third-person and the transition was very seamless.

Of course you can look in the mirror and see yourself through reflections, right?

Yeah, yeah, that’ll be really cool. I think the character customization is going to be really well received. When you go unlock the super rare outfits you get because you have super high street grad and you have a high reputation with a local gang, we want to make sure that you can see that. Since you can customize and create your character you will see that as well, if you take a different skin tone you’ll see that on your hand.

Our items have RPG stats, you can craft them and feel rewarded for that. You’ll also be able to modify the weapons a lot, be able to attach things like a suppressor or a scope and also craft and modify those as you wish. You can change a gun’s type to maybe start shooting thermal bullets, which can actually light on fire because they’ve just built up so much heat. But you can also shop for strictly cosmetic items, such as shirts and jackets.

We can justify that because you look super cool, so you get more street cred game. It’s like, hey, you get more street cred experience because you looked cool killing someone. And that to us is a cool balance for items that might make no sense combat wise but because of that, you earn more reputation doing it, which actually makes sense gameplay-wise.

Cool indeed. What can you tell us about the implementation of real-time ray tracing on PC? Also, can you reveal the hardware that ran this E3 2019 demo?

Ray Tracing was on [in the demo]. We were showing off Ray Traced Emissives, Sky Light, and Ambient Occlusion. However, I’ve seen super impressive screenshots internally about raytracing (they get sent out in a digest e-mail), so we’re clearly still working on it as they looked more impressive than what I remember seeing in the demo. Especially at night and with neon reflections. NVIDIA also has representatives and work with our studio to continue to improve and utilize this technology, similar to The Witcher 3 and Hairworks.

The game was running on Ultra, but we are continuing to improve our visuals.

The game demo was running at 1080p, but our trailers and publically released assets are at 4K. The UI is designed mostly at 4K (eventually it will entirely be at 4K native), but we have the technology to swap assets and do intelligent scaling to handle 1080p, widescreen, 720p, 1440p, and so on. We can also design specific UI at 1080p and other resolutions, on a need by need basis, such as on a screen or graphics with heavy icons that might look bad otherwise.

A lot of people, after seeing last year’s debut gameplay demo and the hardware it was running on, have become a bit wary of how Cyberpunk 2077 could look and run on consoles and low-end PCs. Is that a challenge in terms of optimization for lower-end hardware?

Actually no, we have a very custom engine, the RED Engine. And actually, we’re targeting consoles as first-class platforms and it looks amazing there. So obviously, if you spent, you know, $2,000 building your PC rig, it’s going to look better on that. But the graphics are quite amazing for what you’re going to get from Cyberpunk 2077 on consoles and low-end PCs.

Cyberpunk 2077 will be released on April 16th, 2020.

Thanx wccftech

Cyberpunk 2077’s UI coordinator talks about gangs, romance, difficulty & more published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/