Welcome back for some Cyberpunk 2077 news, featuring Romance and Relationships in Cyberpunk 2077, killing NPCs and how much damage we can inflict in the world of Night City, the 2077 timeline and if will continue the Cyberpunk 2020 timeline, and Cyberninja vs Tankier character builds!

First up we have what kind of builds we can expect in Cyberpunk 2077 and how we can choose to approach battle. We know that there is a fluid class system featuring the Netrunner, Solo and Techie skill trees. This equates to hacking, firepower and crafting specialties respectively. What we also know is that the game does allow some big creativity changes from past CD Projekt Red titles. Senior Quest Designer Phillip Weber and Associate Design Director Kyle Rowley mentioned in an interview that “We can have strong solos, if you want to make them tanky with big weapons. You can also make your character more like Major from Ghost in The shell. Basically a Cyberninja as we have skills for that as well”.

This may mean we can be more proficient with larger militech rifles if we choose the former, and melee based destruction like the mantis blades or katanas if we choose the latter.

Now this part seems to be exclusive to the Solo Tree, so its yet to be seen if variations can occur within techie and netrunner skill trees to further diversify how we play. Maybe Netrunners can choose options like stealth dominant and hacking dominant builds.

Next we have the 2020 and 2077 timeline and some clarification about continuations. Cyberpunk 2077 is not a direct continuation of Cyberpunk 2020 as confirmed by Mike Pondsmith, who has stated that many changes are made to the world and story of Cyberpunk 2077. This means that Pondsmith in conjunction with CD Projekt Red has developed an alternate timeline. Due to shifts in technology from when Pondsmith released Cyberpunk 2020 in 1988 to present day where Cyberpunk 2077 is being developed, there had to be some shifts to make the timeline and the progression of the events in the timeline make sense.

Pondsmith clarifies that the technology that we experience in 2077 wont be the way it was portrayed in 2020 for those reasons.

Obviously this is what happens in a lot of mediums, Movies are never exactly the same as books, and vice versa and games are not always the same as their source material whether that be books, table top rpgs or movies. The witcher 3 was no different, because the game has a lot of elements that varied from the Sapkowski novels they were based on. CDPR and Pondsmith have iterated the timeline together however, and this may be because they are trying to make it as true to their roots as possible.

Next up we have romance and relationship options in Night City. We already know Cyberpunk 2077 is a highly customizable game, with a multitude of options to fit any gamer’s preference. We can choose what gender our character is, and also our sexual preferences. That means the character we mould from the groud up can be bisexual, gay, lesbian or straight. The relationships that are developed in Night City can be long term spanning the length of the game, or one night stands and this is completely up to player discretion and how they want their Night City experience to play out. These will seemingly have an influence on story and dialogue options, and even interactions as you are walking down the streets of Night City.

Developing a wide variety of NPCs with a wide variety of sexual preferences, makes the game more grounded and lively. You might not be everyone’s cup of tea and that leads to the player not feeling like they have complete control of the world. Whilst Geralt was mostly in charge of his sexual conquests, you might have to work harder for some of them in Cyberpunk 2077.

The game features full frontal nudity and doesn’t shy away from that at all. In the gameplay demo, they blurred out the genitals of the player models for the sake of the presentation, but when you get the game blurring and censoring won’t be there. This is obviously a mature game and the world’s stance on sex and the normalization of all these components reflects this.

Next we have CD Projekt Red’s vision for the Gangs of Cyberpunk 2077. CDPR’s design philosophy is that they really want to emphasize that they don’t want gangs to resemble comic book-esque villains. A humans need to seek identity leads people to join gangs, and modify their bodies. In the world of Cyberpunk 2077 where everything naturally stands out, identity for many people are lost. This leads to the human need to join groups and factions, many of them being gangs. This also gives CDPR an opportunity to tie that in with concepts of transhumanism, and the ascention of power using technology. Gangs are usually reserved for people who aren’t able to make it in a megacorp setting, but still lust for power.

Finally we have how much freedom we will have with NPCs and other characters in Night City.