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My name is Thane Bishop, and I need to talk about environmental storytelling, and why I think Cyberpunk 2077 does it so well.
This video is a small breakdown of the value that good, well balanced environmental storytelling can add to an open world game, as well as how it can add incredible value to places where the player interacts with that story telling.
Help support this work! – https://www.Patreon.com/ThaneBishop
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Okay, okay, last video on Cyberpunk 2077 for a little while, I promise. I've got a lot of fun ideas in the works for when I get back to the desk in a few days. Want in to the community discord to chatter about 'em with me?https://www.patreon.com/ThaneBishop
There is story in every little encounter in this game. Absolutely amazing world building
4:50 "PADER"
Typo detected, non-player quest literally unplayable, commencing ree
I agree, and love Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom. Where this could've been THE best game ever was botched by a misstep by the higher ups for corporate cash,becoming an oxymoron. Its really sad.
this was always one of my favourite aspects of the game. you, as V, are the main character of cyberpunk 2077, the video game. but in 2077, in the setting of cyberpunk, you are nothing more than another merc. in fact the game tells you this plenty of times but actually landing that, keeping to its promise is spectacular. all the way up until the ending it feels like you are nothing more than a welcome addition for the people in a world that could not care less about you. you are not the main character of night city because everyone in town lives their own lives and theres millions of people in town, how could you be? you help people who stumble upon you but you are not the saviour of night city, you are simply a merc
One of my favorite examples of this, is in Phantom Liberty – an unseeable NPC interaction and quest that takes place entirely through text message. The way they wrote this character (Ashlay) felt so rich and vibrant compated to other NPC's that you can interact with who have a character model.
Hopefully this isnt a spoiler – but specifically with Ashlay, she seems to be impatient with how slow you are to reply to her, however at some point she is slow to reply because she ordered pizza and its at her door – she leaves you hanging while grabbing it, just for a few minutes to pass for her to reply with "kk"
Interesting… 🤔
They overdid it, relying too heavily upon the player reading about what happened. The moment I found out that there was too much reading in this game, I stopped doing it and I haven't looked back since.
❤❤❤
Thank you for this
It always gets on my nerves when people say the city is dead or not immersive or just a set piece
2:09 no it's not you, this is how games always were, at least for some time, now we got tons of pointers, maps and hand holding nonsense the devs forcus on instead
I'm on my fourth playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077. It never ceases to amaze me how I keep finding things I had not noticed before; just locations I missed, sights I didn't catch because I didn't look in a certain direction and, as you were discussing here, environmental stories. The amount of detail in this world is just mind boggling. There are other, newer, games I've played which seem very shallow by comparison (I'm looking at you Starfield).
Sometimes I stop and listen to NPC conversations. Sometimes they just talk about their life, other times the conversations relate to something V did earlier in the game.
I sort of commented on a similar vein to my partner just this afternoon. I was doing Mr Hand's gig for the 2 brazilian intelligence agents. I was sneaking into the musuem, and 2 of the scavs were talking while I was prowling and trying to set them up. One says something that clearly indicates they are there looking for a female. At first I was wondering if somehow V was being set up. However after the boss fight, the boos drops a shard that details his task to kill Katya. And I comment to my partner that it kinda drives me nuts that V doesn't actually react sometimes to things she sees. That V is going to go into this room and be totally surprised that there's a woman there instead of Marc Bana. V should be EXPECTING to meet Katya inside and not Bana…..And lo and behold that's exacty what happened. V goes in the room and is floored that it's not Bana there.
Boring. So many videos like this on youtube, delivered in the same cadence too.
Red Dead Redemption 1 &2 (but especially 2) does this environmental story telling better than any other games I know. CDPR seems to have taken notes. Not quite as masterful as Rockstar, but certainly showing they get it. I love that too. Not just the stories you can happen upon, but the twists and turns that surprise you.
Occasionally, CDPR does lean a bit too hard on repetitive, “hubris,” stories, where you find a corpse who’s last conversations was, “What could go wrong?” when it’s plain that what could go wrong has happened. But some of their mini-tales are genuinely moving, or elegantly twisty.
It makes all the difference between real worlds and just window dressing. With Rockstar, you’ll often find that you can actually intervene in these unmarked stories, meet the people involved and alter outcomes. Sometimes, you’re just piecing together a convoluted tale from the evidence left behind. But always you’re left feeling like people’s lives impinge upon the lives of others; nothing happens in total isolation; they alter events around you.
For Cyberpunk 2077, Night City itself is a lot of things. At some point, I believed the city lived and moved with or without you. The things you do were because you affected it. It affected you in some ways to get you involved through storytelling and missions/gigs/NCPD scanner and environmental telling design. No other game has come this close regarding immersive storytelling like Cyberpunk 2077.
Other games have clans and factions but remain static until the player does something to start a chain reaction. In other games like Kenshi, it is incredible when it comes to a reactive living world that is constantly on the move with or without player agency. Kenshi is a strong contender to be one of my favorite games.
Don't think I didn't notice that you were going to a joytoy
Jackie and V did do that mission for padre in the beginning crime montage 😻
I love this video
well the algorithm got me here, let’s watch