Read more about Cyberpunk 2077➜ https://cyberpunk2077.mgn.tv
In this 2023 Level Design Summit talk, gain an overview of the design intentions behind the levels in the game, and look at how these intentions did not always fully receive the anticipated reception by players. It will elaborate on what the team was able to learn from this and, finally, how these lessons were turned into principles and techniques that can be applied by level designers to make those branching paths feel more rewarding and special, while still keeping things production-friendly.
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huh, that's interesting, making multiple paths with different rewards
I imagine these principles were be applied to the upcoming expansion.
So what if you have non-linear level design while the whole game is linear like hell… and it's an "open world"!
This is an amazing talk, and really provides an insight into how good level-design is made. I think it made me understand why don't enjoy some parts of immersive sims as well.
I really hope they will apply those lessons to Phantom Liberty
Edit: I guess it makes sense that under an educational gamedesign video there are people who don't know shit about it
Reminds me a lot of establishing the tried & true hub "discovery" area with "exploration" adventure-paths. I appreciate the newer take.
I truly hope there comes a day where AAA video games become easier create and don't take 5 – 10 years to develop. Unfortunately I wont be alive to see it, as I have cancer and only have a few years to live. Life doesn't get easier…
It taught them how to make boring missions
One way to comment this talk is, "you won't miss out on anything by not watching this GDC talk". Banal statements from start to finish and it hardly applies to 2077 itself.
2077's "non-linear" level design reminds me more of Splinter Cell Blacklist than of Deus Ex or Dishonored.
Also, there's a lot of self-appraisal and bravado injected in this talk. Guys, we know what 2077 is. Selling it as something magnificent (i.e. which it is not) is a waste of time. Have some dignity.
I think good old Thief games are way better at level design. Even Deu Ex: Mankind Divided has better level design than CyberPunk2077.
The gym example reminds me of the adage that "the reward for playing the game well should never be that you get to play less of it".
25:30 I remember this mission was a mess for me and it was a bit my fault, but I was also being punished by the game for upgrading skills. See, instead of trying to ignore most of the guards, I thought to use my Quckhacks to just clear the ones in my way. This would have worked well, if there wasn't one problem. I also skilled the perk where the Quickhack would jump over to another enemy if he is in reach. The problem now became that due to the double layer of the map, the quickhack jumped over to people that I didn't intend to and therefore, the whole cover was broken easily and you basically had to take all of them out. And that takes time with Quickhacks only. I feel, for all the different ways, it seems that some were still prioritised like the complete stealth in this one.
however this design of an mission system is completely not what people expect from a game with diverging story based on your character. What players were expecting from the marketing was unique missions dependant on your build and actions in game not a system where all builds lead to the same result.
'Non linear level design' in cyberpunk's case is a good way to rebrand an unfinished mess that still barely playable almost 3 years later.
You can really tell the ones who watched the video and the ones who didn't in the comment section. Great talk from miles, hopefully this was implemented in phantom liberty
Players usually want to see ALL the content possible. Those exclusive paths can lead players to wander around a location unnecessarily long, so they dont "miss" anything. Especially when there are unique interactions.
Finally a talk about games
Great talk from Miles, it really shows the importance of perception in level design and highlights how altering it can change the perceived value of player choices within that level. Some of the concepts here are hard to articulate but easy to feel the consequences of. Its a shame that some of the comments seem to fail to grasp that this is a talk about level design to level designers and other industry professionals not a piece of marketing to get you to buy Cyberpunk or whitewash the launch issues.
I kind of agree with the commenters that there's not really much new or insightful here… The level design of 2077 suffered mainly from bland open world syndrome, where each "level" was just different sets of crates and cover objects, maybe a raised gantry or 2, nothing really that seemed unique in any way. He touches on it a bit about how they loaded up the generic path with cool stuff but then they left the alternate paths basically empty of anything making them just feel like a shortcut to skip content, which further added to the bland open world feeling. Even worse, no decisions you made about how to approach missions ever actually mattered… one of the great things in games like Deus Ex or Dishonored is that the game world reacts in small ways to you taking different kinds of approaches which helps make your decisions feel meaningful and can help distract from missed content because it feels like you get a little special prize for doing things your own way.
Overall, I think that cyberpunk missions tended to be a bunch of linear paths instead of a freeform level, and even then these freeform paths weren't created to be interesting or add to the gameplay but just so that they were there and they could say "look! It's non-linear". I really hope Phantom Liberty fixes this but if you're looking for a good talk on non-linear level design this might not be it. Instead you might want to hop over to this golden oldie about FO: New Vegas – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR4OxNfzTvU
I guess we'll really experience what they've learned in the LD department when Phantom Liberty comes out.
Fantastic talk. Looking forward to playing these upcoming levels!
Strong attempt to sound relatable and push the narrative "learning from our mistake to be better". This is not a game design talk, this is a commercial. I had to stop after 17 min after the cringe of it.