extraCOIN (Videogame Magazine) by Damián S. Muñoz Gómez

10 G U 2 AM P T 0 C h e 2 O E m 0 S M os : C O IN t an Y F G 2 B tic E 0 ip E ab ve 7 at R ed ou ry 7 t : h P t C in U D g C P w N ro e R K je kn E k o t` w D s IT R ed S

10 UPCOMING GAMES OF 2020 :the most Anticipated With E3 2019 behind us and the summer beginning, it is time to start looking forward to 2020! Every year after E3, we put together a mega list of our most anticipated upcoming games for the next year. Here, we’ve compiled a list of the 50 most anticipated upcoming games of 2020. With a new PlayStation Xbox slated to come out in late

By Andrew Smith

2020, next year is undeniably going to be an exciting year in gaming. There will be plenty of new games releasing on the current generation of consoles, but also tons of awesome titles releasing on the next generation consoles that we really don’t know that much about yet! E3 always brings tons of release date announcements, so we couldn’t think of a better time to put together this list. We will continue to update the list as new titles are announced and release dates are set (or pushed back). So, let’s get started!

RAINBOW SIX QUARANTINE

Developer: Ubisoft Publisher: Ubisoft Release Date: Delayed, TBA Platform: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC Genre: Action-Adventure/FPS

WATCH DOGS LEGION

Developer: Ubisoft Publisher: Ubisoft Release Date: DELAYED, TBA Platform: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Stadia Genre: Action-Adventure

SKULL AND BONES

Developer: Ubisoft Publisher: Ubisoft Release Date: 2020 Platform: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC Genre: Action/Adventure

HALO INFINITE

Developer: 343 Industries Publisher: Xbox Game Studios Release Date: Q4 2020 Platform: Xbox One, PC Genre: Action/FPS

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA

Developer: Sucker Punch Productions Publisher: Sony Release Date: 2020 Platform: PlayStation 4

THE LAST OF US PART II

Developer: Naughty Dog Publisher: Sony Release Date: May 29, 2020 Platform: PlayStation 4 Genre: Action-Adventure/Horror/ Survival

ELDEN RING

Developer: Purple Lamp Studios Publisher: THQ Nordic Release Date: Q1 2020 Platform: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Switch Genre: Action-Adventure/Platformer

DYING LIGHT 2

Developer: Techland Publisher: Techland Release Date: Q2 2020 Platform: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC Genre: Action-Adventure/FPS

BATTLE FOR BIKINI BOTTOM ( REHYDRATED )

Developer: Purple Lamp Studios Publisher: THQ Nordic Release Date: Q1 2020 Platform: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Switch

DRAGON BALL Z ( KAKAROT )

Developer: CyberConnect2 Publisher: Bandai Namco Release Date: January 16, 2020 Platform: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC Genre: RPG

“NEXT YEAR IS UNDENIABLY GOING TO BE AN EXCITING YEAR IN GAMING

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YBERPUNK 2077

ERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT D PROJEKT`S RED NEXT RPG

By Steven Messner, Tyler Wilde, Lauren Morton

After years of hearing about Cyberpunk 2077 and wondering what it’ll be, we’re less than a year away from its release. The game is still shrouded in mystery, but we know a lot more than we did back then. In fact, it feels like new tidbits of Cyberpunk 2077 info are dropping every week. It’s almost too much to take in. We’ve absorbed all of the precious Cyberpunk 2077 deets and consolidated them into a digestible briefing. Here you’ll find both big gameplay demos, the game’s release date, details about the world, story, characters, and a lot of Keanu Reeves. Here’s everything you need to know about Cyberpunk 2077.

Is Cyberpunk 2077 an FPS? Dare we say that Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person shooter RPG? We dare. Though cutscenes and driving sometimes switch to third-person, Cyberpunk 2077 involves a lot of first-person shooting. With guns. Lots of guns. It’s chaotic and fast-paced, but was less aggressive than, say, Doom. During a firefight in the opening moments of the demo, V, the main character, ducked and peeked around cover to spray a gang of organ scavengers with bullets from her automatic pistol. Like Destiny 2, numbers indicating damage dealt exploded with each landed shot—but enemies didn’t feel like bullet sponges. We also love how agile V can be. Though there’s quite a bit of variety in what abilities V has, in the 2018 demo she was an agile cyberninja. She could run and slide to cover and also trigger a slow motion bullet-time mode. She

also had a quick dash that let her burst in a specific direction. When bullet-time and this dash were combined, she could quickly flank enemies and deliver fatal killshots. We also saw a ton of cool weapons, and yes, there are weapons other than guns, though again, there are a lot of guns. A street-modified Tech Shotgun could penetrate cover and enemies, which was a deadly combo when paired with V’s upgraded optic implant that could show her enemies through objects. A Smart Rifle takes all the skill out of shooting by firing bullets that track enemies. You merely aim in their general direction and it’ll lock onto multiple targets and fire bullets that automatically track their intended targets. So while of course this is still a CD Projekt open-world RPG, with all the expected trappings like exploration, dialogue, skills, and so on, it’s also a shooter, in first person.

You can finish Cyberpunk 2077 without killing anyone. Cyberpunk 2077 will let you play the game without ever killing anyone, a great feature for folk who want to roleplay a less bloodthirsty V. But the game wasn’t always planned this way. After feedback from E3 2018, CDPR took time to add non-lethal options to almost all of its weapons and cyberware upgrades. We say “almost,” because there are some reasonable exceptions. There’s no non-le-

thal setting for the bazooka, for example. “Pretty much every gun, pretty much every cyberware, you’re able to use in a nonlethal way. You’re able to knock them down, choke them, make them sleep and so on. There are ways not to kill them and spare them, like the way you could do with Sasquatch, the boss,” lead quest designer Paweł Sasko told PC Gamer.

Cyberpunk 2077 character creation During the 2018 demo we got a quick peak of the character creation screen, which starts with choosing your sex. From there, you can customize hair, tattoos, and clothing. It doesn’t look like you can change your character’s bone structure, though—no deep menu of facial feature sliders here. At E3 2019, quest director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz explained to Gamasutra that Cyberpunk’s character creation won’t be limited by gender. “We have put a lot of thought into this. One of the things we want to do in the final game is to give the players as many options of customization in the beginning of the game as we can.” CDPR is also working on...

customizable voices for V. Tomaszkiewicz did specificy that these are all things the team “wants to do,” not already has done, so there’s no surefire promises that this will carry into the final game. You can also change your stats. There are basics like Strength and Intelligence, but also a ‘Cool’ stat that determines how well you handle stress, which affects weapon accuracy. The full list from what we saw in the demo: Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, Reflexes, Tech, Cool. Notably, there are some important stats from the tabletop Cyberpunk not represented here, like Empathy. More on why that’s significant below. You can also change your b ackstory, referred to as a Lifepath, choosing from Nomad, Corpo or Street Kid, which each have their own origin story and starting location in the world. Each Lifepath unlocks unique dialogue options that can alter how quests play out, so it’s an important decision to make early on. However you customize your character, you’re still one specific person: V. You’re a mercenary, and that’s what we know so far.

Who is Keanu Reeve’s Cyberpunk 2077 character, Johnny Silverhand? The world basically exploded in excitement when Keanu Reeves showed up in the Cyberpunk 2077 E3 2019 trailer. It’s cool enough that he’s making an appearance, but it’s even cooler that he’s playing Johnny Silverhand, a well-known character from the original 1988 Cyberpunk tabletop game. Though, CDPR’s interpretation of Silverhand takes the character in an interesting direction: Silverhand is already dead, and lives in V’s head as a “digital ghost.” We were half-expecting a Hollywood celebrity role to be a small side character, but Keanu’s Silverhand appears to be amaincharacterinCyberpunk’sstory. In the tabletop game, Silverhand is a Rockerboy, a subclass in the lore that basicall y acts like a traditional Dungeons & Dragons bard. His original design is much more rooted in the tabletop game’s ‘80s-inspired Cyberpunk aesthetic. 2077’s Silverhand is has a rougher John Wick-like vibe, but still sports his iconic cybernetic arm all the same.

Will there be romance? As much “romance” as you can find in a cyberpunk future, yes. Like in The Witcher 3, you’ll be able to pursue romance as V. Because Cyberpunk includes character creation, these romance options will be more diverse than they were in The Witcher series. “There are a lot more options. You know, you’re defining your own character here, which means defining their sexuality any way you want,” quest designer Patrick Mills said in an interview with Game In former. “With Geralt, you had a character whose sexuality was very well defined by the novels and the short stories and the previous games. But in this one, it’s up to you to decide. We’ve got NPCs that are gay, we’ve got NPCs that are bi, we’ve got NPCs that are straight, because we want them to feel real and that they have preferences as well.” CD Projekt Red clarified to us further: “Romancing is something heavily present in Cyberpunk.”

How does dialogue work? In a lot of RPGs, dialogue sections basically put the game on pause while two characters talk stiffly back and forth. It’s not the best way to deliver the story, and thankfully Cyberpunk 2077 has massive improvements in this area. While we’re not 100 percent certain, all dialogue appears to happen in real-time. You can continue moving and looking around, but when you focus the camera back on the character you’re speaking to, dialogue options appear on screen. There were usually three or four options at any time, which does suggest this system won’t be as robust as in some other RPGs. We’re OK with that, though, because this new system and the first-person perspective make for some incredibly tense exchanges. When V and her sidekick Jackie arrived at a Maelstrom gang hideout with the intention of buying a powerful piece of gear, the deal almost went sour. In the middle of the dialogue sequence, characters including V started draw-

ing weapons and pointing them at one another. Meanwhile, dialogue prompts kept appearing that let you try to steer the situation: Do you try to keep calm or open fire? In this situation, we finally managed to deescalate by showing the thugs that we had the money and weren’t looking to screw them over. In an earlier scene, V was apprehended by a group of corporate agents. These extremely deadly characters were looking for information, and mistook V as someone they were looking for. While they pinned her to the ground, they jacked into her cyberware and installed a lie detector app and began an interrogation. If we lied, they would know it immediately and there would be consequences because of that. This new system feels fluid and natural. There’s no longer the clear distinction of entering and exiting a conversation with someone. Everything flows together.

Will there be multiplayer? Yes. CD Projekt officially confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 will have multiplayer, but the mode won’t be introduced until all the free DLC is out the door. This is no surprise, as multiplayer has been teased as a possibility for years now. We first heard about multiplayer features back in 2013, but CD Projekt RED clearly knew the word could agitate its fans. “It will be a story-based RPG experience with amazing single-player playthroughs,” reassured managing director Adam Badowski in a 2013 talk with Eurogamer, “but we’re going to add multiplayer features.” In 2017, CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński said that mul-

tiplayer features would ensure Cyberpunk’s “longterm success,” which caused some concerns given the recent kerfuffle over microtransactions. CD Projekt responded to the concerns with a tweet meant to reassure fans that they’ll still be getting a Witcher 3-style singleplayer story. “Worry not,” tit said. “When thinking CP2077, think nothing less than TW3—huge single player, open world, story-driven RPG. No hidden catch, you get what you pay for—no bullshit, just honest gaming like with Wild Hunt.”

What kind of abilities can you unlock? Cyberware refers to augments that have all sorts of uses. During the demo, we visited a Ripperdoc who could upgrade and replace our cyberware. We opted for a Kiroshi Optical Implant that let us zoom in on objects and also analyze the environment, seeing enemy levels and getting detailed information about them. We also picked up a Subdermal Grip for our gun hand, which increases the damage we do when firing guns. The implants are wildly cool, but it’s strange that they don’t seem to have downsides in a game world which— at least in its tabletop incarnation—stressed the dangerous sides of cyberware with mental illnesses like cyberpsychosis. It’s a facet of the universe that we know the developers are aware of—the 2013 reveal trailer featured a woman getting arrested by C-SWAT for going off the deep end. On the tabletop, a character’s Empathy and Humanity stats dictated how much cyberware it was safe for them to use, but Empathy seems absent from Cyberpunk 2077.

Lateronwegotaccesstosomewildtoys.Onepieceofcyberware let V ricochet bullets around corners to kill enemies behind cover. This was accompanied by a UI element that showed you the intendedpathofthebullet,soyoucouldlineupshotsperfectly.Wealso got to see V’s mantis-like sword arms, which she could use to eviscerate enemies. Other upgrades let V wallrun, use bullet time, double jump, and dash forward in short bursts. There’s even robots you can control remotely, like a spiderbot that can climb walls and ceilings. We didn’t get toseeitinaction,but once weacquired the thing it followed us through levels automatically defending itself during combat. At one point, V snuck up on an enemy and put them in a chokehold.Fromthere,shecouldhackintothatperson’scyberwareand access data about that person, some of which is just for lore. If enemies are connected together by a network, though, a bunch of new options open up. In this instance, V hacked one enemy’s gun to make it stop working without him realizing. She killed the person she had put in a chokehold and then attacked the two remaining bad guys. As she finished off one, the other tried s hooting only to realize his gun wasjammed.HisconfusioncreatedanopeningforVto get in close and finish him.

What does Night City look and feel like, and how do you get around? Cyberpunk 2077 takes place in the year 2077—which you probably didn’t need us to tell you—and as m entioned it’s set withinNightCity,afictionalcitybetweenSanFranciscoandLA(as described here, although if it’s really in Del Coronado Bay it would bewellsouthofLA)thatalreadyexistsintheCyberpunkpenandpaper RPG created by Mike Pondsmith. Punks and corporate stooges of all varieties wander these foggy, once Mob-ruled streets, and by 2023, corporations are openly warring for them. Cyberpunk 2077 will show us what happened to the city in the aftermath of that war. Thanks to some awesome crowd technology, the Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City feels alive and bustling. It was incredible watching V walk through streets and seeing hundreds of characters walking, playing, talking, and fighting. It’s not clear how dynamic this world is, however. We passed by a crime scene in one neighborhood, and I’d like to know whether that crime scene will ever get cleaned up or if it’s a static landmark in this area.

The city is, by all accounts, massive. It features six districts with no loading screens between them. To help you get around, there are vehicles you can drive in either first or third person. It was hard to get a sense of how realized this part of the game is—we’re not sure if there will be all the depth of simulation you see in something like Grand Theft Auto V’s driving and traffic. But it did look impressive and smooth. Speaking to VG24/7, CDPR said the autonomous function allows you to summon your car at will, instead of trying to remember where you parked. Let’s hope it’s better at finding its way than Geralt’s horse, Roach. You’ll also have access to a garage to store the cars you own, but it’s unclear if you’ll be able to own them all or if a cap will be set. In an interview with VG24/7 at E3 2019, lead quest designer Pawel Sasko went into more detail about the districts outside the Badlands. “Players can leave Night City and just explore that area—an area that is mostly sort of destroyed basically after all the droughts and everything that happened in the 50 years from 2020 to ‘77. And you can explore that, there are specific quests prepared for that, also open-world content, so that’s definitely covered. It’s not only the city that you’re visiting.”

CREDITS Editing Damián Muñoz Contibutors and Interviewer Steven Messner Tyler Wilde Lauren Morton Andrew Smith Images and References CD Projekt´s Red Ubisoft 343 Industries Sucker Punch Respawn Entertainment Electronic Arts Naughty Dog Purple Lamp Studios Techland Sony Bandai Namco THQ Nordic Xbox Game Studios Nerd Munch PC Gamer