Cyberpunk 2077 no longer has wallrunning
CD Projekt Red have confirmed, to my great dismay, that the ability to wallrun has been cut from Cyberpunk 2077 over the course of development. Wallruning! The second-coolest movement in first-person games, after slidekicks! Tragedy. CDPR say they cut wallrunning "due to design reasons". Fair play, they probably know what they're doing with their own game. I think it still has the fourth-coolest movement, regular slides? I can live with slides.
"Ah, the wall running," level designer Max Pears told Gamereactor during the latest round of previews, "that is something that we removed due to design reasons, but there's still going to be a lot of flexibility in how you move, that's for sure."
Wallrunning was seen in the 48-minute Gamescom demo from August 2018. When V had to fight her way back out the stronghold of a gang she was tricked into double-crossing, we saw her run along a wall then use her knifearms to hook into the surface and hang lurking up there. She had some other neat movement tricks too, including sliding, double-jumping, air-dashing, and wall-bouncing.
Here, this video cuts to the point in that demo where CDPR pumped V full of high-level abilities and sent her out for megamurder. If you just want to see the wallrun, skip to 42:55.
Cyberpunk 2077 is due to launch on November 19th, following a recent delay. CDPR also recently showed off cyberinvestigation and announced a Cyberpunk anime series for Netflix from the makers of Kill La Kill.
The third-coolest move in first-person games, by the way, is a simple one: mantling. Folks are often surprised that double-jumping is all the way down at number 5. Don't look at me, I'm not part of the UN-funded body in charge of ranking video game movement techniques.