The developers behind Cyberpunk 2077 have teased how the game's Lifepath system impacts dealing with Night City gangs. The tease builds on newly-released details regarding the gangs, revealing a massive scope for the choice-driven adventure.
Cyberpunk 2077 uses the dystopian Night City as the background for a narrative-driven, open-world adventure. Player choices matter throughout the game, starting from the very beginning. When creating their version of V, the main character, players can choose one of three Lifepaths, or backgrounds. These include the corporate Corpo, street-smart Street Kid, and outsider Nomad. Each Lifepath results in a different game opening, and influences what the player can and can't do throughout the rest of the game.
Speaking to gaming news website The Gamer, quest director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz noted that each Lifepath would confer advantages in certain situations. For example, the Nomad Lifepath would confer advantages if players encountered gangs in the Badlands surrounding Night City. Tomaszkiewicz also hinted that each Lifepath would provide V with different motivations for interacting with gangs. Given that Night City is an independent city-state in a fractured future US, for example, the Nomads may serve as a shadow courier service for corporations eager to avoid a paper trail.
That said, Tomaskiewicz noted that the player could not affiliate with any particular gang. The player can significantly alter the relationships between gangs, but the player is not fighting to help one gang triumph. This aligns with another point Tomaskiewicz made: that the game focuses on balancing obvious and unexpected short-term and long-term consequences for each choice players make, in a similar manner to The Witcher 3. Choosing a gang would have obvious short-term and long-term impacts, in ways that might not align with the way CD Projekt Red designs games.
Some may be disappointed by the player's inability to enter or lead gangs. After all, many regard Fallout 4's faction-based quests as some of that game's best content, and those quests tackled similar themes of oppression and transhumanism. Plus, given that each gang sports a very different worldview and approach to conflict, players may resonate strongly with one gang and wish to join them. Not being able to do so could hinder the game's otherwise-exhaustive customization and role-playing options.
Still, many will likely be excited by the role that Lifepaths play in negotiating with gangs. Even without explicit affiliations, the game's narrative will clearly diverge based on the player's choices. In fact, players who do enough sidequests can trigger the ending without doing the main quest, resulting in unique epilogues. This represents an impressive focus on making every choice count, whether it's part of a side quest or a main quest.
Cyberpunk 2077 releases on November 19th for PC, Playstation 4, Google Stadia, and Xbox One. The game is backwards-compatible on the PS5, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X, with a version optimized for those consoles coming later as a free upgrade.