There’s a decent variety in the video’s runtime, showing off the sights of Night City both on foot and in a car, as well as some combat and conversations interspersed with slow strolling. Lots of slow strolling - probably to allow viewers to take in all the fancy lighting effects that are the most apparent difference between the two console versions. The driving section really gives a grandiose sense of scale to Night City, hammering home just how massive this game world will be. The huge buildings, multi-level walkways and busy streets full of crisscrossing overpasses and tunnels easily lay any worries to rest regarding the city’s size. Just how much of the verticality on display is a skybox and how much is freely explorable remains to be seen, however. One thing is for sure - V will visit a lot of clubs during their adventure. Just in this video we walk and shoot our way through three, and at least five others are seen on the side of the streets with open doors indicating their interiors are detailed and explorable. The ‘Night’ in Night City doesn’t canonically reference the metropolis’ nightlife, but it may as well.
The combat portion of this particular gameplay demo is fairly brief, but there’s a lot to examine here. Between 5:25 and 5:57 V takes out a bunch of thugs with an automatic weapon, a smart auto-targeting pistol, a thrown weapon that is some sort of elemental grenade based on the colourful particle effects - curiously this portion was showing off Xbox One X graphics as opposed to the next-gen goods - and a short blade.
Examples of the conversation system also show how some stats factor into dialogue, unlocking certain responses if you have the right amount of points in a given category. We also get some more screentime with ghost Johnny Silverhand while riding an elevator as he expresses his doubts about the loyalties of another character. We wonder if he’ll be relegated to the role of pseudo-narrator for very long. Cyberpunk 2077 launches on the 10th of December.
