Secret Witcher 3 message in lavish new Cyberpunk 2077 CGI video
"We are about to reveal our other project which is much closer to being completed."
CD Projekt Red wrote a secret message about an impending Witcher 3 announcement in a brand new and very sexy Cyberpunk 2077 CGI video.
The message read (via NeoGAF): "We are about to reveal our other project which is much closer to being completed, and it will also be a fully open world game with an intense story.
"You can probably guess the game we're talking about," it prompted. "On the 5th February, it will all be clear."
CDPR still hasn't formally announced The Witcher 3, although it's done more or less everything but.
The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are the two "AAA+" projects CDPR said are coming, one in 2014, the other in 2015.
Thanks to the secret message we also know that Cyberpunk 2077 is scheduled for 2015, or possibly later. Therefore, we're probably looking at a 2014 date for The Witcher 3, a PC and next-generation console game (certainly Next Xbox, not sure about PS4).
Said CDPR of Cyberpunk 2077's release date: "Currently it's scheduled a way off in 2015, but in truth, the delivery date is more like 'when it's done'."
The reason CD Projekt Red has announced and CGI-teased the game so early has been to aid recruitment for its new second development team - the one making Cyberpunk 2077.
"We will release Cyberpunk to you when we're convinced it's nothing but pure, refined, unadulterated awesome. We want it to be the most kick-ass futuristic RPG ever - OK, maybe that sounds pretty bully [sic], but it is our actual goal! You judge if we deliver it."
The reason I put all that information first is to stress how far away Cyberpunk 2077 is. It could be a 2016 game.
The CGI trailer shows the knicker-flashing robo-lady we've seen in promotional art before. She's butchered a bunch of people, by the looks of things, and the future police have hunted her down. She's shot at on a blood splattered street - the scene of the crime - but the bullets have no effect.
A similarly implant-enhanced man pops up behind her pointing a gun at her head, and that scene ends. Then we see the same lady and man in the back of what must be a special Psycho Squad police van, strapping on special headgear equipment.
Some people think the lady flipped out because she had too many cybernetic alterations. If the road scene is a flashback, perhaps that's the point at which she's recruited to the Psycho Squad special police force.
GameTrailers did a brief interview with Cyberpunk 2077 project lead Mateusz Kanik about the video.
"The teaser really feels like what we are working on," he said. "If you are thinking about the presence of melee combat, yes, we will have those cool arm implants. Cyber-psychos will also be present. These are people who lost their sense of humanity because of too many cyber-modifications in their bodies.
"We will have aerial vehicles, the Psycho Squad, and all the weapons you saw are our modified versions from the rulebook. I hope that the woman you've seen in the trailer will also be there."
Kanik said there will be a whole system of cyber-implants that will allow you to modify your limbs.
He also talked about braindance videos. These the booming entertainment medium of the time. They are videos that play in your head and you relive the content of them with your own senses. There are above-board braindance films and the huge Hollywood industry that's sprung up around them; and, of course, there are the below-board, torture and murder kind.
I suppose the scene in the video could also be a braindance. Whatever it is, it doesn't sound like you'll play as the lady in it.
"Cyberpunk 2077 will be an awesome game about a hero from the streets," Kanik continued, "from very dangerous streets. Raised from the gutter, he uses ultra-modern technology to stand against large corporations and others who exploit the underprivileged.
"The lonely rider takes his chopper, tech and the slaughter begins. Awesomeness in pure form with an engrossing, non-linear story - like an epic movie."
A CD Projekt Red press release summarised:
"This is the world of 2077. The gap between high and low is bigger than ever. Drugs, violence, braindance, psychos on the loose... Will you be able to function in this defunct society or end up a BD-junky with nothing left, set aside like garbage - still living someone's else life, not aware of what's going on around you?
"Whether you like it or not - this is the age of braindance decadence; this is Cyberpunk 2077."