In the original Cyberpunk 2077, there were only three starting backgrounds, and each of their storylines lasted less than two hours.
After that, the protagonist would be unified into a single identity to explore and adventure in the world.
At the ti, Takayuki felt this design was genuinely a pity.
The entire world had already been fully built, yet players could only experience it through one identity. That wasted a large part of the original worldbuilding.
So in this world, Takayuki simply decided to add multiple playable identities.
Each identity was given its own separately designed main story flow.
And in the future, Takayuki also planned to release expansion packs that would add even more identities.
For players, this might feel like replaying the ga again—but Takayuki could guarantee that every identity would offer a different kind of enjoynt built on top of the original story.
Right now, Murakami Kazuo was playing the Cyber Doctor / Trauma Team identity.
During the opening tutorial, he encountered another important character in the ga: Jack.
In the original story, Jack played a bridging role between early and later plot points, but his "grab-the-box-lunch" mont ca a bit too fast—he died due to a scripted plot event at roughly the first ten percent of the ga.
Most players hadn’t even ford much emotional attachnt to him before he died, even though he was a character that deserved proper buildup.
So, without affecting the main storyline, the early stages were expanded with more missions fighting alongside Jack, allowing players to truly bond with him—before delivering that brutal emotional blow later.
Takayuki felt that if players knew his intentions, they’d probably want to hang him up and beat him.
In Murakami Kazuo’s playthrough, with the protagonist’s help, Jack successfully beca a mber of Trauma Team. The two then began taking missions together, struggling side by side in Night City.
However, Murakami Kazuo wasn’t satisfied with only following the main story.
The most interesting part of a ga like this wasn’t just the main plot—it was the wide variety of systems, chanics, and details throughout the ga world.
So after completing the early main missions with Jack, he decisively began freely exploring the entirety of Night City.
The city felt incredibly real, as if it truly existed, and its level of detail was almost frightening.
For example, while trying to take the elevator down from his apartnt, the elevator suddenly malfunctioned and stopped.
At that mont, the ergency phone inside the elevator rang. The player could choose to wait for repairs—in which case, once the repairs were completed, they would receive a small compensation paynt for psychological distress caused by the delay.
Alternatively, the player could crawl out through the ergency hatch and leave the elevator on their own, continuing with their activities.
But there was actually a third option.
If the player’s identity had sufficiently high electronics skill, they could actively fix the elevator themselves.
This triggered a small puzzle miniga. Successfully solving it would restore the elevator’s function, and the protagonist would gain a bit of reputation in the city.
That reputation increased the protagonist’s standing in Night City.
Reputation, in turn, indirectly influenced how people in Night City treated the protagonist.
With high enough reputation, even soone whose current identity was just a street punk could gain an audience with major corporations or powerful figures, unlocking more missions, solving problems for influential people, earning even more reputation, and eventually climbing into high society.
These were details in the ga’s core systems.
And then there were other details that made Murakami Kazuo feel they were completely unnecessary—but if included, dramatically increased imrsion.
At street food stalls, Murakami Kazuo could observe NPC pedestrians eating.
They scooped food from their takeaway boxes one spoonful at a ti.
While it wasn’t detailed enough for every single bit of food to disappear realistically, it was clearly visible that the food gradually vanished from the container.
In a ga made by a typical company, this scene would likely just have an NPC pretending to eat empty air, with a tir set for when they "finish."
Or worse, the NPC might simply eat forever without stopping.
These kinds of shortcuts wouldn’t actually affect gaplay enjoynt.
But with these details included, imrsion was clearly much stronger.
Murakami Kazuo didn’t even know why—he simply stood there at the stall, watching people co and go, watching them eat.
After finishing their als, the custors would leave satisfied, place cash on the counter, and move on to their next destination.
Buzz—buzz—
Murakami Kazuo was completely imrsed in the ga world, having forgotten everything else.
He felt like it had been a long ti since he’d experienced this level of imrsion in a ga.
It felt as though the world contained countless forms of enjoynt waiting to be discovered—he only needed to dig them out.
At that mont, he didn’t even notice that the console’s cooling fan was spinning wildly, clearly pushing the hardware to its limits.
He simply watched NPCs going about their lives, finding it interesting just to see them wander around.
The ga also featured a hologram-like scanning function.
If used on soone, it would identify their identity, birthdate, hobbies, profession, and more.
Of course, so people’s information appeared blurred—clearly encrypted, with access deliberately restricted.
Then suddenly, soone rushed up to him and shouted loudly:
"You bastard—how dare you spy on ?!"
The man imdiately pulled out a gun and attacked.
Murakami Kazuo froze for a mont. After getting shot and wounded, he hurriedly drew his weapon and returned fire.
A random pedestrian was no match for the protagonist, and Murakami Kazuo quickly took him down.
But almost imdiately, police sirens sounded nearby. Law enforcent officers appeared from all directions, ordering the protagonist to drop their weapon and surrender.
Murakami Kazuo didn’t understand what was happening and chose to fight back.
Naturally, without any surprise, he was killed on the spot.
Ga over.
Staring at the ga-over screen, Murakami Kazuo was a little stunned.
That’s it? Just dead like that?
Night City really was insane—and coldly unforgiving.
Murakami Kazuo reloaded the ga, returning to the mont when he had been standing at the food stall watching others eat.
This ti, he was more cautious and no longer casually checked other people’s information.
He realized that, in this ga world, looking into soone else’s data was considered rude.
Suddenly, Murakami Kazuo felt sothing strange.
This was clearly just a ga world.
And yet, he felt an urge to treat these NPCs with basic courtesy.
Even though he knew full well that they were nothing more than piles of code.
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