It will include straight, gay and bisexual NPC partners.
Cyberpunk 2077, the upcoming game by Polish developer CD Projekt Red, will have more Diverse Romance Options than the studio’s previous game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
In an interview with Game Informer, quest designer Patrick Mills confirmed that Romance Options for protagonist V will far exceed those that Geralt had available to him in The Witcher 3. Because players can choose V’s gender and background, a whole host of options will open up that weren’t available to Geralt, whose gender and sexuality were previously set by the books the game series is based on.
In fact, Mills confirmed that players could define V’s sexuality to go along with partnering romantically with non-playable characters. “We’ve got NPCs that are gay, we’ve got NPCs that are bi, we’ve got NPCs that are straight, because we want them to feel real and that they have preferences as well,” Mills said. “We’re aiming for big, complicated relationships that continue over the course of the game, but also casual encounters that don’t matter that much.”
Cyberpunk 2077 was initially teased back in 2013, but it wasn’t until this E3 that footage of the game was revealed. CD Projekt Red showed a roughly 45-minute behind closed doors demo to the press and industry insiders at the expo, and included a full FAQ, an alternate-reality game and a series of codes for The Witcher 3 in the trailer shown at the end of Microsoft’s E3 press conference.
Many fans were surprised to find the game is almost entirely played in the first-person and utilizes shooting mechanics, which created some backlash that the creators have responded to publicly. However, it is very much still an RPG, as it relies on stats that underly its various mechanics, including an intriguing ‘Cool’ stat that takes some explanation.
Colin Stevens is a freelance writer for IGN, and he can’t wait to see what NPCs will turn down V in his play through. Follow him on Twitter.
