Just saying.
I may pick up Cyberpunk one day too though, as it seems to have (mild) elements from Deus Ex. Witcher 3 bored me quickly, as technically, it's a glorified cutscene with very little gameplay (such as the ho-hum combat) and a barebones character progression system that at times feels as if it was tacked on so the game could still be marketed as an RPG. Even the quests, whilst entertaining narrative wise, pretty much solve themselves, as witcher senses are mandatory and the quests are completely linear. It's like following the red dotted lines and fighting monsters in between, quest complete. Several people told me the expansions would improve on that some. But the first Witcher game at least had you actually gather clues and think for yourself on the occasion.
That's just my preference though -- CD Projekt view games sort of like movies. Whilst there is cinematic games I like, I generally prefer games being... games. In fact, I think the trend to go "cinematic" has massively hurt the potential games have as a medium, storytelling-wise also. Mind you, Larian too has blown lots of its budget of BG3 on cinematics... But they're still offering a systems driven game, not one where you follow the dotted lines to progress one cutscene to the next one, at which point you may as well release the damn thing as a Netflix series (to somewhat exaggerate).As a result, I wasn't actually too fond of Larian's Original Sin tbh. But I spent far more time on that than on either Witcher game.
I agree, and honestly I don't think it's metacritic and steam ratings will ever really recover. A warning to those who want to release games too early. Although Larian seems to have gotten away with it because they made sure Act 1/2 were in very good shape knowing that most gamers (60% by some metrics) never even finish games.
There is a balance certainly between having a cinematic narrative experience with limited pathways versus a systems driven choose-anything-under-the-sun and see where it goes - in the Cyberpunk 2077 version of things you get a smoother narrative and it's easier to have high quality VA outcomes. In the BG3 version of things it's much easier to run into "clunky" outcomes or just break the game entirely if you get too weird in your choices. I think both options have value, depending on how well they reward exploration and if the world itself allows you to kind of do whatever.
With Cyberpunk 2077 you really don't have to follow the main story if you don't want to, there is a lot to do that is just exploration and there are a lot of rewards for poking around the city. It is, for all intents, a living, breathing city of the dystopian future - and exploring that Art is the biggest reward.
As for Netflix - the cost benefit to making a game into a actual cinematic experience is a massive loss in the richness of the experience. Netflix won't let you explore Night city, and get into the past lore, the stories of the legends of the city, the factions and so forth. I can't klep cars and sell them to El Capitan to unlock the option to buy even more unusual forms of transport. I can't get into city-wide fights with maxtac and the NCPD.
Also it will be open to whoever picks up the work and decides to put their own interpretative take on it. That's what ruined The Witcher series.
Finally, I have noticed investment in cinema is paying smaller and smaller dividends versus investment in games. D&D Honor among thieves cost $450 million to make and market and barely earned it's initial budget back, and didn't earn it's marketing budget. Cyberpunk 2077 sold 25 Million copies as of this last month although we don't have numbers on Phantom Liberty. That alone puts the revenue at 1.5 Billion /against a $450 Million Budget including marketing.
BG3 has a $125 Million budget and has earned something like $600-700 million so far.
