Gamr Drivl - Thoughts on a Cyberpunk Sequel

Many modern games have a character creator of some sort, allowing players to customize their appearance, sometimes in minute detail, and that's before they make it to the actual game, where they can acquire different outfits and similar. It helps players make their character feel like "theirs," and in third-person games, they can see their character before them. But in first-person games, it often begs the question of why bother customizing the character's face, if you never see it. In Cyberpunk 2077, the only time you're likely to see V's face, apart from the pause menu, is if you deliberately interact with a mirror.

And from there, my brain went further off down a rabbit hole of ideas about how you could make that meaningful in the Cyberpunk sequel.

This post is not about character customization, but goes into the ideas that came out of it. As this post will involve some manner of spoilers for CP2077, be warned of SPOILERS BELOW THE BREAK.

Gamr Drivl: Destiny 2 - The Archives & Armory

Those who frequent my blog here are probably aware by now that I'm a big fan of Destiny, Bungie's MMO looter-shooter. I've written a number of shorts set in the Destiny universe (recently collected under the House of Dregs and Wahei Transcripts tags) and also wrote a Gamr Drivl piece suggesting a way to make a Battle Royale game mode work.

In November 2020, Destiny 2 brought us its latest expansion, Beyond Light, which also saw some major changes in the world. Several destinations in the setting were removed, and a lot of loot (weapons and armor) was "sunset," meaning they could no longer be upgraded to remain viable equipment to use in current content. When this was announced, it prompted a lot of complaints. (Bungie has since walked this back, and will be further working to maintain balance and shift the "meta" of loadouts to keep things fresh.) The removal of so much content-- explained as a necessity to keep the game a manageable size for ease of patching-- also meant that some lore in the game was rendered unobtainable.   

Additionally, one of the biggest complaints with Beyond Light was that the loot pool was suddenly far too small. With so many weapons and armors sunset, the newer weapons weren't enough to satisfy players. Bungie later rectified this slightly by adding several more recent sets back into the game, but it still left a bad taste in players' mouths.

What I propose in this Gamr Drivl is a means to make the missing lore books obtainable (though not for triumph score or seals) and make lore more accessible for the average player. And likewise a way to make it possible for players to "farm" for rolls they want on their weapons.

Gamr Drivl: Phantom - A Reverse-Horror Concept

Last month, Devolver Digital released the game Carrion, described as a "reverse-horror" game. Drawing inspiration from movies like The Thing, it deals with an amorphous tentacled horror that hunts down humans in a sprawling underground complex as it tries to escape to the surface. What makes it reverse-horror is that instead of playing a human trying to escape/evade the monster, you play the monster.

The concept of "reverse-horror," as Carrion presents it, is an interesting one, and I think it deserves more development. I'll discuss it more below the break.

Gamr Drivl: Destiny 2 Battle Royale

A couple of years ago, almost every shooter game out there was scrambling to join the "battle royale" craze, after Playerunknown's Battlegrounds and then Fortnite popularized it. There were plenty of PUBG clones out there, with their own various gimmicks to differentiate themselves. While some, like Apex Legends and Call of Duty Warzone, are popular in their own right, Fortnite remains the most popular with its evolving world and seasonal content.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a big Destiny fan. If you've been following my blog, you know this as well, as I've written various Destiny-related pieces over time. I enjoy the gameplay (PvP modes aside) and especially the lore. And, like many Destiny players, I contemplated how it might create a battle royale game mode, but never put too much thought in it.

I've never really been into the battle royale craze. It sparked some curiosity, but my dislike of most PvP game modes kept me away from it. I'll admit that a lot of this dislike comes from my lack of skill in PvP games-- and I don't have the patience to "git gud." The grind just isn't fun to me. But more recently, I got to thinking about a "Destiny Battle Royale" mode again. More below the break.

Gamr Drivl: Arkham Beyond

If you're a fan of Batman video games, chances are, you've played or at least heard of the Batman: Arkham series. Created by Rocksteady Studios and distributed by Eidos Interactive beginning in 2009, they were one of the first Batman games to come close to fully encapsulate what it was like to be Batman. Besides just beating up thugs and rogues, there was emphasis on his detective skills as well. 

The games feature tons of references to the Batman comics and TV series-- more than just DLC costumes to wear-- and even some lesser-known characters were highlighted or shown off. The combat system was praised and has been seen emulated in other games (Mad Max and Shadow of Mordor come to mind) and the use of the various gadgets helped with that feel of being Batman. And it helped that he was being voiced by the man that my generation heavily associates with the character-- Kevin Conroy.

I feel that Arkham Knight was a good conclusion to the story being told, but there's still a way they can continue making Arkham games without compromising it too much. And that's to take the series to the future.

Submitted for the approval of the Gamr Drivl readers, I call this idea: Arkham Beyond.

(Spoilers for the Arkham series below the break.)

Gamr Drivl: Star Wars Bounty Hunter

There's never been a shortage of Star Wars video games. From starfighter simulators like X-Wing and TIE Fighter, to shooter games like Dark Forces, Shadows of the Empire, and Battlefront, to adventure titles like Jedi Fallen Order. The quality may vary (looking in your direction, Masters of Teräs-Käsi) or be surrounded with controversy (Battlefront II), but there's never been a lack of them.

There was a game that had been in development prior to the Disney buyout of Lucasfilm that had been tentatively titled Star Wars 1313, which would have been the first game to not feature The Force in some way. 1313 would have explored the seedy underbelly of Coruscant, the capital world of the Republic/Empire, and centered around famed bounty hunter Boba Fett and an unnamed partner. Alas, Disney cancelled the project when they took over the Star Wars franchise.

But with the success of The Mandalorian, I think we could re-explore the concept a bit.

Gamr Drivl: Freedom Fighters (Revisited)

My brain, in case my readers haven't figured it out, likes to take ideas and concepts to turn them over and expand on them. That's often been how I approach my Gamr Drivl blogs; I take a video game idea that occurs to me, and work on how one could make an interesting game out of it. In some cases, the "interesting" comes from a new wrinkle to the game mechanics (as in the case of my Gamr Drivl: Mad Max blog), or from a new setting for a game in a series (see Gamr Drivl: Fallout: New Orleans), or a new approach to the storytelling. (see Gamr Drivl: Fallout Antebellum)

But my brain likes to take old things I've written and keep turning them over as well. This can help when I'm working on something new, as it leads to deepening a concept or story. But it can be annoying if it's something I've already published somewhere, when I want to move on to other things.

I've learned, however, that sometimes it's best to go with it, and get it out of my head. This is, after all, why I started this blog in the first place.

To that end, and to get some drivel out of my head, let's go back and revisit my very first Gamr Drivl below the break.

Gamr Drivl: Fallout Antebellum

War. War never changes.

Since time immemorial, there has always been conflict in the center of human history. Man against Man. Tribe against Tribe. Nation against Nation. War about land. War about gods. War about freedom.

In the 21st Century, the conflict saw two great nations, desperate to feed their hungry infrastructures, their hungry populations, their hungry consumption, arming themselves for what would become known as the Great War. China and America. Superpower against Superpower. A war about resources.

And on October 23rd in the year 2077, the war would ignite with nuclear fire, changing the face of the world and the face of civilization forever. But even in the wastelands that remained afterward, as Man formed new Tribes, as Tribes formed new Nations, one fact remained true, and that is that war...

War never changes.

But what about what happened before the War? I expound about a new idea for the Fallout universe below the break.

Gamr Drivl: Assassin's Creed

I love the Assassin's Creed series made by Ubisoft. It combines stealth exploration with fluid melee combat, and across the franchise, has been set in various historical periods complete with various famous historical figures. And underlying it all is multi-layered lore involving the secret history of the world-- on one level, the conflict between the Brotherhood of Assassins and the Templar Order, and on another, the lingering influence of a precursor race, the 'First Civilization,' who were responsible for creating mankind in the first place. It explores themes such as free will and security, with the Assassins seeking to safeguard the former and the Templars trying to assure the latter, usually impacting the former.

The most recent entry to the franchise, Assassin's Creed Origins, rewinds things back to Egypt during the time of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, and shows us how the Brotherhood of Assassins was born. It incorporated a lot more RPG-style elements and was more open-world, almost Skyrim-esque in how you could explore the map to find more locations across Egypt.

But where does the Creed go from here?

Gamr Drivl: Mad Max

So Mad Max is a classic film series, which got a well-regarded and freakin' awesome revitalization with 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road. Later in that year, Avalanche Studios released the video game Mad Max, which got a lot of influence from Fury Road, but told its own story, a possible prequel to the 2015 movie.

In the game, Max is wandering the wasteland when he runs across the War Boys of the brutal tyrannical warlord Scrotus. They steal his Interceptor and leave him for dead. Max links up with a deformed hunchback "blackfinger" (mechanic) named Chumbucket, who believes Max was sent to him by "the Angel Combustion" to help him complete his Magnum Opus, a customizable vehicle. Along the way, Max helps various survivor camps collect resources, dismantles Scrotus' hold over the wasteland, and despite his best efforts, starts to re-connect with humanity.

I played the game and actually really liked it. It didn't try to re-tell any stories from the franchise, and only used concepts from Fury Road to give it a vague relevance to that year's movie. (Scrotus is allegedly Immortan Joe's third son, but is unfit to rule the whole empire because of his rampant brutality.) Collectibles and other locations that you could explore built on the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max, giving you a sense of just how fucked up the world was before the end came, and how much worse things got afterward.

But there are some things I would introduce if I could have made the game. More below the break.

Gamr Drivl: "Fallout New Orleans"

War. War never changes.

In the beginning, there was conflict. Whether you believe one brother killed another out of jealousy, or that one tribe of risen apes slaughtered the next, there has always been war. The details don't matter-- the peoples involved, the weapons they used, or the stakes in play-- there has always been war in the pit of the human heart.

But in the 21st Century, these were the specifics-- mankind had depleted the world of resources. As forces like Russia and the European Commonwealth crumbled under their hungry infrastructure, the last two remaining superpowers, China and America, were at each other's throats. Then, on the 23rd of October in the year 2077, it all came to an end. Nuclear fire consumed the lands, the seas boiled, and radiation baked the skies. The world died.

But somehow, it didn't. There were survivors, eking out an existence in the wasteland. People band together to form new tribes, towns, cities, even new nations. New beliefs. A new world born out of the ashes of the old. But even in this new world, filled with both despair and hope, there will be strife. Because war... 

War never changes. 

I think and expound for some length about ideas for a new Fallout game below the break.

Gamr Drivl: "Red Dead Prohibition"

After writing my last video game-related entry, about How I'd Reboot "Freedom Fighters," I realized this would be a good platform for me to post similar ideas that bounce around in my head. Because, in case you haven't noticed, my brain likes to think creatively about a variety of subjects, all usually in the interest of finding good potential for storytelling.

So, here's another idea that's been riding around in my brain meats for a couple of years, that first came along while I was chatting at work with a colleague. We got to talking about a follow-up to Rockstar Games' 2010 acclaimed Western-themed sandbox game Red Dead Redemption, itself a spiritual follow-up to 2004's Red Dead Revolver. The Western gunslinging revenge story Revolver was something of a cult classic, but Redemption-- which followed the path of John Marston as he set out to take down his erstwhile outlaw partners at the behest of some corrupt government lawmen. Redemption's sprawling landscape took players through deserts, plains, forests, and mountains, while in the background there was the definite impression that the era of the "Wild West" was drawing to a close.

The ideas I set out below may seem slightly less relevant now that Red Dead Redemption 2, a prequel to Redemption, has been confirmed as dropping at some point in 2018, but hell, there are still ideas here that could be utilized for future entries in the franchise. Below the break, I'll talk about some basic story notions and gameplay mechanics that could be incorporated if Rockstar decides to do another follow-up at some point down the line.

Gamr Drivl: How I'd Reboot "Freedom Fighters"

So Freedom Fighters was a video game made by IO Interactive (the same developers that made Hitman 2) that came out back in 2003 that should've gotten more love than it did. It was a third-person shooter set in an alternate history modern day, where Soviet Russia won the arms race and dropped the first atom bomb on Berlin, and so they became the more dominant power in the world. And then in the present day, they launch an invasion of the United States and occupy the country. You play as an average Joe turned resistance leader that fights against the occupation. It's like Red Dawn, except set in New York City. You had to make use of cover to avoid enemy fire, and use a squadron of up to 12 NPC fighters to flank the enemy and defend positions. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good, and never got the sequel it deserved.

When the Homefront games came out, some people were calling them a spiritual successor, but this was only because they dealt with "alternate history where enemy nation is the dominant superpower and occupies America." The first Homefront game was just a relatively bland FPS game that never really clicked to me, and Homefront: The Revolution was a hot mess of ideas that I couldn't even bring myself to finish.

So, let's see how I'd reboot Freedom Fighters.