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Quick appreciation thread on the narrative delivery in Cyberpunk 2077 cause CDPR is doing some next-level work on keeping scenes interesting and natural.
So in this scene you’re going to meet Evelyn Parker for a job. You don’t know what she looks like, so you go to ask the bartender...
Notice how the placement of the NPC characters is funneling you into this position. There’s no other approach angle to the bartender so they get you into position without it feeling like you were forced there.
Evelyn was already sitting on the far left and Judy, another character you’re about to meet, is sitting to her right. Judy’s placement here is important for the staging of the scene.
After speaking to the bartender, Evelyn introduces herself and moves over to the seat next to you.
In a lot of RPGs, characters get locked into standing positions opposite each other, but Cyberpunk is constantly moving characters or changing their posture to keep the scene interesting and make the interactions feel more natural.
Judy’s placement on the stool as you entered, blocks you from taking that position, she then leaves once you’re locked in with the bartender, opening up space for Evelyn to move in.
Characters are constantly interacting with props. If the interaction would block them from speaking, e.g. drinking, smoking, eating, etc. interactions are usually timed directly after the character delivers a line, so that there’s a natural break while you decide on your reply.
After introductions you change location. There’s a lot of exposition in this scene and this constant moving of locations keeps things interesting. It also suits the narrative better as the characters look for privacy, since you’re about to talk business.
Again, more prop interactions. Note the lighter and cigarette are also light sources and the timing of the smoke exhale. Someone worked real hard on making characters smoke believably.
When Evelyn moves around the table she picks up an ashtray. Any time a character contacts the world, it helps to make them feel more grounded in the world. These small details make a huge difference.
Since you’re locked into a seated position, she’s free to circle this table as a canned animation without interruption. You can get higher quality movement this way, than you can with systemic navigation.
As the conversation gets juicy, she leans forward. These kinds of posture changes are authored to match the dialogue (it happens this way every time).
Worth mentioning that CDPR authors a unique a set of head look animations for each of these poses, and there are a ton of these poses in the game.
Another change in location (note the world contact as she pushes a button to open the door). Overall I think she stops in 4 different places in this sequence.
You reach Judy in the basement and again, notice the variety in the posing: The difference between Judy’s slouch with her leg up on the table and Evelyn’s femme fatale hand on the hip, tells you about who these characters are.
One final little detail: Look at Judy’s chair moving as she moves. It’s subtle detail, but this all takes work to do and all contributes to making these characters feel natural and grounded in the world.
Overall it’s really phenomenal work, with some crazy attention to detail. This is a massive game, so fully p-capped scenes isn’t really viable for their scope. The fact that CDPR is able to reach this quality using dynamic systems is very, very impressive.
