Cyberpunk 2077 Doesn’t Use Pen & Paper Ruleset, WIll Emphasize on ‘Punk’

Cyberpunk 2077 may share a similar name and setting to its pen-and-paper counterpart, Cyberpunk 2020, but that's where the similarities end.

Cyberpunk 2077 Game Director Mateusz Kanik revealed that the game will not be using the ruleset used in the pen-and-paper game because it simply wouldn't work as well in a video game. The mechanics, he says, wouldn't be a good fit for more "action-like" combat.

"We want to make it more action-like – there will be a system that lets you use active skills actually in the gameplay in a shooting sequence or something like that, rather than just passive skills like in the books," he said. "But also it’s important to still keep the mood and the original feel of Cyberpunk – we don’t want to just create a science-fiction game. It’s easy to do that.

"We still want to balance it with those main features and the mood from the Cyberpunk original. This is a huge task, I think."

The game's Creative Director Sebastian Stepien says that Cyberpunk 2077 will be more than skin deep in its similarities to Cyberpunk 2020, borrowing more than just the aesthetics. Instead, every element of the game will take place within the term "cyberpunk", with an emphasis on the "punk".

“This is very, very important. The style and mood and atmosphere of this world, what you do at the bar, what do you drink, how you react with other people, what dialogue you choose –all these things let us keep the Cyberpunk atmosphere all the time,” said Stepien.

“There are lots of cyber games around, but there’s not a lot of punk in those games,” Mateusz added . “We want to put more punk into ours. We do not want to make a dark and hopeless world. We are not doing Blade Runner. It will be full of rock and roll.”

“It’s more like a Tarantino approach,” added Sebastian.

Cyberpunk 2077 is set for a 2015 release on the PC and next-gen consoles.