CD Projekt Red has unveiled the new braindance feature in Cyberpunk 2077, and it will enable players to jump into the lives of other characters in Night City and behave like high-tech security cameras while unravelling crime scenes. Braindances are an important and recurring aspect of the Cyberpunk 2020 universe, and fans have been wondering how they will be integrated into CDPR's upcoming video game.
Cyberpunk 2077 continues to be one of the most anticipated games of the year despite being delayed multiple times. Originally scheduled to launch in April, the game was pushed back almost half a year to September - and that delay happened before the swath of delays due to coronavirus. Just recently, CDPR announced that Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed two more months, giving it a new release date of November 19. However, the studio also confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 will be backwards compatible on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, both of which will be coming out around the same time as the game.
CD Projekt Red has provided even more details on Cyberpunk 2077 in a livestream as part of IGN's Summer of Gaming. Quest designers Pawel Sasko and Patrick Mills introduced the game's braindance feature with a gameplay clip, and broke down how it will work and what makes it unique. In the Cyberpunk universe, a braindance is a person's cybernetically recorded experience that can be played back by another person, making them feel everything that the recorded person did in that moment. Cyberpunk 2077 integrates this by essentially turning the player into a digitized security camera, which can gather information by jumping into another character's life.
Mills and Sasko said braindance is a fully-featured mechanic that will be used as a storytelling tool, giving the player a way to explore things like "childhood trauma, religion, and various philosophical ideas" among the people of Night City. The stream also included the reveal of the Cyberpunk 2077 anime miniseries by Studio Trigger, which is set to debut on Netflix in 2022. Dark Horse also recently announced a Cyberpunk 2077 tie-in comic, entitled Trauma Team.
With Cyberpunk 2077, it seems like CD Projekt Red is taking a more considered approach to the "detective mode" mechanic that is present in so many modern games. The Witcher 3 was an incredible game, but the "Witcher vision" investigation segments were not exactly the high points of the experience. Players will have to wait to find out how braindance feels, but it certainly looks more interesting than simply combing the ground for clues.
Source: IGN