10 Key Quest Design Lessons from 'The Witcher 3' and 'Cyberpunk 2077'

[@PaweSasko]

Thank you so much for watching! Truly honoured I could give this talk on GDC

[@evanlane1690]

What an excellent talk! Thanks for all the effort you put into the content and presentation!

[@Smoothie128]

​@@Eclipse538 Nothing personal, I just want to disagree with you. 1. Voice acting in cp2077 is poorly done Is it a quest designer problem? Nope, there are voice actors, audio producers, managers, and even sometimes programmers to blame. Usually, people creating such big games don't have time to give feedback on others's work. Especially when you are dealing with the delay factor. Imagine you are an audio producer, you got a poor quality audio in terms of role-playing. Would you ask your manager to have a new record? Will a manager ask a lead to get in touch with a recording studio and actors again? And now imagine, you are working on thousands of audio tracks and you don't know the context of the game or how these samples going to be used. 2. The actual dialogue does not mesh with Night City in almost every relationship Don't forget that it is a multicultural and utopian city with clear segregation based on the money factor. In the real world, even different parts of the city have different manners of talking, based on their surroundings. If you are working in the office and have a casual life, you will not "really" encounter different types of people outside your social "bubble". So if you as a Californian don't act such, it does not mean everyone is the same, even if people in general assume the opposite. 3. CP2077 is not high quality Technical point of view - the initial start was tough, but now it is acceptable, same as Witcher 3 actually (they spend over a year fixing it too). They have added mod support and fixed most of the critical issues. They went a Skyrim way, if you can not fix everything by yourself, ask fans to do it via mods. Art - they did a great job of creating a city from concepts. It might be easy to create a car flying simulator with neon everywhere, but to show the ground with different lifestyles is hard. Design - not many "bring me" quests, and even in these, you can accomplish them in multiple ways. 4. Completely disingenuous relationships Do you want to play for 20 hours to build a relationship with 1 character? Just install mods. Otherwise, you need a ton of quests involving these characters and the playtime will dramatically increase, not to talk about the production cost. That is the point of the side quests for characters, you can know them a little bit more, and feel them, but you can not assume all players will do them. And sometimes behavior transitions between 2 main quests without finishing a side are visible. But that means that the designer assumed more players will try to explore a game a little, not just finish the main storyline and the game ends. It should be less text :D

[@Jorvanius]

Great talk, mate 👍

[@gamerspitt8089]

so you are responsible for the best quests ever made in a video game? i worked on like 5 AAA game's but never really enjoyed playing them, witcher 3 changed my life, best game ever made, thank you sir

[@ryzeonline]

Thanks for the incredible value and light and creativity you and your team bring to the world. Great games, great storytelling, great talk.

[@sihplak]

On that 3rd lesson of "believability" with the quest design, I think it's one of the most important in the entire game. The best quests in the entire game are the quiet, interpersonal quests. Going with Kerry on the Yacht, diving with Judy, spending time at River's family cookout, sitting with the aldecaldos around a fire under the stars, etc. Apart from simply being the most compelling parts of the game, they also hold a unique weight in cyberpunk 2077 thematically. The game puts you in this dystopian world of hyper-finance wherein individuality is erased entirely, supplanted by brands and other commercialized forms of social expression. Sex is made not only mundane, but even vulgarized as extreme sexual body modding and explicit advertisements are ubiquitously present. The world of cyberpunk is one wherein there is no political will or determinacy for anyone; even Socialism is erased and buried as the new USSR in the world finds itself in similar conditions and supposed Marxists in online chatrooms are victims of a prank. So in a world of no political will for individuals, and a world that demands everyone be subjected to their image and intimacy being beholden to capital and made public via the malformed markets of the cyberpunk world, the most revolutionary and rebellious action -- how you actually overcome the travesty night city brings -- is through genuine intimacy and interpersonal relationships that are not commodified. So in cyberpunk in particular, the emotionally and interpersonally intimate moments are the most impactful and engaging in the entire game, and easily are the most memorable. It's been like 3 years since I played it and I could still tell you more about these questlines than any other side quests or even many main quests; they're simply that good.

[@cdubsb3831]

Excellent analysis, I'd like to challenge you on the notion of the erasure of individualism within the game. Playing through I found almost the exact opposite with everybody hyperfixated towards promoting the idea of individualism to the point of erasing other social ability and community. Everybody is hyper-fixated on breaking the fashion trends, on dying a legend and carving a name for yourself in the city, backstabbing your peers to ascend a corporate hierarchy, advertisements on distinguishing you from the others as elite or talented or secured, cyberpsychosis is treated as a rogue element occurring in cybernetic abusing deviants. The corpos push individualism, they want you fighting amongst yourselves too focused to critique the systems and organize a resistance. They promote cels, solos, and legends because if their operations fail or you find no further use for them you can easily dispose of them. Any strong enough faction that finds footing outside of this does so through community ties, be it dynasty of Arasaka or the close-knit of the extended Aldercados, street kids and nomads finding family due to certain shared experiences and necessity, ideology and aesthetic beliefs for certain cybernetics, or the demand for protection for certain vulnerable professions like the Moxxis.

[@sihplak]

​@@cdubsb3831 To an extent you're right here, but the distinction I'd argue is between the realization of authentic selves as selves vs what you identify with the facsimile of individualism that's presented. I think the best example actually might be that idea with the Afterlife bar and wanting to become "legends"; while some names hold weight due to sheer undeniable substance (Martboss), and others less so due to notoriety (Silverhand), what I saw in the game was a distinct erasure of individuals insofar as this pursuit of individual fame is pushed. In a way, if everyone is trying to be special or stand out, no one is, and moreover, the way they attempt to do so is still curated within the omnipresent grasp of the corporate controlled businesses (I hesitate to even call them "markets" really given the sheer one-sidedness and oligopolistic nature of it all). And, on a further level, as you note, this fixation is for that immediate sense of gain within a hierarchy or as a "legend" among solos or whatever else, but that's still part of the trap as well; it's all contained in the uncaring, unfeeling amalgam that is Night City. I've thought about Cyberpunk a lot, and one thing that stood out to be was how, in the final mission, you can talk to Vik about the rerun of a boxing match he's watching. The boxing match and his notes on it, IMO, are direct foreshadowing of the entire circumstance V finds themselves in with regards to Night City. In particular, Vik is rooting for Walsh -- the losing boxer in the rerun -- and says he likes to think about what might've caused Walsh to lose. He suggests that it mightve been "entering the ring against a stronger opponent" but then immediately follows by saying it "feels a little strange to call that a mistake". This may seem essentially unrelated at first, but I argue the framing of it parallel's not only V's possible direction, but moreover, the story of everyone in Night City who is trying to make a name for themselves. Here, the issue is that Vik has it right, but not in the place we expect it; the problem isn't that Walsh was fighting a stronger opponent, it's the ring itself. It's a rigged game, in a sense, and especially insofar as the context of Vik watching it is a rerun; it's a set story with a known outcome that will repeat ad infinitum if one let's it, and the losing move wasn't that one fought against a stronger opponent, but that they were caught up in a rigged game (in two layers if we consider the ring and the rerun to parallel the struggle for recognition and the wider structure of Night City). This is also amplified further due to the one-on-one nature of the fight as well. So, you're absolutely right to point out how communities protect against that and provide escape from that trap, but it's even beyond that as well, since, after all, Walsh, as evidenced by Vik himself, as people rooting for him, I.E. has a community in some way. The difference is in who that community is composed of. We saw from the prologue that the Arasaka family, while as a family they may have power, is not a community at all. Saburo is killed by Yorinobu, Hanako plans to usurp Yorinobu, Saburo has his own engram backed up to prepare for this kind of thing -- they are no real family, just relatives who have their own interests in mind that conditionally may involve working with or backstabbing each other. The Mox is better, but is still contained within the violence of Night City, and still a symptom of its problems. They subsist on the selling of intimacy, in its vulgarized fashion in the world of Cyberpunk, which isn't to disparage them so much as to understand them as still facing the erasure that Night City imposes. This is especially insofar as the place of sex and sex work is considered in Night City; expendable, replaceable, expected, and uniform in a sense. They might find protection in each other, but they still lack the authentic self-expression and community that allows them to escape fully in tact. Thus, the Aldecaldos come into play, as I argue being the example of the one route I think of as giving V authentic and true victory over the actual antagonist in the game -- not Johnny and not Arasaka, but Night City itself -- as the Aldecaldos exist outside of it, we see how Panam is harmed in her attempts to make it in Night City, and we see the real familial love expressed by its members. While they might signify themselves via symbols and the like as any cohesive group does in this world, their manner of interaction and mutual recognition is completely on its own terms. Individuals are granted full recognition, when an Aldecaldo dies for one of their family it is a full on event. And, beyond all of that, they are nomads. They live outside of Night City, and while its towering billboards may loom over the sky, it does not engulf them, and this is without mentioning that, to take the Aldecaldos path means to thoroughly reject all that Night City farcically offers to V and anyone else. It rejects the supposed fame, glory, and riches for something in that is far more radical in the world of Cyberpunk; truly authentic family as an expression of self-realized and mutually-recognized individuals. Instead of being a name that's reduced to being a drink at the Afterlife, or, if you're lucky, an image that old geezers still hang on to like with Johnny/Samurai, you get a true liberation from Night City. The last thing I'll add (since I went on way longer than I anticipated to) is a shard that you find in the epilogue of the Aldecaldos-ending mission. It's a portion of The Iliad by Homer: "For my mother the goddess, silver-footed Thetis, telleth me that twofold fates are bearing me toward the doom of death: if I abide here and war about the city of the Trojans, then lost is my home-return, but my renown shall be imperishable; but if I return home to my dear native land, lost then is my glorious renown, yet shall my life long endure, neither shall the doom of death come soon upon me. Aye, and I would counsel you others also to sail back to your homes; seeing there is no more hope that ye shall win the goal of steep Ilios..." At least in my interpretation of the game's story, this is ending the cycle of Walsh losing in the reruns. This is ending the cycle of wannabe netrunners seeking fame and consequently having their lives ended early and their visage and image assimilated into Night City's own image. This shard further emphasizes this perceived duality; there is either the early death but with supposed renown, or there is the recognition that there is no possibility to overcome Night City, since all real polity has been erased in its totalizing mechanical hyper-Capitalism. Anyways, that's where I'll end off my reply here. I really enjoyed Cyberpunk, its writing, and its clever use of metaphor, analogy, and cross-textual and even meta-textual elements to convey specific ideas.

[@Kerphelio01]

@@cdubsb3831 "The corpos push individualism" - No, the corpos push a mass product called "Individualism (tm)" "Be your own unique self - for $9.99 you can stand out from the crowd! All your friends are doing it!"

[@richardm4138]

that baron quest is one of the best

[@JoeValenzuela]

1. Engagement 2. Impact 3. Believability 4. Brevity 5. Choices 6. Consequences 7. Overdesign 8. Bravery 9. Novelty 10. Effectiveness

[@zip2kx]

thanks! these talks dont need to be 1h

[@sandro-of9fq]

​@@zip2kx As just naming ingredients for a specific dish isn't enough to understand how to cook that dish, it's not enough to just list main elements of narrative design and fully understand it.

[@ssdeaglez]

One of the best GDC talks ever.

[@zerohcrows]

really wish he had as much time as he needed on this. it was great but you can tell that he felt very rushed.

[@MrSYLD]

I've bought an electirc guitar after I played Cyberpunk! That's how you make a video game!

[@yunocchika]

This is the single greatest talk I've listened to! I have zero attention span and yet I sat and watched all of it and took notes.

[@endlesspivots1307]

Awesome talk! Now I need to go back and replay Cyberpunk cause I did the main quest too fast. The quests are awesome but the whole chip in the head business made me feel the main quest is very urgent. Hated this as it broke immersion for me. Nonetheless, the whole flow in-out of conversations is so natural and well made. I hope they make this game better in time as it feels incomplete...ahem..trauma team...the police.

[@longeloe]

Awesome talk! This videos should be released in audio format on spotify or some other platform... Would love to be able to listen to them while driving.

[@NME10E]

KZbin Red gets rid of all adds, allows you to download and listen to videos with the screen off, it’s a game changer!

[@user-bc9ul6vb8d]

Some games really need to learn Lesson #4: Brevity

[@Flipside3D]

Every main quest in Witcher 3 felt like a drama episode, really hoping the next witcher lives up to it's predecessors

[@ssssssstssssssss]

I liked that at first, but I got tired of that pretty quickly. I felt like I was watching a drama rather than playing a video game. They need to make them feel more like a game, preferably through role playing

[@TheOrian34]

@@ssssssstssssssss But the roleplaying games are the Elder Scrolls. The Witcher games are about playing as Geralt, so you can't have as much control on the narrative.

[@NME10E]

@Eclipse538 Wow, what a rude response to an opinion you don’t like. I get disagreeing with the person’s take but no need to be a jerk about it.

[@Gobblesthepatient]

@@ssssssstssssssss big tru. Quit the game cuz of it (also way too easy)

[@sandro-of9fq]

​​@@ssssssstssssssss so creating immersive experience is bad? If you want to just play, fire up call of duty or tetris or mario. CDPR's main focus is and always has been the narrative.

[@TheOrian34]

Really interesting talk. I agree with a good amount of the points mentioned here. Having a fairly balanced choice where you're not sure there's an obvious answer makes choices a lot more interesting.

[@gio1000444]

Awesome talk!

[@Sam3DX]

Such an amazing talk ❤

[@CaptainWumbo]

Really cool talk and shows how cdpr more than any other studio cares about good story in games. Very ambitious and unique studio. I do wonder if the hate for cyberpunk was deserved, I ended up not playing it because I heard ps4 experience was bad, but I also played Switcher and loved it despite its bugs so... lol. Expectations vary.

[@moonrains5876]

2.0 patch which is out atm fixes most things people complained about (though I cant speak on consoles), ironicly given the the marketing the game came out about 2 years before "when it was ready"

[@AMBBrr]

Already watched it in the website, but good they uploaded it to youtube too

[@l0000worms]

10:41 Choom started the talk with Dream On cmooooooon, he's TEASING us I swear!!!!

[@MaxRovensky]

37:40 the problem with this is that until Phantom Liberty came out, Johnny Silverhand had almost zero characterization Everyone just referred to the character as Keanu Reves When you have the star power, you still need to write them well They did nail it with Idris Elba's character though, best character in the game by a wide margin Almost feels like they got Keanu late in the writing process and rushed to give him a prominent role in the plot

[@kaelthasblackmoore5770]

IDK man... The first moment I met Johnny, I know it's not Keanu Reeves. And I indeed realized his character arc in the playthrough of the base game. Johnny will eventually show you exactly who he is now in almost every ending. Especially the Temperance ending, where Johnny is almost completely changed.

[@ssdeaglez]

"Everyone just referred to the character as Keanu Reves"... Dude speak for yourself. If you and your acquittances referred to him as Keanu than it doesn't mean that everyone did. He's written excellently and his character opens up throughout the game insanely good. Johnny is better character than ANY character most AAA developers ever created.

[@pinnacleevolution1634]

The character that is just a yes man and has no character development unless you take the shitty route is the best character in the game? Also the irony of calling Johnny just a Keanu Reeves stand in yet using Idris Elba's name to refer to Reed is amusing. A single Johnny flashback has more characterization of the man than Reed in the entire expansion (and that is probably on purpose so you don't question his motives much and instead the entire burden of moving the plot is on Songbird).

[@MaxRovensky]

@@pinnacleevolution1634 Johnny is Edgelord Edgeboi in the base game Reed is a character with defined motivations, established past, informed decision making/principles/logical consistentcy and an actual arc Yes, he's a better written character than Johnny. I do really like Keanu though, so I see why people think there's substance to Johnny. PL did add a bunch of substance to him though, he's good now. But if we're comparing base game Johnny and Reed - the writing isn't even close

[@aaronspencermusic]

After all these years...you still have your mic going into a stereo input and the cables still need replacing, it's always waving ear to ear ...for years of GDC talks this has been a problem lol

[@shanewilliams5150]

You'll miss it when it's gone

[@aaronspencermusic]

@@shanewilliams5150 a lil...but I'll still be glad its gone ya know? Like leaving a toxic partner

[@agitatedzone]

Best game ever

[@NotoriousROZ]

I walked away from the crucifixion scene. I don't want to see that. It was also kind of a roleplaying decision because I don't think my V would have been okay with state mandated executions (I'm one of those people who tends to bring my own moral compass into RPGs). I watched it my second time through but I had to take off my headphones and look away because it was so difficult to watch. However, I do think your willingness to engage with the subject is remarkably brave and kind of shocking. It's one of the questlines my friends and I discussed at length because it is a very provocative, intelligently designed choice with nuance, complexity, and meaning. Not a lot of triple-A developers would be willing to engage with that. You'd never see that quest in a Bethesda game, at least not in such a graphic and in you're face kind of way. It isn't safe for business. It's a risk. You swung for the fences on a lot quests and it paid off. Dream On is another great example of a quest with a deeply troubling moral question at the heart of it. I agonized over whether or not to tell Peralez the truth. I ended up telling him but I'm still not sure if I did the right thing or not, I'm still not sure if all I accomplished was getting his handlers to tighten the leash even more. Even more recently, the So Mi choice (I saved her). These are the kinds of quests that made me fall in love with The Witcher, and they're why I was still defending this game even after that catastrophic launch on older consoles. It sucks that a game so engaged with themes of corporate overreach had its reputation tarnished in such a devastating way by the actions of greedy corpo executives. Especially because you as developers probably knew the game wasn't ready to ship, and would never be ready to ship on the base PS4s and Xbox Ones, but the execs shoved it out the door about two years early and with virtually no warnings for people with outdated hardware. Brilliant game, beautiful quests, wounded by bad business practices, and I'm glad it's gotten the cultural reevaluation that it deserved. I'm so happy to have experienced this story and look forward to many replays over the years.

[@alexkov2630]

And CDPR ignores the time restrictions yet again

[@mattmoorepercussion]

My dears

[@quichenovel]

i was waiting for the section on how to totally break your quest and never fix it for 3+ years

[@Cyberpunk2077_en_Español]

This Lesson deserves a DLC with all the "cut-content" released XD

[@NJoint]

Funny because, despite loving CP2077, I found the diving quest a little bit boring. Is not a quest I like to replay.

[@ffabiang]

The only thing that kept me going and playing this game were the story and the world design. The gameplay never stopped feeling cunkly and about to break, I hope they improve on that on Phantom Liberty or Orion. Just drop the various meaningless RPG elements and focus on making the combat engaging.

[@lepersonnage371]

well, the game is barely an RPG anyway so if they will drop the RPG elements then if will just be a story driven shooter

[@Savanh0]

Is there a way to get the slides of this presentation?

[@mmorkinism]

Watch video while using print screen.

[@Savanh0]

I didn't understand

[@SimonSlav-GameMakingJourney]

win + shift + s

[@Jow-zx8nu]

Don't agree about the over detailing, Rock Star does it and is praised for it, with right. Cyberpunk is missing some more detailing.

[@hayabusa09]

1-10: Never PreOrder

[@dmcdevils]

This is why cdpr style of games should be correctly categorised as visual novels , and not action RPG or something that requires more gameplay elements to turn it into a game. Also don't be the apple of game industry by with fake marketting and promos via influencers. Sell it as it is, don't control the market , control your game narrative pls, cause ur players can barely control the character movement in your games 🙄

[@Drenaker]

Cyberpunk has some of the best combats created in an RPG with literally douzens of playstyles and ways to approach combats between the weapons variety, the cyberware, the hacking, stealth, vehicules etc

[@jasondclark]

@17:02 did he just say that people in concentration camps 'kinda needed it'? I'm thinking he merged two thoughts there and didn't really mean to say that.

[@SVOKRAplays]

No, wtf? He said, he needed an event as transformative woven into Ciri's character arc in TW3 Edit: The quote goes: "[...] is something that *I* kind of needed"

[@soeivjockey3526]

First

[@kbubuntu6048]

cd project should go full linear ditch rpg bs like rockstar

[@minglessdreamar5264]

Here's the 11th key quest design lesson: do the opposite of whatever CDPR does and you'll actually make a good game.

[@primeminister1040]

The hate bandwagon is outdated, move on.

[@TheDemiGodDusk]

​@@primeminister1040 I'll agree that this isn't the place comments like this,this is a place for learning. However we cannot deny that they release the game in alpha for full price and should forever be looked at with some level of scrutiny for what they did to their players.

[@primeminister1040]

@@TheDemiGodDusk the game had bugs yes, but the story was great, and this video is about the story.

[@Gutalol]

@@TheDemiGodDusk Yeah but the talk isn't about that, it's about quest design, one of the things that they actually got right in Cyberpunk 2077. This guy is just trying to get some likes with a stale joke and a braindead take.

[@lepersonnage371]

@@primeminister1040 this game's problems go far beyond bugs, and story being good is not a deciding factor for a game that was advertised as an RPG with exceptional choice system. You mediocre people will eat anything as long as story is okay and will evoke some emotions out of you