Note: There are story spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077 below.

Cyberpunk 2077 quest director Pawel Sasko said that players who criticize open-world RPGs for being too "linear" are "completely justified."

Via PCGamesN (opens in new tab), the remark popped up during a recent Twitch stream in which Sasko was answering viewer questions. One viewer asked what he thought about people criticizing open-world RPGs for being "linear."

"Well, I think that's completely justified," Sasko said. Players were expecting more from The Witcher 3 because of how it was made." I think there is a tremendous amount of non-linearity in 'cyberpunk. But I still think the expectations were higher."

Part of the criticism that Cyberpunk 2077 is too linear stems from the introductory quest, which begins with the player choosing their role from three different origin stories. No matter which one is chosen, the character is immediately swept into the main storyline, and there was little impact on the storyline no matter which origin was chosen. Others say that there are not many major choices that lead to major branches of the story.

Sasko raises an interesting point in his response to this: major branches in the story may go unnoticed by the player because the choice itself is not one that most people end up pondering. Sasco's example is Goro Takemura, one of the game's best and most likable characters.

"The fact that Takemura can die or not is a very big breaking point that affects so many things in the process. It was a lot of work to make sure that both of those things worked out."

"It was a lot of work to make sure that both of those things worked out.

But for the players who prioritized saving Takemura because they loved him and didn't want him to die, "it became almost a choice in a way," says Sasco. In the players' minds, it was a straight line."

According to Sasco, Cyberpunk 2077 is an extremely nonlinear game." Quest "There is so much randomization inside the system that it is completely impossible to have identical playthroughs. Nevertheless, he believes that players' complaints about linearity are valid.

"I think it's fine. I honestly think it could be better. I know how it could be better." And I expect more from myself and from us as a studio."

You can watch the VOD of Sasco's stream, and the discussion begins around 1:17:00.