this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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i brought no expectations besides those that cdpr and other players created for me.
How is Cyberpunk 2077 not an RPG?
What RPG aspects does it not have, that your idea of an RPG should have?
This is a genuine question, not an attempt at a "gotcha" trap.
The term RPG is basically meaningless now, it is so amorphous and vague and means different things to different people.
Does it mean... skill trees and stat bars and discrete numerical levelling systems and complex inventory management and items and currency and loot and complex spreadsheet style damage/stats/abilities minmaxing?
Does it mean... the ability to play a chatacter in your own way and make meaningful choices that impact the trajectories of the other characters in the world, and more broadly, the world itself?
Does it mean a complex set of branching and / or optional plot threads, storylines?
Does it mean presenting a responsive and detailed immersive world that you almost can lose yourself in as its own consistent, distinct, liveable, believable, alternate reality?
Literally all that RPG means is Role Playing Game.
Different people have considerably different ideas of... what constitutes that, what elements are required, which are more or less or wholly unimportant.
By what actual metrics are you saying CP77 is not an RPG?
What, specifically, is it lacking, that makes it not and RPG?
Do those metrics or features or lack thereof... does that all hold up when you evaluate other games that 'are' and 'are not' RPGs?
I can see it being totally arguable that it is not a good RPG, in many possible ways, that it is a mediocre or bad for whatever reasons.
I do not see how it is possible that it is not an RPG at all, that it is not an "actual RPG."
Like here, I can give you one actual promise that was definitevely, concretely made, that was broken, that imo makes it less good of an RPG:
It was supposed to entirely be in first person.
But basically, they had to go back on that, because very very few people can handle driving in first person.
That, in my opinion, makes it less believable, less immersive, as a consistent role playing experience.
And to me, consistentency and immersion are fairly high up there on my personal RPG rating schema.
But I realize that is probably not a widely shared preference.
And I also do not think that... having a third person orbiting camera... just necessarily makes it into not an actual RPG.
Ok so you have not given a well defined metric here.
Is FF7 an RPG?
Why / why not?
How about Deus Ex?
Shadowrun?
Come on, specific, actual things that do or don't exist in the game.
DX was described by its creators as an FPSRPG, later the terminology 'immersive sim' arose to describe basically anything that can trace back its gameplay style roots to Thief or System Shock.
ShadowRun, the more modern games... have more classical turn based combat, but on a 2D battlefield grid, lots of roleplaying... these kinds of games are commonly reffered to as tactical, TRPGs, or isometric RPGs.
Hell, the Paper Mario series is generally described as an RPG, a hybrid of RPG and Action Adventure, which... is different than an ARPG, an Action RPG, where the combat is generally not turn based.
So far, best I can tell, you only have a definition of what an RPG isn't, and it is... having a quest log and many missions/quests, and a 'two bit hack' main story.
So....by that... by me trying to follow those guidelines... Skyrim is not an RPG, neither is Fallout 4, nor Starfield, nor FF13, nor Mass Effect Andromeda.
You may note that all of those games are often described as RPGs, or ARPGs, realtime action oriented RPGs.
Which... would also be applicable to CP77.
Or, maybe CP77 is also an imsim.
It... mechanically does everything Deus Ex does, and more.
I'm not telling you what an RPG is or isn't.
I am asking you to provide an actual definition of what an RPG is, and I am listing examples that are commonly, but not always, usually part of people's definition.
What, to you, is an "actual RPG", and why doesn't CP77 make it into that category?
I will also say though ... if your impression of CP77's combat and levelling mechanics is that they are superficial, superfluous... clearly you did not play this game on" very hard".
For the record, I don't have a problem with people who just want to experience basically a power fantasy with cutscenes, but uh, yeah, those systems are very important to understand when playing on higher difficulties.
Ok, so you have no actual definition of "actual RPG", got it, but you are also certain CP77 isn't one.
You apparently have a definition of "Ubisoft style open world sandbox"...
... you apparently think I am making some kind of insane claim that something you... possibly consider an "actual RPG" is something I am calling "an Ubisoft open world sandbox" ...
But I literally have no idea what you are talking about because you will not define your terms.
How can you say a schnorb is a schloober!
Preposterous!
Sure, I'll give you that I have a "weird fixation" on uh, you know, trying to actually classify games and understand the linguistics that have arisen around them...
And that is because I am a data analyst by trade, and also because I've been making video game mods for decades, and am currently working on my own game... I kind of take video games seriously, as a potential profession.
Also, I did not ask you for a 10 page dissertation on every RPG subtype.
I was again, providing examples to maybe help illuatrate the problem, the complexities.
What I am... or I guess now, was, asking for is for you to actually define an "actual RPG", as you see it.
On the one hand, you've made it clear you will not do this, so, I don't expect you to, and will be fine just leaving this here as it is.
On the other hand, that means you are being somewhere between intentionally vague and outright disingenuous, if you insist on making rhetorically strong, yet logically weak claims that you will not allow to be scrutinized.
You are clearly not interested in a serious discussion, you are interested in being bombastic, dramatic.
Ok, so, back to basics, the same questiom I keep asking you, and you keep not answering:
What do you define an "actual RPG" as, what attributes or qualities or systems does an "actual RPG" have, such that CP77 is not one, but other games are?
You are just waffling about in the midst of vagueries and variants, as I keep asking you the same question, and you continue being unable to answer it.
This is the closest you have gotten:
Ok, so, CP77 has literally nothing that you associate with an RPG.
There is almost no way that can possibly make any sense if you break down all the the game mechanics and features shared by CP77 and many other games generally referred to as RPGs.
Can you please be specific and identify what "an actual RPG" has?
What would CP77 need to have added to be an RPG, what is it lacking?
Because it already has a whole bunch of game mechanics and features that are common to many other RPG games.
Or if you aren't capable of breaking down game mechanics and features, can you give me a specific example of a game that is an "actual RPG" that meets your definition, so that we could maybe directly compare that game to CP77?
If you can't even describe what an RPG ... is ... then you literally, definitionally, cannot know what you are talking about, cannot be saying anything with an actual concrete meaning.
So far, all you have is No True Scotsman.
You made a claim that CP77 is not an "actual RPG".
I keep trying to ask you "what, then, is an actual RPG, what assemblage of which characteristics constitutes an actual RPG?"
And you are so far entirely incapable of answering this.