Night City becomes the central open world location in Cyberpunk 2077. Here all information about the map, the map size, the districts and the badlands.
Cyberpunk 2077 has a dazzling star with corpses in the basement: Night City, location and map from CD Projekt RPG, Open World, big city Moloch, a place with history - and stories. Night City is not only an extremely important location in the game, the fictional city also has a long history of pop culture in our real world.
It comes from the pen and paper template Cyberpunk 2013 and 2020, so it has been in the minds of fans for over 30 years.
But as spectacular as Night City in Cyberpunk 2020 may be, as a player we are of course primarily interested in what awaits us in 2077. And a lot can already be said about that. So much so that Michael Graf wrote eight pages as a preview for GameStar Plus over his 15-hour play session:
The story of Night City
To put it into perspective: Night City is the playground of the actors both in the pen & paper template and in Cyberpunk 2077. The city lies within the story universe between San Francisco and Los Angeles , on the US west coast in the so-called Coronado Bay. That is why it was originally called Coronado City - the name change is connected with tragic events.
The town was founded in the early 1990s by Richard Night , an entrepreneur who wanted to realize the ideal of a town here: a golden port in stormy times, in which people live happily, contentedly and successfully together.
Because founding a city like this cannot be paid for with pocket money alone, Night resorted to the support of large corporations who willingly took part because national governments gradually collapsed in the world of cyberpunk.
Construction began in 1993, 1994 is the official founding date, well, and in 1998 Richard Night was shot dead by an unknown perpetrator . Here it is already announced where Coronado City is headed, which is now called Night City in memory of its founder.
Corporations and gangsters
We are shortening this a bit because we don't want to delve too deeply into the pen & paper template. Between 1998 and 2077, Night City went through quite a tumultuous change. After the final collapse of national governments, the city on the sunny side is ruled by numerous megacorporations, while various gangster gangs such as Valentinos, Tyger Claws and Voodoo Boys are flourishing in the shadows.
Influential companies include, for example, Trauma Team International , a pharmaceutical company that also offers customers mobile reaction forces to ensure their safety. Incidentally, an official cyberpunk comic about the heavily armed emergency medics appears before the game . In the first extensive gameplay demo for Cyberpunk 2077, the first aid squad could already be seen when we pulled the kidnapped woman out of the bathtub. How helpful they are, of course, depends on the patient's social status and budget.
Even more important (and dangerous) besides the gangs are mega-corporations like Arasaka and Militech , which to a certain extent combine police, government and economic power. We can also work with or oppose them in Cyberpunk 2077. The latter is particularly obvious with Arasaka, as our ally Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves) is determined to bring the company down.
Where the power gap becomes too steep, stunk arises: And so there are numerous violent riots in Night City, for example the so-called Mob Wars between 2009 and 2011 . Cyberpunk 2077 is marked by organizations that want people to take control - and actors like main character V, who only fight for their place in the world all the harder.
The world is going down the drain
Incidentally, as a mercenary, V always stands between the fronts and is not allowed to join any group. Otherwise he or she would no longer be entrusted with the dirty jobs. The fact that Night City became a melting pot for power struggles, dreams and destroyed existences in 2077 is due to the previous economic crisis and a subsequent nuclear conflict. Because the USA is largely a hostile wasteland, people are drawn to the megacities and thus a little from the rain into the eaves.
This gloomy scenario fits in wonderfully with the cyberpunk genre, which likes to paint the picture of a near, seemingly hopeless future and confronts us with the associated problems and questions. How do you stay human in such a world? And do you even have to?
Night City's playable neighborhoods
Night City will feature six major districts for you to travel to in the game. And the badlands come on top of that as a rough desert landscape. We introduce them all to you.
City Center
The - surprise - central point of Night City. Megacorporations, luxury apartments, glitz and glamor sit here.
The district is dominated by elegant but well-guarded skyscrapers, with which the companies want to demonstrate their superiority. City Center is the safest and most heavily fortified part of Night City.
Watson
Numerous Asian cultures meet here and form gigantic markets that flourish in the remains of a failed mega-corporation.
Watson used to be a thriving neighborhood full of successful businesses, nightclubs and a modern health center. In the meantime the collapsing economy has put an end to this. Now Watson belongs to gangs like the Tyger Claws and the Maelstrom.
Heywood
The residential area of protagonist V. Mainly the Latino population of Night City lives in the gigantic residential complexes of suburban Heywood.
Santo Domingo
The industrial district of the city. Instead of residential complexes and commercial areas, you will find steel-hard industrial factories in a sea of machines. The city's energy supply is also regulated via Santo Domingo.
Pacifica
The name seems to be an ironic joke: Pacifica is the most dangerous neighborhood in Night City. A furnace of gang conflicts. Black markets flourish here amidst murder and manslaughter.
Originally, Pacifica was supposed to be a welcoming place for tourists. Thanks to the economic crises, the major construction projects were abandoned and smugglers and criminals moved in instead. Today Pacifica is the dilapidated scene of many brutal gang wars: The dangerous netrunner of the Voodoo Boys see themselves as protectors of the inhabitants.
Westbrook
Westbrook is a neighborhood where rich people work hard but play just as hard.
Here you can spend your hard-earned money generously. Westbrook is considered to be a model district for all kinds of costly amusements.
The badlands
This hostile wilderness is not part of Night City, but still plays an important role in Cyberpunk 2077. If you choose the nomad background for your character, V comes from here. But you can also visit the area in front of the city.
A real Mad Max atmosphere awaits you here: desert, rival gangs and souped-up vehicles determine life in the Badlands.
The size of the map
A leak that has been picked up by several industry insiders such as Okami and is therefore likely to be credible provides a better idea of the entire map . Supposedly, here we see the printed map that comes with every disc version of Cyberpunk 2077:
Here's a look at the full #Cyberpunk2077 map plus some additional bonus content.
— Okami (@Okami13_) October 5, 2020
These will come with every physical copy of the game. pic.twitter.com/kCay19XIUB
This map fits what we already know about the game world and agrees with previous leaks: After long speculation about the size of the map, a map of the districts was also published with the official art book for Cyberpunk 2077 . The badlands as the surrounding area and specific size information are missing here, but the map helps you to assess the size relationships of the individual zones to one another.
It will take a while until you can convince yourself of the content of the game world. However, an interactive map of Night City will help you make travel plans. Here you can find current information on important places like the afterlife bar and sights in the metropolis.
Later, important people such as ripperdocs (for cyberware) and fixers (for orders) or loot such as weapons and items should be marked. CD Projekt Red also recently published its own website for Night City, through which you can discover the city interactively.
Travel in Cyberpunk 2077
In the game you travel the open world either on foot, by car or by motorcycle . We explain in detail elsewhere which vehicles are in the game, from heavy tanks to slim sports cars. There are also flying vehicles, but you cannot drive them yourself. The entire game world should be accessible without a loading break.
Incidentally, the fast travel works like in The Witcher . You will not use the subway as originally planned. You just jump from one tourism terminal to the next. Cyberpunk doesn't focus on realism when it comes to locomotion either. Vehicles, for example, do not have a real damage model. No matter how dented they are, as long as they don't explode, there is no change in driving behavior.
In addition, the residents of the open world do not react if they steal cars or cause accidents. There are also no spectacular car chases with the police. So don't confuse Night City with a chaos sandbox, as you are used to from GTA 5. You can find out more about this - and why that's not bad at all if you approach the right expectations - in the extensive preview video with tons of gameplay by IGN, who has been playing the role-playing game for 16 hours:
Explore the open world
In the third Night City Wire around Cyberpunk 2077 , the developers also explained a little more about how exploring the metropolis works . Night City is growing as a futuristic metropolis with mega-buildings and skyscrapers, especially in the air, while completely different realities of life take place in the lower areas of the city.
Compared to The Witcher 3, the high visibility is missing. You cannot just see a castle in the distance and walk towards it. Instead, you explore many small sections and gradually recognize how they are connected through abbreviations and new perspectives. All of this should feel organic, although each district is very different in terms of its use for the city or architecture, residents and more. By the way: CD Projekt Red even named every single street.
For the fifth episode of Night City Wire, the developers have also released a new gameplay trailer with impressions from Night City , as well as gameplay that compares Xbox One and Xbox Series X:
Many players found the low NPC density relatively angry. However, colleague Michael Graf experienced a much livelier hustle and bustle on the streets during his play session on a high-end PC. Perhaps the number of passers-by can be adjusted.
The system requirements (including 4K and ray tracing) and graphics options of Cyberpunk 2077 are already clear. You can find out which missions await you in the winding streets of the gloomy city, how cyberpunk works in detail and what else there is to know about story, DLC, multiplayer and more in our large overview . Cyberpunk 2077 will be released on December 10th for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One and Stadia.
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