Cyberpunk 2077 finally has trains, but they’re slow — which makes sense

CD Projekt Red fulfilled a five-year promise final week when it added a completely purposeful metro system to Cyberpunk 2077. While the characteristic does wonders to make Night City really feel extra alive, I used to be stunned to be taught simply how little California’s public transportation infrastructure has improved within the recreation’s alternate-reality future.

Cyberpunk 2077 now contains 5 Night City Area Rapid Transit (NCART) rail strains servicing 19 stations. Every cease nonetheless capabilities as a quick journey level, but gamers also can use them to hop onto the subway and relocate, in actual time, to different elements of the town. As motion is restricted whereas on the prepare, this can be a largely visible expertise, offering people with a brand new perspective on the sprawling mega-city in addition to restricted alternatives to talk with their fellow riders.

During one journey, I seen a display indicating the prepare’s velocity was persistently hovering round 43 mph, which felt awfully slow for futuristic transportation. The common speeds of modern-day heavy-rail techniques within the United States vary from the excessive teenagers to the mid-30s, but they’re able to reaching a lot greater maximums. And that’s not even accounting for extra developed public transportation in Japan and China, whose magnetic levitation (maglev) bullet trains zoom by means of main cities at tons of of miles per hour.

Image: CD Projekt Red

This suits with what the primary Cyberpunk rulebook needed to say about then-future transportation in 1988:

Surprise, shock. Contrary to expectations, the 12 months 2000 has not yielded any staggering new developments in transportation. Years of financial strife and civil unrest have discouraged analysis into new methods to journey—in truth, the very act of journey has turn into very restricted. Expect the world of 2013 to be very like the twentieth century—a community of crowded freeways, packed trains, and swarming airports.

A subsequent enlargement, Welcome to Night City, signifies light-rail maglev trains with floor speeds of 200 mph existed within the eponymous metropolis way back to 2013, the 12 months the primary Cyberpunk adventures had been set. Every guide since makes some point out maglev trains as a staple of Night City journey, and 2005’s Cyberpunk V3.0 even famous an enchancment of their high velocity to 300 mph regardless of the obvious destruction of the intercontinental maglev line through the Fourth Corporate War (which befell from 2021 to 2025 in-universe) between the world’s ruling megacorps.

(And simply to cowl my ass, 1990’s up to date Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook makes it clear that NCART and the light-rail maglev trains are one and the identical.)

It’s right here that Cyberpunk 2077 does one thing intelligent by increasing the results of this battle. Rather than solely placing rail journey between continents in flux, the sport describes the Fourth Corporate War as debilitating your complete maglev system, as defined by the next database entry:

Maglev trains cruised at excessive speeds by way of tunnels and on the floor because of the appearance of electrodynamic suspension expertise, permitting quick and cozy journey from Night City to different cities, together with Kansas City, St. Louis, Atlanta and Washington D.C. Unfortunately, this new period of transportation didn’t final lengthy. The social unrest and armed battle of the 4th Corporate War introduced with it an financial disaster that quickly crippled your complete system. Currently inoperational, the deserted Maglev tunnels are utilized by the homeless and numerous gangs.

The destruction of the maglev system and the slow NCART speeds exhibited in-game lead me to imagine the native authorities was compelled to revert to pre-2013 tech to make sure NCART remained operational, an enormous downgrade from the bullet trains that when transported residents by means of Night City and past.

Image: CD Projekt Red

While researching this case, I couldn’t assist but see darkly hilarious parallels between the difficulties dealing with the fictional California depicted in Cyberpunk 2077 and the precise state in which I reside.

Despite being one of many largest (each when it comes to land and inhabitants) and richest states within the union, California has lengthy struggled with plans to construct public transportation on par with the bullet trains of japanese Asia. Lots of that is because of politics, as even ostensibly supportive legislators are cautious of spending the billions of {dollars} crucial to finish the challenge. And let’s face it: Americans are simply approach too dedicated to their automobiles.

All that stated, there’s one quite simple rationalization for Night City metro’s comparatively low velocity: The builders didn’t need NCART rides to occur within the blink of an eye fixed. What good would the long-awaited subway expertise be if gamers didn’t truly, you realize, expertise it?

A visit taken at 300 mph wouldn’t present any time to folks watch Night City’s eccentric residents or take within the view of skyscrapers surrounding the bay outdoors the prepare’s home windows. The complete level of the subway system — and an enormous a part of why people clamored for its inclusion all these years — is to offer gamers new alternatives to role-play and expertise the visible splendor of Cyberpunk 2077’s setting and its over-the-top aesthetics.

I discover it arduous to fault CD Projekt Red for enjoying a little bit unfastened with established Cyberpunk historical past if it makes for a greater recreation ultimately.