During a recent developer Q&A held in Poland, CD Projekt Red explained some of their approach when it comes to designing Cyberpunk 2077 loot. According to the devs, there will be plenty of loot in the game that is effectively useless for the players. However, they do have good reasons, and it has to do with world-building in Night City.
CD Projekt Red’s Design for Cyberpunk 2077 Loot
The statements from CD Projekt Red about their Cyberpunk 2077 loot design come from a recent report on Reddit, summarising the Polish Q&A event. “They are aiming to keep the balance between loot that will be useful for the player and one that will be useless from player’s perspective,” it explains; “The reason why they are keeping loot that’s useless for the player is that even if it’s useless for them, it’s still something that was useful for the characters in the game and it wouldn’t be logical for all the NPCs to carry only stuff that is beneficial for the player.”
Certainly, this makes sense when it comes to RPG design. One need only look at a game like Skyrim to see what the developers mean; The Elder Scrolls is full of mundane items that players cannot do anything with. (Not to mention basic equipment which is rapidly out-classed by even early-game gear.) However, and as CD Projekt Red apparently stated, this loot serves a secondary purpose for world-building. Although it may not be useful for the player, seeing it in the game lends the setting a certain realism.
This loot may help to build the aesthetic of an enemy faction, or an area, etc. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had plenty of items like this, although it also gave players the ability to break almost all items down into their component parts in order to get crafting materials. It’s currently unknown if Cyberpunk 2077 will feature an equivalent system. However, that may be another reason to include plenty of otherwise useless loot.