10 highlights from the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay demo

Well, finally. The Cyberpunk 2077 demo footage shown behind closed doors at E3 was at last revealed to everyone, letting us take a good long look at CD Prokect Red's upcoming open world FPS. There's a lot to unpack in the footage, from futuristic weapons to crowded city streets, plus driving, hacking, and a whole lot of shooting.

Here are the highlights from Cyberpunk 2077's gameplay footage. (If the Twitch clips below have autoplayed, just click the replay icon in the lower-left corner of each).

Despite Cyberpunk 2077 being a first-person game, you can drive in first or third-person perspective, which is great. Here's a look at some third-person cruising though what looks like a sprawling and heavily detailed futuristic city.

While driving, the player's car is attacked by some goons in a van. Your NPC partner can grab the wheel and steer while you lean out the window and shoot, so at least he does more in the game than just talk your ear off. It also appears you can shoot tires out to make vehicles crash."That was intense!" says the narrator after the fight. Well, I don't know about intense, but it was pretty cool.

While visiting a ripperdoc—sort of a street surgeon—you can have implants installed that provide you with new abilities. Here, a scanner is implanted in the player's eye, letting you zoom in and analyze people, giving you clues to enemy weaknesses or gang affiliations.

The inspection system also lets you closely examine items. According to the narrator, this can provide additional information that will help you complete quests.

"Looks like we found some LOOT," the narrator helpfully points out as we stare at a big gun on a table. Thanks, narrator! This is a smartgun, and its bullets will follow your target, meaning you can shoot them without having direct line-of-sight.

Having a pet robot that can cloak and climb walls and ceilings sounds handy and fun. I don't think the Maelstrom goon really needed a sales pitch. Yes, we will buy this adorable and no doubt dangerous little guy.

Scanning a powerful, shielded enemy can uncover weak points. Combine that knowledge with cover—in this case, your partner lifting up a car with one hand and using it as a shield—and the smart weapon's ability to track enemies and fire around corners, and you can chip away at bosses without being directly in their path. Some cover is destructible, though, like the stone column shown falling apart when it's hit.

You can choke out dudes and hack into them manually, by basically popping a USB cable into their heads. Connecting to this gang member gives you access to the gang's entire network, letting you tamper software the rest of the squad is using. Hope they've all updated their drivers.

Above we see a wall-climbing ability paired with the enemy hacking system the player just unlocked. By remotely installing a virus in one gang member's implants, it renders him unable to fire his weapon. And, those arm spikes can be used not just for climbing walls but for head-stabbing and complete head removal. Nifty.

The funniest moment shows the perils of dying in slow-motion. As a goon is shot in the legs, he begins to scream "Jesus Christ, my legs!" But he's only halfway through his exclamation when he gets his head shot off. Having no head doesn't stop him from finishing his sentence, however.

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