So what would you get for finishing the game on the hardest difficulty completely non-lethal? Well, definitely an achievement (I'd call it Hardcore Pacifist) and the best ending in the game. Maybe if the devs can manage, there can be an animation to restrain them added to the game, but maybe that's too much effort for just the hardest difficulty. Defeated is defeated, you're not going to have to fight them again. On VERY HARD : Unconscious enemy can be revived as above, but will also wake up by themselves in a couple of minutes (2? 3? 5? Will need to be tested).įor that last one, there will obviously be an exception for the cyberpsychos and any bosses. On HARD : Unconscious enemies can be revived by netrunners, or just by any teammate that comes across their body. On MEDIUM : Unconscious enemies (with cyberware) can be revived by netrunners, if they have one in their team. On EASY : Unconscious enemies stay that way permanently, just like it works now. Those cyberpsychos aren't going to automatically stay alive, so you'd better come up with a good plan, choom.įinally, enemies who are not dead should be able to be revived, though how and by who should depend on the game's difficulty. Make you work for that morally superior ending. No more having to execute important enemies, but rather having to put in the work to keep them alive if that's what you want.
On top of reducing your options a little and changing how bullets work, the game really shouldn't hold your hand. Non-lethal takedowns, non-lethal hacks, and non-lethal grenades should still be a thing and would be the more dependable way not to make any mistakes. Again, the moral path shouldn't be the easy path. The kicker of course is that overkill and headshots would still kill the individual, even with non-lethal. Or in the case of smart guns, they'd simply target limbs instead.
To make any gun non-lethal, you'd have to add a mod to the game and it will use the appropriate non-lethal ammo. Rubber bullets would be more effective against people with less cyberware and EMP bullets would be more effective against people with more cyberware. Along with those three, I'd also add non-lethal variants for power and tech weapons: rubber and EMP bullets. Instead of having pistol, rifle, shotgun, and sniper ammo, I'd change the ammo types to the gun types, so power, smart, and tech ammo. I would actually overhaul the ammo system. Non-lethal guns should not just be assured by a cyberware mod either. So the Contagion Quickhack should be a lethal one to start with. Well first of all, non-lethal options should never incorporate room clearing options. So how do I suggest the non-lethal system should work? If you want to ask players to go the moral route, then that path should be harder than the immoral path but reward you with a better ending. The game protects you from going off the moral path at every turn and that just doesn't make for an impactful system.
You need to deliberately execute Cyberpsychos, for instance. And even when you decide not to use all those options, important characters still don't die. There are so many non-lethal options, from hacking, to melee weapons, to cybermods that make all your guns non-lethal. It's so easy to go non-lethal that you have to deliberately go the murderous route. I was so disappointed by this, that I never even touched on the next game (Mankind Divided) because in the footage they made it clear that going non-lethal was going to be even easier than before, giving you perfectly effective long ranged options on top of the already optimal system there was.Īnd now Cyberpunk has done the same thing. It was just the optimal way to play through the game, no need to engage with any of the shooting mechanics. The only problem was that not only was this approach easier than going the lethal way, it was also cheaper AND gave you more experience. Much later came Deus Ex: Human Revolution and they wanted to honor the original and thus built in the possibility for a pacifist run. Yes, there was the non-lethal crossbow, but you didn't have a shitload of ammo for it. Not killing anyone was very difficult and took a lot of creativity and careful progressing, avoiding boss battles, and going in for melee takedowns to avoid using lethal ranged weapons. I've had a stick up my ass about pacifist/non-lethal mechanics in games for a while now.īack in the days of Deus Ex, the first one from 2000, going for a pacifist run was hard.