Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Idris Elba can rap and he has several songs for The Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty as he played Solomon Reed.
Next 31 days of video games are gonna hit like CRACK
Phantom Liberty: Tonight
Assassin’s Creed Mirage: October 5th
Spider-Man 2: October 20th
Alan Wake 2: October 27th
Which game are you guys most excited to play? It’s too hard for me to choose ngl
The actor Idris Elba is no stranger to the world of video games, but says he has a new-found appreciation for the art form following his latest role.
Elba stars as Solomon Reed in the latest spy-thriller adventure expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, Phantom Liberty.
Asked if he sees video games becoming a growing medium of work for actors, Elba calls it “a sign of the times”.
“Games and actors have always worked together but we’re seeing more notable film actors being moved into gaming.”
In recent years the games industry has seen a growing number of A-list actors and celebrities taking on character roles both in voice and appearance, including Kit Harington, Rami Malek and even comedian Conan O’Brien.
Elba says: “Every game now that has a big engine also has these big film-like cut scenes that are equally as entertaining. You can skip them, but most times you sit and watch, because your fingers are hurting from the last round.”
The new Expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 gives players a whole new district in the city to explore, alongside new characters, a new story and even new endings.
The plot of the expansion hits harder than the original base game, it feels better written and the performances are more impactful, resulting in a great narrative experience.
Idris Elba is a highlight who plays Solomon Reed and does a brilliant job with the character, alongside the new and returning cast.
The story is really good, but I felt like the expansion has trouble fitting the “game” into its story, cutscenes take up about 75% of the main plot length, with gameplay length being padded with forced side quests, spongy enemies, “wait x amount of time to progress” stops and other ideas that can result in more play time, there are a few great missions in terms of design, but the majority feels like the writer wrote a plot for a interactive series and CDPR had to find a way to turn it into a game.
He says as an actor, the process of appearing in a game is the same as traditional acting: “Character work is character work, performance is performance. You’re using the same muscles, whether it’s games, or commercials or whatever else you are doing.
“The difference with games is you definitely have to collaborate even deeper, because you’re relying on an animator and a bigger team around you.”
Elba says he envisages a future in which a hybrid medium of film and videogames will appear, saying: “I think there’s definitely a world where the two worlds really do merge.
“We almost have it with virtual reality. You can be in a virtual world within a movie or a game and just look around.” Beat cops really didn’t patrol the city streets? I couldn’t install multiple slots of cyberware in each limb? NPC drivers couldn’t even change lanes? The skill tree really used to look like that?
It’s been tough to keep straight everything that’s new in the game, and harder still to figure out exactly what’s been added in the free 2.0 update now available to everyone, and what was woven into the game with the Phantom Liberty expansion, aside from the obvious new missions. While CD Projekt Red has released a simple infographic listing the features of the update and the expansion, it leaves out a lot of the minutia.
