I thought about something very Bladerunner-esque some time ago:
You wake up in the streets of a cyberpunk-ish city, without any memory at all (no intro cutscene or exposition, only a separate tutorial in the main menu, which doesnt reveal any lore). You start wandering about trying to find out where you are and what you are doing here. You can wander about independently, guiding yourself by newspaper articles and local rumours and other hidden lore, or you could assist various small local factions, each with their own goal and ideals, similar to FO:NV. While doing all this you may STUMBLE upon clues to your own identity in various ways. There isn't a classical main quest to complete in the sense of a predetermined path, only clues which will influence your decisions, which you either uncover by coincidence or clever investigation.
The protagonist has several supernatural abilities, such as bullet-time, not needing food or sleep, immunity to a small amount of primitive weapons, ability to interact with wireless devices and travel in cyberspace etc. . The reason why the player is able to do all these things, and others are not, is not immediately given to the player. He is supposed to wonder about it for a while until anything is given to him.
The actual story/background:
[sp]A fictional company has built serving robots/combat drones, which so far have been quite primitive and had a very clear robotic appearance, rather than a humanoid one. Said company has been working on a humanoid prototype though, which was supposed to be controlled by thought, made possible by a fancy seat with electrodes and stuff. A worker decided to steal the prototype, so he took the schematics for the control seat, built a functional copy of it and locked himself up in an abandoned warehouse. The protagonist was hired to control the android out of the company's labs. He successfully managed to escape, but on the way through the city, the protag's brain was overloaded with information, causing him to suffer amnesia and forget that he is jacked into cyberspace, which is when the game begins. The escape itself has been bloody, but from the company's side been covered up as an accident by equipment failure, in fear the government would shut them down for loosing a powerful and dangerous android. The two major clues the player will be able to find are: 1. He is inside a robot (but the player mistakenly thinks the robot has a conscience) and 2. He is being remotely controlled.
A couple of other lore thingies I came up with:
- It is possible to find your human self inside a warehouse. Your contractor has been feeding you and kept you alive, finding out how to unjack you without permanent brain damage. He doesn't know what has happened to you since you jacked in (only that something went wrong), so he doesn't know that you are inside the android now, and when you enter the warehouse, he will be hostile by default, mistaking you for the corporation hitsquad sent after him. However he isn't inside the warehouse permanently, as he has to constantly get stuff for your body in order to keep you alive, so it is possible to find yourself without killing your complice. Once you are alone with your body in the room there is several things you can do. You can try to kill yourself (Which will result in a normal game over), pull the plug on the machine (which will permanently damage your ability to speak and release you from the android), or enter it in cyberspace, and notice that the avatar of the man lieing in the control seat mirrors all of your movement. Upon completing a puzzle that merges your avatar with the other you, you disconnect from cyberspace and wake up in the control seat. From here on, corporate hitsquads will no longer hunt you down and your faction relations are all reset. Depending on your actions as an android, you still gain some special actions with them (e.g. convince them you are the same person as the android; using a password; wearing faction uniform). However, you also lose all your special abilities, because you now are John Schmoe and even have to do human things like eating food now (without turning it into a survival sim, it's just to underline you are a human now).
- The player can find newspaper articles about himself being missing. The photograph doesn't match up with the face of the android though. It is possible to find old friends/enemies of yours and interact with them.
- If the player kills his contractor and does not jack out, his body will slowly start to starve and the player must keep himself alive by delivering food. Alternatively he can try to hire somebody to do that for him.[/sp]
Gameplay would be inspired by the approach of Deus Ex, allowing for both combat, stealth and social stealth in tightly designed sub levels connected by a bigger hub world, which itself has plenty of paths to get around. Upgrading wouldn't happen by a classic xp-based levelling system, but would be mostly dependant on the gear you are carrying (similar to STALKER) and have few special upgrades you can unlock within the story.
This is just a lot of ideas really, rather than a fully developed concept, just something I made up a long time ago.
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