Could Cyberpunk 2077 hurt DA4?

I'm curious as to your lack of doubt? I'm very doubtful myself. CP77 has many things going against it: 1) doesn't have high quality novels behind it, like TW3 did, as a well to dip into for characters and lore, 2) there are persistent rumors that CDPR is a meat-grinder for workers and that they continually lose people who quit or are fired, meaning they continually bleed institutional knowledge, 2.5) and many of those that quit cite inept management as the reason they quit, and 3) even if none of that was true, it is very difficult in even the best of circumstances to surpass your own best work, and even if you do, your customer's expectations are always higher, leading to disappointment.

Don't get me wrong, I want them to succeed and I wish them the best. I just won't bet my last penny on them topping TW3.

I believe 2077 has a chance of becoming great, but it cannot beat witcher in terms of quality. Mainly because witcher had an established universe before the games came out and the games had crazy amount of events/lore to be crafted from. 2077 doesn't have the foundation to be as impactful as the witcher.

It actually has, but more related to the setting/world than the characters.

I think the writing, quests, world, art and ambiance will be dialed to 11.

The big question is mechanics and the gameplay. Don't think most people realize how complex it is on that front...ludicrous amount of options with equipment( especially the crazy stuff: whips, nunchaka's, chainsaw, etc), cyberware, gadgets, distinctive roles, ton of non combat skills, along with huge range of combat playstyles you have netrunning, stealth, diplomacy, life paths, cyberpsychosis...crossover of Deus Ex/Fallout on steroids, in nutshell.

Their gameplay designers would have to improve massively on this, I'm more worried about itemization/balancing than anything else.

I am just using CDPRs past as a reference. They created TW1 with good reviews and success and then followed up greatly with TW2 and of course topped everything off with TW3. As of now, CDPR has not produced any duds and seems to be projecting up.

Also they DO have source material to work from. Cyberpunk 2077 is a videogame successor to the original Cyberpunk tabletop RPG so there is already a lore and setting established. IN ADDITION, they have Mike Pondsmith, the creator and mastermind of the orginal tabletop version working shoulder to shoulder with CDPR in to bring this game to life and make sure that it follows his vision correctly. I mean, just watch this interview:

And Finally, CDPR does not have EA breathing down their necks. CDPR has a bit more freedom and flexibility to do things that Bioware doesnt. One thing is time. If 2077 has to wait for 2020 or God forbid....2021, then they will wait. On the other hand, EA is probably putting mandates on Bioware to have the game ready by a certain date like MEA and DA2.

Yeah, the original Cyberpunk tabletop came out a year before the Shadowrun tabletop. Honestly I'm not hugely familiar with Cyberpunk's base setting - I've always been more of a Shadowrun fan. But from what I've gathered, the Shadowrun setting is richer and more packed with alternate history events and fallout from the fact that you don't just have the traditional cyberpunk societal changes but also magic coming back.

That being said, Cyberpunk hasn't put out a source book in twelve years where as Shadowrun's still going strong and, I'm given to understand, Microsoft has it's rights on lock, licensing them out to smaller companies to make steam games. So getting the rights to Cyberpunk 2020 was probably significantly easier and cheaper.

Which also means that if Cyberpunk succeeds and convinces Microsoft that a Triple A shadowrun game would be marketable I'd likely have to get an X-Box to play it.

That's a good sign, because this means they will be potentially bringing characters that they know well but nobody else in the world does to the table. For me neither Cyberpunk, nor Shadowrun means a thing, but I want a fresh cool setting, not something familiar. Tyranny is a small game, but it managed to create a familiarity with the setting and a bunch of awesome characters I care about from scratch, and I don't understand why a juggernaut of a company hiring hundreds of creative people won't be able to do the same, particularly with a canned setting already on their drawing table.

If anything, for me it is the already established lore, characters and events that hurts DA4, because they created a few unkillable characters, and major world changing events, like actually siding with Solas, tearing down the Veil and turning the world into the playground of Demons and Spirits, is impossible, because they said they are shooting for more than 4 games. The games also diverge strongly from one another in its setting and it does bug me to the extent that I would have preferred the settings called different for each game, or timeline between them to be waaaay more than just a few years.

So, overall, a fresh setting with new characters and protagonist is way more welcome to me than more of sort of the same (or trying to be the same).

That's all good, as long as there is no lore hidden outside the game which makes the characters flat. I just want to meet them in the game, get to know them and feel that it's all there for me to discover and make up my own mind about them without being pushed by the author's authority or being told that it is like that because of what happened in a novel.

So, yes, fresh cool setting, fresh start, my own main, and I can't see how it can fail for me personally if gameplay is at least okay. The rest of the world obviously might hate it, but I am used to that.

Honestly I don't know how many people would care if they made the game a setting update of the tabletop RPG rather than a sequel set in the same continuity, kind of like how they did with the Bond movies. If it gives them established characters to work with that the fans would appreciate seeing brought to life in a Triple A game, then I don't imagine people would get too bent out of shape over it.

Actually if you look at quality if TW3 there's a lot of abandoned quests and areas that are just left in game, it's quite honestly a miracle that the game doesn't have more issues with all that code just left in. In addition there are still bugs in quests that never got fixed. I do agree with you on the lore and narrative but nothing is stopping rpgs from having those pre-determined relationships other than people being grumpy that it hurts their RP. I will always hold back trust in a game till I see the reviews even if the company has a good track record. It doesn't help that from what I've seen and heard makes it look like CPDR might have bitten off more than it can chew. I hope they can make CP 2077 good but I wont be upset if it flops.