So I have only played for about four hours but I'm already beginning to wonder. Is this a cause and effect RPG where you can affect the world with your choices? Because that's what I expected but so far I'm not getting that impression. Hope I'm wrong. Am I?

I've played through twice. Once as Nomad, once as StreetKid. Made different choices along the way and the game world didn't change. It's not like Witcher 3 where your choices change the state of the world around you, it just changes the ending as far as I can tell. The life paths don't really make any difference beyond the first 30 minutes of the game except for a few unique dialog choices. It's not what it was hyped up to be. Not saying it's bad, it's a perfectly average open world looter shooter, but it's not what I was expecting from the people that made The Witcher 3.

Thanks for the info. Then it seems it was not what I expected either. I expected an open world, cause and effect RPG with first person shooter elements.

so far, ignoring a little the main plot and playing around the area, most missions are basically useful to get rare items, raw material for crafting, and push the level up. We have a nice profile of some thugs, the furtive (moral) is good if you invest points, guns are effective if you invest on aprimoraments. So far, no Gang is marking me as a troublemaker, the NPCs are quite limited, I dont saw any enemie taking the gun of a fallen comrade, old tricks we see in games.

Some random combats across the city are more of an annoyance than a useful thing, pedestrians still zombies when it come of a more detailed behaviour. The game is cool, if they fix the bugs, that are in most cases animations glitches, car crashing on walls, quest problems, that´s it, a hybrid between Skyrim and GTA5, an open world with lots of action, furtive moments, and a big list of perks to choose.

I prefer The Witcher 3, the world is big, but the focus is a more rich narrative, with encounters that are less mess around and a nice outcome.

Nope. Even CDPR went away from the whole RPG thing a few months ago, and the game officially became "an action-adventure game" since they removed a lot.

Even earlier hints from them and pictures the game was marketed to be a real RPG, but they instead turned it into a "GTA V"-clone with a few "RPG-elements" from Withcer 3 for the most part.

No matter what path you choose they always end up in the same lane after 20 minutes or so, little to no dialogue choices (except said differently), and what you do in the different districts doesn't have any impact on anything either.

It's not an rpg at all. They lied.

There are some choices and dialogue options that affect the outcome of a quest, but for the most part it's a choice between being a dick or a nice guy. If you're looking for a Witcher 3 style RPG, this ain't it.

There are tiny details that if missed or skipped or gliteched there's little to no change.

Those things listed there are exactly what I wanted. I hadn't followed any hype or marketing prior to buying the game.

I kind of hoped for a mix between Shadowrun Retuns and Yakuza.

There absolutely is some cause and effect choices peppered throughout the game, but not as big as promised. First, the game has lots of little things, like doing certain side quests or gigs in certain ways will impact other quests or dialogue, and sometimes the rewards you receive as well. Secondly, there are some direct choices you can make, like talking down a certain mechanic from getting revenge, which also impacts the reward you receive. There is also a few main choices that can be made during the story like working with maelstrom.

Yes, it would be fair to say not every single thing has a giant impact, but it does seem from my experience, that quite a few things I've done, do matter, and I've been given a decent amount of freedom. In my opinion, it is middle of the road in regards to freedom.

Doesn't suck. But I was expecting it to be more like TW3, in terms of characters and world impact. It's not even Skyrim level world impact. Instead, we got watered down GTA.

In terms of impact around the city, after a bloodbath with a gang, civilians or homeless people come back to walk around the place, I don´t no if eventually the thugs come back after a period of time. So far, no matter what you do in the city, you get no bounty for your head, no enemies using cars, motorcycles, nothing coming back to hunt you, only that weird police that respawns behind you like a ghost. This are the always disponible events, usefull to acquire stuff for craft and level up.

The news never comments about the changes that may have connection with you, with so many information to watch and listen around this huge city, it´s sad that we can´t appear in the screens with a wanted alert. Another problem, the cops attack without any chance to surrender, forcing the player to paying a fine, or maybe to see the Sebastian Ibarra give that dirty money to free us, everything is like a big arcade, just keep running.