Again, unless the game changes quite a bit after 5 hours, none of the youtubers I follow who've played this up through the first 5 hours (granted, not a ton of time to be fair) have compared this to GTA at all. It might end up opening into that, but the first 5 hours at least, from the big youtube game reviewers who've played it, say it's a narrative, focused RPG with open world elements. If Witcher 3 is RDR2 like, than I guess this is GTA V like? Still not seeing it, other than a few random youtube moments.
This from Miles Tost, lead designer of the game:
“Our game will provide a lot of side activities for you to engage in outside the main quest.” Tost told the site. “Whether it’s side quests or encounters waiting for you on the streets of Night City, it will be crafted by us with a lot of love and care.”
He added, “Whilst it’s very humbling to us to have our game be compared to GTA, with Cyberpunk 2077, we are striving for a different, story-driven experience. That’s not to say we will stop players from goofing around.”
Either way, my hype meter is full and there is nothing that would change that now.
Started a Neuromancer re-read (just finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), bought the Cyberpunk book (it's really well done) and will start movie re-watches in a few weeks (Bladerunners, Akira, etc). My wife is 39 weeks pregnant and even that ain't moving this train from the tracks.