TomNuke: Uhh, JakobFel is right, and he laid it out well. If you actually look at the Steam page they clearly say action-adventure RPG. CD Projekt says it's an RPG. Steam has it listed under "RPG Games". The top three user defined tags are "Cyberpunk" "Open World" "RPG".
Straight from the store page -
Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG set in the megalopolis of Night City, where you play as a cyberpunk mercenary wrapped up in a do-or-die fight for survival. Improved and featuring all-new free additional content, customize your character and playstyle as you take on jobs, build a reputation, and unlock upgrades. The relationships you forge and the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you. Legends are made here. What will yours be? I'm not sure why some of you want to argue over this, because you're wrong, and you'll never be right. Take the loss and move on. GOG says you're wrong. Steam says you're wrong, and the ******* gaming community says you're wrong.
But stay classy GOG forums. Just more examples of why this community is cancer.
Marketing doesn't really tell us what something "is." I am probably dating myself with this term, but consider "bullshots"...screenshots that were misleading as to graphical quality in games, generally taken from prerendered pieces of the game such as cutscenes but put as one of the screenshots on the box in order to catch the buyer's eye. Along the same lines, "RPG" is a hot term these days which can theoretically capture interest, so why wouldn't they include it in the marketing, regardless of whether it accurately reflects the product?
I know I would be more likely to buy a game that is an RPG and pass on a game that is "only" action-adventure. The problem of course is if the game marketed as an RPG turns out to be lacking in those qualities, though I will say people have different definitions. It is evident to me in the OP's post that some games listed are debatable as to whether they are truly RPGs; though, as another counterpoint, there exist "fusion" games (such as Deus Ex 1) where the game is a blend of an RPG plus other genre (in that case, FPS).
Here is JakobFel's justification for Cyberpunk being an RPG, taken from his post:
JakobFel: You create and customize a character, including their starting attributes and one of three backgrounds. You are thrown into an open, explorable world that has many opportunities for the player to 'live' in the game world and interact with it. Throughout your time exploring the game world, you gain experience by doing quests and exercising your skills which allows you to level up and advance your character's build. Meanwhile, you decide what gear you use and you have the ability to modify said gear, upgrade it and even craft new gear. You play through a story that, depending on which background you chose, gives you the ability to talk to people differently. As you play, you discover that you have the ability to approach quests in just about any way you want, from ghost stealth gameplay to full guns-blazing and anywhere in between. You decide what quests you want to do, you can enjoy the game ONLY playing the MQ or you can just screw around in the game world and, again, "live" in it (which is the core of roleplaying). When you reach the end of the game, depending on how you played, you can get several different endings.
Meanwhile, another person or two on these forums might say that for a game to be an RPG, encounters must be resolved using statistics/attributes and anything short of that is an action game. JakobFel's definition is obviously a much more permissive one. However, I would argue it is too permissive in this case. By changing the wording of a phrase or two in order to match respective games, we could use JakobFel's definition to say GTA V or Mario Brothers are RPGs. Are they?
