Recently, the creative director of the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, Igor Sarzhinski, reflected on social media about the choice of a first-person perspective. He considers this decision from the standpoint of narrative design:
If viewed purely from the perspective of narrative design, the subjective first-person camera fits perfectly with the story, genre, and world of Cyberpunk 2077. You are a consciousness trapped in a deteriorating body, and the only way to leave it is through consciousness-transfer technologies: cyberspace, projection into external devices, braindance..
Moreover, there is a digital ghost living in your head that only you can see — a being that exists only in your subjective perception, rather than two characters equally visible through an external objective third-person camera.
In the developer's opinion, a third-person view suits well-defined characters, while first person is more suitable for "avatar characters" with whom the player identifies:
To generalize, in my view, the third-person perspective (TPP) is better suited to more defined, well-written characters — such as Geralt, Kratos, or Ellie — where the player experiences someone else's story. The first-person perspective (FPP) is more appropriate for avatar characters with whom the player identifies. V lies somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, but for the reasons outlined above, I believe first person was more appropriate for Cyberpunk 2077.
Sarzhinski clarified that he was speaking exclusively about the narrative structure of Cyberpunk 2077:
This is by no means a statement or a hint regarding Cyberpunk 2 — who knows, maybe that game will turn out to be an RTS done in the style of clay stop-motion animation.