Cyberpunk 2077

I have had a difficult history with Cyberpunk 2077. I preordered it when it first came out back in 2020 - jumped in with excitement on release day and immediately got massive whiplash by insane bugs and performance issues all around. I quit and didnt touch it ever since. Skipping forward 6 years later and after playing through the whole campaign, most of the carefully crafted side missions and the expansion, I can confidently say that Cyberpunk is an immensely fun experience and easily one of my favourite games I have ever played. The way this game manifested into this position for me personally is probably not unlike a lot of other people out there - it remains one of the biggest comebacks for any video game in terms of quality barring maybe only No Man’s Sky.

Cyberpunk in all its glory and without game-breaking glitches and constant crashing compared to its launch-state, feels really fleshed out and actually finished this time around. Everything in it is built towards immersion but that doesnt matter at all when every few minutes a game breaking weird bug occurs that completely ruins it all. Thankfully nowadays the game has way less of these which means getting way more out of the immersion the devs have built towards. I have had 4 or 5 bugs across 40 hours which is fine, especially considering how ambitious Night City looks.

The city - its density and verticality is something that no game before had at this scale while matching the amount of depth and state of the art visual fidelity with an impressive amount of detail no matter where you look for it. I first realized this when setting foot onto a market with giant holographic fishes - this creative approach to visuals is used everywhere in Night City and is getting amplified by an abundant use of colors and realistic lighting. The barren, yellow Badlands are a complete contrast to this and serve as a deliberate visual exhale if the neon city lights get too much.

I started in those Badlands, choosing my lifepath as a Nomad and not a Streetkid or Corpo. When first starting the game I think everybody hoped that this choice actually significantly shapes the adventure beyond just having different dialogue options at some points. Sadly in this matter you will get disappointed: The only purpose and change this lifepath seems to bring is a different prologue and spawn point. I am not suggesting that CD Projekt Red only included these because they look cool and ambitious when showing off and talking about, but I think when trying to incorporate choices in a deep immersive Action-RPG like this, you should either go close to all-in or restrict it more and tell a more focused story throughout the campaign.

This lifepath approach gives the game its restrictions when it comes to story regarding the main protagonist V: set pieces and story arcs are often consequential for a wide array of side characters but almost never for ourselves - the main character. What helps fight this issue is Johnny, who seems to be trapped in our own body through a chip and we now have to share our whole existence with him. I am glad Keanu Reeves is not just a marketing device here but actually a very central part of the games story line which makes it all the more interesting even without the direct involvement of V (atleast until the final few hours of the story). I felt like Jackies death came as one of the biggest surprises for me with it taking place very early on in the game. I felt like CDPR could ve done way more with him delaying his death a little further into mid-game instead of killing him off so prematurely. With it being what it is I think Jackies arc could ve been a way more hardhitting and emotional character arc that way.

What I did not expect is these side characters getting so important to me as the player. I genuinely felt dread and loneliness when the epilogue played and the plot of the expansion finally gave me what I wanted when it comes to choices that shape the story in the first place. For these reasons I forgive the lifepath slip-up and the up-and-down involvement of the main character in the plot and can still undoubtedly say that I enjoyed Cyberpunks story and especially its likeable (or unlikeable) cast of main and side characters a lot.

In terms of gameplay this game has certainly a lot to offer - you can play it like a simple first-person shooter, you can play it like a stealth game and sometimes you can even try to talk your way around unwanted confrontations. Braindances serve as the detective part of the game finding out new information based on VR-environments that can be analyzed on sound, temperature and visual dimensions. At first these didn’t really click for me but once you are at your third braindance you kinda get into the flow of them, sadly I never really was excited when one came around. They sorta felt like a feature of the game that could have been something more but somehow the final ambitious sauce is missing. Contrasting this feeling completely is my opinion on the variety of weapon and melee builds and hacking gameplay of cyberpunk - these two things are easily my favourite part of cyberpunks gameplay loop. There are lots and lots of different guns - some even being able to shoot around walls or autolocking on enemies. Your character can be modified with different kind of perks and upgrades but the one thing that stands out here the most are the melee builds - you can amplify your own strength by turning into a living weapon and gaining gorilla arms or mantis blades and slicing through your enemies - easily the most satisfying thing you can do in the game. But the crown jewel of cyberpunks gameplay is the hacking - you can do so much with it - stun enemies, make them blind, open doors, manipulate cameras and turrets… it all sounds absolutely incredible, because it is - theres nothing wrong with having lots of options - but with cyberpunks immense freedom approach to gameplay design none of these are ever required by the player which I honestly wish CD Projekt Red tried to do. I wish I was forced to hack me through a high surveillance corporate skyscraper a la watch dogs, or a harbor heavily guarded with conveniently hackable turrets taking out my opponents. But most of the time my approach to any start of a restricted area stayed the same: starting out with stealth as long as it works out and switching to full warfare guerilla style the moment I fuck up - its a very personal critique but something that is very much important to me because I value engaging game design over mindless freedom.

When it comes to the sound design of cyberpunk - this is again one of its strongest points, be it the radio stations music, the sounds of the guns or the atmosphere of the packed city squares or the empty silence when looking down at the city lights from a high vantage point. What stands out are the performances of Johnny and especially Reed in the Phantom Liberty expansion, all the voice work is excellent, but it felt like these two are a step above the rest.

CD Projekt Red innovates with Cyberpunk not only through its setting but also in its self-commitment towards its ambition. It innovates in terms of visual density, city verticality and scale; pushing the medium forward in concrete, benchmark-setting terms, establishing what’s really possible. Then again most of it all is exceptional execution of established ideas rather than carving completely new paths in gaming. The lifepath system serves as Cyberpunks biggest misstep by promising identity-level innovation while only delivering slightly different dialogue variants.

What stayed with me wasnt the plot but rather the people I get to know and the cost of losing them. Once those scenes after the last main mission hit - actually talking to those few friends that stayed in Night City next to myself - I felt loneliness and a deep sadness within me. Lucy’s voicemail, Panam’s unanswered call - these moments hit me way deeper than I could have ever expected them to do. Closing this game the last time felt like a very important lesson I learned throughout the last six years. The fun while playing this game compared to the long wait before that and the melancholic nostalgia I got nearly immediately after finishing the game are incomparable - time really moves fast, when you are having fun.