Decided to revisit this game and... wow. Something about it just clicked for me this time around. I decided to engage with the game on its own terms rather than what I wished it had been and the experience was far more enjoyable. Incredibly immersive. Fantastic themes about accepting the inevitable and pushing back against tyranny even when it seems hopeless.

I didn't really get Cyberpunk the first time around, but the second time it felt profound almost. Up there with the all time greats of the medium, without question. Of course, there's a bit too much side content that isn't substantial, but the stuff that is worth playing is sickening, funny, heartwarming, depressing, and every other range of emotions.

By the end of the game you really get why Night City is such a horrible place. It's not even so much a class war, more everything in their society is rotten from top to bottom. Capitalism is of course to blame but they need a social revolution, not just a political one. Nihilism runs rampant here. The vast majority do nothing because what is there to do and the rest join corps or gangs to try to cut out their own slice of the pie. But there never really was a pie to begin with. It's all a false promise from scum like Militech and Arasaka to grind more bodies in their bloodied machine.

There really is no way to be a good person here. Choices are fucked from the start and the world was built to reward villainy. Even the option you think is the "correct" one ruins something for someone, somewhere. And I kind of love it. It's a kind of moral ambiguity you don't see in a lot of games of this budget.

Cyberpunk had a rocky launch when it came out. But 3 years later and after a commendable amount of work (that frankly shouldn't have been necessary. Fuck shareholders and fuck executives.) the game deservedly takes a throne among the best cyberpunk games of all time, and definitely one of the best games of 2020.