-Written on January 12-
Night City is a very vibrant open world with a passable main story but it is plagued with filler and I hate to be this guy but....bugs as well.
Let just get this out of the way first. Night City is a gorgeous city filled with different cultures, people, and atmospheres. One part of the town is Chinatown while another is dominated by Afro-Caribbean residents and of course, you got your downtown and low poverty areas. Not to mention there's a huge deserted land outside of the city with a lot of clans out there. The environment is vibrant and full as you see different ads, different kinds of art on the walls. I always appreciate the variety, it never made exploring and driving around Night City boring, even nearly 90 hours later. Plus it made the city more realistic as big cities always going to have different cultural overlaps.
Cyberpunk 2077 could easily go with the cliche "everything has tall buildings with neon lights" setting as you see a lot of Cyberpunk works but instead it opts to create a world that looks very similar to ours but with the technological upgrades that coat the city and its citizens and it was a refreshing change. The music section could be just as cliche as well with synthwave everywhere you go but there's a whole range of music besides that, from rap, jazz, metal, rock etc. for the license tracklist. Even the game's own OST features tunes that are closer to orchestrated ambient.
The gameplay is very similar to the Deus Ex games when you are presented with options. You could go blazing around with a wide section of guns and melee weapons, or you could use your biochip to hack away electronics and enemies to help you perform stealth better. Of course, as you level up, you will acquire two types of points. Perks, which are little boosters such as a small increase in critical change or damage at a certain area of the enemy with a certain weapon type, and attributes, the main areas that can affect the playstyle of your character, V. With attributes, you can build your character specialize in hacking, shooting, crafting etc. These attributes will also unlock dialogue options for V if the attributes have enough points. I found the gameplay to be just fine, I had no issues with it. Though I got to say the hacking aspects are the most unique elements of the gameplay.
Quests, the main chunk of Cyberpunk 2077 and one of my biggest issues of the game. There are tons of gigs to do in Night City and you can unlock more as your Street Cred level up. While I was playing through the game I figure there are three types of side quests. Character quests, Gigs, and Crime Quests.
Character quests are when you usually have to do a chain of quests for a person you normally meet during the main quest (which I will get to in a bit) and follow their stories. I personally find character quests to be the best since it fleshes out who they're are as a person and the conflicts they're involved with. Their stories aren't groundbreaking but it adds a lot of context to what kind of place Night City is and the people that live there. Plus it gives you the chance to romance the character. The list is very short, especially because it depends on what gender V is and I wish you can do more with the character after you began dating them.
Gigs are when a fixer contacts you and wants you to kill someone, rescue someone, steal something or hack a computer, etc. They're short and there are multiple ways to complete a gig. Sadly they're very formulaic and repetitive, especially with the number of gigs you can do. The fixer always gives you a reason why you're doing the gig by calling you, so there is SOME story element but it's usually very forgettable because you only get two paragraphs of details why you're doing this at best. There are a few good gigs that expand on worldbuilding, but it's few and far between.
The last type of side quests and it's the worst one, Crime Quests. It's just you killing gang members that are either in their hideout or assaulting someone and you can complete this in literally 10 seconds if you're overleveled. There are nearly 200 of them to do and while there's very short, I spent 15 hours doing all of them and it's a bit mind-numbing, especially since there's hardly any reason to do these quests. The only reason you should do these quests is if you want great gear, weapons, and equipment. I personally think you get the best stuff doing these quests but it's personally not worth doing all of these unlike you really want to 100% the game.
The game has tons to do and I spent the majority of the game doing side content. However, I feel like a lot of it is patted filler and doesn't really add anything to the game from a writing perspective in the long run. I'm not a "more is better" guy so I honestly believe the game would be better if they just kept all of the character quests and the gigs that add a lot to the worldbuilding. After a while, it just felt aimless and boring doing all of these quests.
The main quest, while it started off as a generic "become a legend by doing a big-time heist" story, it quickly became something far more unique and interesting that compliments the Cyberpunk setting, how a huge corporation turn a city into a Dystopian and various conflicts such as man vs technology and man vs the self (in a way). The only disappointing part of the main story is it's too short for its own good. If you only do the main story, you can easily beat Cyberpunk 2077 within 20 hours. It had the potential to tell a great tale and the endings deliver well, especially with its philosophical undertones close to the end of the main quest. Just sadly, those themes of corporation domination and self-fighting aren't explored enough. I would greatly prefer it if most of the filler quests went towards a more expansive main story. I do not understand why CD Projekt Red shorten the story so more people can complete it. It's an RPG after all, you always need the dedication to finish those.
Other minor issues I have is balancing. After Act 1, you can do every side quest in the game before progressing the main story. If you like me, that likes to do every side quest before the main story, you will become ridiculously overleveled with the best gear. To the point, you can one-shot anyone and you're very hard to kill. Even bosses will fall to your knees within a minute. I don't think the game intended you to become a God while you playing the main story but it can happen easily lol. Player choice also doesn't have too much of an impact on the world. I mean you have a ton of dialogue options and you can get different endings for some quests but those are mainly self-contained. What kinda frustrates me is the ending you can get on the main story just depends on what choice you make right before the final mission, as if everything you did beforehand did not matter at all. I understand it's hard to make a unique player experience in an AAA game but it's disappointing your actions throughout the main story almost have 0 impact on what ending you can get other than doing character quests.
And there are bugs, yes bugs. I won't spend too much time on this since this is a topic beaten to the ground but I can say this much, the more I played, the buggier the game got. Early on when I started, I just saw tiny things float in the air, pretty ignorable right? 70 hours later tho, I faced quite a lot of issues like quests not starting or completing, doors not opening (and you was trapped inside), half of your body appearing above you while you ride a motorcycle sometimes for a few seconds etc. The game even crashed on me twice before and I once got respawned to a random place out of nowhere and I was falling endlessly. Luckily restarting your save file or killing yourself fixes these issues but it was stressful trying to find a solution to the quests not starting, especially the main quests as I thought the game would be impossible to complete a few times. I know CD Projekt Red is patching up the game nicely eventually but at the moment, I feel like I'm playing an early access version of Cyberpunk 2077 and I pay $60 to beta test the game. It's actually laughable this supposed to be the final build of the game.
And I know I just nitpicking at this point but I notice other things like there are no cop chases when you break the law, robots just appear out of nowhere. I also think it's completely pointless to have a huge dick in the game when the only time you could ever see it is if your character is completely naked and you open up the character menu. Yes, your dick doesn't even appear while you're playing the game, it gets covered up with briefs no matter what.
I know this is a small addition to the game but I absolutely love the photo mode in the game. Since the game lacks a third-person camera and I do think it's a weird decision to not include it, I think photo mode is a fair compromise to be able to see your custom character enough and you can use it at any given moment of the game. I love you can do various poses and emotions with your character. Some of them are even references to anime or memes. More options to create a photogenic scene is nice. It's a very fun thing I will admit I spent far too much time on it.
Honestly, Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty mid, even without the bugs. I personally found the game to be a massive step down from CD Projekt Red's previous game The Witcher 3 (which is one of my favorites) in nearly every area but maybe gameplay. Night City has a lot of life with many tales to discover and nearly all of the quests that bother to tell a compelling story to deliver fine enough at least. It also plays around with a lot of themes with its main story and the ending (at least mines) was solid despite the length. The gameplay functions well and offers you a lot of options which is really cool. However, it suffers a lot from pointless filler that adds almost nothing as well as a lack of impactful player choices and some balancing issues. As of the time I post this, It's very hard to recommend the game, even for PC users and I know consoles players got it much worse. If you dying to play an open-world cyberpunk RPG right now and you can deal with bugs and filler, then sure go for the game. Otherwise, I would at least wait until the game is patched out enough. Cyberpunk 2077 has a lot of potential and it delivers in some areas, but it falls flat in others.
Night City is a very vibrant open world with a passable main story but it is plagued with filler and I hate to be this guy but....bugs as well.
Let just get this out of the way first. Night City is a gorgeous city filled with different cultures, people, and atmospheres. One part of the town is Chinatown while another is dominated by Afro-Caribbean residents and of course, you got your downtown and low poverty areas. Not to mention there's a huge deserted land outside of the city with a lot of clans out there. The environment is vibrant and full as you see different ads, different kinds of art on the walls. I always appreciate the variety, it never made exploring and driving around Night City boring, even nearly 90 hours later. Plus it made the city more realistic as big cities always going to have different cultural overlaps.
Cyberpunk 2077 could easily go with the cliche "everything has tall buildings with neon lights" setting as you see a lot of Cyberpunk works but instead it opts to create a world that looks very similar to ours but with the technological upgrades that coat the city and its citizens and it was a refreshing change. The music section could be just as cliche as well with synthwave everywhere you go but there's a whole range of music besides that, from rap, jazz, metal, rock etc. for the license tracklist. Even the game's own OST features tunes that are closer to orchestrated ambient.
The gameplay is very similar to the Deus Ex games when you are presented with options. You could go blazing around with a wide section of guns and melee weapons, or you could use your biochip to hack away electronics and enemies to help you perform stealth better. Of course, as you level up, you will acquire two types of points. Perks, which are little boosters such as a small increase in critical change or damage at a certain area of the enemy with a certain weapon type, and attributes, the main areas that can affect the playstyle of your character, V. With attributes, you can build your character specialize in hacking, shooting, crafting etc. These attributes will also unlock dialogue options for V if the attributes have enough points. I found the gameplay to be just fine, I had no issues with it. Though I got to say the hacking aspects are the most unique elements of the gameplay.
Quests, the main chunk of Cyberpunk 2077 and one of my biggest issues of the game. There are tons of gigs to do in Night City and you can unlock more as your Street Cred level up. While I was playing through the game I figure there are three types of side quests. Character quests, Gigs, and Crime Quests.
Character quests are when you usually have to do a chain of quests for a person you normally meet during the main quest (which I will get to in a bit) and follow their stories. I personally find character quests to be the best since it fleshes out who they're are as a person and the conflicts they're involved with. Their stories aren't groundbreaking but it adds a lot of context to what kind of place Night City is and the people that live there. Plus it gives you the chance to romance the character. The list is very short, especially because it depends on what gender V is and I wish you can do more with the character after you began dating them.
Gigs are when a fixer contacts you and wants you to kill someone, rescue someone, steal something or hack a computer, etc. They're short and there are multiple ways to complete a gig. Sadly they're very formulaic and repetitive, especially with the number of gigs you can do. The fixer always gives you a reason why you're doing the gig by calling you, so there is SOME story element but it's usually very forgettable because you only get two paragraphs of details why you're doing this at best. There are a few good gigs that expand on worldbuilding, but it's few and far between.
The last type of side quests and it's the worst one, Crime Quests. It's just you killing gang members that are either in their hideout or assaulting someone and you can complete this in literally 10 seconds if you're overleveled. There are nearly 200 of them to do and while there's very short, I spent 15 hours doing all of them and it's a bit mind-numbing, especially since there's hardly any reason to do these quests. The only reason you should do these quests is if you want great gear, weapons, and equipment. I personally think you get the best stuff doing these quests but it's personally not worth doing all of these unlike you really want to 100% the game.
The game has tons to do and I spent the majority of the game doing side content. However, I feel like a lot of it is patted filler and doesn't really add anything to the game from a writing perspective in the long run. I'm not a "more is better" guy so I honestly believe the game would be better if they just kept all of the character quests and the gigs that add a lot to the worldbuilding. After a while, it just felt aimless and boring doing all of these quests.
The main quest, while it started off as a generic "become a legend by doing a big-time heist" story, it quickly became something far more unique and interesting that compliments the Cyberpunk setting, how a huge corporation turn a city into a Dystopian and various conflicts such as man vs technology and man vs the self (in a way). The only disappointing part of the main story is it's too short for its own good. If you only do the main story, you can easily beat Cyberpunk 2077 within 20 hours. It had the potential to tell a great tale and the endings deliver well, especially with its philosophical undertones close to the end of the main quest. Just sadly, those themes of corporation domination and self-fighting aren't explored enough. I would greatly prefer it if most of the filler quests went towards a more expansive main story. I do not understand why CD Projekt Red shorten the story so more people can complete it. It's an RPG after all, you always need the dedication to finish those.
Other minor issues I have is balancing. After Act 1, you can do every side quest in the game before progressing the main story. If you like me, that likes to do every side quest before the main story, you will become ridiculously overleveled with the best gear. To the point, you can one-shot anyone and you're very hard to kill. Even bosses will fall to your knees within a minute. I don't think the game intended you to become a God while you playing the main story but it can happen easily lol. Player choice also doesn't have too much of an impact on the world. I mean you have a ton of dialogue options and you can get different endings for some quests but those are mainly self-contained. What kinda frustrates me is the ending you can get on the main story just depends on what choice you make right before the final mission, as if everything you did beforehand did not matter at all. I understand it's hard to make a unique player experience in an AAA game but it's disappointing your actions throughout the main story almost have 0 impact on what ending you can get other than doing character quests.
And there are bugs, yes bugs. I won't spend too much time on this since this is a topic beaten to the ground but I can say this much, the more I played, the buggier the game got. Early on when I started, I just saw tiny things float in the air, pretty ignorable right? 70 hours later tho, I faced quite a lot of issues like quests not starting or completing, doors not opening (and you was trapped inside), half of your body appearing above you while you ride a motorcycle sometimes for a few seconds etc. The game even crashed on me twice before and I once got respawned to a random place out of nowhere and I was falling endlessly. Luckily restarting your save file or killing yourself fixes these issues but it was stressful trying to find a solution to the quests not starting, especially the main quests as I thought the game would be impossible to complete a few times. I know CD Projekt Red is patching up the game nicely eventually but at the moment, I feel like I'm playing an early access version of Cyberpunk 2077 and I pay $60 to beta test the game. It's actually laughable this supposed to be the final build of the game.
And I know I just nitpicking at this point but I notice other things like there are no cop chases when you break the law, robots just appear out of nowhere. I also think it's completely pointless to have a huge dick in the game when the only time you could ever see it is if your character is completely naked and you open up the character menu. Yes, your dick doesn't even appear while you're playing the game, it gets covered up with briefs no matter what.
I know this is a small addition to the game but I absolutely love the photo mode in the game. Since the game lacks a third-person camera and I do think it's a weird decision to not include it, I think photo mode is a fair compromise to be able to see your custom character enough and you can use it at any given moment of the game. I love you can do various poses and emotions with your character. Some of them are even references to anime or memes. More options to create a photogenic scene is nice. It's a very fun thing I will admit I spent far too much time on it.
Honestly, Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty mid, even without the bugs. I personally found the game to be a massive step down from CD Projekt Red's previous game The Witcher 3 (which is one of my favorites) in nearly every area but maybe gameplay. Night City has a lot of life with many tales to discover and nearly all of the quests that bother to tell a compelling story to deliver fine enough at least. It also plays around with a lot of themes with its main story and the ending (at least mines) was solid despite the length. The gameplay functions well and offers you a lot of options which is really cool. However, it suffers a lot from pointless filler that adds almost nothing as well as a lack of impactful player choices and some balancing issues. As of the time I post this, It's very hard to recommend the game, even for PC users and I know consoles players got it much worse. If you dying to play an open-world cyberpunk RPG right now and you can deal with bugs and filler, then sure go for the game. Otherwise, I would at least wait until the game is patched out enough. Cyberpunk 2077 has a lot of potential and it delivers in some areas, but it falls flat in others.