It's been out a while now, but it's safe to say Cyberpunk 2077 certainly caused a stir. Some have been hailing it as a triumph, others as a failure, but, for me (and I suspect the majority) it's somewhere in the middle. It's a flawed gem. The One Ring, but heavily, heavily tarnished.
My experience with the game has been 75% joy and 25% frustration. When it works, the game world is a joy to walk and drive through, characters look brilliant, and almost every aspect of gameplay draws you further into the game. When it doesn't work, the game is 'shout at your TV' levels of annoying.
Night City
The world of Cyberpunk 2077 is beautifully realised and brilliantly detailed. Everywhere you look there are holographic adverts, walls covered in graffiti, animated posters, flying vehicles, and more, all adding to the sense of Night City being a living breathing thing. There's a lot of lore to uncover, told both through character dialogue and via "shards" (the Cyberpunk version of books), but the game doesn't force you to delve too deeply into it all. Which is good, because the Shard menu is a nightmare.
Different city districts feel distinct, and the NPCs you find in those districts match them well, with varied appearances, attitudes, and dialogue. People in the wastes surrounding Night City wear dusty clothes more suited to warm, outdoor weather, while those in the central districts wear fancy suits as they walk along streets lined with shining high-rises. Each Night City gang has its own aesthetic too, with some heavily augmented, their faces replaced with cameras, lights, and all kinds of other gadgets (not gonna lie, it looks pretty painful).
Graphical glitches (I'm playing on PS4 Pro) do detract from the pleasure of driving or walking through the city, breaking immersion and occasionally drawing frustration, but overall, being in Night City is a fun experience.
Creating A Legend
The main story in Cyberpunk 2077 concerns the protagonist, V, dealing with the fallout of a heist gone wrong. V is somewhat technically augmented (and you can make your version of V more so as you play) and early on in the story winds up getting some pretty gnarly malware installed.
The main questline lasts around 10-15 hours, but there are heaps of side missions, some of which would qualify as main questlines in other games. You'll meet a host of colourful characters and complete a bunch of varied missions for them. I've helped the abused workers of a brothel overthrow their managers, and helped an aspiring politician uncover a mind control plot against him. Those are just the tip of the iceberg.
The main and major side quests are great, but the depth of these story quests and the characters within them serves to highlight how shallow minor quests are, and how little there is to do outside missions. The majority of NPCs can't be interacted with beyond a simple "talk" prompt, and so far have never had anything of consequence to say. Much of the game is concerned with turning V into a legend, but, thus far I've yet to have any character react differently to V outside quests.
V of All Trades
The game's skill progression systems work pretty well for the most part. I'll admit to being overwhelmed by it in the first few hours, because the game throws all of its systems at you from the get-go, but a while later it all started making sense. There are a lot of different ways to play, and though I've yet to try many, it looks as though most playstyles are valid. I haven't found many opportunities that are only open to people playing in a certain way. Some doors will remain locked if you don't have the strength to open them, but there's almost always a window you can climb through instead.
I particularly like how skills improve the more you use them. This was something I loved about Oblivion and Skyrim, and is something I wish more RPG games implemented. Yes, gaining experience will get you the usual level ups and skill points, but improving skills by actually using them feels way more rewarding and intuitive.
Bugs Gunny
Now the bit we all knew was coming: every time I play Cyberpunk 2077, I encounter some new bug or glitch I haven't seen before. And I'm not exaggerating. Every. Time.
Some of these bugs are hilarious: I've sat through a funeral where the person eulogising the deceased was walking around on invisible legs; motorbikes ping off the pavement as I drive past, launching into the sky of their own accord; and, unbeknownst to me, I played through the entire prologue topless (I only found out after reaching V's apartment and looking in the mirror; I'm playing a female character, btw).
Some of these bugs are frustrating: Characters end up talking over one another; the driving camera gets locked to first-person and won't change; and framerates suffer, particularly when driving at night. The most impactful one of these for me is probably the sluggishness of the menus. They can be very slow to load, resulting in situations where you're driving and click to read a message you've just received, only for the game to take control away from you but not pause, forcing you to watch as your car flies off the road. At best, this is an annoyance, at worst it cost a few pedestrians their lives and netted me an arrest warrant.
Some of these bugs are game-breaking: There have been crashes and the occasional lockup, but most frustrating to me is the series of quests that won't trigger properly. Early on, I was given the task of tracking down some rogue, AI-driven taxis, but after taming my first, none of the other missions in this questline will trigger. I haven't had this happen with any other missions yet, but it's resulted in me feeling the need to save often and keep many different save files, just in case. It would not surprise me at all if I run into similar issues with other missions down the line.
*Update on this* Not sure if it was a patch or if the game unstuck itself, but now (another 25 hours down the line) these broken quests have finally let me finish them. They were still buggy, and I had to half complete all of them before it would let me finish any of them, but at least they're done now!
Other Foibles
In the first few hours, I was impressed by how much was going on, from the random guy getting arrested just outside my door, to an entire district being locked down. It felt organic. But now, 20+ hours in, that same guy is still getting arrested in the same spot, and people are still gawking through the same pole dancer's window opposite Misty's shop. These are small things that haven't really impacted my enjoyment, but these things that at first made the city feel alive, now do the opposite.
Combat was extremely frustrating in early missions because enemies were bullet-sponges. Melee-focused bosses are controller-throwingly hard if playing a ranged character, because both dodging and turning are done with the same thumb, and you spend half of the fight just trying to turn around to face the person carving up your backside with a katana.
Oh, and the fist fighting gameplay needs WORK. It takes dozens of punches to fell a single enemy, but some of them can down you in a single hit. It's difficult at the best of times, but most egregious where the arena you're fighting in is small because the poor dodging mechanic becomes a major issue. At times, it feels more like you're fist fighting game mechanics than enemies.
And finally, a gripe that existed in the Witcher 3 and carried over into Cyberpunk: the journal menu doesn't tell you how far away quests are. I like driving around Night City and would prefer not to fast travel, but it's disheartening to pick a juicy sounding quest and then find out it's 4km back in the direction you just came from.
Final Thoughts
The last two sections might make you think I'm not enjoying Cyberpunk 2077, but that's truly not the case. I'm loving it, despite the bugs and glitches. What I said in my opening paragraph is true: this is a flawed gem. The game is brilliant, a marvel, and while I'd love to look past the flaws and just talk about the gem, the flaws are too prominent to ignore.
So, to buy or not to buy? Well, that all depends on your attitude. I went into Cyberpunk 2077 having heard about the bugs, and, knowing I'm generally pretty patient, figured I wouldn't mind them too much. I was right, thankfully. If you're like me and can put up with a few rough edges, knowing those edges will be refined in the coming months, I say go for it. If you have any concerns that the bugs I've described above might be too annoying to deal with, I'd give it a few months and see what people are saying then. With any luck, we won't be waiting that long. I want to hunt down those taxis, dammit!
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