Cyberpunk 2077 Review

A story of redemption ( but neither Red nor Dead)

The story of Cyberpunk is one of two halves, at least that's how I see it. The Pre 2.0 era and Post 2.0 one. My feelings about this game have changed greatly after my latest playthrough, and it's something that has really taken me by surprise.
On my first playthrough I was very lukewarm about it. It felt like an impressive world with decent attention to detail, but it never quite grabbed me... not in the same way games like Fallout or even CD Projekt Red's Witcher 3 did. It felt impressive yet didn't stand up to close scrutiny. The story didn't quite resonate with me either, it felt a bit rushed and disjointed and even though I did not hate it, I have not thought about it since finishing it.

My second playthrough though, that felt entirely different. This iteration of the game ( the only one available if you were to buy it right now- the 2.0 update) feels like the developer's intent has finally been fully realized. It is in equal measures exciting and sad: exciting because this massively ambitious project was finally completed in a way that does justice to the trailers and hype, sad because it took almost 3 years from its initial release. It has not escaped modern gaming's biggest pitfall: release the game now, fix it later.
Regardless of what happened in the past, my goal is to explain if the game is worth it now and the answer is "Yes!". The world feels more alive, progression is significantly improved and the missions and side quests feel way more polished. Also, as a side note, playing the female version of V this time around seems to have had a significant impact on my experience as her dialogue delivery and options are way more grounded.

Narrative

The side quests also can be pretty easily split into two categories: cheap fetch or kill quests, and fully developed mini-storylines. The former requires little description, as it's what most open world games have a plethora of ( things like every Ubisoft open world game), while the latter is actually quite commendable. I have been thoroughly absorbed by 2-3 distinct and rather lengthy storylines, each approaching a difficult subject that had me on the edge of my seat to find out how it ends. There is a little downside to these quests though, and that is the lack of impact of the player character over the outcome of this storyline. What I mean by this is that usually the quest unfolds in a quite strict manner, your sole choice and outcome-deciding decision being if you end the quest early by taking some sort of shortcut. Otherwise, the final call is usually some sort of morally ambiguous decision that, while interesting as a thought experiment, usually does not have any impact on the main story, does not have any future repercussions and does little to sway the balance of your rewards one way or the other.

The main story is quite ok... it does the job of introducing you to most of the characters who will give you the side quests, and is not overly long or complicated. Some excellent set pieces do much of the heavy lifting, but it is a little bit unremarkable. The only thing worth mentioning here is that Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand did a much better job than I thought he could've ( and than i thought he did on my first playthrough). His story of redemption is very alike to the game itself.

Exceptionally pretty, but only if you have the cash

The technological demands of this game have only increased however, and that's a bit of a bummer. You need a really powerful PC in order to play this game to its full potential ( High resolutions, high textures and a little bit of ray traced reflections) and current gen consoles are not really up to the task, not entirely.

Conclusion

Overall, I would say this game sits in the upper echelon of AAA games, one I would gladly recommend to people that enjoy a rich open world sandbox that's easy to sink 40-60h into, and feel satisfied by the end. These impressions and thoughts do not include the Phantom Liberty Expansion. That shall be explored late and detailed in a separate post in the future.

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