Now Playing: Cyberpunk 2077

I wrapped up my first run of Cyberpunk 2077 with 70 hours on the clock. That included the time I spent playing the alternative life path openings, and playing through all of the different endings – aside from a secret one, which I didn’t quite meet the requirements to unlock. I completed, I would estimate, around 90% of the main side quests – although it’s hard to say exactly, as I’ve not yet seen a complete list. But I probably only cleared 20-30% of the available side ‘gig’ missions or gang related events.

I didn’t want to do everything on this run because I wanted to save some content for my next. And as much as I would like to jump straight back into Cyberpunk, I’m going to wait for some patches to roll out that will hopefully fix and improve on some of the issues I’m going to discuss in this review. I also have Age of Calamity to play, so that’s going to keep me busy in the meantime.

I don’t need to tell you that Cyberpunk 2077 is buggy. It probably should have been delayed (again) rather than release in its current state, particularly on the base consoles. That said, I can’t say the bugs I encountered really impacted my experience. They were nearly always visual, or animation related. I didn’t experience a single crash in my entire time with the game, nor any broken quests.

I’ve played far more broken games than Cyberpunk at release – when I played Fallout 4, I had multiple crashes including a bug that prevented me from entering a specific area of the map. I could only progress through the quests related to that area by manually advancing the quest stages via the in-game console. And I very nearly gave up on NieR: Automata, which I now consider to be one of my favourite games ever, because of the continual crashing I experienced the first time I played that game through.

I’m not saying this to defend Cyberpunk or convince anyone that it’s not as bad as some people are claiming – just that my experience hasn’t been that bad. Maybe I just got lucky. I don’t know why I’ve not seen so many of the bugs featured in some pretty hilarious compilation videos. But I didn’t, so I can’t really complain about issues I didn’t actually experience.

But the priority for the developers now, before all else, is to polish and fix these issues. To eliminate these bugs and get everything working the way it should. Once that’s done, the next priority should really be to improve upon and fix the npc behaviour in the open world. I touched upon this in my First Impressions post, so I won’t repeat myself here. But the npc behaviour and reactions both in and out of cars needs to be totally overhauled, as does the police ‘wanted’ system.

 

Beyond this, what the game really needs is some small tweaks, fixes and additions to the existing content – a walk/run toggle for PC, the ability to assign more than 3 active weapons or a single grenade / consumable type (because f**k me, having to go into a menu in the middle of combat just to switch to a different grenade is really f**king annoying). Improvements to the UI so it doesn’t take so many steps simply to equip specific items / mods, or dissemble items into crafting components. A change to the quest log so those annoying ‘car for sale’ jobs can be hidden (including the icons on the map screen).

Even without the bugs, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game with a lot of rough edges to be smoothed out. These are mostly little things, small oversights that might not seem particularly important but would really enhance the overall experience if they were tweaked and improved. After going back and watching a lot of the preview videos, it’s weird how many little details didn’t seem to make the final cut. They are only small things – such as V raising their hands to protect against the glare of a bright floodlight – but these little details all add together to create a more immersive experience.

In my FI post, I also talked about potentially adding in mini-games or activities that you could enjoy between missions. Whilst Cyberpunk isn’t GTA, that doesn’t mean it can’t take a trick or two from that series. Gambling, 8-bit arcade machines, shooting ranges, street races (outside of the quest chain), recreational brain dances – because that mechanic isn’t taken advantage of enough – the ability to customise your appearance beyond the creation screen, including your hair, but also perhaps, more advanced cybernetic visuals such as mechanical arms / legs. Being able to preview clothing prior to purchase. Or customise your weapon skins / car.

How about unique take-down kill animations depending upon what weapon you have equipped? And I really want more inhaler types beyond just health, such as combat boosters, or reflex enhancers that trigger some kind of temporary bullet-time without requiring cyberware. Oh, and why not some actual drinking/eating animations when you’re at a bar / noodle stand?

It’s not like the game needs all of this stuff, but all of this stuff would massively enhance the overall experience. It would turn what I already consider to be an excellent game, into one of the best games ever made – a game that might even sink Skyrim as my most played game on Steam – particularly if it gets mod support.

I also wish the life path choice had more of an impact on quest related choices / endings. For the most part, it just adds a little flavour to your interactions. The same is true of the skill based dialogue / environmental checks, very few of which have a real impact on how you approach things / missions play out. Once again, they typically only add a little more flavour to conversations rather than changing the direction of how things can go. This is certainly another area the game can improve upon in future expansions.

My only other major criticism of Cyberpunk would be that the quest pacing is a little off. You tend to unlock the main side quests at the beginning of each story act, but this includes several that only unlock when you reach the ‘point of no return’. At this point, it feels kind of important to press on with the main quest for reasons I won’t spoil here, but to do so would mean ignoring some pretty lengthy and important side missions which can also have a major impact on how the endings of the game play out.

So as much as you might enjoy doing those quests, it kind of kills the momentum of the main quest just as it was building to its conclusion. It’s like you just have to put it on pause and spend another 15 hours or so wrapping up the other major side content, otherwise certain ending pathways will be unavailable to you. Some of those quests, particularly those involving Johnny and Rogue really should have unlocked earlier in the game. And too many of them seem to unlock at the same time, so you often get several messages in a row and it’s a little overwhelming as to what content to tackle next.

The main quest of Cyberpunk 2077 is a real blast. I won’t spoil anything here, but it’s an engaging tale that really hooked me from beginning to end. The character dynamic between you and Johnny is a real highlight – at times you like him, at others you hate him and you’re never quite sure if you can trust him. I’m also really impressed by the variety of endings on offer and how extensive and different each ending can play out depending upon your choice. I guess you could criticise the game for not taking that many decisions into account when it comes to the endings – it’s really just what side quests you’ve completed that ‘unlock’ the different options – but after playing through every ending and epilogue, I have to say I liked them all.

None of them are perfect. None offers an entirely ‘happy’ ending, but then you shouldn’t expect a perfect ending to a story like this. Some are more bleak than others, but even the ‘best’ ending still feels a little bittersweet. The important thing though, is that each ending feels appropriate based on the choices you made. My first ending, though kind of depressing, felt wholly appropriate for the path my Corpo V had taken.

The side content is even more extensive than the main quests, with many multi-part missions. And they offer a pretty decent variety of content ranging from action, to stealth, to just chilling out with people you’ve come to know. And you won’t mind spending time with these characters because they’re all pretty cool to hang out with. In fact, if I had one other major criticism of Cyberpunk, it would be that some of these characters feel underused.

Once again, I won’t spoil anything, but it’s a shame you only interact with some characters you encounter for a single quest because there’s so much more the game could have explored with them. The most obvious example is the Militech corpo you can choose to deal with during one of the prologue missions. You think that interaction will lead to a Militech related quest chain but sadly, it doesn’t. The Voodoo Boys also barely feature beyond a single mission. Maybe something for an expansion, eh?

Beyond the main quest and the big side quests are the side ‘gigs’. These are essentially one-shot mini-missions in the open world revolving around killing a target, rescuing someone or stealing something. They’re like small, Deus Ex puzzles you can approach and solve your own way. You might think they’re just ‘filler’ type content, but I disagree.

I thoroughly enjoyed every side gig I tried because each has its own unique story attached to it, with it’s own unique location, enemies and objective. And you do meet and interact with unique characters during some of these missions, not to mention optional objectives to increase your pay. They may not seem particularly deep compared to the main side quests, but I can honestly say I had more fun with the majority of these than the main missions in various other games – I’m looking at you, The Outer Worlds.

In fact, I’m glad I played and reviewed TOW before Cyberpunk because I would have probably been more harsh on it than I was. I will say it does the whole dialogue based skill checks a lot better than Cyberpunk, but that’s about it. And I’ve seen a lot of people criticise Cyberpunk for not comparing to the incredible open world of RDR2. I won’t disagree with that criticism, but if you’re going to compare both games, then you should also compare mission design in which Cyberpunk is miles ahead.

For all the excellence of its open world, the missions of RDR2 could be boring as all f**k and vehemently opposed to any kind of player creativity or initiative. There’s a reason I finished with RDR2 after 55 hours or so and never want to bother with it again, whereas I immediately want to jump back into Cyberpunk after 70 despite all the bugs and other issues. And I can see so much potential for Cyberpunk going forward, so much it can build upon, expand and improve.

I guess the only other thing to talk about is the combat. I don’t think anyone expected the combat of Cyberpunk to be as good as it is – seriously, this is a great first person shooter. Once I unlocked the slow motion cyberware and the ‘shoot whilst sliding / dodging’ perks I was zipping about blasting goons like I was in a crazy Vanquish / Titanfall crossover – particularly when I had my ‘smart’ pistol equipped. Add in the double jump cyberware and all that’s missing is a wall run ability.

There’s a lot of versatility to the combat, with a lot of different weapon types and options based around your perks. The weapons all feel punchy and satisfying to use. Even the melee combat is pretty decent, especially if you use a sword. Although I opted for stealth / hacking in the majority of the main story / side missions, the smaller side ‘gigs’ and gang events were a perfect opportunity to cut loose and wreak some havoc.

My only real issue with the combat is the aforementioned lack of active weapon / grenade slots. I know it’s not DOOM, but I really want to be able to switch between my weapons / grenades more easily in combat than having to enter and exit a bloody menu. I get that a controller may have limited buttons, but I’ve got lots on a keyboard I’d love to assign if the game would f**king let me. There is a radial menu that lets you switch grenades / inhalers, but it still pauses the game and it also doesn’t let you switch out weapons or – what would be really f**king handy – attachments, such as a silencer on a pistol. I have so many keys, let me use them!

Quick hacks are also useful in combat. You can blind enemies, disable their weapon, and even trigger a fatal neural shock. It’s kind of fantastic how dangerous / overpowered you can become by really focusing on hacks and their supported perks / cyberware mods.

Anything else? The driving in the game is also pretty good. The cars all handle differently and feel different to drive. It’s kind of funny how a developer that hasn’t made anything with first person shooting or third person driving has done such a great job. Honestly, the combat in Cyberpunk is better than a lot of shooters I’ve played and that’s something I never would have expected. I thought it would be fine and functional at best. But it’s really f**king fun and it lets you be creative in all the ways I appreciate.

Visually, Cyberpunk 2077 can look stunning, even when it’s not running on the fanciest settings. I was playing on mostly High settings at 1080p and as I described in my FI post, my performance wasn’t perfect but perfectly playable. And I hope, with patches, it will only improve. The VA in the game is excellent and, contrary to what some others might think, I thought Reeves was great as Johnny Silverhand. I thought he fit the character perfectly.

Cyberpunk also has a great soundtrack, particularly the combat tracks that are suitably pumping. The radio stuff is also really good, although it seems strangely limited given how often I kept hearing the same tracks. That said, I never got tired of Chippin’ In kicking in whilst driving.

Okay, let’s wrap this one up. It’s pretty hard for me to recommend Cyberpunk 2077 in its current state. I’ve really loved it, but your experience may not be quite as smooth as mine. A friend of mine couldn’t even launch the game, let alone play it. So no, I can’t recommend it. Or, I’d say it’s currently a ‘play at your own risk’ kind of situation. If you can wait, I’d say wait. If not, you’d better accept this is far from perfect in its current state.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it. I did. I had an absolute blast. And if the developers can patch those bugs, smooth out those rough edges, reintegrate a lot of those little immersive features they apparently cut and introduce the new kind of content I’ve described here, it will go down as one of the best games ever made. I guess the question is: can they do it? I sure hope so.

8/10