CD Projekt Red have received justified criticism for the state of Cyberpunk 2077 upon its release... particularly on consoles. However, as a PC gamer, I must say that my experience has been a far cry from what I've seen online.
The game's launch for me was no worse than a launch of a Bethesda game, in fact significantly better, if we consider the more recent releases from them.
Like all other gamers this year I was very excited to get my hands on and finally play CDPR's newest open-world game. I'd preordered it and even pre-downloaded it on a geriatric internet connection... so anticipation was high. I'll just come out and say it I was not at all disappointed, on the contrary, so far I've been having an amazing time.
Is it as good as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt? For me personally probably not but they're two very different games. It's important to remember that I was working from the experience of two prior games and several novels when riding into Velen for the first time... so its hardly fair for me to compare the two. Instead ill be talking about Cyberpunk as a single entity, what I've enjoyed so far, what I've had problems with and how I think it could be improved (as I imagine it will be) or modded.
A City Like No Other
Of all the things in this game, the city itself is the developers crowning achievement. Night City is simultaneously a densely beautiful and deeply depressing environment by design. One which wholeheartedly absorbs you into it while hiding endlessly fascinating districts, skylines, architecture, cultural influences and sharp contrasting colour behind every single corner.
I've never walked around so much in a game and simply took in the sights for fear of missing out. This is because missing content (by which I mean just visually) here almost feels tragic so in my fifty-two hours so far I've never once used fast travel which is unheard of for me.
The level of detail and consideration put into the design of every bar, park, mega building, highway, statue or holographic forest is absolutely astounding and something which has gone unappreciated in the aftermath of its release. Its a city made up of thousands of distinct parts which collectively form one incredible 3D masterpiece.
Mercenary Meddling
In the game you play as "V" an ambitious mercenary looking make his way to the very top echelons of Night City but starting from the bottom... its a long road. You'll be taking all sorts of jobs along the way that'll have you hacking, stealing, killing, sabotaging, racing and sneaking your way through the exemplary aforementioned locations.
The side activities are always satisfying thanks to the complexity and synergy of the hacking mechanics, rewarding nature of sneaking through places unnoticed and the sheer joy of blowing people up but they become much more enjoyable as you progress and have more options. I've found the RPG like skill tree to be one of the best aspects of the game. It's incredibly easy to build a powerhouse character that specialises in hacking and shooting and with the synergy between skills being a huge focus it can result in a feel of adaptive capability that's very rarely seen.
The main story and side missions are thematically interconnected and varied however they definitely feel less so this time around and the abrupt endings to distinct quest chains often leave character relationships feeling anticlimactic.
Take one relationship I spent hours building with a nomad woman out in the desert for example. She would send messages telling me how much V meant to her but once I'd finished assisting her in quelling a rebellion in her nomad tribe, she as much as went "thanks V... see you never". Giving in to the end of the chapter and lack of scripted interaction for the rest of my playthrough (admittedly not a full one yet).
I think a GTA style "Hey cousin, let us go bowling?" would have gone a long way.
Something's Bugging Me
While I've had a relatively easy time with regards to issues running the game I have seen my fair share of bugs while playing. They've been very varied and elicited laughter, confusion, surprise and in one case tears but they were never game-breaking and I managed to see the funny side.
One particular example involved Jackie (V's partner in crime) taking a chip out of his head and giving it to V but instead of a chip, he chose to see if he could shove his revolver in one ear and out the other. I looked on in disbelief behind a haze of tears of laughter... it was hilarious and only got funnier with the added context of the situation.
During general play superficial bugs such as small items floating mid-air, cars driving through terrain and vanishing NPC's have been a common occurrence, however, not to the degree to which others have stated. I guess in this regard I've been lucky as honestly, it's been incredibly rare for my immersion to be broken at all aside from the odd giggle.
Time To Heal
Cyberpunk 2077 has an uphill battle to win over most gamers and it's going to need a lot of work but I feel the core experience has been done an injustice... it's brilliant at heart. Over estimations and missteps in the development cycle have cost this game its deserved release. However, CDPR don't strike me as a company that will take this criticism lightly and I'm sure they will work tirelessly to fix the problems with it and make it into the great game it was designed to be.
Speaking about problems can we get a setting to change how zoomed in the minimap is please, my gorgeous futuristic cars brakes would really appreciate it.
PC Specification:
Res: 2560x1440
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080
CPU: Intel I7-8700k
16GB RAM
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