Cyberpunk 2077 — Full Game Review
This is a full game review from someone who played the game all the way to the end, engaging with a majority of the content.
TL;DR;
Cyberpunk 2077 is a massive pseudo-open-world game that tries to disguise its linear nature behind the neon gloss of a sprawling city and boring desert wilderness. Its promise of ecstatic pornography and gory violence is never really delivered on. Romance and sex are tedious and repetitive, even a downgrade from The Witcher III, meshes are stiff, and the action is not even Cinemax levels of softcore.
Violence in the game is barely gory, you can dismember foes but it’s unsatisfying and low resolution. There is literally nothing memorable about it after 60+ hours of gameplay.
The quests are satisfying, but standard with little to no innovation, except the occasional gem, like having to assassinate a gangster in a bar filled with gangoons without raising the alarm.
All in all Cyberpunk 2077 is a good game, worth playing, with a middling story, but there is nothing groundbreaking here.
There are several things that break the immersion, a key one being the open world NCPD sub-contracting which seems wholly out of place and forced. The inability to commit even the most trivial crime spoils the entire atmosphere. If you so much as bump a pedestrian the NCPD will rain down fire on you, but they seem incapable of showing up to deal with organized crime or a gang assault? Well, incapable until you accidentally shoot a gang member from outside of the prescribed combat boundaries, in which case they’ll spawn in and kill you (not the bad guys).
Your path is more or less fixed in the game, you cannot choose to be evil, at least not very evil. The world is pseudo open. You can go to most places, but you are restricted in what you can really do when you arrive. And doing those things has a very rigid effect on gameplay.
I can only really compare this game to The Witcher III and Red Dead Redemption II, in both cases, Cyberpunk 2077 pales in comparison.
As irritating as RDR2 was with most characters, voice acting, and the insufferable new-york-liberal-cowboy gloss of the old west, one thing you can say about RDR2 is that the set and setting are perfect. The attention to detail, the depth of the setting is awe-inspiring.
Not so with Night City. It’s a cookie-cutter sprawl that lacks meaningful locations or mysteries. There are no open world sub-games, like fishing and hunting (or Gwent). It’s basically Gigs, Side Jobs, and NCPD subcons.
If you steal cars, they don’t become yours, so why bother?
You can’t rob people, or shoot them. In RDR2 I played a bandit that didn’t take any lip. Which meant a lot of people got their heads blowed off on the trail.
In Night City, it’s frustrating dealing with cheeky NPCs you can’t blast because Max-Tac will drop instadeath on you. There is also no possibility (or not a fun one) of doing a how-long-can-you-last rampage a la RDR2 or even Hitman’s kill-em-all challenges.
In my book that breaks the open-world claim. Cyberpunk 2077 is just a big world, open it is not.
Some reviewers have claimed, like Upper Echelon Gamers, that Night City is its own character, a kind of meta-antagonist. But I can agree. It may have been intended to be that, but the world of Cyberpunk 2077 is dead and dreary. I went all the way to the edges of the world and found nothing but empty areas with no rewards for exploration.
NPC interaction is non-existent, and each NPC is just a nameless, characterless, often buggy, spewer of one-liners roughly equivalent to “fuck off.”
Night City is conspicuously empty, and when it’s not empty, it’s so rigid in the crowd AI as to be boring. If NPCs are in an area, you can bet they are doing nothing interesting, have nothing interesting to say, and feel like obstacles to immersion.
There are some narrative gems, the character Takamura is perfect, and the only truly congruent character in the entire game. Everything he does or says seems to be exactly what you’d expect him to do or say. He never breaks character, and even acts as a counter critique to V’s insipid anti-capitalism.
Which, for a guy who claims he wants to make eddies and be “on-top” is so incongruent it makes me want to barf. The story-tellers can’t keep their frames consistent with the characters (Takamura excepted).
No one expects high-level writing from a game so I’ll give them a pass on this one. The dialog rarely irritates, even if sometimes it’s a bit confusing.
Interesting parts of the story are rushed, and uninteresting parts are slowed down to make sure you waste as much of your life as possible interacting with a bland character at a pointless plot point, while critical story information and fascinating characters like Alt Cunningham are glossed over as quickly as possible.
This is never more true than the entire character of Jackie Welles, his family, his story, and his love interest. These characters are completely meaningless and thoroughly dull. You’re forced into a friendship with him, and even have to waste time going to his funeral, talking to his mother, talking to his friends, participating in a pointless wake, then talking to his girlfriend.
It was at that point that I really missed the ability to go on a rampage and kill everyone in sight.
Incredibly interesting characters who I wanted to get to know or even Romance disappear from the narrative while I felt forced to hook up with a tedious and insipid brat named Panam. I realize if I had picked a female character I would have been forced to hook up with an even more irritating Judy Alvarez. I say forced in the fact that the dialog options are usually a choice between romance me or act like a tool.
Sure, you can choose to act like a tool…
I was seriously let down by the fact that the only romance option I was interested in lead to a one night encounter in a seedy motel and nothing more. I was a bit excited to see the quest was named Venus In Furs, and even geared up for a blessed relief from the sophomoric sexuality of Cyberpunk 2077 only to be let down once again as the two characters humped away in sex scene that would rival Top Gun for cringe.
I hate using the term sophomoric in regards to sex in Cyberpunk 2077 but I can find no better word. The ubiquitous pornography and joytoys never provide anything but a pretentious sex scene, or insipid arousal.
The designers of the game missed a great opportunity for visual storytelling here, after all the greatest mystery in Night City seems to be just who this Milf is guarding, and why?
Character Creation
I tried three life paths, Streetkid, Corpo, and Nomad, and while they have different beginnings they quickly align to the main and linear story with little fanfare making them arbitrary (read: irrelevant).
I don’t recall any lifepath dialog options that seemed to really influence the outcome, making lifepaths more or less another Chekov's Gun in the game. I played as a street kid and ended up being absorbed into a nomad clan, so — shrugs r’ us.
The watch-word with Cyberpunk 2077 is irrelevant. How you start the game, how you look, and what life path you choose, seems to be irrelevant.
The most pointless thing you’ll do is pick whether or not you have a penis, how big it is, and the style of pubic hair you’ll never see.
The penis configuration is the second of many Checkov’s Guns that happen in Cyberpunk 2077 — as you’d think that romance and sex in the game would have something to do with your choices there. It doesn’t, and it turns out romance options depend more on the sound of your voice than the presence or absence of a penis.
I haven’t played through all of the romance options, and honestly, unlike The Witcher III where each romance option was compelling and had its own merits, I have 0% interest in any of the other options and don’t care to be emotionally accosted by the insipid paramours presented.
The same problem with penises also exists for breasts. You have two options: big or small. Fair enough, but kind of relative. I’m sure if they had allowed it, there would be plenty of nude playthroughs with mandingo sized peens — and 1,200cc breasts — that would have been a good thing and made the game slightly more interesting. I’m going to call this the Checkov’s Penis — that is a penis shown in the beginning of a game better be erect by the last act. I hate how half-assed this is.
The game is incapable of embracing its own critique of moral decay and commoditized sexuality. We can have all kinds of augmentations, cyberware, higher jumping, faster running, but a circus freak sized penis or breasts are beyond the pale?
You can also have piercings, tattoos, scars, and various levels of psoriasis and eczema as well — the point of which I also fail to see as none of these mean anything in the game.
The character creator of Cyberpunk 2077 reminds me of the character creator of EVE Online — utterly pointless.
This section doesn’t really do a good job of explaining the core attributes, and the fact that Body and Technical Ability will decide how you play our several missions as some doors can only be forced with a high body attribute, and some doors can only be opened with a high technical attribute.
There is also the problem of crafting. Your game experience depends heavily on your ability to upgrade and craft items. Luckily my first time through I went high intelligence, cool, and technical ability which was ultimately the perfect combination for my stealthy play style that likes to avoid front-on encounters.
Seeing as hacking is essential to the game as well, one would think certain things would depend less on this attribute.
The point I’m trying to make is, with hacking, cool and technical, you can upgrade your gear so high, and stack cold blood (a skill that grants fun bonuses) that if you want to run and gun you can due to the insane damage output (upwards of 40–50,000 damage per hit).
One key component though is Reflexes, which grants you amazing crit and damage bonuses.
There is too much to attributes and skills to really discuss in-depth here, but it is a shining point of the game as it can lead to some seriously fun and over-powered builds.
As per usual, crit builds are largely winning.
Each beginning is slightly different but works quickly to funnel you into the faux-friendship with Cyberpunk 2077’s most uninteresting character.
Jackie Welles
The writers of this story had a real hardon for Jackie Welles and I can’t understand why.
He’s a character without nuance or interest. He’s an unsophisticated oaf you have to spend some time with who promptly dies leaving only a legacy of tedium and a cool motorcycle behind.
Why the fuck is this guy so sought out? Who cares?
He’s completely superfluous to the story, and no real work is put in to make his death in any way meaningful.
I feel like that character from Mean Girls: “Stop trying to make fetch a thing.”
Stop trying to make Jackie Welles matter to me. Jackie Welles is never going to matter to anyone.
Also, who fuck is named Jackie Welles?
Gangs of Night City
Gangs in Night City are, like most things in Cyberpunk 2077, irrelevant. Sometimes you kill 6th Street Soldiers, sometimes Valentinos, sometimes Maelstrom, but ultimately they’re all irrelevant.
They don’t significantly contribute or change the story, although if you save Brick, the leader of the Maelstrom, in an early mission, it makes a later side mission easier. By easier, I mean less shoosting, which considering how little shoosting there is in this game I don’t consider that a bonus.
After playing the game for 60 hours I can honestly say I don’t know anything about the gangs or care to. They just didn’t factor in, except when the storytellers tell you they factor in, or they bother to mention that one group of future-headless-corpses are of the Valentinos variety or Maelstrom variety.
It’s a shame because this is fertile ground for political storylines, similar to Djikstra and the Temerians. Likely that was intended and simply left out in the rush to release, and maybe there will be expansions and DLC which make up for this lack. But as it is, the story is just not there.
Hacking & Cyberware
The hacking mechanic in this game is very well done. I can’t imagine it being done better. The little puzzle minigame for breaching, or jacking in is challenging enough to require a bit of skill and forethought, but doable under pressure.
Quickhacks work like spells, or signs in the Witcher franchise. They do different types of damages and depending on your skill tree, can cause significant damage and spread to nearby enemies.
It’s entirely possible to use only Quickhacks as your primary offensive weapon once you get a good enough cyberdeck.
Cyberware in general gives you an interesting non-armor/non-weapon based customization system. In reality, they are just adding complexity by adding in yet another area of management, but it fits perfectly into the game world and has real effects on your progression.
If you choose to go the stealth/intelligence route, then cyberware is more important than armor or weapons for your success.
Throughout most of the game, killing enemies becomes largely optional, as you can just sneak past them to get to objectives. So long as the objective is a non-leathal one, but even in that instance, the Quickhakcs Cyberware Malfunction and Cripple Movement, as well as Weapon Glitch, can buy you a lot of time to drill an opponent with silenced revolver headshots.
The skill trees add creative bonuses that help you develop your play style, and leveling up to put another point in your skill tree can quickly become a driver for doing lots of side missions and gigs.
I felt that this entire aspect of the game was 100% on point. While it might turn out that there needs some balancing to prevent you from becoming OP (the final content, on Hard, was almost too easy as I could drop just about everyone from a distance, even Adam Smasher).
Stealth
As a long time fan of the Hitman series, the presence of stealth, and the utility of it in this game was awesome. For me, this was one of the most fun aspects as many quests are solvable by stealthy exploration. It’s possible to sneak attack enemies and hide their bodies, which led to hours-long self-challenges to empty an entire area of enemies without getting spotted, or having a body detected.
From my perspective, the only downside to stealth is that there rarely seem to be any rewards for it. Completing a challenge without getting spotted doesn’t seem to ever lead to much of a bonus unless that is an optional objective.
I suppose I am just used to Hitman giving a never-spotted bonus.
The crit bonuses from stealth make taking down substantially higher level enemies with a well-placed headshot easier. Unfortunately, in very high danger areas, trying a silent takedown is likely to get you killed. Something I didn’t really like all that much.
The Night City That Never Wakes
One of the biggest letdowns is Night City itself. It’s a lifeless megalopolis that never fails to disappoint. There is almost no reward for exploration. Despite its visual beauty, the extraneous components of the city are so patterned and uninteresting that it feels lifeless.
Where I expected a level of interaction and detail to characters at least on the level of The Witcher, Night City doesn’t even have that.
Whether it’s the crowd AI or the driver AI, or just the fact that so many doors are locked and unbreakable, there’s really nothing to do in the open world that isn’t obviously scripted and part of the game’s narrative.
A prime example is the Arasaka Estate, you can break-in. You can kill all the guards. But you can’t steal the awesome cars?
Opportunities for hidden content, like in the swimming pool, are never taken advantage of.
Another case in point is the mission with Judy Alvarez where you dive down to the bottom of a lake, and enter an old church — a situation ripe for hidden gems — only to discover next to nothing of value except exposition for a character who you can’t screw (if you’re male), and who is about to disappear at the end of the mission anyway. Why the ever-loving fuck did we just waste all of this time building a connection (romantic or otherwise) to this character when they’re about to disappear?
Night City is just unfinished. The visual promise what the game can’t deliver.
In Summary
Cyberpunk 2077 is certainly the best game of the year, even with all of the issues, but that’s less a compliment to CDPR and more an indictment of everything else coming out.
There is a lot of potential, and probably within a year or two with all the patches and additional DLC, this will most likely be an epic game with amazing replay potential.
But it wasn’t finished, and what they released falls woefully short of their promise from almost every possible angle.
It’s a crying shame that so much potential is utterly wasted. This game could have been the greatest game in the last 20 years, instead, it’s the most epic of failures.
Not because of the bugs, everyone kind of expected that. Or at least anyone with sense.
No, Cyberpunk 2077 is a failure because of the features and gameplay that simply aren’t there.
It’s missing that special something, that living, breathing immersive world that we expected.
It’s not the glitches that jar you out of the immersion into Night City and the Badlands, but the sheer hollowness of the implementation. The inconsistent gameplay elements, like NCPD contracts, or the ridiculous Wanted System.
It’s the fact that Gangs are meaningless and have no effect. It’s the fact that almost every character is 2 dimensional and inconsistent with their own stated world view.
It’s the unlovable nature of the romance options, each of which is plastic and shallow and wholly unattractive to any sensible person.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a crying shame for all these missed opportunities. It has some high points, and it will get better. But without some radically new content delivered by DLC, I doubt it will ever be more than an 8 or 9 out of 10 game.
Right now, it’s probably a 6 out of 10. Which considering CDPR, and the expectations they have themselves cultivated, that’s basically like saying it’s a Zero.
