With my 500 hours or so with this game, I had one hell of an adventure (Review after patch 1.61)
Let me just start off by saying I love the living hell out of this game. Cyberpunk 2077 is in a dark dystopian future ruled by mega corps set in the New United States of America in the “City of Dreams” aka Night City. The graphics look amazing. I love seeing all the neon lights and pollution in the air that give you an ominous vibe. The visuals are absolutely stunning, the architecture looks futuristic and well designed. You’ll see neon lights, trash, advertisements, crime, corruption everywhere you go which tell a story within itself. But don’t get me wrong visuals still need some work since there’s noticeable pop in and some parts of the city feel lifeless. As for bugs, and believe me when I say this there isn’t that many. As a player from day one yes this game was a massive buggy mess but now I barely encounter bugs. Crashes are still a big problem on PS5 but not so much on XSX. Overall for an RPG, it isn’t all that great since I don’t like how level 50 is the max level and I don’t like how CDPR handled street cred since you can max that out very early on in the game if you’re going for 100%. You can go for all kinds of builds that suit your play style and like any traditional RPG you can invest perk points in skill trees depending on the build you want. You can be netrunner that specializes in quick hacking your enemies or machines. You can be a gunner that specializes with guns and using them to significantly increase the damage of your weapons. Or you can do a blades-only run with stealth where you only use swords and knives to zero your enemies. You also get that sense of immersion. Something many people say is that your choices don’t matter which is NOT true. Your choices don’t generally affect the outcomes of the main story but your choices will affect the outcomes of side quests. Your choices will hurt people for your own personal gain or you can be a pacifist that gives hope to people while gaining respect. Even with 500 hours I still find choices that I missed and witness outcomes I haven’t seen before. And on VERY rare occasions you get outcome depending on the gender you choose. You can also do missions in a variety of ways. You can get through side quests without bloodshed and you can approach situations in many ways. You can steal key cards to get into places safely, you can find a way to sneak in without raising the alarm, you can use your own money to get in safely and of course you can just go in guns blazing if you want. There’s also plenty of different guns that work differently few of which have their own exclusive features. You can use power guns that can knock down enemies or make bullets bounce off walls to hit targets, you can use tech weapons to shoot through walls or you can use smarts guns that can target your enemies around a corner. And as I said before there are guns with exclusive features for example there’s a sniper that has a built in silencer, there’s a sniper that has bullets that can explode, there’s a shotgun that has extra power and can hold more bullets than a regular shotgun or you can get a pistol that has a built in flame mele attack. Weapons that have exclusive features are known as “Iconic” weapons and I highly recommend getting as many as possible to see what you like best. On top of all that you can upgrade your weapons to make them even more powerful or you can add mods that do fire, poison, electric damage, or increase your critical rate etc. And if guns aren’t your thing and prefer to use swords or knives or really any mele weapons you can upgrade and modify them as well. It’s also important to upgrade your weapons via the crafting. This imo is one of the most challenging things to do, I highly recommend looting as much as you can so you can disassemble guns/mele weapons to upgrade your favorite weapons or if you need money you can sell the loot you get. You can also get cyberware which makes gameplay a HELL of a lot more fun. You should use certain cyberware depending on the build you’re going for. For example if you going for gunner build you should get berserk cyberware or if you’re going with a blades only run then get a sandevistan, then again you can experiment however you want to with build you so desire. Clothing in this game looks so great that it’s a shame you never actually get to see V wear it when exploring the city or in combat. There’s also a good selection of vehicles to purchase. Unfortunately, some cars can be very expensive to obtain and you CAN’T customize them. The sound design for this game is well done. This is definitely one of those games you should play with headphones to get every last detail of what you can hear. The sounds of AVs, cars, people, advertisements and gunshots echoing through Night City sounds perfect. There’s even a district called Pacifica (this district is abandoned by the general public due to poverty and crime) where the speaker system that plays advertisements are broken and glitched out which I believe is an amazing little detail. Speaking of sounds, the music is among some of the best I’ve ever heard for a video game. Definitely take the time to listen to all the radios to see what music suits your tastes, the music is so damn good that sometimes I would just drive around to hear the music instead of head to my next objective. And beside the music you hear from the radio, the ambient music you can hear while exploring the city. It adds another layer to the ominous vibe you’ll get from this game. And holy cow the stealth and combat music is GODLY. And the ost you’ll listen to during the main story and side stories fits in the atmosphere so well whether something sad, interesting, exciting or dark is going to happen. The ost just knows how to play along with the vibe. Other than that, there are plenty of things to do in Night City that can take a little over 100 hours to 100%.
As for the story… it’s fucking AWESOME! The main story always had me hooked. Something I found very disappointing is that your life path doesn’t affect how the story will play out at all. But even at that, the story was just incredible. I absolutely loved the characters you’ll meet. They all have personality and their voice acting never feels off, just on point. I love the main characters V, I love the idea of being a solo Edgerunner and a professional one at that to be the best in Night City. I absolutely love the combination of dark noir storytelling in this game. There are many times where people inevitably get hurt or zeroed and it’s sad to see it happen. Even if didn’t have an attachment to them I at least feel sympathetic. And like I said before, your choices can and will hurt people. I had many times where I felt guilty and sadly there’s no such thing as happy endings in Night City. Side quests were also INCREDIBLE. You’ll meet all kinds of people you can befriend and very few you can romance. I also highly recommend reading as many computer messages as you can because you can learn new things about certain characters that I would’ve never known about. And that’s not all but if you really want to dedicate yourself to this game, READ ALL THE DATA SHARDS YOU FIND. Not going to lie, many of them might be uninteresting but it helps you understand how dark the world of Cyberpunk 2077 truly is. You’ll find data shards about what happened to the world and you can even come up with a timeline of what happened within the last 100 years or so. You’ll even read about shards from people moments before they flatline. If you care enough about lore and world building I highly recommend reading as many as you can.
Overall, I believe CDPR did a FANTASTIC job with Cyberpunk 2077 despite the messy launch. They did a great job on doing their research on the Cyberpunk genre. They nailed the aesthetic of Night City to fit in with Cyberpunk and nailed the storytelling to fit in as well. And man I just can’t get enough of the gameplay. With each new playthrough I just love using different builds and picking different choices for different outcomes whether is bad or good. I don’t blame people for disliking or hating this game as even I still have my fair share of problems as well since I can’t say this is my favorite RPG, not even by a long shot. But I can say for sure this one is definitely my favorite video game of all time. I can’t wait to see what CDPR has in store for me whenever Project Orion releases. (I will rewrite this review after the Phantom Liberty expansion and 1.7 update are out)
Let me just start off by saying I love the living hell out of this game. Cyberpunk 2077 is in a dark dystopian future ruled by mega corps set in the New United States of America in the “City of Dreams” aka Night City. The graphics look amazing. I love seeing all the neon lights and pollution in the air that give you an ominous vibe. The visuals are absolutely stunning, the architecture looks futuristic and well designed. You’ll see neon lights, trash, advertisements, crime, corruption everywhere you go which tell a story within itself. But don’t get me wrong visuals still need some work since there’s noticeable pop in and some parts of the city feel lifeless. As for bugs, and believe me when I say this there isn’t that many. As a player from day one yes this game was a massive buggy mess but now I barely encounter bugs. Crashes are still a big problem on PS5 but not so much on XSX. Overall for an RPG, it isn’t all that great since I don’t like how level 50 is the max level and I don’t like how CDPR handled street cred since you can max that out very early on in the game if you’re going for 100%. You can go for all kinds of builds that suit your play style and like any traditional RPG you can invest perk points in skill trees depending on the build you want. You can be netrunner that specializes in quick hacking your enemies or machines. You can be a gunner that specializes with guns and using them to significantly increase the damage of your weapons. Or you can do a blades-only run with stealth where you only use swords and knives to zero your enemies. You also get that sense of immersion. Something many people say is that your choices don’t matter which is NOT true. Your choices don’t generally affect the outcomes of the main story but your choices will affect the outcomes of side quests. Your choices will hurt people for your own personal gain or you can be a pacifist that gives hope to people while gaining respect. Even with 500 hours I still find choices that I missed and witness outcomes I haven’t seen before. And on VERY rare occasions you get outcome depending on the gender you choose. You can also do missions in a variety of ways. You can get through side quests without bloodshed and you can approach situations in many ways. You can steal key cards to get into places safely, you can find a way to sneak in without raising the alarm, you can use your own money to get in safely and of course you can just go in guns blazing if you want. There’s also plenty of different guns that work differently few of which have their own exclusive features. You can use power guns that can knock down enemies or make bullets bounce off walls to hit targets, you can use tech weapons to shoot through walls or you can use smarts guns that can target your enemies around a corner. And as I said before there are guns with exclusive features for example there’s a sniper that has a built in silencer, there’s a sniper that has bullets that can explode, there’s a shotgun that has extra power and can hold more bullets than a regular shotgun or you can get a pistol that has a built in flame mele attack. Weapons that have exclusive features are known as “Iconic” weapons and I highly recommend getting as many as possible to see what you like best. On top of all that you can upgrade your weapons to make them even more powerful or you can add mods that do fire, poison, electric damage, or increase your critical rate etc. And if guns aren’t your thing and prefer to use swords or knives or really any mele weapons you can upgrade and modify them as well. It’s also important to upgrade your weapons via the crafting. This imo is one of the most challenging things to do, I highly recommend looting as much as you can so you can disassemble guns/mele weapons to upgrade your favorite weapons or if you need money you can sell the loot you get. You can also get cyberware which makes gameplay a HELL of a lot more fun. You should use certain cyberware depending on the build you’re going for. For example if you going for gunner build you should get berserk cyberware or if you’re going with a blades only run then get a sandevistan, then again you can experiment however you want to with build you so desire. Clothing in this game looks so great that it’s a shame you never actually get to see V wear it when exploring the city or in combat. There’s also a good selection of vehicles to purchase. Unfortunately, some cars can be very expensive to obtain and you CAN’T customize them. The sound design for this game is well done. This is definitely one of those games you should play with headphones to get every last detail of what you can hear. The sounds of AVs, cars, people, advertisements and gunshots echoing through Night City sounds perfect. There’s even a district called Pacifica (this district is abandoned by the general public due to poverty and crime) where the speaker system that plays advertisements are broken and glitched out which I believe is an amazing little detail. Speaking of sounds, the music is among some of the best I’ve ever heard for a video game. Definitely take the time to listen to all the radios to see what music suits your tastes, the music is so damn good that sometimes I would just drive around to hear the music instead of head to my next objective. And beside the music you hear from the radio, the ambient music you can hear while exploring the city. It adds another layer to the ominous vibe you’ll get from this game. And holy cow the stealth and combat music is GODLY. And the ost you’ll listen to during the main story and side stories fits in the atmosphere so well whether something sad, interesting, exciting or dark is going to happen. The ost just knows how to play along with the vibe. Other than that, there are plenty of things to do in Night City that can take a little over 100 hours to 100%.
As for the story… it’s fucking AWESOME! The main story always had me hooked. Something I found very disappointing is that your life path doesn’t affect how the story will play out at all. But even at that, the story was just incredible. I absolutely loved the characters you’ll meet. They all have personality and their voice acting never feels off, just on point. I love the main characters V, I love the idea of being a solo Edgerunner and a professional one at that to be the best in Night City. I absolutely love the combination of dark noir storytelling in this game. There are many times where people inevitably get hurt or zeroed and it’s sad to see it happen. Even if didn’t have an attachment to them I at least feel sympathetic. And like I said before, your choices can and will hurt people. I had many times where I felt guilty and sadly there’s no such thing as happy endings in Night City. Side quests were also INCREDIBLE. You’ll meet all kinds of people you can befriend and very few you can romance. I also highly recommend reading as many computer messages as you can because you can learn new things about certain characters that I would’ve never known about. And that’s not all but if you really want to dedicate yourself to this game, READ ALL THE DATA SHARDS YOU FIND. Not going to lie, many of them might be uninteresting but it helps you understand how dark the world of Cyberpunk 2077 truly is. You’ll find data shards about what happened to the world and you can even come up with a timeline of what happened within the last 100 years or so. You’ll even read about shards from people moments before they flatline. If you care enough about lore and world building I highly recommend reading as many as you can.
Overall, I believe CDPR did a FANTASTIC job with Cyberpunk 2077 despite the messy launch. They did a great job on doing their research on the Cyberpunk genre. They nailed the aesthetic of Night City to fit in with Cyberpunk and nailed the storytelling to fit in as well. And man I just can’t get enough of the gameplay. With each new playthrough I just love using different builds and picking different choices for different outcomes whether is bad or good. I don’t blame people for disliking or hating this game as even I still have my fair share of problems as well since I can’t say this is my favorite RPG, not even by a long shot. But I can say for sure this one is definitely my favorite video game of all time. I can’t wait to see what CDPR has in store for me whenever Project Orion releases. (I will rewrite this review after the Phantom Liberty expansion and 1.7 update are out)