Let’s state the obvious first: this game is inherently broken.
My second playthrough was spread across versions 2.0 and 2.1 and while it was significantly better than the original release or even the much celebrated “one year after” version, it was still unbelievably buggy, to the extent that it often killed any sense of immersion the game desperately tried to build.
Some of my ‘favorite’ bugs included:
cars still not being able to drive around a vehicle left in the middle of the road, they simply start honking and waiting patiently in line, creating a jam; also, traffic lights and driving patterns of NPC cars are two completely separate worlds, it was actually funny;
starting a quest with an NPC while being chased by cops or a gang, and seeing e.g. Jackie taking several full magazines into his face while explaining some exposition to me, while I was hiding away from the enemies;
fixers calling in the middle of a dialogue, with V having then two separate conversations at the same time;
a number of times V’s color changed to pitch black and I wasn’t able to change it unless I restarted the game (I prefer my V’s hair blue, thank you very much);
misleading GPS that keeps changing its mind, plus the city architect’s penchant for roads with multiple lanes and exits makes it sometimes near impossible to navigate;
during open air shootouts NPCs often keep enjoying their meals, standing amidst flying bullets, and sometimes not even reacting to explosives dealing damage to them;
not being able to access my inventory and journal, because the game thought I was still in a cutscene (a restart and loading much earlier save was required)
I was surprised by how much more I enjoyed the gameplay of the game compared to its world and story (a complete opposite to my feelings after playing ‘The Witcher’ games). Cyberpunk allows both for guns blazing approach and to move stealthily, even sparing lives of enemies if we incapacitate them quickly from behind. Stealth mechanics are nothing unusual, but they’re competent and moving through a large area without alerting anyone, possibly using some non-aggressive quickhacks, can be satisfying. If enemies’ AI doesn’t start going crazy, that is.
Shootouts are surprisingly well made, given that this was CDPR’s first foray into first person shooting. There is a large variety of weapons available and they feel distinct, punchy and are simply fun to use. Although I found out rather quickly that for many enemies, the easiest way to defeat them was to get up on some nearby roof or a similar point of elevation - they tend to lose their minds then, even the ones that can easily follow V up on those roofs. I do think, however, that the number of guns looted from enemies is too high - I ended up getting rid of almost all of them, sticking to 3 or 4 favorites. An aggressive playstyle using melee weapons is also possible, although on both playthroughs I ended up focusing on stealth with a little sprinkling of pistol combat and simple netrunning on top.
Quickhacking is a welcome addition to the game - it provides a decent variety of tools, both for combat and stealth, and is definitely one of the elements that help Cyberpunk stand out (compared e.g. to Watch Dogs, I had much more fun with netrunning and hacking in CDPR’s game). There is also another type of hacking, i.e. the minigame for accessing computers and terminals. I thought it was done well and often found myself trying to solve these short puzzles for the fun of it as I didn’t care much for the eddies or crafting components they provided.
This is also the first game by the Polish developer with a driving mechanic and it turned out rather mediocre. There is a good selection of cars, but many of them slide on the road like bars of soap, especially the faster ones. I found vehicular combat rather clunky, except for one particular pseudo-tank that helped me wreak some real havoc in Night City. Surprisingly, even mowing down a couple of dozen cops didn’t reward me with the highest chase rank - honestly, I don't know what more I could’ve done to piss off the guys in blue more. Plus, the cars feel surprisingly slow - even when driving at 200mph (according to the meter, at least) I felt like I was hardly moving any faster than many cars around me.
Crafting is in the game and that’s all I can say about it. It feels extremely underdeveloped and its inclusion in the game feels like a response to the popularity of survival games with this mechanic around the time of Cyberpunk’s release. I crafted a couple of items early on just to see how the mechanic worked and later on completely forgot that it was a part of the game.
I didn’t do a lot of melee combat, but I did finish the boxing side quest and unfortunately V’s movement felt stiff (especially the dodge, which is extremely clunky, I kept crouching instead as both actions are assigned to the same button). Finishing the boxing side quests would’ve been impossible if it weren’t for the overpowered parry mechanic (way too easy to get it right, even on highest difficulty) and the fact that every single opponent seemed to have learned at the same boxing school, since they all shared the same exact moveset.
Braindances are a major letdown. They mostly boil down to clicking on the highlighted thing - not unlike ‘witcher vision’ in CDPR’s previous game, only here you get to watch a short cutscene. I think a lot more could’ve been done with this concept, as right now it only shows up a few times throughout the story and it is a very limited tool.
The game offers a decent number and variety in its quests and gigs. They usually require infiltrating an area and performing some simple action, like escorting out an NPC, installing malware or hitman jobs. They work because the gameplay is pretty fun, but the narrative background for these is weak. Writers try hard, but it’s impossible to care about these little missions. They get more complex and by extension more fun as they go along, although they rarely stray from the beaten path. The one exception to this would be the cyberpsychos - some of them are fun mini bosses, but you can’t really approach them stealthily or with much nuance, it’s always a direct confrontation. And they do get quite stale pretty quickly.
There are a number of points in the game where you’re forced to take on enemies or bosses directly. If up to that point you were building your V as a stealth hacker, you could be in trouble. This reminded me heavily of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where a similar approach proved quite problematic for players opting for a more quiet playstyle (myself included).
The main story is pretty terrible when it comes to the actual quests. A lot of time is spent on listening to exposition, being driven in a car by an NPC while listening to exposition, meeting with NPCs to discuss the next steps (which takes way more time than it needs). The actual playing time is rather limited and it feels like CDPR realized that the main storyline is too short and wanted to pad it out to make it seem more substantial. The worst offender that stuck out for me was walking around the club Clouds, trying to find someone with knowledge on Evelyn’s whereabouts - you literally go from one NPC to another, learning almost nothing until the very last person finally points to a completely different location, triggering a new quest. Same goes for the beginning of Panam’s storyline - before it really gets going (also, what a waste of a tank mission!) it takes forever. The main storyline suffers from a deficiency of memorable moments or set pieces, and in some instances they limit the player’s actions (like getting rid of snipers during Arasaka’s parade) - these parts reminded me heavily of some missions from GTA where you could reach failstate for some dumb, arbitrary reasons. Sure, there are some nice moments with particular characters (like Panam or River), but overall it feels like a slog to get through and I was putting away forwarding the story and opting for focusing on side content.
The game pretends to be an RPG, and does it with little conviction. Aside from choosing your starting point (affects the first moments in the game and some pretty insignificant dialogue choices later on) and choosing the ending of V’s story there aren’t that many opportunities to make any meaningful impact in Night City.At one point V can pretty much directly influence who will become Night City’s next mayor. This quest is quite interesting in itself, probably one of the most memorable ones from the game, but it doesn’t change the fact that its conclusion doesn’t introduce any meaningful change in Night City. Another particularly egregious example that stuck with me was the initial choice between Evelyn and Dex - who to side with prior to the big heist. It’s presented like a major choice but it ends up having no impact on the rest of the game due to the way the heist unfolds.
When it comes to the main story, I was left unimpressed. Jackie’s death
lacks the emotional punch it aims for mostly because it happens so quickly (and it was spoiled already before launch by CDPR themselves). It’s supposed to push V to strive for influence in Night City to honor Jackie’s greatest ambition, to become a legend of the town, but it falls flat despite being brought up regularly by V herself. We receive a bit more backstory on Jackie after his death, however it’s too little too late.
There are quests that feel undercooked and end abruptly. Best example for this is the Lizzy Wizzy quest - I don’t know if it’s because of Grimes’ busy schedule (she voices the popstar) or something else, but it is shockingly short and without any satisfying conclusion.
I appreciate that Johnny Silverhand is a large part of the story - not only as a catalyst for V to embark on her journey, but also as someone she can discuss current events with. I like that he often argues with V and criticizes her choices, creating an interesting dynamic. And the fact that it’s Keanu Reeves helps flesh out Johnny visually, however the actor’s performance didn’t always convince me and a some of his more emotional lines were delivered poorly, which stood out even more when you heard the talent behind some of the other major characters in the story, which were all very well voiced.
Despite the game offering a gigantic open world, it mostly feels hollow. Most shops and street vendors you can’t interact with, and the ones that you do mostly sell useless stuff - like food items, which I don’t think I ever used. There are plenty of stores with guns and clothes, but it makes little sense to spend money there since during a playthrough you’ll stumble across so many weapons and clothing that you’ll just keep selling them at the nearest drop point and keep the best ones. Those are usually found after defeating an important enemy or at particular points in the story.
Speaking of money, there’s no good use for it in Night City. It’s nice to buy an expensive car, but I mostly stuck to one or two favorites and whenever necessary I’d just steal one parked nearby. Safehouses also aren’t very useful, and they’re actually pretty cheap. By the end of the game I found myself with around 2 million eddies in the bank with nothing to spend it on.
Many NPCs still wander aimlessly, bumping into each other. I’ve encountered a number of unique (at least they seemed so) animations for NPCs around town, but they seem to be stuck in them in perpetuity, and every time you come back to the same spot you see them doing the same thing, like the two drunks outside of the elevator leading to V’s apartment. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s a bug or a feature at this point.
Some other complaints I have for the story include:
Not setting up Adam Smasher as the villain properly - we see him in one braindance and for a brief moment in Johnny’s flashback, and then Johnny mentions him several times and that’s pretty much it. For someone who serves as final boss in a game aspiring to be an RPG, beating him feels simply like defeating another of many mini-bosses found in other parts of the city;
There are too many gangs and most of them blend into one, I’d rather have half the number but with more space and possibly more quests to flesh them out to be able to tell the difference in businesses/ideologies and perhaps side with some of them and fight others;
Many quests don’t seem to carry any significant, long-term consequences. Most of the time after finishing one you’ll simply receive a text from the NPC you helped and that’s it. This feels like an easy way out on developers’ part and doesn’t encourage players to become invested in this side content;
No sense of urgency in terms of V’s affliction - no matter how many relic malfunctions I witnessed during the main quests, I still couldn’t care less because I knew well that V would be alive for as long as I didn’t hit ‘Yes’ on the point of no return notification. Also, her condition doesn’t affect the gameplay in any meaningful way;
After finishing companion quests, they get super clingy (at least River was, don’t ask me why I romanced him). And the possibilities for interaction once we enter a relationship are pretty limited, as well.
The main issue I have with this game is its narrative direction.
The world feels like a very shallow attempt at satire on consumerism of the ‘western’ world. All of the TV shows, commercials, ads, and many NPCs as well - they aim for the GTA-like level of irony and satirical commentary, but even GTA V, which was far from perfect in that regard, felt like it had some more interesting things to say than Cyberpunk. Sure, there are some quests that delve a bit deeper into criticism of corporatism and mass consumption, but I can’t recall any single idea in the game that’d make me go “oh, yeah, I never thought about it that way”. Same goes for the sci-fi element of the world and narrative. There are very few quests that try to analyze the impact of potential technological advancements (unless you count “overreliance on technology is bad”, which is something that can be easily said even today), and that’s what good sci-fi should do. The world feels like a pretty standard evolution of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer with some minor tweaks, but not only does it not provide meaningful commentary, it also does not allow V to make any major dent in the status quo. No matter how many Militech convoys you destroy or whether you steal a valuable tank with the Aldecaldos, this doesn’t change anything in Night City. Same goes for Arasaka, where V has the ability to affect the corporate structure at the very top in one of the endings. Why should we care? The game shows you horrible inequalities and corporations wielding more power than politicians, but instead of allowing you to try to bring down these gigantic corporations, at least to some extent, it lets you choose (at least it initially seems that way) which spoiled rotten, detached from reality child takes over a gargantuan company that’d put Google and Facebook to shame.
You can’t really challenge the current state of affairs, you can only try to navigate throughout this world and gradually make more and more money, sometimes hearing from a fixer that “major clients are showing an interest in your services”, even when it doesn’t feel like it except for some slightly more complex gigs and a slightly better payout that you can’t even spend on anything meaningful. This would be fine for an open world action title like the aforementioned GTA, but for a game with aspirations for a deep RPG it simply isn’t acceptable. The game is perfectly content focusing on V’s struggle for survival, looking for ways to get rid of the lethal Silverhand’s engram, and feeding the player a pretty shaky story about their rise to the top of Night City. Replace the engram with some deadly disease and you could have the same plot in a completely different environment. Look, I’m not saying you should be able to follow in Johnny’s footsteps and detonate a nuke in the middle of the city, but any opportunity to shake things up in Night City would be greatly appreciated. Now this criticism of corporatization and unfettered capitalism feels like a coat of paint applied to a pretty conservative narrative, simply because this is what’s been popular in the last few years.
My second playthrough was spread across versions 2.0 and 2.1 and while it was significantly better than the original release or even the much celebrated “one year after” version, it was still unbelievably buggy, to the extent that it often killed any sense of immersion the game desperately tried to build.
Some of my ‘favorite’ bugs included:
cars still not being able to drive around a vehicle left in the middle of the road, they simply start honking and waiting patiently in line, creating a jam; also, traffic lights and driving patterns of NPC cars are two completely separate worlds, it was actually funny;
starting a quest with an NPC while being chased by cops or a gang, and seeing e.g. Jackie taking several full magazines into his face while explaining some exposition to me, while I was hiding away from the enemies;
fixers calling in the middle of a dialogue, with V having then two separate conversations at the same time;
a number of times V’s color changed to pitch black and I wasn’t able to change it unless I restarted the game (I prefer my V’s hair blue, thank you very much);
misleading GPS that keeps changing its mind, plus the city architect’s penchant for roads with multiple lanes and exits makes it sometimes near impossible to navigate;
during open air shootouts NPCs often keep enjoying their meals, standing amidst flying bullets, and sometimes not even reacting to explosives dealing damage to them;
not being able to access my inventory and journal, because the game thought I was still in a cutscene (a restart and loading much earlier save was required)
I was surprised by how much more I enjoyed the gameplay of the game compared to its world and story (a complete opposite to my feelings after playing ‘The Witcher’ games). Cyberpunk allows both for guns blazing approach and to move stealthily, even sparing lives of enemies if we incapacitate them quickly from behind. Stealth mechanics are nothing unusual, but they’re competent and moving through a large area without alerting anyone, possibly using some non-aggressive quickhacks, can be satisfying. If enemies’ AI doesn’t start going crazy, that is.
Shootouts are surprisingly well made, given that this was CDPR’s first foray into first person shooting. There is a large variety of weapons available and they feel distinct, punchy and are simply fun to use. Although I found out rather quickly that for many enemies, the easiest way to defeat them was to get up on some nearby roof or a similar point of elevation - they tend to lose their minds then, even the ones that can easily follow V up on those roofs. I do think, however, that the number of guns looted from enemies is too high - I ended up getting rid of almost all of them, sticking to 3 or 4 favorites. An aggressive playstyle using melee weapons is also possible, although on both playthroughs I ended up focusing on stealth with a little sprinkling of pistol combat and simple netrunning on top.
Quickhacking is a welcome addition to the game - it provides a decent variety of tools, both for combat and stealth, and is definitely one of the elements that help Cyberpunk stand out (compared e.g. to Watch Dogs, I had much more fun with netrunning and hacking in CDPR’s game). There is also another type of hacking, i.e. the minigame for accessing computers and terminals. I thought it was done well and often found myself trying to solve these short puzzles for the fun of it as I didn’t care much for the eddies or crafting components they provided.
This is also the first game by the Polish developer with a driving mechanic and it turned out rather mediocre. There is a good selection of cars, but many of them slide on the road like bars of soap, especially the faster ones. I found vehicular combat rather clunky, except for one particular pseudo-tank that helped me wreak some real havoc in Night City. Surprisingly, even mowing down a couple of dozen cops didn’t reward me with the highest chase rank - honestly, I don't know what more I could’ve done to piss off the guys in blue more. Plus, the cars feel surprisingly slow - even when driving at 200mph (according to the meter, at least) I felt like I was hardly moving any faster than many cars around me.
Crafting is in the game and that’s all I can say about it. It feels extremely underdeveloped and its inclusion in the game feels like a response to the popularity of survival games with this mechanic around the time of Cyberpunk’s release. I crafted a couple of items early on just to see how the mechanic worked and later on completely forgot that it was a part of the game.
I didn’t do a lot of melee combat, but I did finish the boxing side quest and unfortunately V’s movement felt stiff (especially the dodge, which is extremely clunky, I kept crouching instead as both actions are assigned to the same button). Finishing the boxing side quests would’ve been impossible if it weren’t for the overpowered parry mechanic (way too easy to get it right, even on highest difficulty) and the fact that every single opponent seemed to have learned at the same boxing school, since they all shared the same exact moveset.
Braindances are a major letdown. They mostly boil down to clicking on the highlighted thing - not unlike ‘witcher vision’ in CDPR’s previous game, only here you get to watch a short cutscene. I think a lot more could’ve been done with this concept, as right now it only shows up a few times throughout the story and it is a very limited tool.
The game offers a decent number and variety in its quests and gigs. They usually require infiltrating an area and performing some simple action, like escorting out an NPC, installing malware or hitman jobs. They work because the gameplay is pretty fun, but the narrative background for these is weak. Writers try hard, but it’s impossible to care about these little missions. They get more complex and by extension more fun as they go along, although they rarely stray from the beaten path. The one exception to this would be the cyberpsychos - some of them are fun mini bosses, but you can’t really approach them stealthily or with much nuance, it’s always a direct confrontation. And they do get quite stale pretty quickly.
There are a number of points in the game where you’re forced to take on enemies or bosses directly. If up to that point you were building your V as a stealth hacker, you could be in trouble. This reminded me heavily of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where a similar approach proved quite problematic for players opting for a more quiet playstyle (myself included).
The main story is pretty terrible when it comes to the actual quests. A lot of time is spent on listening to exposition, being driven in a car by an NPC while listening to exposition, meeting with NPCs to discuss the next steps (which takes way more time than it needs). The actual playing time is rather limited and it feels like CDPR realized that the main storyline is too short and wanted to pad it out to make it seem more substantial. The worst offender that stuck out for me was walking around the club Clouds, trying to find someone with knowledge on Evelyn’s whereabouts - you literally go from one NPC to another, learning almost nothing until the very last person finally points to a completely different location, triggering a new quest. Same goes for the beginning of Panam’s storyline - before it really gets going (also, what a waste of a tank mission!) it takes forever. The main storyline suffers from a deficiency of memorable moments or set pieces, and in some instances they limit the player’s actions (like getting rid of snipers during Arasaka’s parade) - these parts reminded me heavily of some missions from GTA where you could reach failstate for some dumb, arbitrary reasons. Sure, there are some nice moments with particular characters (like Panam or River), but overall it feels like a slog to get through and I was putting away forwarding the story and opting for focusing on side content.
The game pretends to be an RPG, and does it with little conviction. Aside from choosing your starting point (affects the first moments in the game and some pretty insignificant dialogue choices later on) and choosing the ending of V’s story there aren’t that many opportunities to make any meaningful impact in Night City.At one point V can pretty much directly influence who will become Night City’s next mayor. This quest is quite interesting in itself, probably one of the most memorable ones from the game, but it doesn’t change the fact that its conclusion doesn’t introduce any meaningful change in Night City. Another particularly egregious example that stuck with me was the initial choice between Evelyn and Dex - who to side with prior to the big heist. It’s presented like a major choice but it ends up having no impact on the rest of the game due to the way the heist unfolds.
When it comes to the main story, I was left unimpressed. Jackie’s death
lacks the emotional punch it aims for mostly because it happens so quickly (and it was spoiled already before launch by CDPR themselves). It’s supposed to push V to strive for influence in Night City to honor Jackie’s greatest ambition, to become a legend of the town, but it falls flat despite being brought up regularly by V herself. We receive a bit more backstory on Jackie after his death, however it’s too little too late.
There are quests that feel undercooked and end abruptly. Best example for this is the Lizzy Wizzy quest - I don’t know if it’s because of Grimes’ busy schedule (she voices the popstar) or something else, but it is shockingly short and without any satisfying conclusion.
I appreciate that Johnny Silverhand is a large part of the story - not only as a catalyst for V to embark on her journey, but also as someone she can discuss current events with. I like that he often argues with V and criticizes her choices, creating an interesting dynamic. And the fact that it’s Keanu Reeves helps flesh out Johnny visually, however the actor’s performance didn’t always convince me and a some of his more emotional lines were delivered poorly, which stood out even more when you heard the talent behind some of the other major characters in the story, which were all very well voiced.
Despite the game offering a gigantic open world, it mostly feels hollow. Most shops and street vendors you can’t interact with, and the ones that you do mostly sell useless stuff - like food items, which I don’t think I ever used. There are plenty of stores with guns and clothes, but it makes little sense to spend money there since during a playthrough you’ll stumble across so many weapons and clothing that you’ll just keep selling them at the nearest drop point and keep the best ones. Those are usually found after defeating an important enemy or at particular points in the story.
Speaking of money, there’s no good use for it in Night City. It’s nice to buy an expensive car, but I mostly stuck to one or two favorites and whenever necessary I’d just steal one parked nearby. Safehouses also aren’t very useful, and they’re actually pretty cheap. By the end of the game I found myself with around 2 million eddies in the bank with nothing to spend it on.
Many NPCs still wander aimlessly, bumping into each other. I’ve encountered a number of unique (at least they seemed so) animations for NPCs around town, but they seem to be stuck in them in perpetuity, and every time you come back to the same spot you see them doing the same thing, like the two drunks outside of the elevator leading to V’s apartment. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s a bug or a feature at this point.
Some other complaints I have for the story include:
Not setting up Adam Smasher as the villain properly - we see him in one braindance and for a brief moment in Johnny’s flashback, and then Johnny mentions him several times and that’s pretty much it. For someone who serves as final boss in a game aspiring to be an RPG, beating him feels simply like defeating another of many mini-bosses found in other parts of the city;
There are too many gangs and most of them blend into one, I’d rather have half the number but with more space and possibly more quests to flesh them out to be able to tell the difference in businesses/ideologies and perhaps side with some of them and fight others;
Many quests don’t seem to carry any significant, long-term consequences. Most of the time after finishing one you’ll simply receive a text from the NPC you helped and that’s it. This feels like an easy way out on developers’ part and doesn’t encourage players to become invested in this side content;
No sense of urgency in terms of V’s affliction - no matter how many relic malfunctions I witnessed during the main quests, I still couldn’t care less because I knew well that V would be alive for as long as I didn’t hit ‘Yes’ on the point of no return notification. Also, her condition doesn’t affect the gameplay in any meaningful way;
After finishing companion quests, they get super clingy (at least River was, don’t ask me why I romanced him). And the possibilities for interaction once we enter a relationship are pretty limited, as well.
The main issue I have with this game is its narrative direction.
The world feels like a very shallow attempt at satire on consumerism of the ‘western’ world. All of the TV shows, commercials, ads, and many NPCs as well - they aim for the GTA-like level of irony and satirical commentary, but even GTA V, which was far from perfect in that regard, felt like it had some more interesting things to say than Cyberpunk. Sure, there are some quests that delve a bit deeper into criticism of corporatism and mass consumption, but I can’t recall any single idea in the game that’d make me go “oh, yeah, I never thought about it that way”. Same goes for the sci-fi element of the world and narrative. There are very few quests that try to analyze the impact of potential technological advancements (unless you count “overreliance on technology is bad”, which is something that can be easily said even today), and that’s what good sci-fi should do. The world feels like a pretty standard evolution of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer with some minor tweaks, but not only does it not provide meaningful commentary, it also does not allow V to make any major dent in the status quo. No matter how many Militech convoys you destroy or whether you steal a valuable tank with the Aldecaldos, this doesn’t change anything in Night City. Same goes for Arasaka, where V has the ability to affect the corporate structure at the very top in one of the endings. Why should we care? The game shows you horrible inequalities and corporations wielding more power than politicians, but instead of allowing you to try to bring down these gigantic corporations, at least to some extent, it lets you choose (at least it initially seems that way) which spoiled rotten, detached from reality child takes over a gargantuan company that’d put Google and Facebook to shame.
You can’t really challenge the current state of affairs, you can only try to navigate throughout this world and gradually make more and more money, sometimes hearing from a fixer that “major clients are showing an interest in your services”, even when it doesn’t feel like it except for some slightly more complex gigs and a slightly better payout that you can’t even spend on anything meaningful. This would be fine for an open world action title like the aforementioned GTA, but for a game with aspirations for a deep RPG it simply isn’t acceptable. The game is perfectly content focusing on V’s struggle for survival, looking for ways to get rid of the lethal Silverhand’s engram, and feeding the player a pretty shaky story about their rise to the top of Night City. Replace the engram with some deadly disease and you could have the same plot in a completely different environment. Look, I’m not saying you should be able to follow in Johnny’s footsteps and detonate a nuke in the middle of the city, but any opportunity to shake things up in Night City would be greatly appreciated. Now this criticism of corporatization and unfettered capitalism feels like a coat of paint applied to a pretty conservative narrative, simply because this is what’s been popular in the last few years.