Role Playing Games are, above all else, a special genre of gaming. What makes RPGs so special is that they capture peoples’ hearts through so many different methods - to the point that if you asked twenty people what their favorite part about RPGs were, chances are, you’d probably hear twenty different answers. It’s an inherently complex, versatile genre of gaming that captures the imaginations and hearts of millions around the world. It’s also ostensibly the hardest type of game to make.

In a fighting game, what’s the most important aspect of the game? Most would agree: the fighting mechanics. In a shooter, what’s the most important aspect of the game? Most would agree: the feeling of gunplay and making the act of shooting fun in and of itself. Those genres (and many others) are held together by the glue of a single mechanic and/or system that’s the main focus of its respective genre. For RPGs, there isn’t really an equivalent of this. RPGs can feature combat (of which there can be a plethora of different combat styles and methods, plus whether it is turn-based or action-based), immersive worlds, characters to talk to, side activities and content to engage in, level progression to emulate the feeling of getting stronger, and so much more. But each RPG can’t realistically excel in all of these categories. And so, video game RPGs tend to specialize in certain features of the genre. Many people come to RPGs for a different reason, and most RPGs cater to different crowds that are looking for something specific from their RPGs.

For example, the Dragon Quest series mostly focuses primarily on accessible, simple turn-based combat and dungeon crawling with some light worldbuilding through NPC dialogue. The Final Fantasy series is more focused on telling cinematic stories with mostly linear progression, with side activities and minigames sprinkled throughout most entries. Western RPGs such as BioWare’s Mass Effect and Dragon Age series focus more a lot more on role playing through dialogue and managing relationships with other characters. Each video game RPG caters to different sections of RPG fans through focusing on different aspects of the genre.

It’s impossible to adapt everything from tabletop RPGs into a video game RPG. There are simply too many aspects of tabletop RPGs, especially in regards to social and role playing elements, that are practically impossible to emulate in a video game environment. Nevertheless, video game RPGs, especially over the last twenty years, have attempted to become bigger and bigger, featuring more content and getting ever closer to emulating the feeling of having a countless number of available options that’s prominent in tabletop RPGs. Video game RPGs have not only gotten more mainstream in the last twenty years but they’ve also gotten more ambitious, they’ve gotten bigger, and they’ve become some of the most highly anticipated releases in the history of the medium - and that’ll likely continue to be the trend for years to come.

Enter CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, an RPG adapting from the 1988 tabletop RPG Cyberpunk, the brainchild of Mike Pondsmith. The anticipation and expectations for 2077 were unprecedented, as the pre-release materials suggested that the game was to be among the biggest, most ambitious video game RPGs of all time. The game would take place over 50 years after the events of Cyberpunk 2020, the second edition of the tabletop game, and would feature a vast open world with a densely packed Night City - a dystopian metropolis that would feature countless things to do, many characters to interact and role play with, and an atmosphere that would allow players to get immersed and lost in the soulless dystopia of late-stage capitalism where corporations control nearly all facets of everyday life for the common folk.

Of course, we now know that such pre-release materials were overselling the game, and I’ve talked about that aspect of the game in the past. For this piece, I want to specifically focus not on the game that people thought would release, but on the game that did release. While it was definitely disappointing to see such a problematic launch from a previously beloved developer, Cyberpunk 2077’s overall quality shouldn’t be judged on the poor marketing and management decisions that were made prior to the game’s launch. This isn’t to say that such topics shouldn’t be discussed, but they need to be divorced from assessing the quality of the final game.

With that said, how does Cyberpunk 2077 fare among its contemporaries? Personally, this was the first game by CD Projekt Red that I had played, so along with wondering what the game itself had in store for me, I was also curious about learning more about CD Projekt Red’s approach to their games and the overall flavor of their storytelling. Let’s take an in-depth look at Cyberpunk 2077 and assess the game in a look that’s separated from the many controversies surrounding the game.

Note that this review is based off of the PlayStation 4 Pro version of the game.

What’s the point of making anything in the Cyberpunk subgenre of fiction? Typically, it’s to tell stories that incorporate elements of dystopia where technology advances to the point where the very state of humanity is put into question. Some of the subgenre’s best offerings over the decades, including Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell, feature stories where the world has crossed into a point of no return - where most people are either partially or entirely augmented with technology, with the conflict of the story being how this affects characters and the culture that they’re a part of. Moreover, a staple of the cyberpunk subgenre is having visual storytelling through the cityscapes and overall aesthetic of a culture hyper-reliant on technology.

The reason as to why I bring this up is that the cyberpunk aesthetic is one of Cyberpunk 2077’s absolute greatest accomplishments. The world of Cyberpunk 2077 is perhaps one of the most unique open worlds to explore in a game, mainly in thanks to how every area feels incredibly distinct from one another. 2077 features various districts of Night City, the primary setting for the game, which is surrounding by the Badlands - a vast desert articulated by a giant mountain of trash mere miles outside of the city.

Districts like Watson feature apartment complexes where sunlight is blocked out by giant skyscrapers barricading the sunlight, making it always appear dark in certain sections of the city - allowing the giant hologram advertisements splattered everywhere throughout the city to become all the more vibrant. Many of these advertisements are completely in-your-face, obnoxious, and even blatantly manipulative of minorities, being potentially offensive as a result - something that is clearly intentional. Apartment buildings’ walls, elevators, monitors plastered around nearly every corner of town, and even the sky above the city itself are plastered with advertisements that consistently put the player in a state of feeling as if they’re tiny and meaningless - just a cog in the machine to be advertised and marketed to by the corporations that dominate the city. The hyper-sexualized and manipulative nature of the in-game advertisements make them all the more striking to the player throughout the game. You’ll consistently be hearing and seeing them throughout the entire game, to the point that not hearing or seeing an advertisements results in odd, almost unsettling moments of respite.

Early in the game, upon leaving protagonist V’s apartment in this district, it was hard not to simply take in the sights and slowly walk around the apartment buildings surrounding V’s apartment and be in awe of the daunting, brutal, and unclean world that CD Projekt Red created. The darkness of the environment, the overall hostile attitude of many NPCs, the piercing neon lights, and neverending onslaught of in-game advertisements in the area of the game where the game begins to give freedom to the player all grant an early opportunity to get lost in the worldbuilding of the game.

Other districts of Night City create different vibes altogether. The giant shopping centers and red light districts of Westbrook double down on the overcommercialized and hypersexualized attitude of the city. The slums of Santo Domingo paint a clear difference between the rich and the poor within the city, yet they’re constantly looked down upon and constantly marketed to by corporations all the same. Each district within Night City is accompanied by a gang that “rules” that particular sections of town, making for a setting that always feels like a dirty, dangerous, and unwelcoming place to be.

Indeed, worldbuilding is doubtlessly one of Cyberpunk 2077’s strongest aspects. The world that players explore is one that is remarkably well-realized, with every major area of the game offering distinct environments and buildings to explore while still always conveying the feeling that you’re playing as someone that’s constantly being watched, marketed to, and manipulated by the obnoxious advertisements and media that consumes the people of Night City. When on elevator rides, I would often find myself watching the television broadcasts that play in game, which feature talk shows and news reports on Cyberpunk 2077’s world’s politics, news, and gossip - all of which ultimately made me feel like my character was simply seen by the world of Night City as someone to be advertised to and nothing more. This encouraged me to want to work to be more than that; to be known and remembered by the denizens of the city - which happens to be one of V’s main motivations throughout the game’s story, specifically in the game’s first act. This feeling of wanting to create some kind of legacy also serves as one of the game’s main themes and topics of discussion throughout much of its story.

Environments throughout the game do a phenomenal job at contributing to Night City and its environmental storytelling. Going outside of the city and into the Badlands surrounding the city gives the player the opportunity to meet the Nomads - clans that live outside of civilization, consisting of one of V’s three possible lifepaths. Exploring the mostly empty deserts of the Badlands shows how much the people of this world seem to depend on the city to find success, with the only alternative being the dangerous life of a Nomad. Through the pursuit of possible success, one puts themselves in a situation of constantly being belittled and advertised to by corporations. The aforementioned dumping ground showcases the extreme levels of waste in this world and the lack of consideration for such waste’s repercussions.

The environments very much do a phenomenal job at instilling feelings in the player to make them understand the situations of the characters in the story without a single word needing to be said. There were various moments throughout my playthrough where I simply got lost in looking at the vast, daunting environments, seldom feeling welcome in the world I was exploring. The game’s environments do a lot of heavy lifting in giving the game its dark, hopeless tone, and it’s likely to make a significant impact on most of its players in some capacity.

Of course, environment design is but one of the ways that Cyberpunk 2077 builds its world. Throughout most of the game, players will find “Datashards” that will provide information to the player (as pictured above). These Datashards can range from excerpts of fictional works, paragraphs of text that elaborate on major events of the lore and backstory of Cyberpunk, providing information that happened between Cyberpunk 2020, Red, and 2077. These walls of text can also provide transcripts of conversations between characters and help give greater context and clarity to the events of the game and its many characters.

As someone that loves to dig into the lore of games and get as much out of a story as possible, coming across the hundreds of Datashards throughout Cyberpunk 2077 was an absolute treat. Whether found on furniture in the environment or looted from corpses of fallen enemies, I would consistently find myself pausing the action of the game to read and understand more about the world of 2077. Indeed, this very process of attaining and learning more information about this world was among the highlights of my experience with Cyberpunk 2077.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I likely spent as much time in this game reading text as I was partaking in the game’s combat - one of its main mechanics. That goes to show how investing and genuinely well-written many of the game’s text files are. The many walls of text that you’ll read throughout the game help paint an even more vivid picture of the story and world that elevates and strengthen the storytelling seen throughout the game’s main quest and side quests.

In fact, it’s probably time that I get around to actually talking about the “game” part of this video game. The reason as to why I have been focusing on the miscellaneous aspects of the game’s storytelling thus far in this review is because I genuinely feel that the world, lore, and story of Cyberpunk 2077 truly is the game’s greatest aspect. While many of 2077’s gameplay systems have at least something that I take issue with, the overall story and world that 2077 puts players in feels remarkably well realized and more than deserves to be appreciated. The inclusions of Datashards and such vivid environments that elevate the storytelling help make the main plot of Cyberpunk 2077 reach its greatest heights.

As for that main plot, players take control of V, a mercenary initially seeking to find success and fame in Night City. After months of building up their reputation alongside their partner-in-crime Jackie Welles, V enters into a dangerous mission that ultimately goes south, resulting in V’s very consciousness being put at risk of being replaced by the engram of Johnny Silverhand - a rockstar-turned-terrorist whose consciousness was stored onto a chip that has ended up in V’s head. At this point, V’s consciousness is on borrowed time, and they investigate methods to undo the damage of Johnny replacing V’s consciousness before it inevitably kills V.

The main conflict of Cyberpunk 2077 is one that has remarkably great pacing and stakes - that is, for its second and third acts. In the game’s first act, players will enter a prologue mission that’s different depending on the player’s chosen lifepath (essentially, the background) of V’s character. Whether deciding to be a former corporate employee, a thug born and raised on the streets of Night City, or a Nomad that has recently left the only way of life they’ve ever known, V’s lifepath has very little importance beyond a half-hour long prologue mission that sets the story in motion. In fact, this is probably one of the biggest critiques I have of the main quest. V’s lifepath frequently offers different dialogue options throughout the game’s events - particularly in side quests -, however it doesn’t make a very significant impact. While the idea of implementing a character background system (a feature prominent in tabletop RPGs that isn’t very common in video game RPGs) is appreciated, CD Projekt Red definitely didn’t take the idea as far as they could have, making the choice ultimately feel like an opportunity for different flavor text, rather than something that significantly impacts the experience.

Nevertheless, we see V and Jackie in a montage where they gain more of a reputation, fast-forwarding six months to when V and Jackie receive the mission that eventually results in V coming into contact with the engram of Johnny Silverhand. As has been brought up in other reviews, I feel that this montage comes a bit too quickly. While we do get an opportunity to learn more about V and Jackie’s desires to become Night City legends as the story proceeds, I feel that their characters and motivations could have been set up more effectively with the inclusion of one or two more missions that more effectively sets the stage. For example, after the prologue mission, V and Jackie could have embarked on a mission to gain notoriety among the fixers of Night City, only to fail and embarrass themselves. Having one or two missions focus on this could give V and Jackie’s character more time to be developed and help the player establish a greater connection with the two characters and want to help realize their motivations of becoming Night City legends. As is, the first act doesn’t develop V and Jackie’s characters nearly as much as it could have. Moreover, the story’s first act lacks significant urgency, as the heist mission that projects the story forward doesn’t occur until a while after this montage.

Aside from a first act that has missed opportunities and fair if unremarkable pacing, the rest of the plot of Cyberpunk 2077 does a great job at taking risks, pacing events, and delivering believable, well-realized writing throughout its entirety. While 2077 does offer consistent dialogue options, they don’t significantly impact the experience beyond a single mission. There are many instances of the “illusion of choice” - that is, making dialogue options that, while changing what characters say to one another, don’t affect what happens in the long run -, there manages to be a handful of instances throughout the game where the player’s choices throughout the game can actually influence the course of a mission.

While the prevalence of decisions throughout the game helps with getting the most story content out of cutscenes and role-playing a bit, dialogue ultimately feels hollow, as the player’s decisions don’t impact much outside of a final choice that determines which ending the player receives. These choices unlock upon meeting certain requirements throughout the story, primarily through completing certain chains of side quests. While it’s a shame that few choices in the game make for significant differences in the story, dialogue options play their role well - they help make each playthrough feel unique enough to the player to convey a role-playing experience that grants more choice than it actually does.

When outside cutscenes where the player can roleplay through dialogue choices, the main gameplay of Cyberpunk 2077 is completing missions and objectives in the open world of Night City and the surrounding Badlands. Players can drive around using cars and bikes that can be acquired through questing or purchased from fixers (whom will consistently pester V throughout the game about the latest cars on the market - something that’s far too annoying and immersion-breaking). While the entire game is experienced in a first person perspective, getting behind the wheel gives players the option of switching to a third person perspective from behind the vehicle. This inclusion is very much appreciated, as driving in first person feels remarkably off - even nearly giving me motion sickness on some occasions. As someone that doesn’t ever get motion sickness in any capacity, I found that noteworthy. One of the most frustrating of the many bugs that players will encounter in 2077 was one in which I would frequently lose functionality for switching perspectives while driving, locking me into the motion sickness-inducing first person perspective while driving. As of writing, this is an issue that still frequently occurs, further dissuading me from ever driving in game when I don’t absolutely need to.

Driving through the world feels fine with each car having a feel that’s unique from one another, however the driving physics leave a lot to be desired. Colliding with the environment and other cars feels really particularly stiff, leading to unnatural, janky experiences with driving. Because of this, I seldom found myself driving if I wasn’t directly heading from one quest to the next.

Quests and the various objectives around Night City and the Badlands are the primary gameplay content that players will be engaging in throughout 2077’s runtime, which ended up being just over 70 hours for a near-100% playthrough. The actual side quests that exemplify stories with key characters that the player meets at various points during the main quest serve to be some of the best content that 2077 has to offer. Characters such as Judy, Panam, and the Peralezes don’t get as much screen time in the required sections of the game as one would think. Thankfully, each of these characters and more are featured in side quests that delve further into their characters and the ongoing events occurring throughout Night City. It’s actually during these side quests that Cyberpunk 2077 is perhaps at its best at its worldbuilding and presentation of in-game lore. I found myself learning a lot more about characters and the world around them through partaking in the side quests - so much so that I would argue that the game’s side quests are among the best content to play through in the game.

It’s unfortunate then that the game fails to distinguish between the game’s actual side quests and many of the Gigs, which serve as mini-missions in which V is given a bit of expository information on a crime that V must resolve. These Gigs will often involve V going through buildings in pursuit of a specific target. Sometimes, it’s acquiring a certain item in a building, other times it’s rescuing a certain individual, and they can also be as simple as killing a specific target without being spotted. Some of these Gigs can actually be quite enjoyable and do a great job at presenting in-game lore and worldbuilding just as much as the actual side quests, so what exactly is the problem with them? Inconsistency.

Indeed, some Gigs offer multiple dialogue options, various methods of completing objectives and even the possibility of partially or completely failing to complete the objective. However, there are also many Gigs that feel insignificant and merely serve as combat encounters to grant the player more experience to gain Levels and Street Cred (more on them later). By the latter half of my playthrough, Gigs were genuinely beginning to feel like copy-pasted content that failed to be much more than an excuse for more combat. While combat is thankfully fun to partake in, it’s clear to see that these Gigs were designed with the intention of giving greater context to many combat encounters and many of the Gigs do little more being just that. I got to a point where I wanted to partake in side quests much more than Gigs, but both types of missions, quite bafflingly, are marked on the map with the same icon, making it impossible to distinguish between them at a quick glance of the map.

Though, the biggest offender of copy-pasted content is doubtlessly the NCPD Scanner Missions, where V is assigned with resolving a conflict between the gang members and/or criminals of each district and the police. These Missions are easily the weakest content on offer in 2077 entirely due to how copy-pasted it feels. Scanner Missions typically involve killing all enemies in an area and recovering a Datashard, and…that’s it. These encounters feel like remarkably basic attempts at contextualizing enemy encounters throughout the game, however these Missions end up feeling like little more than marking an encounter off of a checklist. There are many of these missions scattered throughout the world of 2077 and not one of them sticks out from another.

Thinking about it logically, it simply doesn’t make sense why relatively smaller crimes such as convenience stores being robbed are constantly visible on the player’s map until that specific NCPD Scanner Mission is resolved. In fact, the sheer quantity of Scanner Missions simply clutters the map and gives the game a feeling of objectives just being something to mark off as if they’re nothing more than part of a checklist - something that plagues almost all of Ubisoft’s open world games. Especially after recently playing through The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild after completing Cyberpunk 2077, the solution to this feels a bit simple. To encourage exploration of the city and make each Scanner Mission feel like a natural occurrence of combat or stealth gameplay that the player happens upon, these Scanner Missions should not have been on the map from the start - rather, they should only be visible and occur to the player when they are in very close proximity when it happens, giving players the option of completing the objective or not. This would make Scanner Missions feel spontaneous and urgent, in addition to removing the feeling of Scanner Missions (and perhaps even Gigs) being repetitive and checklist-y to the player. As is, the Scanner Missions, while commendably being an attempt to contextualize basic combat encounters, prove to ultimately dampen the overall experience of the game.

While various Gigs and Scanner Missions may feel repetitive in structure, they’re carried by the game’s mostly good combat and stealth mechanics. Indeed, the star of the show in Cyberpunk 2077’s combat is its gunplay and stealth. There are three general types of ranged weapons. Power weapons can have their bullets ricochet and are typically stronger. Tech weapons are initially weak, but can be charged. Smart weapons are typically even weaker, but automatically home in on nearby opponents. 2077 offers various types of weapons including pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, and more - all of which feel different from one another, encouraging players to try out different to see which one suits their playstyle the most. With each weapon type being so different from one another, specializing in certain weapons can allow for two different playthroughs with two different builds to feel significantly different from one another.

Aiding the various weapons is a solid implementation of stealth that gives players the options of quietly taking out enemies and discarding and/or hiding their bodies. To assist with stealth or head-on combat, players can perform quickhacks, essentially serving as the game’s implementation of magic. Many quickhacks that the player can acquire can afflict certain status ailments onto enemies, such as poison that drains their health, or a shockwave that temporarily blinds them, giving the player an opportunity to quietly take the enemy out. Quickhacks require RAM, which recharges over time. While I would have appreciated the inclusion of more quickhacks that had a bit more variety in how they impact enemies, the ones that are in the game do a great job at providing an additional flavor to combat.

The weakest aspect of 2077’s combat is its melee combat. As someone that specialized in sword combat, I quickly noticed that melee weapons are among 2077’s strongest combat options, eventually making smaller combat encounters go by in seconds. While effective gunplay, quickhacking, and stealth feels very engaging and varied, melee combat feels comparatively mindless. Most combat encounters, especially by the endgame, merely resulted in me walking to an enemy, whacking them with my sword once or twice, then walking to the next enemy and repeating until all enemies were defeated. Especially in a setting where practically all enemies are cybernetically enhanced, I feel that it would have been possible to give enemies certain parts of their bodies being weak points, giving melee combat an opportunity to be a bit more strategic. Perhaps having melee weapons inflict more damage from the back would have been a simple, yet necessary tweak to melee combat to make it more engaging. As is, choosing a melee build makes the combat of the game feel relatively mindless and strategy-free, especially when compared to the more polished feel of ranged weapons and stealth.

The actual process of making a build is another one of Cyberpunk 2077’s stronger aspects. Skill Points and Perk Points earned through leveling up can be spent in advancing various skill trees that specialize in certain weapons, stealth, general movement, and more. In fact, these skill trees offer so many options that it’s genuinely overwhelming at first. The amount of options are staggering and it’s quite literally impossible to acquire every skill in a single playthrough. While some skills are definitely better than others (with the perk that prevents you from being detected while underwater being the objectively least useful skill by a longshot), most skills feel like they genuinely impact the way in which you engage with the game’s combat. This makes the actual process of leveling up and getting stronger feel unique to the player per each playthrough, depending on what skill trees the player levels up and which skills they acquire and/or upgrade.

Moreover, individual subcategories of each skill tree (such as the “Stealth” and “Cold Blood” subcategories found in the “Cool” category) can be leveled up individually when playing in a manner that’s relevant to the skill in the question. So, upon killing enemies while in stealth, V will acquire experience in the “Stealth” subcategory, which will unlock more Perk Points or passive benefits upon each level up. This adds to the individuality of growth throughout the game, furthering the feeling of the player’s progression feeling unique per each playthrough.

Players will level up through acquiring experience through defeating enemies and completing quests, as is typical throughout the genre. In addition to receiving experience, players will also receive Street Cred when defeating enemies and completing any objectives. Street Cred primarily unlocks the ability to purchase higher level armor, weapons, cyberware, and other equipment, while also giving the player access to more Gigs. Unfortunately, it does very little beyond that. Moreover, Street Cred can only go up and never go down, something that seems off considering that this is a stat that implies that it’s a measurement of how V is perceived by the public of Night City. While the player gains levels at a fairly slow rate, they will quickly gain levels in Street Cred upon doing side activities, with most players being able to easily max out Street Cred fairly early on - this happens so quickly that it makes one question why the system is implemented this way.

It would have made more sense if Street Cred was a scale rather than a linear progression identical to that of experience to gain levels. In this hypothetical scenario where Street Cred would be a scale, one end of the scale would be Lawful, where V is seen as an enemy of the various gangs of Night City and someone that sides with the establishment, law, corporations, and police of Night City. Completing the NCPD Scanner Missions would nudge V’s Street Cred closer towards the Lawful end of the scale. On the other end of the scale would be Chaotic, where V is seen as an ally of the various gangs of Night City and someone that sides with the people of Night City, fighting against the corporations and establishment of the Night City elite. Completing the Gigs from the city’s fixers would nudge V closer towards the Chaotic end of the scale. Depending on if V is considered Chaotic or Lawful, the player will have access to different kinds of gear, have access to different shops, and be less likely to get into combat encounters in certain sections of the map.

This would give the player a greater opportunity to role play through the actual gameplay and what the player decides to do. It would also give greater weight to completing Gigs and/or NCPD Scanner Missions and make players more willing to complete them. With Street Cred being a linear progression that simply gatekeeps the player from wearing certain gear and initiating certain Gigs just feels like a missed opportunity to effectively tie player progression and role playing with Cyberpunk 2077’s primary gameplay content, its missions.

Another means of player progression that feels like it doesn’t meet its full potential is cyberware. Throughout the world of Cyberpunk 2077, there are ripperdocs that can sell and install augments into V’s body, giving the player access to additional passive and active skills that adds even more customization to what players can do with V. Some augments do a great job at making the V feel significantly more powerful - the double jump being a notable standout, as it makes navigation of the world inherently more fun and interesting to partake in. However, like with quickhacks, the variety of cyberware feels a bit too limited to reach its greatest potential. The inclusion and presentation of cyberware is nearly identical to the augmentations seen in the Deus Ex series, which offer a greater variety of augments that offer more interesting alterations to gameplay. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided features augments that allow players to temporarily mute their footsteps, be invisible to enemies temporarily - skills similar to these would feel quite at place in 2077. Unfortunately, the implementation of cyberware in Cyberpunk, while interesting and scratches the surface of its potential, doesn’t offer the amount of customization and freedom to players that it should have.

At the beginning of this review, I discussed how video game RPGs have various different types of specialties, since the RPG genre is an inherently large, complex category of gaming. Different RPGs specialize in certain aspects of the genre so as to have a tightened focus. Cyberpunk 2077 is clearly attempting to bite off a lot in regards to what an RPG can offer. It tries to be a game focused on role playing, but few choices ultimately end up mattering. The game offers various weapon types through ranged combat, stealth, quickhacks, and melee combat, though melee combat feels significantly less polished than other facets of combat. There are an overwhelming number of side activities to partake in, but the game falters through many of such objectives feeling like a checklist - a very copy-pasted one, at that.

Quite simply, Cyberpunk 2077 is trying to deliver on a lot of aspects of RPGs. It is an open world RPG that is transparent in its ambition and scale, but through trying to do so much, many aspects of the game feel unpolished and hinder the overall quality of the game. Trying to do nearly everything that an RPG can, 2077 partially cracks under the pressure it brings upon itself through the lack of a polished and more thorough exploration of certain mechanics such as cyberware, Street Cred, and the implementation of the game’s side activities.

Due to trying to do so much, certain aspects of the game got far less attention than others, giving rise to the many, many bugs that plague Cyberpunk 2077, including crashes, of which I personally experiencing eight of in my 74 hour-long playthrough. While the crashes didn’t negatively impact my time with the game too much thanks to the game’s generous autosave system, this game has still crashed far more than any other game I’ve played in recent memory. I could go on about the various bugs I experienced, but odds are, you’ve seen various other sources showcase them in greater detail than any number paragraphs here would. While I can understand and forgive the existence of bugs in such a large, ambitious game, and severity and quantity of bugs that consistently negatively influence the quality of the gameplay is honestly staggering. Over two months after launch, the game still feels very rough around the edges on console.

But despite all of its technical flaws and lack of polish in many areas, there’s a clearly remarkable core to the experience of Cyberpunk 2077 that’s impressive. Namely, the storytelling, worldbuilding, lore, the attention to detail in the environment, and the writing throughout the entire game is of an insanely commendable quality. Moreover, the more polished aspects of the gameplay, such as the main story quests, the side quests, the stealth, and the ranged combat are constructed remarkably well. But for every positive, polished aspect of Cyberpunk, there are two unpolished aspects that hold it back from true greatness. There’s a great core to this game, and it tells a fantastic, well-realized story set in a world that’s often, well, breathtaking. But there are too many flaws, major and minor, that get in the way of this game from ever living to its truest potential.

Recommending Cyberpunk 2077 is tricky. While it has some significant issues in its gameplay and content, I truly feel that it’s worth experiencing just for the story missions that exemplify some of the best storytelling and worldbuilding that the cyberpunk genre has to offer. It’s truly rare to see a game that so well realizes its story, characters, lore, and world. It’s just a shame that so many gameplay systems and mechanics aren’t nearly as well-realized. If certain aspects of this game were given as much attention and polish as its story and world, this would easily be one of the greatest, most memorable games of all time. As is, it’s a good game that’s prevented from being great due to being unable to live up to its own ambition.

Final Grade: C+

Thank you very much for reading! What are your thoughts on Cyberpunk 2077? Do you think the game’s pre-release hype and promotion should be talked about when discussing the game’s final quality? As always, feel free to join the conversation and let me know what you think in the comments or on Twitter @ DerekExMachina.