Cyberpunk 2077

overpromise, sell, underdeliver

At the time of this review I have played approx 14 hrs and have no finished the game. I deliberately did not following this game during development since it's initial announcement, so I went into this pretty blind. My first impressions were not bad. I would have summarised the game as neither good nor bad, it has some good qualities, unfortuntely it is usually rivialed by a negative one. Night City is beautiful and looks stunning.. No argument. Unfortuntely it's also astoundingly dead and feels empty - the AI does not compare to even GTA IV which is 12 years old. I won't focus too much on the bugs. A few visual blemishes aren't a deal breaker for me, even though they break immersion. The different approaches to combat sound pretty good conceptually. The execution however leaves every combat experiece feeling the same. recycled if you will. Rinse and repeat. Story from what I have played is good. In all honesty, it's probably the saving grace that makes me want to keep playing. I like the characters and all in this aspect of the game feels well written. To me atleast. The negatives I have mentioned above are not deal breakers for me. I can live with an imperfect game (though, this does feel like it's still in alpha). What I can't live with is that despite the patches done to date and the long development time, I still encountered a game breaking bug (one which does not allow me to proceed). With normal gameplay, not trying to do anything silly or trying to break it. Just playing it. Abrupt finish.

After 45 hours, i finished the main story and the side storys i cared about. I think i can review this now. I was engaged in the story, and most of the characters. I built friendships, and made enemies. But the rest of the people wandering around the town were just lifeless puppets. I travelled through, over and under Night City, and it felt and looked very athmospheric. But a lot of times i saw that it was just a facade, a backdrop for my route back and forth from missions. The police doesn't really matter. I think thats the point, i guess? But why then is there a wanted system at all that doesn't really do something except when you mindlessly shoot people? Bystanders react really weird when you start a fight on the street. Still a lot of bugs and glitches. If you want good Armor, you will look like a clown. If you want to look nice, you will (mostly) have bad armor stats. One skill in the crafting skill tree is at best useless, and at worst makes the game harder, because it automatically destroys junk when you pick it up. Even the "junk" that's worth around 500 Eddies! Upgrading your items is a waste of time, because the material cost is too high for the (in comparison) small upgrade in Damage or armor on the higher tier items. And because you WILL find a better stuff just around the corner. Why are there different factions when they don't interact with each other in any way? No Gang fights? No Turf Wars? So much potential wasted. Why can't i customize the face/hair/nails/whatever of V ingame? You also have one (ore more) apartments that you will not care about, because there is nothing to do there after you've been there once. Final thoughts: If you take the world for what it is, and just want an engaging main story with interesting characters and lots of shooting: You will probably like this game (still buggy tho). But if you want a revolution in open world design and athmosphere: that's not this game, mate.

I feel like I bought one of those Steam knockoff games with similar titles that are shoved out early to try and piggyback on hype games. Why is it so ugly, why does it run so poorly, why does nothing work like it should? Come on guys, this is just sad.

I definately had fun playing the game but after completing the story, City feels dead. Story was the on;y hook for me to keep playing the game, Night City is Beautiful but Dead.