2077 manages to fail its source material, the genre of its namesake, and its own framework as a narrative-heavy RPG game all at once. CDPR's half-baked take on R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk setting shows us a Night City that is somehow less of a cyberpunk game than the '80s pen-and-paper system on which it's based. Compared to the scarce lore bits offered up in 2020, this game foregoes Pondsmith's stylistic flare in favor of edgy platitudes that come straight from the mouth of a 14-year-old who just discovered Nietzsche. It also limits nuanced characterizations to the mostly-well-meaning corpos that are far removed from the street-level storylines that made the TTRPG so intriguing to begin with. This wouldn't be as much of a bother if 2077 at least tried to create its own compelling vision of Night City through its quests, but you'll end up spending the majority of the base game connecting dots until each plotline is repeatedly revealed to be another mouthpiece through which the nearest NPC upon completing the plotline reminds you that this high-tech GTA is meant to be a cautionary tale about inequality in a hypercapitalist dystopia (if only there were countless real-world examples for the writers to draw on!), and that this city sucks and you suck too and your best bet is to never try to make anything better, cuz if you do then Silverhand will make fun of you for you and he's meant to be the coolest cool guy that ever was cool, man. It's giving "you can't sit at our table" vibes, except you had to pay $60 dollars to be told you can't sit at this table, and it's also the only table available, and it's also missing a leg. But if you pay for that leg, Idris Elba will show up for a few minutes, so that's cool. So, why bother playing at all? The answer, of course, is that you shouldn't. Go watch a playthrough if you're curious, and expend the keystrokes or button presses on Deus Ex, Citizen Sleeper, Ghostrunner, or RUINER for a more worthwhile cyberpunk experience.
