Fort Solis is a walking simulator through and through. The whole gameplay consists almost entirely of traversing the corridors of a Martian outpost and trying to piece together what happened. The game makes an incredible first impression. The visual presentation is amazing, supported by superb voice acting. The art direction creates a heavy, immersive atmosphere, and I genuinely enjoyed exploring the claustrophobic corridors of the outpost in the early hours. However, the experience falls apart where it matters most: the story itself. The first two chapters set up a decent slow-burn mystery, but the payoff never arrives. You spend the game collecting video logs, audio recordings, and emails, expecting these narrative crumbs to eventually form a clear picture. They don't. The puzzle pieces never quite click into place. The central premise turns out to be incredibly bland, and the game fails to communicate what is actually at stake. Worse, the narrative is riddled with plot holes that are either poorly explained or completely ignored. After a strong start, the game stumbles and eventually falls on its face with an extremely anticlimactic ending. The gameplay is slow, broken up by sparse Quick Time Events that are extremely hard to follow and feel particularly pointless as they seem to have little to no consequence on the story outcome. Except for the one at the very end. It is also a very short experience. I tend to explore every nook and cranny, and I still finished it in under 4 hours. If you rush, you could easily be done in 3. If the characters could actually run, you would probably made it under two. I picked this up via a Prime Gaming giveaway. For "free," it was a decent way to spend an afternoon. However, if I had paid the full $24.99 asking price, I would seriously consider a refund.
Seriously, technical issues aside I totally love this game. It has been quite some time since I had so much fun in a videogame. I play games for the stories and Cyberpunk offers one hell of a ride. Not only in main scenario, but also in many of the side missions. The Night City is so detailed you can weave your own stories if you want. Sometimes it reminds me of VtM: Bloodlines, technically flawed game that was, nevertheless, so much fun to play just for the great writing, wacky quests and superb worldbuilding. As for the technical problems, I didn't play any console version, but on my average gaming rig the game is perfectly playable ever since the first hotfix patch. A minor physics or animation glitches here and there doesn't bother me at all. And I am sure the devs will eventually fix those pesky bugs and hopefully add some much desired additions like walk toggle in PC version, preview gear before buying it, ways to change your appearance and perhaps more. This game is a work of love. I can hardly imagine the amount of work it had to take to make this sprawling adventure happen. I feel sorry that instead of cheering on developers and constructive criticism the release generated so much hate from so many people. It´s not the first game that came out broken and certainly not the last. Also devs at CD Projekt Red have a history of listening to player feedback and adding desired features if it's technically possible. So guys, sit back, relax, enjoy the game, wait for the patch if you want. I am going back to Night City and won't be back for a long time.
