I going to amputate from consideration any technical issues and set them on the hall table for a moment — I assume they'll be addressed, patch-wise. Having a look over the rest of the game though, I think 2077 still ails from a few core defects of a kind that are perhaps less easily patched out. Its most concerning fault is inherently existential. After 30-ish hours puttering around Night City, the experience still feels vague and indistinct. The environment design at first staggers, dazzling and vibrant, teeming for an instant with possibility, but that veneer ultimately crumbles under the weight of scrutiny. What's left is a visually satisfying, punch-out poster board city that gives you something nice to gander at while you smash your swerve-mobile from place to place. Side missions and open-world encounters are shallow and repetitive (kill the guys milling about, loot the container), and non-combat diversions are absent. Not even drinks and darts. The FPP combat can be challenging and frenetic at times but grows tepid in a way that I can only characterize as "something's off and I'm not sure what”. Further, electing to go forced FPP in a massive, open-world RPG that emphasizes customizable character aesthetics is a bit contentious. I understand CDPR's rationale and it works to a degree, but more than a few might prefer a GTA/Elder Scrolls-style toggle that lets the player determine their preferred perspective situationally. More work, I know, but other studios managed it on similar budgets. Whisk into the mix a story where ostensibly divergent choices always come back to meet in the same place and the “role-playing” part of this action RPG kind of gets vacuumed out the window. Ultimately Cyberpunk feels like it suffered a profound crisis of identity central to its development and never fully committed to what it wanted to be. The product of that indecision is something like a not-quite-finished Dying Light meets Watchdogs — fine and fun, but not legendary.
