I'm just sad. I gave CDP a gread credit of trust, got the collectors edition way ahead of time, because they did such a great job with TW series. What we got is worse than alpha leaked half-life2 (anyone remembers these days?)
There are plenty nice details, but the big picture is just falling apart.
What can I tell you? Cyberpunk 2077 was incredibly ambitious on paper, but falls short of even coming close to fulfilling those visions in basically every regard. While it might be enjoyable at times still, the game is so incredibly buggy and unpolished that it will very drastically impact your enjoyment. Sony was fully justified in removing this game from their storefront. This is only the tip of the iceberg as the content itself is at least equally unfinished:
The world design is amazing and incredibly detailed at times, yet frustatingly static and therefor offers very little in terms of interactivity and reactivity. It seldom is more than a colourful backdrop for the gameplay, which consists for the absolute most part of shallow, but decently functional stealth and entertaining combat. Both of which rely on underlying skill- and lootsystems, that apparently never moved past their first couple iterations.
The skill tree includes a vast number of perks to spec into, roughly two thirds of it being minor stat alterations (e.g. increased crit and dmg modifiers on certain weapon types), the rest appearing more interesting on first look, an impression that quickly proves to be an illusion, as many are so buggy and poorly implemented as to be basically non-functional, some referencing game systems, whose implementations is so barebones as to be basically non-existent, rendering those perks superfluous.
I could write paragraphs like these for every single feature, as each is equally unrefined, underdeveloped and rushed as these. Cyberpunk needed one full more year at the minimum to be ready for release, as it stands, it is deeply compromised due to a desire for quick profit without delivering a quality product.
If youre looking for a quality RPG with a narrative focus like Witcher 3, you wont find it here. Give this a skip or refund it until CDPR patches it into a presentable state.
I was super stoked for this game with the footage trailer that released. It looked like a cyberpunk genera stealth/action/rpg, and I was super on board with that. It is not. The stealth is dull as hell. The gunplay is tedious and repetitive. The fixers are just the worst. And the whole time your character is dressed like an absolute idiot to maintain your armor class in the combination of Borderlands looter/shooter and GTA. If you want a game that immerses you in cyberpunk settings, get the Harebrained Shadowrun Games, They're on GOG, and actually really good. Oh, and if you hook up to a TV, prepared to get motion sickness everytime you run or drive, or walk at more than a crawl, cause it's gonna blur hard.
The story is, well, it's atrocious. It isn't worth playing through. The whole story could have made a passable third act of a story if CDPR had used its hours of playtime to make some setup where your character does bit jobs, and impresses the various obnoxious fixers around the city first. But as a standalone story it's just terrible. Worse yet, I didn't previously think it was possible to absolutely hate Keanu Reeves in any role, but they've done it. Worse still, the story and role playing elements put together shatter immersion hard, repeatedly. If you decide you must play this game, play as a street kid and dump intelligence and cool. That's the only way that the big betrayal moment doesn't feel like terrible, immersion breaking writing, because a levelheaded corporate counter-espionage agent wouldn't be taken in by this clumsy betrayal. Hey, main character, you're about to get shot, walk away or blow his ass away.
If it doesn't show, I hated everything about this game. Even if it weren't buggy garbage that barely ran, I couldn't possibly recommend this game. If you want a game that plays like Cyberpunk but doesn't run like hot garbage and is competently put together, get GTA or Borderlands. There's just a lot of failed potential here, and it saddens me.
Feels like they must have hired Boeing project management for this disaster. Under delivers in every category. There are entire skill trees (looking at you Cold Blood) that are literally pointless to invest in.
Crafting is bolted on nonsense, you will find gear better than any craft able item in the game regularly.
NPCs pathing will give you Baulder's Gate 1 vibes
Stealth allows you to 1-shot most things whereas guns are ticklefests
Plot holes everywhere. Significant parts of the story were clearly thrown out and re-written very late in development.
I honestly can't believe this is the work of the same team who made Blood & Wine.
Despite being a massive Witcher fan, I'm afraid I will have to avoid CDPR projects for the foreseeable future.