Let's get the elephant out of the room. The release was a proper mess.
The game felt like it was still in Early Access, very much like most of your Ubisoft titles. Communication was not clear whatsoever. Not during release, not in the previous months.
At the same time, Cyberpunk 2077 is a fantastic representation/adaptation of the CP universe.
Make no mistake, this is not a GTA-like sandbox simulator, nor your usual open world game.
This is a pen'n'paper RPG adapted to your computer.
The character builds. The characters! The dialogues! Johnny Effin' Silverhand! The gorgeous graphics and sights! All the different districts where you can just drive around listening to a fictional band you realize you became a fan of. The fun, tight combat. All the variations, options, all the ways you can incite glorious chaos!
300 hours in, I'm still not bored of it.
I firmly believe that the release and especially the communication surrounding it was a mess, and that's what netted a lot of negative feedback. And honestly, CDPR deserved it all. But with some hard work, this is a game that worths fixing and worths experiencing because despite all its flaws, it is the best immersive experience released in a good while. All the details, all the secrets that make Night City a living, breathing character on its own make it a bloody brilliant game.
This game should have never been released on last-gen consoles- even with the multitude of updates they still can't keep up with the graphical demands.
On PC, this games shines. I only have an RX580, but it is glorious.(1080p) Were there bugs? Sure, almost all cosmetic, maybe a few minor gigs effected. Patches and DLC continue to come out. Extremely active modding community, although I usually just install a handful quality-of-life ones.
The story, side quests, gigs, and enviornmental stories are fantastic. Multiple solutions, some consequences that effect other things, so much work put into the world. Memorable characters, stellar music, best graphics I've experienced.
Combat is great and varied- guns, Mantis Blades, hacking, beating the crap out of everybody with Gorilla Arms- 600 hrs and I haven't even tried Monowire and Projectile Launch System. Stealthy boi or blast them all through the walls with Comrade's Hammer? (I usually try first approach then have to go to the 2nd...)
Some negatives? Bugs of course, but most are cosmetic. Balance is a bit on the easy side once you level up. The interface could use some user friendliness- if you don't read a shard immediately you gotta search for it, and it is NOT well organized for that. Some things like customizing your appearance later should be there. NPC AI could be better, but they are essentially part of the environment. Cops need work.
Above all, I like just wandering the world. There are so many different environments created with such incredible detail, and they all look and feel different in the day vs at night. I can't wait to see what gets added to this world.
The story is just great, so many surprices. what an adventure , playstyle is up to you. IMO enjoy. Why this game get bad reviews , i dont get it. enjoy the story.
i have so much pleasure playing this game... few bugs seen in many games, phone not in had, but at fingertips, dont grap the bottle when drinking, see all that before in many games, not a problem.
It have been a long time since i enjoyed an adventure like this.
i do recommand it ...
I'm a latecomer to this bandwagon. Bought the game almost a year after it's initial launch, which apparently wasn't so great. Reading thru the early reviews I have to say that I'm not seeing almost any of the complaints people were making, so the game must've changed a LOT during the year.
(Also as a disclaimer I have to say that A) I'm a huge Far Cry fan and B) I haven't played Witcher 3.)
Cons:
- Graphical glitches galore. It usually doesn't take more than 5mins to come across a graphical glitch of some sort in the game. Usually items/cars/people hanging in air or embedded into walls/floor. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're immersion breaking, but every 5mins didn't bother me much.
- Voice acting director should look for a new job. For a triple A game like this the voice acting DIRECTING is horrendous. There's very little thought given to continuity of emotion in voice acting. As single lines the delivery ranges from good to bad, but the flow with multiple choices is sometimes very jarring. And to have Silverhand played by such talent which is wasted by poor directing is just a crying shame.
- Vehicle handling. I think the creators meant to distinguish vehicles from one another with distinctly different acceleration, breaks and handling, but oh boy did they go over board with handling. Some cheaper vehicles are insanely difficult drive because of their handling. In the beginning I thought that the designers had just bongled up the entire vehicle system in the game, but after finding the few vehicles that drive like normal cars/bikes I understood that it seems to have been a design choice to nerf cheaper vehicles with useless handling (and other stats as well).
- As a city as vibrant and chock full of people as NC, it's a shame that there's so little random NPC chatter, you can't really strike up meaningless conversations with random strangers. Not a huge con, but it would've been a nice-to-have.
- No vehicle customization. This was a weird thing to omit from the game. Especially after designers doubling down on vehicle stats being so varied. I would've wanted an option to tune and paint the vehicles. Not a big loss though.
- Diablo-like item progression. I found it comical how you come up with better items in the game. As you're constantly gaining levels and loot seems to progress with level, you constantly check if this pistol is better than the one you use, or if these pants offer more armour than your current ones. Found it silly. Also more common clothing mods would've been welcome. Currently I find very few clothing mods compared to cyberwear- and weapons mods. Which means that I'm stuck longer with some silly hat or jacket that offers me some ridiculous Crit Bonus, making my character look like a clown most of the time. Not in the spirit of Cyberpunk (style before function). Would've solved the issue with set bonuses, like having arasaka armour items have an arasaka armour multiplier that keeps adding up exponentially for each piece. Also would've like to see some corpo/street/nomad-stats for clothing to A) have access to special areas and B) enable you to use your background dialog options.
Pros:
- Perfect blend of FPS & RPG. This is a purely subjective opinion, but for me the game hits the sweet spot of FPS and RPG. Character actually aims and shoots like you want to (like Far Cry), and doesn't penalize you for having a character with a poor shooting skill (like Fallout). I really liked that you don't have to start out as a completely helpless whelp, and while some skill trees (for my eye at least) seem a lot better than others I like the fact that you can take your character in some many different directions and play styles (going only thru my first play through with only 75hrs at this point).
- Gorgeous imagining of Night City. The city is huge with a lot of character. I really loved how you can see, hear and feel (and almost smell) the different sections of the city without ever feeling that something is out of place (except see my first con). Gangs feel different (some of them a bit lazily done, but some have a lot of character). Graphics in the city are amazing. I sometimes just like to take a bike and drive around the city enjoying the sites. The vibes of the world of Cyberpunk 2020 are seeping thru as well. Sometimes I'm even taken aback by the characters and events, and I used to play the TTRPG back in the day. I'm also very impressed with how little of the city feels copy/pasted. Compared to Elder Scrolls for example, every location in NC feels fresh and new (although the same 20 electrical items that are found everywhere do start to feel bland), so much so that several times when running towards a side job, I just had to take de-tour and go wonder around some sites that I was running thru.
- City filled with stuff to do. This one was a bit of a puzzler to me. When I read the early reviews of the game there were a lot of complaints about how empty and dead the whole city felt. My experience is totally the opposite. With the map constantly showing you stuff to do crimes and side jobs are everywhere. The game really has a strong "just one more thing" pull to it.
All in all I really like the game. Will try it out several times for sure (this is a rare event indeed, only a handful of games I'm willing to give several goes).
Cyberpunk is the only game I have ever pre-ordered. It was quite buggy but certainly playable. Great plot, great setting. The story could have been somewhat longer though.
I am a developer myself and I have shipped to prod too many rushed releases being pushed by the customer commitments. So I have no moral right to criticize CDPR for this.
