Game feels like a Beta build (if not Alpha) due to the numerous bugs I encountered. NPCs walking through walls, T-posing, speaking with their mouths closed and dead enemies flickering. Even though none of these made the game unplayable for me, they do, however, break the immersion.
Not to mention the very unstable framerate. I've set the settings to the lowest possible (even tried 720p resolution) but still, the framerate dips below 30fps, though to a lesser degree when compared to Ultra Settings.
TL;DR
If you don't have a high-end PC, think twice, maybe thrice before buying the game at this point in time. Performance is really over the place and tuning down the graphics won't be enough to maintain a decent experience. Maybe wait until they've polished it even more.
I have no problems with performance, and i think i don't have to talk about all the bugs. Only, that for a game that long in dev it is shameful. That's what you get with no open beta i guess.
The game itself feels like an average open world game with rpg elements. Choices are barley there.
The world is full of npc's but they are simply there to fill the world, no interaction with most of them.
Combat is just average at best, hacking is boring. Driving is a joke, you better off going on foot and use fast travel. Enemies spawn behind you, Police does not arrive at the scene, they just spawn. No Driving AI. That's just lazy and bad for a 2020 game. Interface is terrible and clunky,
The game was not developed with PC in mind, anyone who claims it is, just lies. The game is a Console port and not a very good one.
You can't rebind the most importent keys. Not acceptable. You are a lefty? To bad for you. Twist your fingers.
Lifepaths are meh, story overall is mediocre and no, Keanu Reeves doesn't save the day. Romances are very lackluster. There is a nudity filter, but scenes, if you get them just fade to black, even when just kissing. That's with nudity filter off mind you. Ubisoft level bad it is. What is the point of letting you choose genitals? The CC is pretty lackluster overall.
Soundmixing is terrible, voiceacting not that great but Night City looks good i give them that.
I am fairly dissapointed with the game and think it is not worth 60 bucks.
Before you buy this game, inform yourself. But please don't listen to so called gaming journalists, who are a disgrace for their profession. Don't listen to youtuber, that got the game early and praise it to heaven. Don't listen to fanboys. Search for reliable sources who you trust. Don't buy it in blind faith.
I'm willing to gloss over Technical bugs and problems with the graphics and so on, but the logic of how the dialogues go and how the situations develop are very badly made, they a lot of times feel like something has ben cut or it's missing. Situations lack explanation or context they just happens and a lot of times have you just as a random extra watcher. I don't feel invested in this world, whenever sitautions like this I stray further and further from the enjoability of the game (wich is not very good either) and lose interest, in 10 Hrs I'm playing I've been asking why stuff is happening in that way already a ton of times. I'm sorry but this is not even close to the standars of the stories in the witcher 3
Where do you even start with a review with this game. I guess I will just keep it short and to the point. This game is riddled with bugs. I do not think I have played a release game with as many bugs as I encountered in this release. The city can be extremely beautiful at times while other times it looks awful. The NPCs that are not important to the story look bad, like really really bad. The amount of recycled npcs is high and often you will see the same person talking to themselves because of this. I am lv 13 with about 5 hours into the game and I am one-shotting everyone with a small knife and have about 75 health kits on hand at any time to spam heal myself and there is no cooldown on healing. You can’t remap controls on pc. I can not say much about choices in this game but from what I can tell, killing vs nonlethal doesn't not matter as there is no wanted system or moral system. Oftentimes missions you can complete with stealth do nothing as at the end of the mission the story plays out as if you fought your way out of the place or the mission just ends with you taking a shortcut out. The leveling system is basically percentage buffs to stats. I came into this game with only ever watching one cinematic E3 trailer which actually spoils a good amount of the intro into the game which was disappointing playing through 2 hours knowing what is going to happen. This game is about as good as watch dogs legion is currently. I can not put all I want to say in this review but this is not a good game this is bad game. 2/10
P.S. Take all the time you can to create your character as there is no way to change any part of them after you leave the creation screen, hairstyle, beard, nothing can be changed.
As someone who did not care at all for the Witcher 3 I went into this game with very low expectations but was still dissapointed.
I'll get the positives out of the way:
- The story is ok.
- Voice acting and animations (of story NPCs) is top-notch.
- The city looks great.
- The graphics and sound design (and music) are amazing accross the board.
Now for the negatives:
- The first set of issues I want to address is how absolutely dead the city is:.
- The AI in this game is - no joke - the worst AI I have EVER seen in a game.
- Everything in the open world runs on scripted paths.
- Cars have no driving AI so they just stop if something is in their way.
- Citizens of night city have 3 modes: walk, run, and duck. They will walk up and down the same sidewalk over and over again until you leave or fire a gun, in which case they will run about 10 feet away and duck down until you leave.
- If you do manage to get some kind of wanted level, the police LITERALLY SPAWN BEHIND YOU BECASUE THERE IS NO DRIVING AI.
- There is NO interactivity with the open world whatsoever (no mini games, side activities, etc)
This is far from the immersive next generation of open world games CDPR has told us it would be.
Beyond that:
- Gunplay is awful
- Driving is floaty and unresponsive.
- Skill trees are mostly boring and a total waste
- The cybernetic parts you can get are largely uninteresting or not useful.
- The loot system is overly tedious.
- The story is linear and lacks any real player choice.
- The dialogue options are even more limited than Fallout 4.
- Hacking is really not fun or useful most of the time.
- Stealth is broken
Every single feature of this game (besides the many cut out of the game - like brain dances) has been done MUCH better by other games that came out even 10-15 years ago. If A studio like Bethesda released this there would be hell to pay. Go buy RDR2 or something, it's a msterclass compared to this mess. Hell, even Sleeping Dogs is a much better game.
