Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game from the Polish game company CD Projekt Red. Yes, you got it right, the same company who brought us the top-rated Witcher series. The game was first announced in 2012, but after multiple delays, it was finally launched on December 10, 2020, on Windows, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the most awaited game launches in recent times. The first announcement of the game happened back in 2012, but it gained popularity when the developers showcased it at E3 2018. Then again, last year, the team revealed that Keanu Reeves would become a part of this game. Keanu Reeves also appeared on the stage during the Xbox E3 2019 event. Then, it was announced that the game will be launched on April 16, 2020.
After this, people went crazy till the developers announced that the game can’t be launched in April as they need more time to polish it. The game again got a release date that was September 17, and after this, November 19. Still, for some reasons like fixing the bugs, the studio delayed the launch again. The hype train shifted gears when the studio took to Twitter to announce they are finally launching the game on December 10.
All the chaos and excitement reached their maximum till the launch date when it turned out that the game wasn’t still finished, bugs weren’t fixed, required more polishing. Though the PC and Stadia versions were doing fine even with the bugs, Xbox One and PS4 consoles were burdened by severe performance issues. Eight months wasn’t enough, and the game was still lagging behind. The game hit the ground buggy, and a new problem to the list: the visuals used by the developers for braindance sequences caused seizures. It became worse, and the studio has to apologize for the poor performance of the game.
Okay, that was all about the game’s journey but now let’s talk about the game itself.
Setting and Story
Cyberpunk 2077 is set up in a fictional city called Night City in California. The world in the game is living in 2077. It is destroyed to the extent of unrepairable by multiple wars and climate change. Fresh water and food are scarce. Wildlife has become extinct, and humanity has adapted severe body modifications to adapt and survive from rising cyber-attacks.
The fictional Night City, California, consists of six regions— luxurious Westbrook, the corporate City Centre, immigrant-inhabited Watson, Pacifica, suburban Heywood, and industrial Santo Domingo. The player can also explore the surrounding area, the Badlands. In places such as Westbrook and the city center, rich and famous people spend their money and live. Those with less money live in places like Heywood and Watson, where the cars aren’t as expensive, and streets aren’t as shiny. The least fortunate ones live in Santo Domingo or Pacifica’s streets, where the Badlands are taken over by nomads.
Night City is a shelter to all kinds of people, from CEOs of mega-companies, criminals, hackers known as netrunners, sex workers, mercenaries, homeless, and drug dealers. The city is house to several gangs who have claimed a part of the town and don’t accept outsiders.
The player is V, a mercenary whose face, voice, hairstyles, body type and modifications, clothing, and background can be customized. Whenever someone needs to get anything done like, making someone disappear, delivered something, etc. they call V. You can choose from the three lifepaths in the game – (Street Kid) here V is someone who has been brought up on the streets of night city, (Corpo) where V is a corporate employee who has fallen hard and is trying to make his own way, (Nomad) or finally, V is one from the gang of nomads who left from there to become big in the big city. No matter which life path you choose, all of them include V starting a new life in Night City with a thug Jackie Welles and doing various things with a netrunner, T-Bug. The goal remains the same, become a legend in Night City.
Since the best efforts are dedicated to keeping this review from giving any spoilers, we haven’t listed the events that take place later in the game. You’ll surely enjoy the storyline of Cyberpunk 2077. Though some parts are influenced by how you choose to play the game, the main storyline will remain the same and catchy no matter how you choose to play it.
Gameplay
Cyberpunk 2077 is played in a first-perspective that is you playing V. The game features first-person gunplay and combat, third or first-person driving. You can see the game progressing by having conversations with the characters, which changes the story and its ending based on how you choose to play it.
Cyberpunk gives you the freedom to make things your own way. If guns blazing is your thing, the game has various weapons that include standard arms such as shotguns, handguns, machine guns, rifles to the more advanced weapon to fire tracking bullets that follow your target and shoot them. You can also customize your weapons and carry more than one based upon your capacity. Still, only three can be enabled at a time.
If your thing is close combat, you can choose to go bare knuckles or select any sword or knife in the game. Since most of your enemies will carry a gun, you must be very careful while going in close combat. Apart from this, you can use hacking as a move. All humans and non-human enemies in the game have a few electrical components. You can hack them to disable such functions. You can make them blind or deaf, disable their bodies, or burn their insides. You can even hack particular objects around your enemies, such as cameras, to prevent them from seeing you.
Cyberpunk is a medium-difficult game. If you play at the normal-difficulty level, you will get by very quickly. But if more of a challenge is your thing, it’s recommended to bump up the difficulty level. You can also upgrade relevant body parts in your body to help you in combat. Choosing optic mod will enable you to spot things easily, leg mod will let you double jump, and arm mod will modify your arms into fire weapons, or you can have blades in them. But body mods are quite expensive in the game.
Now you can get around the city in two ways – one, you can drive around in a vehicle assigned to you at the beginning of the game for free. You get free vehicles as you complete side missions. Apart from this, you can also purchase vehicles as you get many offers in your inbox. Two, you can steal anyone’s car and drive around in that. All the cars you own will get parked at your location.
Now comes the downside of the game. If you love to drive in open-world games, you’ll soon realize that driving mechanics are very far from perfect. The physics they used are quite comical, specifically when you’re on motorcycles. The worst part is the navigation, to be more specific, the mini-map. As we know, the mini-map shows the route to your destination, but this one is so zoomed, you will get past the turn before knowing it was there. This can get on your nerves because either you have to drive very slow or come all the way back.
Visual Design
The most striking aspect of the game is its visual design. You will definitely love Cyberpunk for the best-looking open-world game. All the six regions in the game have relevant architecture. If we talk about Watson or the City-Centre, the buildings are very complex and sky-high. When we step aside from the posh areas, we see the real night city with realistic shops, less nice cars, etc. Developers have made sure each region have their own elements to distinguish them from each other.
Conclusion
There are many aspects to talk about, but that will only make this review very long. To conclude, for now, Cyberpunk is not your average game. Though it’s full of bugs right now, you will enjoy playing it despite all the flaws. If you’re a console owner, it would be best to wait until the game is finished with the developing phase.