Cyberbug 2077: A Beautiful Catastrophe
Cyberpunk 2077 has been a wild subject for the past couple of years. Initially announced in 2013, the project went completely dark until E3 of 2018, when CD Projekt Red, the developer behind The Witcher 3 revealed more gameplay and news about their magnum opus of a Role Playing Game. The hype built up for the next two years as they revealed actor Keanu Reeves to be part of the project as well. Fans waited with anxiety as the game suffered from multiple delays, moving from its initial release of April 2020 to December 2020, when it would actually release.
Oh, and what a release it was.
Cyberpunk may go down as one of the worst releases in AAA media to date. Bugs galore, garishly horrible performance on the PS4 and Xbox One, no next-gen version in sight, and features and AI which were worse than open-world games on the PS2 and original Xbox. Not quite the “generation-defining” experience we were promised after all, huh?
Reviewed on Playstation 4 Pro; Patch 1.31
Story
Cyberpunk 2077 might be lacking in some departments, but if I had to choose just one place where this game truly shines, it’d be its incredible and emotional story. While the lack of any real cutscenes and the omission of 3rd person story moments (other than the epilogue) was slightly disappointing, the immersion that the first-person view provides comes close to making up for it. I chose to play as the female version of V, the protagonist, and the acting for the female version absolutely shines. While the male version has a more action-hero delivery style, the female voice actor performs her lines much more realistically and emotionally, allowing you to grasp the gravity of certain scenes much better.
You play as V, a mercenary in the crime-ridden metropolis of Night City. After a botched heist, V is left with a unique chip inside her head, containing the digital construct of rockerboy/rebel Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves himself. Since his construct being present in your head means your eventual death, you’re stuck in this race against time, trying to find a cure for your condition as well as get this terrorist out of your head.
The strength of Cyberpunk’s storytelling lies in the variety of its characters. You meet people from all walks of life, from the corpos at the upper echelon of Night City, to the various criminals, fixers, and scum at the lowest of the low. Each and every one of them has a unique place in your story as you progress through everyone and everything to, quite literally, save your soul.
CDPR boasted of having the most dynamic storytelling available for players in Cyberpunk 2077, where minute details such as gameplay styles (going in guns blazing or taking a stealthy approach with a minimum body count) as well as your mood/attitude towards certain characters could change up the entire story, however, this is clearly not the case.
Your attitude towards most characters only goes as far as certain sidequests and optional romances, nothing more. There are only two main quests in the game where your choices really influence the story, however, these choices are only pertinent to that specific quest and have no bearing on the rest of the experience. Thus, apart from the prologue where you choose your lifepath, optional sidequests, and the ending, every single story playthrough will be the exact same.
Gameplay
While The Witcher 3 went for a 3rd person sword-fighting combat system, Cyberpunk goes the opposite direction and implements a 1st person gunplay combat system, often feeling like a looter-shooter with Borderlands-esque mechanics. You’re either constantly tossing out your equipped guns for higher-level weapons with better DPS (damage per second) or scrambling around for resources to upgrade/craft your favourite special guns.
The skill tree is diverse, and allows you to go for really unique builds; you can either be a stealth-focused ninja, mastering the way of the katana, or a gun-toting mercenary, adept in all things gunpowder and smoking barrels. Or you could go a completely non-lethal route and play as a hacker, using the tech-filled city to your advantage. Or a mix of all of these works too. I chose to play as a hacker-gunslinger combo, and I have to say I enjoyed myself immensely.
The variety of weapons in Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty refreshing. There’s weaponry suiting to everyone’s liking, from classic iron, to smart-tracking bullets that curve through the air to seek their target, to tech weapons that can shoot through walls. The addition of cyberware mods also makes for interesting decisions in the heat of battle. Since we’re in 2077 where body modification has become the norm, the player can add weapons to their own body, such as the Mantis Blades, the Monowire, or the Gorilla hands, each of which complements your playstyle very effectively.
However, more often than not, you’ll find your inventory clogged with tons of weapons of mass destruction or pieces of clothing that either don’t contribute to your playstyle or are just plain worthless. As a result, you’ll be spending quite a chunk of your playtime managing your inventory, either selling these excess clothes and guns or disassembling them for extra resources.
Performance
Cyberpunk’s glaring performance issues are the stuff of legend at this point. CDPR marketed the title for the current-gen (now last-gen) systems, the PS4 and the Xbox One. While speculation ran rampant that Cyberpunk would absolutely throttle the slowly-dying, 6-year-old systems, CD Projekt Red assured fans that performance across all consoles would be spectacular and more than satisfactory. They even went as far as releasing gameplay videos where the game was running on these ageing systems, to ensure full transparency across the board. Good guy CDPR, am I right?
Sadly, everything wasn’t as it seemed.
Fans booting up Cyberpunk on December 10th were greeted with a rude surprise. It was nowhere near the technological marvel that was promised, instead, they experienced sub-720p resolutions and framerates in the single digits. While the numerous patches released by CDPR (amounting close to 50gigs total) haven’t brought the game up to its promised state, it is definitely in a more playable state now.
Performance during my two playthroughs was, to say the least, adequate. Framerates were at a rock-solid 30fps inside building and parking lots, but took a heavy hit while traversing the bustling city. Resolution was still sub 1080p in most areas, but often reached a full 1080p30fps in areas such as the Badlands, which is a desert area and thus had to render a lot less stuff.
In my opinion, unless you’re playing this on PS4 Pro/Xbox One X, a next-gen system or PC, you’re gonna have an absolute rubbish time. Definitely wait until you have a more powerful system in your hands.
Verdict
Cyberpunk 2077 is definitely a game with potential. There’s a beautiful open world, a mesmerising story and great gameplay all obscured by a wall of dishonesty and replayability. In time, this could be a title to be remembered fondly. But right now, it’s in the bargain bin where it belongs.
I give Cyberpunk 2077 a 6/10.
