I remember when it was first announced that CD Projekt Red—the developer behind the Witcher games—had gotten the rights to create a Cyberpunk 2077 video game. I didn’t know what Cyberpunk was, but a friend who was familiar quickly brought me up to speed and whetted my appetite for it. Having played the first Witcher at the time and really enjoyed it, I was more than hopeful. However, I would have to wait for years before the developer would even mention Cyberpunk again with a random tweet here and there to remind people that they were still working on it. Finally, there was that E3 event in 2019 in which their big trailer dropped and Keanu Reeves came out on stage to further demonstrate his lovable goofiness and promote the game.

I, like many others, was hooked when I saw the trailer. The designs of the characters and the environments made me salivate with excitement. Everything I saw looked great and I didn’t know what to expect. I saw a few more promotional videos that showed off some of the gameplay, which tempered my expectations a bit, but still left me interested. Then the game came out.

I’ve watched several extensive YouTube videos from content creators who have done some deep dives into what went wrong with Cyberpunk 2077’s development and I can see why it was such a mess when it first came out. Just watching a few videos of people playing it around launch to see if I should wait to buy it on sale was more than enough to answer that question with a profound “yes.” It was a buggy mess that was poorly optimized for consoles and PCs, and it left a lot of people disappointed.

It’s been several years since the game came out, however, and its reputation has improved greatly since then thanks to the dedication of the developers trying their best to fix a lot of the issues. It was only reported last year that for the first time in a decade, no one is actively working on Cyberpunk 2077, which could be interpreted as “the game is finished.” What better time than now to see if it was finally something I would enjoy?

The Short of It

What I’ve Played

Game version 2.12
60+ hours
Near completion of story; no DLC
Visual & immersive mods; no gameplay mods

Pros

Main story, while flawed in its delivery, is intriguing
Side stories have a lot of depth to some of them and make things interesting
Flexible combat allows you to approach scenarios in interesting ways
Voice acting from most of the cast is pretty good
Visual design of the characters and environments is fantastic
Some of the music, especially the combat music, is really good

Cons

Keanu Reeves should not have been Johnny Silverhand
Some of the skill requirements in missions are weird
Feels like there could have been more content to make the world alive; the main story feels short in comparison to Witcher 3
Character abilities, skill trees, and augmentations have steep learning curves to understand
Still plenty of occasional glitches an open-world game might have to break the illusion
Lots of instances in which a dialogue option feels empty of meaning or impact

The Rest of It

Story

I won’t go too deep into the story and what happens after the tutorial act, but I will still spoil some events that happen during the first few hours. FYI, it takes about four hours before you get to the main story’s starting point. So, a fair amount happens before you even see the title card of the game, and yes, there is a late title card.

You play as a man or woman named V, a resident of Night City, California in the year 2077. During the character creation process, you select V’s background as either a street kid who grew up in Night City, an outsider who grew up in the Badlands, or a corporate climber. These choices mostly affect the opening act of the game before the real story starts and various dialogue options that happen later on. Regardless of your choice, you still end up meeting a guy named Jackie who becomes your best friend. You don’t become friends by doing numerous missions together and spending time with Jackie doing side tasks, developing his character over time, however. V does all that, but from the player’s perspective, it is summarized in a montage sequence. You only do three missions together in the opening act. This simple decision in summarizing the story between V and Jackie was something that really irked me when I first tried playing Cyberpunk 2077 because I had already seen the trailer for the game that revealed a significant event/spoiler. This bothered me even more when I considered all the other marketing material that had been released before the game came out. If you’ve somehow avoided any significant story beats for Cyberpunk 2077 up to this point, well done, but the next paragraph is a spoiler.

The trailer I saw showed the end of a mission, in which things had not gone according to plan, resulting in Jackie’s death. I really didn’t understand several things about this narrative decision to kill Jackie so early, especially because of how much Jackie was included in the marketing material to make him seem like a more significant character in the story. His death was certainly a surprise in that regard, but what was more surprising was how little time we actually spent with Jackie in the opening act. We run into him in one mission, then do two more with him before the big heist mission introduces the MacGuffin of the story and kills Jackie off. Why have a montage with Jackie? Why not have me do the things with Jackie as the character and player so that I become attached to him just as my character does? When Jackie dies, V is emotionally distraught. I, however, felt nothing because I barely knew the guy. Why should I care that he’s dead just because the game says I should feel things? The only justification I have for condensing everything into a montage with Jackie was that the opening chapter before the main plot starts was already approximately four hours long with the montage and the developers didn’t want to make that take any longer than it already was.

Despite the unearned attempts at sentimentality and emotion, the game gets going after the botched mission wraps up. A flashback happens in which Johnny Silverhand is doing something heinous in Night City, fifty years prior to the events involving V. A few more random missions that seemingly don’t make sense based on what just happened to V play out. It is then revealed that there’s a lot more about Johnny Silverhand and how he relates to V than you would expect. The botched heist involved stealing a very important item that happened to end up in V’s possession within his own cybernetic body and now, due to some unfortunate circumstances, is overwriting his mind with the consciousness and memories of Johnny Silverhand. V’s mind will cease to exist and soon Silverhand will inhabit his body as his own. The rest of the primary plot is about V trying to find a way to stop the process before it’s too late while dealing with his impending death and Johnny’s invading persona.

The premise of the story I like. The idea of the ticking clock motivates V and creates some interesting dialogue between characters throughout the story as you deal with this somewhat specific scenario that is unique to the Cyberpunk universe. There are two big problems I have with the story, however:

1 . It’s a little too urgent of a situation for an open-world game in which you’re encouraged to explore and do random tasks till the end of time.

2. Johnny Silverhand is voiced by Keanu Reeves.

In addressing the first point, I have to bring up that fun term “ludonarrative dissonance.” V has a countdown to his death. We the players don’t see it physically, but the story suggests that it is always there, as do the occasional instances in which Johnny Silverhand appears on screen as a reminder. Every once in a while, after completing an important quest, your vision will flicker and V will start coughing or stumbling until he passes out or nearly faints. This often leads to a conversation with any nearby characters of importance, including the construct of Johnny himself. When something is so obviously important to the character’s survival, you would sense there is too much urgency in the situation to justify going on a bunch of street races or solving some mysteries for the swamped police department. The way the situation is introduced to V puts a lot of stress on the idea that his end is practically inevitable unless he can find a solution and that time is running out quickly, not slowly, especially when the personality of Johnny Silverhand introduces himself in a fashion that nearly kills V on the spot. It wouldn’t have been bad if there was a literal ticking clock for how much time V had to fix his problem before the game ended, similar to how Dead Rising had a timer. Or, there could just be a survival mode that limits how much time you have so this idea of the ticking clock means something substantial to the character. Just making this small change would eliminate my first major issue and we’d only be left with Johnny.

Speaking of Johnny, my second point. Look, I like Keanu Reeves. I have always liked him, even in the movies in which he was poorly cast. I probably will always like Reeves so long as he continues to be the one decent person working in Hollywood who isn’t a scumbag. However, there are certain qualities of Reeves, such as his acting style and his delivery, that work in specific situations. Johnny Silverhand is a terrible role for Reeves for several reasons. Silverhand is an anarchist and a terrorist who has extremely cynical views of the world and people, with an utter lack of respect for anyone. He’s foul-mouthed and says some things that would make a pirate clutch his black pearls. He is often supposed to be angry or frustrated by the people V interacts with or helps, whom he considers to be stupid sheople not worth his time. He’s an utter a$$hole of a character with whom you can relate and understand to the point you might look past his many flaws and like, as I do.

Reeves, either through his own skillset or through poor direction, is not able to deliver a single line as Silverhand which did not make me think of Keanu Reeves in a recording booth reading the script with no idea where to inflect his voice or evoke emotion. The delivery is almost as flat as Rhonda Rousey’s Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat 11, which was flatter than roadkill. I would like Johnny more if I heard more emotion in his sailor’s tongue. All I hear is a bored Keanu Reeves who is occasionally entertained by the vernacular of Johnny Silverhand. Reeves was brought into this project for marketing purposes to sell the game, that much is clear. I just think he should have been a side character who just showed up every once in a while, and Johnny should have been voiced by a veteran voice actor who can bend their voices in ways that can really make their lines impactful. Had this been the case, I think Johnny Silverhand would have been much more interesting to engage with as much as we do.

Those two key issues aside, I think the story is still good. The different leads that V has to follow to potentially find a solution to his impending problem bring some interesting scenarios, characters, and missions. Many of the different characters that I’ve encountered in my playthroughs have managed to leave a mark in one way or another. Some characters I’m eager to help and others have managed to sour in my opinion over time for one reason or another. When one of these characters dies or leaves the core game, the impact is felt and reverberates, making you wonder if there is a way to change the outcome. The way the dialogue plays out with many of these characters actually makes me eager to play through again with a different background and playstyle.

When it comes to side quests, CD Projekt Red had a good reputation going into Cyberpunk. The Witcher 3 managed to impress with its numerous side-missions that were surprisingly more involved and detailed than one would expect of a random mission you could very easily miss. For example, there was a quest in The Witcher 3 that involved finding a woman who went missing. Her husband, a hunter, is very concerned. Her sister, while saddened, has accepted the likelihood that she’s died. Investigating further exposes an adulterous plot involving murder and werewolves that can have very different outcomes depending on your choices. Cyberpunk has a number of different tasks that end up being much more involved than you would expect, including a serial killer mystery to solve and a murderer who has found god and wishes to repent in dramatic fashion. I think the world of Cyberpunk would benefit from more of these types of stories, which seem to be in slightly short supply. How the world is crafted makes Night City a vibrant enough world that is conducive to aspiring writers and creators who could potentially mod in their own stories and missions to fill the gaps.

Of course, there also are numerous other missions that are only interesting if you’re willing to do a bit of reading. Those who play through RPGs and don’t engage in the various reading material that is scattered around the world haphazardly or in specific missions are likely to miss out on the details of these missions and why there might be something interesting going on. If you’re willing to read the mission details every time, you’re likely to get a little more out of the writing of Cyberpunk. If you don’t, there are plenty of side and main stories to keep you engaged for the majority of your playthrough. That being said, Cyberpunk still feels emptier than the world of The Witcher 3 and the main quest line comes across as significantly shorter. Playing The Witcher 3, I was astounded at how engaging I found the world and the stories, especially when I realized how much of the main story was left after dozens of hours of gameplay. Cyberpunk, while still certainly as long as you might expect of an RPG, just did not blow me away in the same fashion as The Witcher 3. There’s plenty of material to engage with, I just still ended up wanting more with my high expectations.

Gameplay

Cyberpunk 2077 presents itself as a traditional RPG in its flexibility for allowing players to create a character with a backstory and a set of skills or traits to navigate the world—similar to games like Fallout, Baldur’s Gate, Torment, etc. I think all those other games I mentioned do that better than Cyberpunk 2077 and are much more like an RPG. Cyberpunk is mostly a first-person shooter with RPG elements. That being said, the different upgrades and skills available do heavily influence your character and playstyle. This means that my experience with the combat and mechanics may be different from what another user experiences. To give you an understanding of my opinion and experience, I’ll describe my build first.

The main character I had for my first playthrough was a street kid who was high in Intelligence, Coolness, and Technology, while being mediocre in Reflexes and weak in Strength. My focus on combat was using pistols and sniper rifles to handle scenarios of varying ranges, often starting with stealth kills before alerting enemies, while also using my augmentations to hack cameras and potential threats. It was a style that I highly enjoyed but also felt gave me a broader understanding of the combat for my first playthrough. Melee weapons, while fun and very powerful with the right skills would not be used until my next character. My initial impressions of the melee combat are mostly positive, as the various upgrades in the skill tree greatly improve your capabilities. However, the basic melee combat is still not as interesting as some of the better examples of first-person melee combat that give you a little more variety to your attacks, like Dead Island.

With my main character’s setup, I was able to engage in a lot of the combat in a variety of ways. I would often start off using stealth to scope out the area and then choose how to approach the scenario when given the opportunity. Sometimes, I’d clear out the scouts and lookouts with a sniper rifle and hack the security system to disable the cameras. If I was feeling confident or impatient, I would skip the stealth entirely and just start blasting through the mobs while occasionally using quick hacks to give me the advantage.

If it wasn’t already apparent, the player character, V, is immensely powerful in Cyberpunk 2077 on normal difficulty. Having access to the weapons you get, while also having quick hacks, perks, and weapon mods to further upgrade your lethality and weapon proficiency makes you a force to be reckoned with. I only died a handful of times in Cyberpunk 2077 and I can count on one hand the number of times it happened in combat with my main character, which was mostly because I was just being reckless at the time. My melee character was a little more likely to die, but even he got tough enough to shake off bullets as he leveled up and I upgraded his cyberware. In fact, when I faced a boss much later in the campaign than I did with my first character, it was a walk in the park for my melee character, even though the boss was a melee-focused individual. If you are fully engaged with the action, using all of your abilities to their full advantage, and staying on top of your upgrades, the enemies have no chance against you on Normal difficulty.

Regardless of the difficulty, the combat was still a lot of fun. The versatility of V and the different weapons available to use in various scenarios allow for a lot of different ways to approach a situation. Pistols, shotguns, SMGs, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and various other weapon types round out V’s arsenal of guns. However, there are different versions of these guns like tech guns and smart guns where the damage is potentially lower than a standard gun, but it makes up for it in interesting ways. For example, smart guns are weapons that have tracking bullets to help hit their mark. Firing off a smart shotgun puts the rounds in the air for a brief second before they hone in on the targeted enemy, so it’s a great option for those who like to stay on the move while taking guys out. In addition to the types of guns, there are plenty of modifications you can make to the weapons like attachments or cybernetic enhancements that change the type of ammo used and tertiary effects.

In addition to the different types of guns at your disposal, there is also the side of Cyberpunk that involves hacking. With the right cyberware installed, your character can perform special hacking abilities that range from information-gathering tools to complete manipulation of an enemy to the point of causing them to commit suicide. Being a netrunner type of character in Cyberpunk gives you access to more RAM and hacking abilities. In RPG terms, your hacking abilities are spells and RAM is your mana required to cast those spells. The more advanced the spell, the more costly it gets. However, there are plenty of ways to tweak V’s abilities so that you’re able to start one hack after another and take out large swaths of enemies without firing a single shot. If you want to play a stealth character, this is likely worth your time as being able to just hack into cameras or turrets provides its own benefits in addition to being able to cause damage or confusion to enemies during combat. Stealth without these abilities I found to be far less rewarding, partially because Cyberpunk 2077 is not really a stealth game by design. It’s far more functional than other games that have stealth forced in, but it’s more like Far Cry than it is like Hitman where the core gameplay and how the NPCs behave is built around stealth and deception.

Regardless of stealth or combat mechanics, Cyberpunk is a character RPG in every sense of the term. There might be some struggles early on when your character is somewhat low-level, but once you’ve accumulated enough points to specialize in V’s abilities, combat becomes a trivial power fantasy that lets you just go nuts. It’s also rewarding when sinking points into the various skill trees grant you new avenues to explore. For example, having a high level of technical skills allows you to unlock more doors, high intelligence allows for hacking devices, and high strength lets you open locked doors with your bare hands. There are plenty of instances in which a conversation might have an option that is tied to one of these skills, allowing you to take a conversation in a different direction with your character than the first time you played. Most of the time, it’s just a small snippet that doesn’t amount to much significance, but there are still some conversations that go differently because of your abilities. For example, having high strength gives your character an intimidation factor that can make enemies second-guess their ability to beat you and walk away from a normally violent encounter.

There are plenty of other gameplay elements in Cyberpunk 2077 that I could discuss like the hacking minigame, the vehicle controls, the crafting, and so forth, but this review’s getting long enough as it is. A lot of those other details like cyberware and character development have been reworked in patches to be much easier to engage with, even if it takes some time to really figure out how you want to play V. To quickly summarize the rest of the gameplay, Cyberpunk 2077 provides a robust and rounded gameplay experience you want from an RPG. While not everything is stellar or exceeds expectations, there is enough here to engage with to keep the game interesting over the course of V’s story.

Presentation

Cyberpunk 2077 still requires a beast of a computer to run smoothly on the highest settings, which my computer couldn’t handle without it chugging slightly. However, I was able to play it on the standard “high” setting without running into too many performance issues. Thus, I could admire much of how the game was intended to look, and boy is it pretty, especially with a few additional visual mods. I’ve always enjoyed the aesthetic of the cyberpunk dystopian universes like Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell, and Cyberpunk 2077 managed to capture a similar look and style to whet my appetite. The way the city appears at different times of the day would often make me stop and look up to admire the spectacle. The different areas of the city and how they look quickly give you an idea of where you are. Are you among the haves or the have-nots? It doesn’t take long to recognize as it comes across very well in the look of the environment and the types of pedestrians walking by.

Without any visual mods, the game still looks pretty impressive. However, I highly recommend just searching YouTube for a comprehensive list of visual mods to add to the game. The process is fairly simple and it does a lot to improve the overall look of everything. Just changing some of the filtering, the textures, and the lighting does a lot to make the world look better and make the city feel more alive. I don’t think they’ll necessarily make you fully immersed in the game as they do nothing to prevent the occasional goofy bug from happening, which happens a lot. Nonetheless, why not make the game prettier than it already is if you have the chance?

The music is also pretty good. At first, I really only liked the music that played during combat encounters for its edgy techno sound. Over time, though, I found myself exploring more of the radio stations and getting plenty of enjoyment out of most of them. My tastes mostly kept me on the rock and techno stations, but the hip-hop songs were not bad enough to make me immediately switch the station every time it happened to be selected by default.

As for the voice acting, it’s hit-and-miss and not necessarily because of the voice actors themselves. I’ve already expressed my issues with Keanu Reeves, but there are plenty of other instances in which I felt like the voice acting was a little flat or misplaced for the character. For example, there were plenty of instances throughout the story in which V delivered a line that had some emotional charges to it that I personally felt did not fit the character at that moment. I know it’s a nitpick, but when this is supposed to be a game about putting yourself in the shoes of a character and inhabiting their role, it is still disappointing when that character does not behave the way you want them to. This is why some games opt to keep the protagonist silent. I don’t think the overall experience is heavily hindered by voicing V, as there were plenty of times that I think the voice actor did a great job. I just think that there were too many instances in which I didn’t really get to react the way I wanted to. There were also a few side characters whose voices grated on me because they didn’t quite match the face, but I won’t dive further into specific personal preferences for the sake of ending the review.

TL;DR

Cyberpunk 2077 may have had a disastrous launch years ago, and it may never be the product it promised to be, nonetheless, the developers have put a lot of work into getting it to its current state. It’s almost a shame that it didn’t launch like it is now as I have a feeling it would have been even more successful and popular to the point that we could expect them to add onto it for years to come. Regardless, there is plenty to like about what we got. The combat and character customization has a lot of versatility to match your style and preference of play. The world has numerous side quests and characters worth exploring. The story has a strong central plotline to follow that goes in interesting directions, despite being saddled with a bored Keanu Reeves for most of it. It’s a pretty game that gets even prettier with the right visual mods installed. If you have been holding out for a while waiting for a good time to jump in, it’s finally something worth recommending, even if it still didn’t meet the initial expectations it set for itself.