I played it a couple of years ago, before a lot of the patches, and still thought it was one of the better games I have never finished.
spoiler
There is this quest line where a character is abducted, raped, tortured and kills herself after you rescue her. Afterwards, the main character and another are on a balcony and smoke, still processing the horrors they’ve witnessed. I had been off the smokes for a few months at that point, but still needed to go outside and do the same.
I uninstalled shortly after. Not out of disgust, I actually appreciated the game making me feel something, but it just felt right to stop at that point.
The whole game has an amazing story, that actually hooks the player’s emotions. It’s fantastic. It’s so refreshing after so many games with lazy writing or voice acting. I also played shortly after release, only experiencing 2 major bugs in my playthrough. I know others had it worse, but it was actually refreshing on that front too.
I got this game finally last year, after waiting for the bugfixes, and have been playing since then. I’ve got over 170 hours now, did all the sidemissions and now finishing Phantom Liberty, and loved every minute of it. This was my first dive into the cyberpunk-genre and it is impressive, especially the dystopian future that also seeps through in modern times.
The way Cyberpunk 2077 tells its story and does world building is beautiful. The immense city with twirling roads, mountains of trash and dysfunctional society is really immersive. I understand that it is not possible to give every citizen a full back story with limited resources but the amount of detail and love that they were still able to put in is commendable. Even after all this time spent in the gameworld it still manages to surprise me with random encounters while exploring.
I’m glad I waited for the bugfixes and had only a few crashes and minor glitchy physics. I hope they learn that delivering a good product is more important then deadlines, since players like me will wait anyway.
Fun fact: in no other open-world-game I got run-over by cars as much as in this game. Hmm I wonder, maybe all cars evolved from Tesla’s in this universe? (j/k)
I just started it and am having a similar experience, right down to getting hit by cars. At least, I assume they were all cars. Last time I was suddenly knocked off my feet was on the sidewalk, and when I finally regained control of my character, there was no vehicle driving away from me. It could have been a goat fitted with optical camo for all I know.
Goat Simulator 2077
Haha those damn goats in octocamo… They should put beepers on 'em!
I’m ~3/4s through my second playthrough and appreciating it more and more. Haven’t picked up the expansion yet either.
I found it hits much harder with a female character. The Johnny Silverhand situation especially felt much more… metaphorically resonant? And Jackie feels more rogue-with-a-heart-of-gold when his best buddy is a woman.
Quickhacks are OP but felt correctly haxx0r, mantis blades are super fun. I enjoyed the combat well enough. Cars are meh, but it’s cyberpunk so if you’re not riding a futuristic bike ala Akira you’re doing it wrong. And wiping out on a bike is great.
The characterisation and world building are what really shine. I was reluctant to play the corpo background but it really makes the story sing.
spoiler
The first time you’re in a car with Judy she has a prominent tattoo that says “underwater where thoughts can breathe”. Then next mission or a while later her apartment has jellyfish looking paint splotches and an aquarium. It’s expanded on more explicitly later, but I really enjoy the way they pull together their characters.
The scene with Takemura on the roof talking about Bakeneko is another moment that I enjoyed first playthrough and came to really appreciate a lot the second time. His food snobbery becomes quite endearing after he accidentally texts you his attempts to search for restaurants.
It’s also my opinion the female voice actor did an incredible job where as the male voice actor did a great job. Even in the most basic of side quests, it feels like she is giving it her all to be V in that situation whereas on the other hand some lines it feels like he’s just phoning it in.
Admittedly I haven’t played the new expansion as male v yet, and that may change my opinion. Especially considering I think Keanu gave 110% percent on phantom liberty where I feel like there are certain lines in the original game that were just read from a sheet without context and marked as done
It’s also my opinion the female voice actor did an incredible job where as the male voice actor did a great job. Even in the most basic of side quests, it feels like she is giving it her all to be V in that situation whereas on the other hand some lines it feels like he’s just phoning it in.
100% agree. Male V just sounds like “generic video game man who is tough, but not too tough”, where as the female V sounds like a hardened, cold bitch that you don’t want to fuck with. Cherami Leigh’s got range.
Yeah like I said in my other comment, I’m having fun playing through a male v playthrough with the thinking that male v just doesn’t open up often, and is trying his best to keep his cards close. It’s a fun experiment, and plays homage to how male v’s voice actor plays the character, and how a hardened veteran nomad v or abused street kid v might interact with folks, but Cherami’s amazing work is canonical V to me.
Oh yeah, that’s a great point. I admit I stalled out of my male playthrough like 1/4 through, but for sure the voice acting felt lacking compared to female V, who really does a fantastic and job and sells every situation flawlessly. Now that you’ve mentioned it, it seems so obvious that that’s a huge part of the why female V is better.
I’m on a male playthrough a just recently started, and I think the trick is to realize that he’s playing the lines as a more aloof v, which is fine, and actually interesting psychologically as a v that “keeps his cards close to his chest and is cautious about who he opens up to” but you have to accept that version of v in your playthrough, whereas I got used to the “always emotionally invested v” of the female playthrough. Like I said, I still think he did a great job, but that mindset helps me to align the character with the experience. Either way, nice convo, choom
That reading of the character makes sense and jives with how I connect with games I play. I’ll keep it in mind when I go back for a male playthrough - gonna have to romance panam eventually. Agreed choom!
Well deserved. It’s a masterpiece though it took a while to be polished properly
I preordered this game and played it at launch. Thankfully I didn’t have any crashing or game breaking bugs, just a few minor ones.
I actually liked the game more at launch. I had 4 noticeable bugs the entire run; 1 was merely graphical (Tom’s Diner t-posing background npc), 1 prevented a side quest from being completed (door that was supposed to open never opened), and 2 were kick ass exploits (the bullet time+slide+jump speed exploit and the infinite painting exploit).
It’s just… Not as fun without that slide speed glitch… :(
You can still do some slide-dash shenanigans in the current version, but it requires a few skill upgrades to really take advantage of. It’s nowhere near as broken as it was originally, but it’s still quite useful for zipping around the map.
People are so quick to forget.
I don’t think anybody’s forgotten, it’s just that CDPR actually fixed almost all of the issues players had with the game, from performance bugs to totally revamped features and game mechanics. The game is in a much better state now than 3 years ago when that video was made; it’s almost unrecognizable from its original release form now.
Anyone play on the steam deck? How is the performance on it since the last update?
No issues with it. I am playing it exclusively on the steam deck.
Sweet. Thanks. SD has pretty much completely taken over as my gaming PC, so whenever I get around to 2077, I’ll be doing the same as you.
I keep hearing this from people but it runs terrible on my SD. Cannot get more than ~27 fps and it regularly dips below that.
Did you tweak the settings somehow?
I previously played it on my Xbox and had a great time. Would love to play it again on the SD eventually.
That’s weird did you tweak the graphics settings?
I am using the steam deck defaults and it is limited to 30 FPS. But it’s stable it didn’t bother me so far.
If I were to unlimit the FPS it stays in the 30-40 fps based on a small run I did now in Dogtown.
What idiots gave this game a good review? It’s not like no man’s sky that had a small team and dozens of legal trolls as well as a flood.
(First off, the last gen versions were a shit show and I fully believe CDPR should have bit the bullet and cancelled those preorders. That was a failure at the high levels, not with the devs. This is about the PC version:)
Hey yo, I’m one of those idiots that gave it a good review, and that was day one. Yeah, it had a bad launch, but I’d argue it was no worse than No Man’s Sky, or Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, or The Witcher 3. All of the above are some of my favorite games of all time.
If you don’t like the core game, cool. Agree to disagree. But the things that people love about the game now have been in there since 1.0. Sure, there are genuine criticisms to be made, but most of the hate this game got has either been patched out or was pure bandwagon hate to begin with.
The point I’m making is that they had no excuse to release it in that state in the first place unlike hello games with no man’s sky which was also a horrible launch.
On old gen consoles, yes. On PC, it was merely a rough launch, not the industry shattering event it was made out to be.
It is like No Man’s Sky in that most people who weren’t fanatical about saying it had a huge turn around stopped caring about it after a year or so.
Man I’ve got really conflicted feelings about this game. I do think it’s great, and will probably be picking up Phantom Liberty next sale, but I never know whether to appreciate the devs for sticking with it and making sure their work lived up to expectations, or to be frustrated that I basically had to wait a year for a full product after buying for $80 CAD on day one (my own mistake, I foolishly thought CD Project was immune to such blunders). I guess it’s a bit of both. I do really appreciate all the hard work, I just wish that wasn’t on top of a bunch of frustration and disappointment.
Totally get where you’re coming from. But you can enjoy the game and dislike the way they marketed and released it. 90% of life isn’t a zero-sum game. Despite what the internet would have you believe.
This is true. However, even as a young person I remember the times where a game being released meant it was done, and if it was butchered, that was that. There was no second chance for the studio because the community absolutely wouldn’t trust them.
Now, that’s standard. Every AAA game is just assumed to basically be barely functional until 6+ months post launch. People have to say “why would you buy a game day one?” as if it’s a ridiculous notion to want to purchase a product that has been released onto a market. That sucks. It sucks that something that used to be a fun hobby is now a seedy grey market full of vitriole.
The straight-up lies are what really get to me. Bullshots and fake-ass trailers for almost a decade. Hype for shit that was never going in. And now people just say “it’s great, what’s your problem?” like they want it to happen again.
they should learn from the fiasco, don’t promise what the devs can’t deliver, marketing department should ask the devs what they can promote. and you shouldn’t buy game on day one 😂
I think when they fixed all the obvious jank, went all in on the world building and strong storytelling, and timed it with the incredibly excellent Cyberpunk Edge runners series… Everything turned around.
The game is still pretty crappy as a open-world, loot still feels halfbaked and honestly combat is so dumb that I have to gimp myself and refuse to pick certain skills just to have some challenge.
But I ignore it because when the story pulls you in, you’re hooked!
I loved the world, enjoyed its story but didn’t like the combat as it felt a bit messy and I felt overpowered as a hacker.
After two playthroughs, I’ll probably do the expansion at one point but I don’t know if I should play it from one of my playthrough or from a new save.
That’s funny, I feel kinda the opposite lol. The story just feels ok to me (I thought the story of PL was a lot more interesting though) but I just love the setting and just blasting through enemies
Last I played - forever ago - I was just disappointed that the random NPCs were nothing but decoration. Made the whole setting feel flat to me, sadly.
That aspect is definitely true. City of cardboard. But it was some pretty vibin cardboard
Oh absolutely, the best cardboard I’ve ever seen.
The NPCs constantly broke immersion for me. It’s the same 10 people over and over again.
Or if you’re fighting baddies or cops, they all act the same.
You mean idiots easily fooled then yea…
I bought this game day 1, put about 20 hours in and set it down.
Picked it up again three months ago and have not set it back down. Best game I have ever played. I’m a sucker for lore and mission content and this game just does not fail to deliver.
I know it had a rough launch and I don’t want that to be acceptable, but god damn this game is just so good. Like, so fucking good. Despite the launch I have to give it to them, they fixed it and it is just endlessly amazing
It’s outstanding, but even right now at its best it still isn’t perfect.
I’m very, very much looking forward to what they can eventually do using UE5 as the base in an era with generative AI to fill out the edges.
When the polish (pun intended) is there, the game is beyond everything else. But when you end up just a bit past the edges of where it holds your hand, it quickly loses the veneer, which is the key difference vs something like a Rockstar open world (but also very different budgets and aims).
There’s a handful of studios I think will adapt especially well to the future of game development, and CDPR is one of them.
Because it is going to be possible to have CP 2077 main scenario style interactions across an entire open world within the next decade. And who better to curate that experience than the people delivering it in a diagonal slice?
Man, I’m glad that people are enjoying the game as much as they say they are but I tried my first play through earlier this year and it was terrible. I saw almost no difference in the amount/type of glitches between what I experienced back in January and what I saw online when the game first released a few years ago.
I played on launch month and only encountered one bug that was game breaking and it was only a loading point glitch where I had to load to a previous save point. Played just a month ago and the whole game was super smooth.
One game breaking bug on a playthrough is still pretty bad.
At least three people have been successfully gaslit by game publishers.
I have 50+ hours and only minor graphic glitches. A couple dead bodies standing up, the odd piece of floating loot. Nothing that seriously detracts from the experience.
Played it two times on ps5. Once on 1.50 and once on 2.0. I haven’t experienced crazy glitches…
I might actually bother getting it now.
It’s kind of ridiculous nowadays that games are released, and then developed afterwards.
Weren’t they pushed into releasing the game early?
Yeah, upper management at CDPR ignored the devs who told them the game wasn’t ready to ship yet, but they really wanted to take advantage of the new market of players staying home and playing video games after covid first hit.
That short-sighted money grab cost them so much in the long run. It’s actually insane to see CDPR’s redemption arc play out after how badly they handled the launch.
Cyberpunk was in development for atleast 12 years, I agree that corporate needs to be hands off when it comes to things like that, but at what point is there a line drawn and you just have to publish what you have got.
I’ve never heard this claim. Googling it I see one thing that says 8, and that likely includes pre-production and all that stuff, before you move a full team into development. The Witcher 3 came out in 2015, so the team could not have moved to CP2077 before then, and some of them stayed to make the DLC and patches. That leaves 5 years of full time development, which is not odd for a modern AAA game.
I figured it was probably around 12 years, since the first teaser trailer came out 11 years ago, add afew years for the work they needed to do to even be ready to do a trailer (world lore, characters, etc)
It’s based off of a tabletop game. That trailer mostly just needed CGI work, and a basic feel for what they would aim for. That trailer was probably before pre-production even started.
Could be 20 years, for all I care. Let them cook. It’s done when it’s done.
No. That’s called Star Citizen, and it’s a scam at this point.
Its worth mentioning that the 12 years was not at all productive. The first 6 years was basically just two guys with rough concepts, only 6 years of actual dev time. Then about 3 years in they got a new creative lead on the project who decided to scrap essentially everything and start from scratch on a whim. Then the devs get the release date the same time we do which is 2 years earlier than they expected having assumed that they’d get around 5 years of actual dev time since being made to start over.
So yeh there was a lot of screwing around by management.
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Yeah, I think games just take longer to develop nowadays than anyone is prepared for, especially the managers. Both companies and gamers have yet to realize that there is only so much you can accomplish in a certain span of time.
Honestly you gotta have that mentality now when buying games.
Yep, only buying games after they go on discount couple months after release. By that time, the game is usually also finished
