Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 made the game click for me, but that doesn’t mean ‘it was always good’

Cyberpunk 2077 goes via one thing of a redemption arc in the mean time, helped final 12 months by the actually fairly good Edgerunners from Studio Set off, much more so now because of its 2.0 replace and soon-to-be launched enlargement, Phantom Liberty. There’s been a lot of “it was at all times good” kind of feedback cropping up lately, which to be trustworthy I am not completely assured about. Sure, the two.0 replace actually has improved the sport in a lot of methods, however personally I believe a few of the modifications the sport wanted ought to have taken place lengthy earlier than the sport was completed.

I got here fairly late to the Cyberpunk 2077 social gathering. It did not curiosity me for a lot of causes when it launched, and paired with that, effectively, notorious (to place it mildly) launch, I did not precisely wish to fork over the complete price of a recreation that was extremely damaged, and never even one thing I needed to play all that a lot. Quick ahead to a few months in the past, and a lot of updates later, I discovered myself considering “why not! Let’s lastly give Cyberpunk a go.”

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In a short time, I discovered that I actually did not like how the sport performed. I am not the most effective at shooters on this planet, however I am not terrible at them both, and after they do not feel good to me I might reasonably flip one thing like purpose help on simply so I can expertise the world and story, on the very least. Besides that did not work very effectively, both. Outdoors of that, the talent tree was an unreadable mess that by no means felt value investing in, and sure – even with all these patches – the sport may generally endure from such extreme body charge points it changed into a slideshow.

However I do must admit, the two.0 replace has mounted plenty of the smaller issues that would not be terrible on their very own however did construct as much as an even bigger, irritating image. The talent tree has been massively simplified (with every talent loads clearer, too), and purpose help appears to work loads higher now too. One other drawback I had is that enemies did not scale to your stage, so random encounters had been too usually a danger – now, I haven’t got to fret about that.

This large, fabled replace has made the sport click on for me in a means it did not earlier than. However, to be clear, I am solely feeling that from a gameplay perspective. The problems I discussed above that want fixing are much more inherent to the sport’s design. For one, I believe Cyberpunk is not an excellent RPG.

Positive, I can select totally different sorts of abilities, however I do not actually really feel like V is my character – they by no means ship dialogue within the type of tone I am aiming for, and the dialogue itself has that traditional drawback of by no means seeming to match the choices introduced to you. In flip, that hurts the sport’s story. There are only a few characters I really like, together with each V and Johnny, which weakens the driving drive of your complete narrative: saving V’s life.

It is not simply concerning the recreation not being a great RPG, although, and even having a flawed story – I do not assume Evening Metropolis is a very fascinating place to discover. Cities are extremely exhausting to get proper in video video games as a result of they’re a lot extra densely populated with folks, automobiles, and buildings in comparison with one thing like a fantasy recreation. Nonetheless, nowhere feels notably distinct to me.

There are pockets of areas that really feel like have plenty of love and intention put into their design, however for essentially the most half, the town simply looks like a backdrop between these locations which might be far and few between. Presumably specializing in a smaller part of the town would have labored higher, one thing I do assume CD Projekt has pulled off with Phantom Liberty’s Dogtown (however extra on that tomorrow).

I do not assume Cyberpunk is an terrible recreation. It is fairly competent now – even good, sometimes – and sure, swinging a katana round is enjoyable as hell (even whether it is extremely weeby). I simply assume that it is OK that we’re trustworthy about this being an extremely formidable recreation that did not fairly meet these ambitions. Although the two.0 redemption arc will get the sport nearer than ever to realising its lofty targets.