This game was memed so much that going in, I had surprisingly little knowledge of what actual experience I should expect, so here are some of my spoiler-free notes. These by no means cover everything relevant to know about the game in advance, just some things that jumped out at me.
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This game borrows heavily from the immersive sim tradition. A lot of “quirks” will seem immediately familiar to anyone who’s played Bioshock or any of the Deus Ex games; most prominently the hacking system, the “caper” framing of most tasks and the multiple possible approaches to each of these “capers”.
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I won’t blame anyone for calling the exposition and the setting “cringey”, “cheesy” or “over-the-top” but to its credit, the more the game progresses the more the setting matures and comes into its own. By the end I was eager to engage with the setting on a more meaningful scale, even more eager than the game ultimately allowed for.
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Choices kind of matter occasionally and for the short-term only. This isn’t Tyranny or Mass Effect. You can set the flavor of what the main character says, but the course of the plot is mostly set in stone. Exceptions to this are sidequests, where a wide array of outcomes is possible; and endings, of which there are about 4 or 5 that you can unlock depending on whether and how you resolved some sidequests. The game won’t mollycoddle you about your ending choice, be ready to live with the consequences of your actions.
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At some point 1/3 of the way into the game the deuteragonist Johnny is introduced (this is Keanu Reeves’ character). The thing is, by that time you’ve spent exactly enough time immersed in the game’s various factions, conspiracies, pushes and pulls to care about them much more than this Johnny, who at first comes off as a distraction, an obstacle. But having played the game, in retrospect I can say most of the narrative effort of the main plot is spent on Reeves’ character. The rest of the main character’s problems, friends, enemies, hopes and dreams just kind of come and go and pass him by, sometimes very abruptly. When you see Reeves’ character just buckle up and accept him as the main act from that point on, for better or worse. If your immediate thought is “I can’t stand this asshole” then by all means, spend the game stewing in that thought.
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Yes, this game has the infamous “AT HIM! Where’s your pretty stealth build now huh” third act conga line.
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There’s a point in the game where you say to yourself “hey, I’m a badass now, I can handle myself”. But before that point there is a phase of early game hell where you had better mind your own business and stick to the main plot and to quests where the danger is “moderate”. I played on hard difficulty and in the early game, getting involved in any ongoing incident or high-level sidequest was a death sentence, no matter what clever strategy I tried. YMMV obviously.
I wish more game reviews touched on stuff like this. Thanks! I’m in a bit of a spot financially, so can’t take advantage of current Steam sale, but I’m definitely planning on getting 2077 since the new revamp.
At this point if you haven’t played yet I might wait for the DLC to come out–it’s apparently making fairly substantial changes to the entire game’s (including base game’s) systems and gameplay. It won’t change everything the OP highlighted, but will supposedly address a lot of the gameplay, stat/cybernetic management, and further AI changes or fixes. I played earlier this year and despite some persisting flaws would still recommend it, but if half of what is alleged about the DLC changes are true (and that’s still an if until it actually releases) the game will be in an even better place then.
Do you know whether or not the gameplay and system updates will be free, or will it require purchasing the DLC?
Word on the street is that the updates will be free. They also announced a two-part update, with the fixes coming first followed by the DLC.
That’s good to know. I just purchased the base game on GoG summer sale. Guess I’ll wait for the update before I fire it up. Plenty of other games waiting in my library.
@Notnotmike @Thugosaurus_Rex I read that unless it’s something tied specifically to the new area or characters, the updates will be part of a free update.
Per the developers many of the core gameplay, system, and AI updates will NOT require purchase of the DLC and should be applied as a general update to the base game.
I’ve seen it on GoG for pre-order at £27.99 or some such, so I’d say almost definitely not a free add-on for people who already own the game.
Story part is paid-dlc, game mechanic fixes/changes is an update coming to all (if I’ve understood what I googled correctly).
Without getting too deep into spoiler territory, V is literally stuck with Johnny Silverhand after a certain point in the game. The choices you make with respect to interacting with Johnny don’t have a major impact, but the game does give you dialogue options where V can simply blow him off if you’re sick of him. So, V can actually reflect the player’s attitude toward Johnny in that respect, which is nice because not everyone is going to like this character.
If you do like him though, there is one particularly annoying part of the game where you can only maximize your friendship with him if you pick a certain, very specific string of dialogue options. Fail to select those specific options, and there is no other way to improve your relationship with Johnny. This will lock you out of one possible endgame option, which is very frustrating if you’re unaware of just how crucial that conversation is… as opposed to literally every other conversation with him, which have no such consequences.
I wish someone had told me the game isn’t very good. Not because of the glitches and bugs - even without those. It’s just kind of meh. Manley Reviews breaks it down better than I can, but basically - the story makes no sense, your choices don’t matter, the world is dead, and the game leans heavily into the ‘punk’ side of cyberpunk. If you’re expecting a Blade Runner type game you’re going to be disappointed.
I just started playing it last night, and I guess I’d so far wish I’d been told just two simple things.
- It’s still pretty stiff and janky. The post on Reddit a while back that said they “fixed” it was being generous
- There won’t be an overarching plot for at least an hour into the game, maybe more, so be patient (?)
Point (1) isn’t that it’s unplayable at all, it’s running pretty decently. But there have been times where I’ve completely lost my immersion because the NPC does something absolutely physics breaking. The most comical example was where my friend (forgot his name) walked through a series of lockers and caused them to explode open and dump their contents into the room! Took me out of the moment but was still somewhat hilarious
For point (2), I’m still waiting to see what my motivation is. I’ve done the intro and the tutorials, and the first mission, and I still don’t see where the game is going. What is my end goal? What am I building up towards? Or will I just perform contract jobs the rest of the game and that’s the whole loop.
Some early game spoilers.
spoiler
Your end goal becomes trying to stay alive, because of a chip in your head slowly killing you.
Would be nice if they told us that they basically removed 50% of things that their marketing video shows like climbing wall with mantis blades, drive by shooting in car and smoothly transits to continuing the main storyline and so forth. After the success of Witcher 3, they completely duped everyone with Cyberpunk 2077 and now their game studio is synonymous with scam or a liar.
Going through it now as well and your observations are spot on. I stumbled upon an incident in City Center despite re-loading 10-15 times, I got my ass handed to me until I walked away. Loved every second of it.
I was shocked when i finally played it and it was more GTA in control style than something like Skyrim? I know it was my fault, but I’d only casually followed the advertising. Also GTA games are hard for me to control so i stopped played pretty quickly.
That and, as you mentioned it was a lot more linear than i expected. Not bad persay, just the advertising was not as clear as i think they meant to be?
Im also just bad at games sometimes so it’s not specifically a criticism. Just a weird pov.
Interesting. I preordered it (Yeah, I know) and then promptly ran it off time to game when it can out and never did more than load it up for the opening sequence. Might need to shuffle it back up my list here soon.
The fist (?) icon above enemy heads is not a “tough enemy” symbol but a “return here later” sign and will disappear if your level is high enough.
I purchased the game on GoG summer sale as I figured I might as well give it a go. I see now that there will be fixes/changes coming to the base game in unison with the DLC in september, so I will definitely be waiting until then before playing. Despite the problems I’ve seen people discuss, I think this should be the kind of game I’ll end up enjoying.
