Gaming Cyberpunk 2077 (PC, PS4/5, Xbox One)

[Kaos]

Glad I wasn’t the only one. Since when was I playing a horror movie!

I really enjoyed it I just felt deflated after completing it because I sort of felt like my ending gave me very little. Will definitely be experimenting on other endings on my next playthrough.

They all feel pretty deflating tbh. You walk away from all of them feeling immediately regretful and asking the inevitable 'what if?' questions. Think that's by design.

That's the whole shtick with the Cyberpunk genre in general, its painfully dystopian with no room for fairy tale happily every after tropes, best you're going to get is some sort of bittersweet conclusion, verging more on the bitter. I still think my V deserved a better end, it feels like which ever ending I go with (both PL and the base game) always ends up being a pyrrhic conclusion. Someone you care for gets hurt, or you're doomed, and often it was all for nothing. Ugh.

Was hoping they'd give us one more expansion which finally offers V a more fitting end.

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

They all feel pretty deflating tbh. You walk away from all of them feeling immediately regretful and asking the inevitable 'what if?' questions. Think that's by design.

That's the whole shtick with the Cyberpunk genre in general, its painfully dystopian with no room for fairy tale happily every after tropes, best you're going to get is some sort of bittersweet conclusion, verging more on the bitter. I still think my V deserved a better end, it feels like which ever ending I go with (both PL and the base game) always ends up being a pyrrhic conclusion. Someone you care for gets hurt, or you're doomed, and often it was all for nothing. Ugh.

Was hoping they'd give us one more expansion which finally offers V a more fitting end.

Yep agreed and it’s probably one of the strongest parts of the game. Think that just surprised me slightly though because some many video game stories just say yay you saved the day, you’re the hero”. I haven’t played all the base game endings but I remember being really happy with my Nomad character choices and ending. Not sure if some of the other base game endings are bittersweet.

 

[Kaos]

Yep agreed and it’s probably one of the strongest parts of the game. Think that just surprised me slightly though because some many video game stories just say yay you saved the day, you’re the hero”. I haven’t played all the base game endings but I remember being really happy with my Nomad character choices and ending. Not sure if some of the other base game endings are bittersweet.

Honestly think that's probably the most optimistic one. The others are pretty much guttingly depressing or just flat out infuriating. Think the conversation you have with Dexter DeShawn in the cab as well as the tarot card explanations with Misty pretty much foreshadow the options you have.

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

Honestly think that's probably the most optimistic one. The others are pretty much guttingly depressing or just flat out infuriating. Think the conversation you have with Dexter DeShawn in the cab as well as the tarot card explanations with Misty pretty much foreshadow the options you have.

Sounds abit depressing for my current character then.

 

[Solius]

Alright. Basically three years on from getting a refund, let’s give this another go.

 

[Irwin99]

Alright. Basically three years on from getting a refund, let’s give this another go.

Hope you play the DLC too. It's not Witcher 3 level but it's damn good.

 

[Solius]

Hope you play the DLC too. It's not Witcher 3 level but it's damn good.

Yep got that.

 

[Solius]

I see the character still fecking moves about whilst you’re trying to set their appearance. Infuriating.

 

[Solius]

So I’ve just started the combat training tutorial. As I start moving it says I’ve entered China Town (?) then I shoot a training dummy and the game gives me the V for Vendetta trophy for killing an enemy 5 seconds after reviving with Second Heart. The feck?

 

[One Night Only]

So I’ve just started the combat training tutorial. As I start moving it says I’ve entered China Town (?) then I shoot a training dummy and the game gives me the V for Vendetta trophy for killing an enemy 5 seconds after reviving with Second Heart. The feck?

I guess the game was never "fixed" properly, just in a better state than it was at release.

 

[weetee]

So I’ve just started the combat training tutorial. As I start moving it says I’ve entered China Town (?) then I shoot a training dummy and the game gives me the V for Vendetta trophy for killing an enemy 5 seconds after reviving with Second Heart. The feck?

PC? I just (re-)started from scratch a month ago, like you basically, and it‘s been a very good experience altogether, couple of minor bugs but it really put BG3 on a backburner for me. But I got a weak spot for good shooters, cyberpunk and the graphics are plain breathtaking at times.

 

[Zarlak]

Alright. Basically three years on from getting a refund, let’s give this another go.

I had never played this before but picked it up a couple weeks ago after everyone was talking about some update and found the game to be incredibly boring. Very soulless, a giant world you can't really interact with in any significant way. Feels like a shell of a game. Didn't help that I picked it up fresh off of BG3 which was a ridiculously good experience.

 

[Solius]

I had never played this before but picked it up a couple weeks ago after everyone was talking about some update and found the game to be incredibly boring. Very soulless, a giant world you can't really interact with in any significant way. Feels like a shell of a game. Didn't help that I picked it up fresh off of BG3 which was a ridiculously good experience.

Yeah also coming fresh off BG3 but just going to try and take this for what it is.

 

[Massive Spanner]

It’s reeeeally slow at the start but does get better. Not a great game but once it opens up after 5 or 6 hours it is good if you take it for what it is and ignore how shit an open world Night City is. Everything I’ve heard about Phantom Liberty sounds like a far superior experience to the base game too.

 

[Solius]

State of this guy is meant to be dead but is rolling around holding his face. So I test that out and then, well…

 

[Solius]

I’m persevering but this is still annoying me more than I am enjoying it.

Why is the text size so small in the menus? And no option to change it at all. It feels so clunky to organise stuff too.

 

[Massive Spanner]

I’m persevering but this is still annoying me more than I am enjoying it.

Why is the text size so small in the menus? And no option to change it at all. It feels so clunky to organise stuff too.

Amol dies a little every time you post in here.

 

[Solius]

Amol dies a little every time you post in here.

Dexter DeShawn’s car dropped me off and then stopped in front of a green light for 2 minutes. I’ve walked over, thrown 6 grenades at it and fired through every window, right across their faces and absolutely nothing has happened except DeShawn somehow texting me more info about the job during this.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Dexter DeShawn’s car dropped me off and then stopped in front of a green light for 2 minutes. I’ve walked over, thrown 6 grenades at it and fired through every window, right across their faces and absolutely nothing has happened except DeShawn somehow texting me more info about the job during this.

That honestly sounds like a big improvement on the state of the game 3 years ago.

 

[Norris]

I’m persevering but this is still annoying me more than I am enjoying it.

Why is the text size so small in the menus? And no option to change it at all. It feels so clunky to organise stuff too.

Are you playing on PC? I played the game on PS5 when it was on Version 1.06 or something and never ran into any issue except for the DeLorean Side quest.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Amol dies a little every time you post in here.

It’s not for him. It isn’t really a sandbox where you feck around with its systems and pull them apart for some zany thrill - I agree that in that aspect it doesn’t hold up, but personally I don’t play games like that anyway (not even GTA).

It’s a story driven RPG which is about characters, lore, an incredible location, fun combat / build diversity, soundtrack, narrative and so on. I’m holding off till my Dec break to do a 2.0 + PL play through. Should be an absolute blast.

 

[SilentWitness]

It's true. It's soulless. The gigs are boring most of the time. Some good side quests and main story depth but the world is just not there.

 

[Solius]

Are you playing on PC? I played the game on PS5 when it was on Version 1.06 or something and never ran into any issue except for the DeLorean Side quest.

PS5

It’s not for him. It isn’t really a sandbox where you feck around with its systems and pull them apart for some zany thrill - I agree that in that aspect it doesn’t hold up, but personally I don’t play games like that anyway (not even GTA).

It’s a story driven RPG which is about characters, lore, an incredible location, fun combat / build diversity, soundtrack, narrative and so on. I’m holding off till my Dec break to do a 2.0 + PL play through. Should be an absolute blast.

I’d agree this type of game is starting to not be for me as I’ve grown tired of the formula but I’m definitely we’ll up for giving it a shot.

It’s not even like I’m actively stress testing it. There’s just immersion breaking stuff happening all around me, and if you combine that with a world that’s lacking and some poor AI still it doesn’t make for the most engaging play.

The amount of people calling and messaging me is also jarring. I’m barely two hours in and it’s just like BLEEP here is a thing to do. It’s not organic.

I can’t tell if I moan a lot these days or if my standards are just higher. Maybe both. I think games should have moved on from this RPG fetch quest formula with dialogue that doesn’t change the outcome a while ago tbh.

 

[Redlambs]

I can’t tell if I moan a lot these days or if my standards are just higher. Maybe both.

Nah, every single mechanic in this game is mediocre at best. CDPR are basically like Rockstar in that, they just treat the actual "game" part as way down the list. Which is fine if you like that kind of thing, but there's no reason for it when the basics are there. It's a design thing.

Which is a huge shame as the world/setting in CP is fantastic.

 

[Massive Spanner]

I think if you just plow through the main story and the proper side quests (ignore the gigs and cyber psychos and boxing crap) then it’s a fun ride for the most part. The story is nothing special but it’s still decent and the combat can be fun enough on certain builds. But as an open world it just sucks balls.

 

[SilentWitness]

I think if you just plow through the main story and the proper side quests (ignore the gigs and cyber psychos and boxing crap) then it’s a fun ride for the most part. The story is nothing special but it’s still decent and the combat can be fun enough on certain builds. But as an open world it just sucks balls.

completely agree. It's somehow full of nothingness.

 

[Ainu]

I like it a bit more now than when I initally played it last month, but the whole thing still feels underwhelming. The aesthetics and atmosphere of the city are fantastic, most of the characters are well written and acted and I don't mind the gunplay, but it's just so one-dimensional. There's no exploration, no interesting side activities, no particularly compelling progression systems, certainly no emergent gameplay or anything. Just a static world where all you do is fairly mundane gameplay.

It's not a bad game, it's competent and occasionally good. But that's all it is.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

PS5



I’d agree this type of game is starting to not be for me as I’ve grown tired of the formula but I’m definitely we’ll up for giving it a shot.

It’s not even like I’m actively stress testing it. There’s just immersion breaking stuff happening all around me, and if you combine that with a world that’s lacking and some poor AI still it doesn’t make for the most engaging play.

The amount of people calling and messaging me is also jarring. I’m barely two hours in and it’s just like BLEEP here is a thing to do. It’s not organic.

I can’t tell if I moan a lot these days or if my standards are just higher. Maybe both. I think games should have moved on from this RPG fetch quest formula with dialogue that doesn’t change the outcome a while ago tbh.

I don’t think it’s about standards but a matter of taste and preference. RDR2 is considered one of the gaming greats - I really like it overall but the gameplay mechanics are poor. Persona 5 is acclaimed as possible the best JRPG ever and I liked it - for half the games length before getting bored of repetition.

Cyberpunk is as I said all about the characters, writing, sound, gameplay and build diversity (which I personally love) and lore. If that clicks then it’s an immense experience. For me it does, which makes it highly immersive which is at the end what determines how much a game hooks me. But I get that for a lot of people a glitch can pull them out of it entirely. While Cyberpunk doesn’t have the sheer amount PF content and overall excellence of Witcher 3 a lot of these complaints on exploration, activities etc applied there too - because the core DNA of both experiences is the same. I just say this because even Witcher 3 wasn’t a wander and figure stuff out organically like Zelda etc. It was primarily a story driven RPG as this one is.

 

[weetee]

I treat it mostly as a very atmospheric FPS, rpg aspects are not that strong - except maybe for the skill tree. But for that I can embrace it a lot. Can‘t remember any other open worldish FPS that I enjoyed as much.

 

[Kaos]

It's true. It's soulless. The gigs are boring most of the time. Some good side quests and main story depth but the world is just not there.

I think the vanilla gigs do get a little samey, especially since they mostly fall under the same 'kill, steal, rescue' templates which they recycle. But there is some interesting lore overlap between them, where the outcome of some gigs do impact others.

Phantom Liberty had it nailed on though. Pretty much every side gig there had a meaningful narrative with moral dilemmas attached to them. Its like CDPR got the hint and took the best parts of the side content in the base game and condensed it into Dogtown.

 

[Kaos]

I treat it mostly as a very atmospheric FPS, rpg aspects are not that strong - except maybe for the skill tree. But for that I can embrace it a lot. Can‘t remember any other open worldish FPS that I enjoyed as much.

Yeah this is a good way to approach it. Though to its credit, it does the whole 'action RPG' shtick a lot better than any of the garbage Bethesda or Ubisoft wheels out. Especially with the 2.0 change I actually enjoy levelling up my character and look forward to unlocking perks. And I like how the perks augment various gameplay styles (ie making them more fun and impactful) instead of restricting you to them. (I'm looking at you Starfield).

 

[SilentWitness]

I think the vanilla gigs do get a little samey, especially since they mostly fall under the same 'kill, steal, rescue' templates which they recycle. But there is some interesting lore overlap between them, where the outcome of some gigs do impact others.

Phantom Liberty had it nailed on though. Pretty much every side gig there had a meaningful narrative with moral dilemmas attached to them. Its like CDPR got the hint and took the best parts of the side content in the base game and condensed it into Dogtown.

I think the problem was that the repetitiveness made me start to really not care about possible lore. Will need to try the expansion after I do another slow playthrough.

 

[weetee]

Yeah this is a good way to approach it. Though to its credit, it does the whole 'action RPG' shtick a lot better than any of the garbage Bethesda or Ubisoft wheels out. Especially with the 2.0 change I actually enjoy levelling up my character and look forward to unlocking perks. And I like how the perks augment various gameplay styles (ie making them more fun and impactful) instead of restricting you to them. (I'm looking at you Starfield).

I was more thinking about BG3 (where some people here, Solius for example or myself, come from playing recently and that‘s where imho roleplaying really works. Don‘t think the dialogues in cyberpunk for example make roleplaying really feasible - at least for me. Appearance works ok-ish and it’s mostly the skill tree and some perks that let you approach the game quite differently- which is well done I think (although I’m really only interested in a shotgun wielding samurai style so basically never hack or sneak).

I love the atmosphere and the built environment in the city and with raytracing it just looks awesome now.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

I was more thinking about BG3 (where some people here, Solius for example or myself, come from playing recently and that‘s where imho roleplaying really works. Don‘t think the dialogues in cyberpunk for example make roleplaying really feasible - at least for me. Appearance works ok-ish and it’s mostly the skill tree and some perks that let you approach the game quite differently- which is well done I think (although I’m really only interested in a shotgun wielding samurai style so basically never hack or sneak).

I love the atmosphere and the built environment in the city and with raytracing it just looks awesome now.

Yup. It’s not really that proper traditional RPG in the way that Disco Elysium and Baldurs Gate are. But more an action RPG ala Witcher 3. Although I’d say the latter definitely offered in terms of decision making that affects actual storylines whereas in Cyberpunk it only affects your characters dialogues / takes who is largely helpless within the larger world and narrative. Cyberpunk’s role playing is more or less limited to your build (backstory etc is very minor) - I’ve tried shotgun build, netrunner hack n slash and tech / smart gunner and they’re all equality fun.

 

[Volumiza]

I like it a bit more now than when I initally played it last month, but the whole thing still feels underwhelming. The aesthetics and atmosphere of the city are fantastic, most of the characters are well written and acted and I don't mind the gunplay, but it's just so one-dimensional. There's no exploration, no interesting side activities, no particularly compelling progression systems, certainly no emergent gameplay or anything. Just a static world where all you do is fairly mundane gameplay.

It's not a bad game, it's competent and occasionally good. But that's all it is.

The bolded bit. I've tried a few times to get into this. I want to very much, it looks great, the acting is ok and the actual gameplay isnt bad at all, it's just the world.

In open world games, good ones, I often enjoy walking to and from quests and activities. It helps make me feel immersed in the world and keep to a semi realistic pace. I enjoy exploring on foot, ignoring quests and just 'being' in the world. Problem is, when you do that in Cyberpunk, you initially think 'wow, great looking game' before then realising there's nowt really but a programmed and populated world. NPC's are just pretty much zombies aimlessly walking about and some of them just look ridiculous and unconnnected from their surroundings. Compare this to RDR2, which I've just started playing again, and even the Witcher, everyone in those worlds seems to belong where they are.

If CP2077 could only match that it'd be a proper blinder of a game.

 

[Solius]

I just finished the first main mission and immediately after, Jackie got on his bike and rode into a lamppost for 10 seconds, then I got run over by literally nothing. Then a queue of cars formed behind the clearly not moving Militech vehicles. Then a car came round the corner of a junction and disappeared.

Also the UI is still absolutely atrocious. It’s just plain bad.

I’m really trying

 

[Massive Spanner]

I forgot how abruptly you reach the point of no return. Like I was just getting into the story and going to embers and then I get the warning. The main plot is so messy and short. The side quests like Panam’s are better than the main story itself.

also ffs it’s still so buggy. I’ve had to reload so many times due to game breaking bugs. Not even performance issues or weird shit with the city, quests literally not progressing because of crappy bugs in the game. How is it still such a damn mess? It’s shocking.

 

[Irwin99]

I'm kinda shocked people are still complaining about the bugs-which obviously they have every right to- but i just never encountered that many at all on my Ps5 in the past year. I played it before the big update and the dlc and it was fine and then after that it was an even better game for me. I think you guys are just having really bad luck and i hope you enjoy the DLC more if you get that far.

There's something about the vibe of Cyberpunk that just really appeals to me. It's nowhere near as grand or as morally complex as The Witcher 3 but the vibe really hits me in the main city and in the DLC in particular. It's a really scummy dystopia ...and i love it!

 

[Solius]

The vibe appeals to me too which is why I’m persevering with it. So far it feels like exactly the same game I played back in 2020 tbh but I will push past the point I got to before and see how it goes.

 

[Kaos]

The vibe appeals to me too which is why I’m persevering with it. So far it feels like exactly the same game I played back in 2020 tbh but I will push past the point I got to before and see how it goes.

Did you pick up Phantom Liberty? Its exceptional content to be fair, better than the base game IMO.