Last December 10, 2020, CD Projekt Red (CDPR) finally dropped its much awaited video game title for the past seven years. Set in the year 2077, this new open-world experience explores the possibilities of human existence with science at its core. Beneath all the scientific breakthroughs, an everlasting human conflict resides.

In my opinion, this is how the world of Cyberpunk 2077 seemingly positions itself as a video game. It prides itself as a sprawling open world, with a character-driven story of your own choosing. With a great deal of combat opportunities and side missions inherent to open world games, it shaped up according to the hype.

And then, I felt it’s hype go through a cycle of life and death as a game that’s just, well, good.

A promising start with every single new game

At the onset of starting a new save file, you’re given three life paths to choose from. For the majority of my playthrough, I simply went with the Street Kid since I felt it had the most to mess around with. If you’re up to it, you can also choose between the Nomad or Corpo life path, each with their own sets of storylines to unfold.

After you configure every physical aspect — yes, including the private parts — of your character named “V”, the game throws you into the action outright. It’s the usual get-a-feel-for-the-controls type of thing, which is par for the course if you ask me. From movement to combat styles, the game does its best at orienting you with how it works.

The game then proceeds to give you a rough six-hour prelude detailing events of V’s first mission with Jackie Welles. I say a rough six hours because the game already gives you a glimpse of just how open the world is to explore. You’re also introduced to a few side missions that ultimately influence the rest of your playthrough. Honestly, it’s a great start leading up to Act 1.

You shape the story, but you also don’t feel it?

After the prelude, you basically proceed however you like, which I felt wasn’t necessarily a bold thing that CDPR implemented. However, it complements the grander scheme of the open-world adventure through Night City. At this point, I thought that this would allow me to pour myself out into the lore.

But after nearly 45+ hours of gameplay, I just didn’t feel the story bringing me into its world. See, regardless of the life path you took, V goes on a quest to free himself of the engram of one Johnny Silverhand. After stealing Arasaka’s prized relic and injecting it into his brain, the character voiced by Keanu Reeves is basically seizing control of V.

For the most part, you are given choices in both dialogue and actions to help you steer the story. Much like other choice-driven storylines like in Until Dawn, there are so many ways the main story could end. Personally, I felt that the main culprit for this is the fact that side missions are integrated well into the main story at some points.

In essence, there’s no one clear way to end Cyberpunk 2077, and I just can’t seem to find myself drawn into that.

Combat and movement mechanics I can get behind

Now, I can wholeheartedly say that this game truly shines mostly due to how the gameplay mechanics worked out. This game took a whole page out of Grand Theft Auto, but added much greater incentives to keep you exploring all sorts of gameplay styles. I truly felt that the gameplay feels intricate, yet unique towards several situations.

Combat and stealth are the main attractions when you go around all of Night City. For the most part, this game gives you a ton of ways to practice combat and stealth through the side missions, which is pretty good.

Gunplay relies a little bit on crosshair placement, which you mostly see on competitive shooters. So, just be aware of where you’re aiming your gun.

Moving around the overworld feels natural, along with driving around in the vehicle of your choice. Although, if I had one gripe with this game, it’s the physics for some of your actions and vehicles. For instance, how come you’re still standing when you jump out of a moving car? Or, how come some motorcycles are a literal chore to turn while driving? Sometimes, I like some realism in my open-world, futuristic games.

Incredible amounts of bodyhacking

Other key features in this game are a much more intricate skill tree and Cyberware enhancements. As a half-human, half-cyborg, you have access to a series of skills depending on which aspect of your character you want to focus on. Most skills you earn are combat and stealth based, and how often you use them increases its efficacy.

Personally, I admire this level of intricacy with CDPR’s approach to a character skill tree. Depending on how you want to progress through the story, there are a ton of ways you can go about upgrading certain skills. Also, this game offers unique dialogue options depending on how high your skill level is.

When it comes to what I call the “bodyhacking” section, it’s also extensive. Basically, you can attach a bunch of cyberware mods to certain parts of your body to increase certain attributes. You can even apply it to your weapons and clothes, and it greatly complements the combat in certain situations. It’s honestly a lot to take in, but it doesn’t overwhelm you.

Visual spectacle? Not entirely, I suppose

As of the time I’m writing this, the game had six rounds of patches to address a ton of issues. In such a short amount of time, CDPR managed to make the PC version look a little better than how it was on launch day. However, it still doesn’t excuse the developers from those issues because, well, this game was well-hyped.

Now, I’ll admit that the visuals of this game are pretty impressive. Even when I turned a ton of graphical settings down because of my hardware, it still looks aesthetically pleasing. Honestly, I appreciate the colors and the textures a bit more during the night time segments of the game. Is that why they called the main location Night City?

But, it isn’t consistently great the longer, and the farther you get into the story. I had some gameplay plagued by textures loading later than usual, and items that just don’t show up. For instance, during combat, my weapons don’t show up when I try to draw them out — which somehow does not allow me to use them. Last-gen console players had it way worse, but at least for the PC, the visuals were great at times.

Was this really all worth seven years of waiting?

Cyberpunk 2077 had a promising start after seven years of being in total limbo. It presents itself as an open-world experience, centered around a technologically-advanced universe still plagued by human existence. With manageable combat and stealth mechanics, different life paths to explore, and an abundance of customization options, it sets you up quite nicely.

But when you play this game long enough, and through six rounds of patches to fix several bugs and visual errors, it makes you think if it was truly worth the wait. Honestly, the story doesn’t draw you in, I felt I couldn’t fully resonate with any of the characters, and the aforementioned bugs slightly ruined the experience.

This isn’t the near-perfect game everyone was hyping it up to be, especially given the seven year wait. However, it’s still great for what it offers if you had planned to get this for the PC anyway.