4.5/5 ★ – Nestunt's review of Cyberpunk 2077.

Disclaimer: This ranking is predicated on a next-gen experience. It’s an analysis on the creative and technical merits of a development team that has been tirelessly working on this project for more than 5 years. And, since I can only speak about my experience with the art and craft in front of me, I want to underscore how detestable was the decision by management to launch this game on last-gen hardware. They knew it wasn’t going to meet consumer expectations on polish, performance and fidelity for a game succeeding The Witcher 3, or expectations for a project of the scale of Red Dead Redemption 2 or The Last of Us Part II, that run cutting-edge tech on 2013 hardware. That being said, I owe it to the developers to look at this game as detached as I can be from the publishing mal-supervision and mal-administration surrounding it. Don’t play Cyberpunk 2077 on last-gen hardware. On February 2nd, 2019, I published a list of my most anticipated games until Q1 2022. Cyberpunk 2077 spearheaded a ranking that even contained predictions that had yet to be announced. It’s not surprising that I had the highest of expectations for the team that recently created my #5 favorite game of all-time – The Witcher 3. And transitioning from a 3rd-person perspective in a medieval setting to a 1st-person POV in a future, tech-ridden world, made me more interested in it. Honestly, Cyberpunk 2077 is only an inferior experience to The Witcher 3 precisely because of the 1st-person direction (and the voice acting, a little bit). What certainly started as a decision to heighten the role-playing immersion, ended up giving back a dated engagement with the character and the world. Each gaming generation is responsible for breakthroughs in the medium: 3D, open worlds, online, HD, etc. The generation that now ends was responsible for many milestones, though, if I had to choose the one that impressed me the most, I could talk all day about the leap in 3rd-person animation. Many games used to resort to 1st-person POV because technical limitations made 3rd-person animations look robotic and non-immersive. Notwithstanding, we are now at a point when animation fidelity is so crisp that player agency only feels complete if you can see everything. This is where Cyberpunk loses to The Witcher. The world is as complex (not as expansive, but more vertical). The writing is as nuanced, giving range to role-play and meaningfulness to side characters and side quests. The combat is a step up, not only with a bigger variety and creativity in weapons and their usage, but also with the viable option to tackle the majority of encounters non-lethally, resorting to cyber-ware that is also diverse and dynamic (really well implemented in terms of flow and moment-to-moment gameplay). And the degree of customization is also a step up from The Witcher: skill trees are deeper and equate better to your choices in gameplay; you have a wide array of vehicles at your disposal, all with personality, controls and aesthetic-wise; and I love that you can get clothes with good armor and be fashionable at the same time. Yet, the 1st-person perspective never made me feel as in tune with V and Night City as I was with Geralt and The Witcher Continent. I found myself riding bikes much more than cars, because it was the only time I could see myself in 3rd-person. Even so, Cyberpunk 2077 is, from the ground up, an ambitious and impressive endeavor, built on unthinkable complexity like taking the mechanic and systemic legos of 1st-person RPGs, just as Fallout, the emotional story-driven thrills of more linear games, such as BioShock, and combining them into an open world adventure brimming with core gameplay content that gives the player immense agency of what that gameplay even looks like: Deus Ex? Shadow Warrior? Mirror’s Edge? GTA? The staff members in the trenches at CD Projekt Red deserve a round of applause for pushing entertainment to the limit. And, on that note, I would like to conclude by saluting the writing and art teams for their approach to the cyberpunk subgenre. Albeit the more interesting stories found on some side missions, and a voice acting below the level of projects of this dimension, the main plot of V and Johnny Silverhand is the kind of punk that has been missing from so many renditions of cyberpunk. I know that cyber is trendy nowadays, with internet media, geotracking and digital algorithms making people feel like leading-edge philosophers by ascertaining that machines and tech corporations will take over the essence of humanity. But, never forget that cyberpunk is also deeply rooted in the stylized Marxism of punk rock.