2/5 ★ – TheVerdantArrow's review of Cyberpunk 2077.

I wanted to give this 1.5/5 stars but I gave an extra .5 star for the employees of CDPR would experienced crunch and terrible "corpo" management. Read my full thoughts below to understand the 2/5 star rating *Spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077* Cyberpunk 2077 is a video game. This sentence is the most apt way to describe the experience I had with it. Before I go any further, I will separate my opinion on its horrid launch that is riddled with technical issues from my thoughts about the stories and themes that lay within this game. Going back to my opening statement, the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t offer the same groundbreaking experiences as other modern games have. The stories told in Cyberpunk 2077 varied in whether I felt any emotional connection to other characters. Not to mention, this modern game from 2020 contains some clearly racially charged stereotypes as well as transphobic undertones. In my most humble opinion, CD Projekt Red attempts to do too much in its quest to be “Edgy” for the sake of “adhering” to the genre of cyberpunk. Instead of creating their own original take of the cyberpunk genre, what came out was a time-displaced, half-baked version of cyberpunk circa de 1988. The Story Cyberpunk 2077 contains a mainline story that relies on “side” missions to thoroughly explore and develop the player’s character, V. I put quotations around the word side because some of the side missions really are indeed side missions. However, some of these deemed “side” missions contain some of the best relationships with some of the strongest characters in the game. Judy Alvarez, Panam Palmer, and River Ward are all more fleshed out and thoughtful characters compared to V or even the infamous Johnny Silverhand. The most fun I had in this game was when Judy would call me with updates on certain situations or Panam needing help with the Aldecaldos. When it came to the endgame, I had happened to complete all of Panam’s “side” missions and the ending I achieved left my V ending up with a family. This ending truly felt like the most complete and earned for the V I built in my head. Had I not completed them or any of the side missions and just mainlined this game, I would have been left with lesser options for my character. The mainline of a game should not leave me dissatisfied with the story or leave me with an incomplete story solely because I chose not to do the “optional” missions. Even Johnny’s character development is left in these “side” missions, leading to the next point. Johnny or V Johnny Silverhand is a terrible person. Point blank, end of story. More arguably, he is not a well-written character either. The only redeeming quality is the character is wrapped in a performance by the incredible Keanu Reeves and Mr. Reeves can only do so much. Johnny doesn’t pop into your head until Act 2 and he isn’t fully fleshed out until Act 3 in his “side” missions. All he does in Act 2 is berate you, tell you what to do, and truthfully is just a dick. As I was fleshing out V in Act 2 with the storylines including Judy, River, Panam, etc. Johnny was just a thorn in my side and served as much purpose as Joker did in Arkham Knight. Act 2 really is the time to flesh out your V and figure out who they are. Act 3 is Johnny’s story and V doesn’t play a true hand in it besides a glorified taxi service for Mr. Silverhand. Act 2 is for V, while Act 3 is meant for Johnny. It isn’t until Act 3 do we begin to see a softer side to Mr. Silverhand. By the time I acquired his car, gun, and mourned his body, I began to… actually feel for him. I finished his “side” missions as he attempted to reconcile with Rogue (even though I thought Johnny and Alt were together…) and managed to play with his band one final time. His story felt complete and our relationship felt stronger as I went into the endgame. Then, as I am sitting on this rooftop, this is where the game shoots itself in the foot. Johnny gives me this tone. This tone similar, but the inverse, to earlier in the game when I told Johnny to “fuck off” then we proceeded to hop in my car like we are old chums (or chooms?) as a rogue Delamain T-boned my car. This was an automatically triggered “side” mission that felt organic in the story until Johnny and I interacted as well as my car being unable to be called until 10 REAL hours past as it was being “repaired”. Anyhow, back to the rooftop. This dramatic shift in tone echoed out on the rooftop. It is as if Johnny didn’t remember the understanding and where we were at in our relationship. It felt as those “side” missions never happened or at least didn’t to him. Yet, I could still call in Rogue if I wanted to because that “side” mission did happen. Johnny’s development did not shine through, he was the same Act 2 Johnny I despised. These inconsistencies in the story really break the immersion and take away from the dramatic tension or story beats that are present. To be truthful, if Johnny had a more somber attitude as if he remembered our deeper connection, I would have been more inclined to let him run the final raid on Arasaka. This inconsistency gave me, the player, the final gumption I needed to have V say “fuck you, Johnny” as I should have in the beginning. I called Panam, we succeeded, then we left Night City. I felt I completed V’s story as concise and as true to the character I built. Technical Atrocity I believe these story inconsistencies to be the result of a larger issue. This game, from a fundamental and mechanically speaking point, only works as long as you have a PC, PS5, or Xbox Series S/X. However, the game doesn’t work the departments of story, themes, or in an experience-sense at all. The bugs, glitches, and mishandling of this IP ring out all the way through to the story beats. I believe these inconsistencies are a result of poor corporate management; the same corporate management who only let reviewers see the “polished” version of the game. The same corporate management who took a big dump on Sony and Mircrosoft leading Sony to pull the game from its digital store. The corporate same management who in their apology, admitted to knowing, and still proceeded to ask the consumers who paid full price or more with the collector’s edition to “take a chance” on them. The same corporate management that effectively erased all their good will from past games on a rushed, overstuffed video game about a terrorist who is all about taking down “corpos”. It truly is ironic. Racial Stereotypes and Transphobic Content Good lord, it is 2020 and we have a game set in 2077 with 1980’s era stereotypes and regressive ways of thinking. First and foremost, the blatant mishandling of Transgender representation is toxic. CDPR went on and on about their character customization. Yes, I can give a female and penis and a man a vagina, but the gender of my V is dependent on the voice I give them? This superficial choice of genitalia plays into that edginess this game thinks it needs. The same type that gives an excuse to those self-proclaimed, toxic gamer “edgelords” who will run around with a female voice and penis mocking members of the Transgender community. It isn’t inclusive; it is wrong and almost insult to members of that community, and that is coming from the straight, white, cis male writing this review. The racial stereotypes are just flat out brazen and feel from the 1980’s. Takemura would be an excellent character had his only motivation not been an “honor” trope. This trope is the only reason Takemura does anything he does. The motivation should have been “it’s the right thing to do” and Takemura could have been a glimmer of light in a vastly dark and gloomy Night City. Instead, CDPR shoots themselves in the metaphorical foot a sixth, or seventh… I’ve lost track. The subtitling for the Voodoo Boys should have been more appropriate. When Placide speaks the word “the”, it phonetically sounds like “dey”. The subtitles specifically write in the word “dey” instead of “the”. Just because the character has dialect and accent, it doesn’t change the word itself. Lastly, the character customization only allows mostly dreadlocks as hair choices for black characters, once again proving the character customization is a superficial way to seem “progressive”. Conclusion Cyberpunk 2077 is a steaming pile of technical, societal, and thematical failures on top of a so-so Grand Theft Auto game. Some of my favorite moments include driving around the city, stopping small crimes, and interacting with the few well-developed characters. The game functions, but at what cost? The amount it functions did not give me an experience equal to that of God of War 2018 or The Last of Us Part 2. That cost is surely not worth all the goodwill CDPR built over the years stemming from The Witcher 3. When players think of CD Projekt Red from now on, they will only remember the failures of Cyberpunk 2077 and how it is not a groundbreaking story or revolutionary experience, but rather a broken video game.