3/5 ★ – unresponsiveAI's review of Cyberpunk 2077.

*Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, Cyberpunk 2077 is plagued with a myriad of bugs both major and minor. The problems with this game's performance have been well-documented and therefore will not be covered in this review. I played on an Xbox Series X and while the experience was buggy, it ran well enough for me to feel like I had the full experience the game had to offer.* For anyone that even tangentially follows the world of video games, Cyberpunk 2077 from CD Projekt Red has likely been on their radar for a long time now. After the overwhelming success of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in 2015, the studio seemed poised to knock it out of the park again with what might possibly be one of the most anticipated games of all time. Unfortunately, this game doesn't come close to hitting the quality bar that Witcher set; and while many of the storylines and characters are great, the game suffers in multiple aspects. The heart and soul of a heavily choice-driven RPG like this are in the narrative and quest design, and, for the most part, this game excels in that regard. The main storyline is a satisfying journey and most of the major side quests lines were just as good, if not better than that. The acting is also top-notch most of the time and every character felt distinct and interesting largely based on the performance they gave. It was refreshing as well to see so many strong women displayed in the story. All of my favorite characters (Judy, Panam, Rogue, and Claire) were women and this was a nice change of pace since so many games still adhere to a more male-focused lens. The highlight of the main narrative though is easily the relationship between the player character, V, and the loud-mouthed capitalism-hating rebel Johnny Silverhand (played by Keanu Reeves). Their dynamic progresses naturally and satisfyingly as the story comes to a head and it's clear that a lot of time went into making sure they got that character right. However, outside of the main storyline and the most essential side missions, the game can often falter with the content it provides to the player. For every interesting quest where you meet a colorful character that asks you to do something interesting, there will be three more than simply ask you to enter a base and take out some enemies for no easily discernible reason. This is disappointing because it highly discouraged me from going off the beaten path to explore the world instead of letting myself be guided from quest marker to quest marker. As good as some of the narratives are in this game, they butt heads with the lackluster writing that accompanies the world itself. In Night City, multiple factions control the illegal activities within certain territories of the city, and nearly all of these factions are defined by harmful racial stereotypes that would feel out of place today and therefore feel almost comical in the year 2077. From the Valentinos, a Latin-American gang whose main personality trait seems to be the random insertion of Spanish words into their dialogue, to the typical rednecks of the New Patriots whose sole interest seems to be the Second Amendment, to the cliched "honor above all else" mentality of the Japanese-owned corporation Arasaka, the otherwise excellent writing suffers from these groups that are so poorly thought out. Beyond this situation, the quality of the worldbuilding in the rest of the game isn't much better. In The Witcher 3, I found myself fascinated and invested in the grim fantasy world it presented. I devoured every bit of lore and felt compelled to read the novels that spawned it (even though I've still yet to get around to doing so). In Cyberpunk, virtually all of this type of storytelling is found in randomly strewn about text dumps that are largely exposition-heavy and uninteresting. I'm the type of player that will read every word of every note in a game even if it stopped interesting me, and that's what I did in this game even though I lost interest very early on. A cyberpunk world seems like it would be rife with the possibility of creating a fascinating world history, but this game misses the mark in this regard. Looking beyond what the game tells you about the world it creates, the things it shows you also happen to be problematic. As is the norm with a cyberpunk setting, corporations control much of what goes on; advertisements and other examples of heavy consumerism are everywhere. Despite this, as you play through the game, it will often seem like you're seeing the same ten or so billboards or video ads over and over. There's simply not enough variety here to make the world seem more believable. When taking a quick five-minute drive around my own city I encountered a more diverse selection of marketing than the game presents. On top of that, I didn't feel that any of these products or ads themselves were interesting or clever in any respect. In fact, most of them fall victim to another problem the game has with its depiction of Night City: the overwhelming emphasis on sex. I understand that part of what makes this world unique is the fact that they have a very carefree attitude towards sexuality and I don't have any sort of a problem with that. At first, it was even refreshing to see a game embrace such an "adult" topic like this so head-on. However, they went overboard with this aspect of the world and it felt like eighty percent of the city was comprised of sex shops while most of the ads were just for pornographic content. These things definitely have a place in this setting, but there has to be other stuff to accompany it. Finally, even if the sights in the game had been more interesting, they would likely have been drowned out by what could possibly be the most pervasive cell-phone mechanic I've played in a game. It sometimes feels like you can't drive or walk around for two minutes before getting a phone call or a message from somebody that takes up a whole section of the screen. Oftentimes the calls are just drawn-out conversations that lead to one of the many shoot-em-up missions discussed earlier and pull you out of whatever you were heading to go do previously. And most of the messages consist of someone in the game trying to sell you a car because everyone in the game really wants to sell you a car for some strange reason. Even though I didn't enjoy it at first, the combat in the game did improve as the game went on and I found myself enjoying the moment to moment gameplay either in stealth or with the gunplay. I'm glad I didn't decide to go for a hacking-oriented playstyle, however, since it seems like the options there are quite limited based on what I saw. I would say that this is a cut above a game like Fallout but doesn't feel as good to play as a normal, less complicated first-person shooter. It's quite surprising to me that Cyberpunk 2077 ended up as disappointing as it did. This game doesn't come close to the quality level of The Witcher 3 and it seems like every good thing the game does is met with multiple unfortunate problems. After finishing the game, it is clear that there is a ton of replay value in the way the storyline can change and turn out, but I don't feel compelled, at least right now, to return to this world to seek out these options. Even though it wouldn't have fixed all the problems, I do think the game would have been better served foregoing the open-world structure entirely and making a tight choice-driven linear experience since that's where most of the good content is anyway. For anyone that's still interested in the setting or the role-playing aspects, this game is still worth a try; but if you're expecting anything close to the quality we know this studio is capable of, you're going to be sorely disappointed.