GamesRPGCyberpunkCyberpunk 2077I’m playing Cyberpunk 2077 for the very first time, and it’s making me question everything I knew about how an RPG should look and feelWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGCyberpunkCyberpunk 2077I’m playing Cyberpunk 2077 for the very first time, and it’s making me question everything I knew about how an RPG should look and feelWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: CD Projekt RED)
After so many years of skirting story spoilers, I’m not sure what I expected to see inCyberpunk 2077. Having Keanu Reeves living in my brain rent-free was not one of them. The unexpected nature of it all is definitely a good thing, but even more surprising is the sheer glut of mechanics, systems, and seam-bursting lore I’m immediately confronted with.
Preem-adonna girl
(Image credit: CD Projekt RED)
Metro station(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)The making of Cyberpunk 2077’s metro system: “a roleplaying feature first and foremost”
Metro station
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)The making of Cyberpunk 2077’s metro system: “a roleplaying feature first and foremost”
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)
The making of Cyberpunk 2077’s metro system: “a roleplaying feature first and foremost”
It’s been a good few years since I played aCD Projekt Redgame in full, but somehow, I was still expecting Cyberpunk 2077 to hold flavors ofThe Witcher 3. One of my favorite things about Geralt’s third adventure is the evolution of The Continent as a map and setting, expanding in manageable, level-restricted swathes as you conquer its every nook and cranny. Cyberpunk is nothing like The Witcher, and I’m kind of mourning that fact.
That feels like a pointless comment. Based on a tabletop RPG from 1988, Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person action-adventure set in a technicolor, neo-futuristic, cosmopolitan playground – which is about as far as you can get from the thatched cottages of Novigrad. But aesthetics and gameplay totally aside, the method and process of storytelling is what feels the most distinct.
The Witcher starts you off in a tutorial town of sorts, with White Orchard proving the perfect training ground for the swashbuckling, high-fantasy adventures ahead. Similar things can be said ofDragon’s Dogma 2’s early game areas, or the sandbox-esque exploratory feel ofBaldur’s Gate 3’s entire first act. These warmup zones allow players to flex their muscles and experiment in a strange new world, all while grappling with RPG mechanics of varying levels of complexity. Conversely, I enter Night City feeling like I’m supposed to know my way around these parts like the back of my cybernetic hand already.
I’m no stranger to being pushed off the deep end – I’ve playedElden Ring, after all – but this is noFromSoftwaregame and I am not a Souls veteran. Why does everything in Cyberpunk 2077 feel like so much, so soon?
Hacked to the future
(Image credit: CD Projekt RED)
Cyberpunk’s approach to the RPG is as daunting as it is daring, and I can’t help but respect it for that.
Cyberpunk’s approach to the RPG is as daunting as it is daring, and I can’t help but respect it for that.
Perhaps it’s the long development tail that Cyberpunk 2077 has trailing behind it, but the game doesn’t feel aware of how overwhelming it can be. Having undergone a series of reworks, bug fixes, and moderate to extreme mechanical changes since its initial 2020 launch, it’s understandable that maybe the finer details have been glossed over, with the expectation that returning players will simply fall back in line and be grateful for the fixes. But playing Cyberpunk for the first time in 2024, the myriad differences to the expected size, scope, and feel of an RPG so early on in its runtime feels all the more glaring.
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The fact that the game stayed in development for three years post-launch is no doubt part of what makes Cyberpunk feel so mechanically broad. CDPR constantly reshaped the beast after a disappointing launch, apologizing and doing housekeeping in equal measures. But this highlights questions on the viability of post-release tinkering versus developers just waiting until a game is finished to begin with. The latter has become unfortunately common in recent years, but CDPR has found a way to benefit from its developmental snags. Given all the work that’s been done on it since 2020, it’s hard not to view last year’s Phantom Liberty DLC as the moment Cyberpunk fully exited a period of pseudo-Early Access. As the studiocalls time on Cyberpunkwith its last major update, we’re presented with the final product – bizarre and unwieldy as it may be to newcomers like me.
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)
Perhaps it’s the long development tail trailing behind it, but Cyberpunk doesn’t feel aware of how overwhelming it can be.
Perhaps it’s the long development tail trailing behind it, but Cyberpunk doesn’t feel aware of how overwhelming it can be.
Cyberpunk’s approach to the RPG is as daunting as it is daring, and I can’t help but respect it for that. Instead of piecemeal introductions, I get bulk. Instead of systems being withheld until they are properly explained, I’m free to puzzle through them at my leisure. It all feeds into the staggering newness of Cyberpunk as a game – not least as the first recognizably modern city-based RPG I’ve ever played, but as an RPG that refuses to hold your hand for pretty much any of it, leading us into a complex new future for the genre itself – even if it assumes a little too much innate knowledge on my part.
There are a host ofupcoming CD Projekt Red gamesto get hyped for now that Cyberpunk 2077 is finally finished
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