Review - Cyberpunk 2077... Tears in Rain

 

Images courtesy of CD Projekt Red

There are few examples of games in recent years that have had a more contentious start than Cyberpunk 2077. When it originally released, CP dropped with a slew of issues ranging from empty streets to recurrences of broken loading. Even PSN pulled the title from its online selling due to the issues that ran so rampant across nearly every player's experience. As time went on, patches and fixes helped to bring it to playability for Next Gen consoles and PC while still rendering it next to useless for the Playstation 4 and XBox One generations. I was one of those people who had been so looking forward to the amazingness CD Projekt promised with Cyberpunk, especially after being so wowed by The Witcher 3, only to have my heart broken when I tried to get into the game on my PS4. It just wasn't happening, and so I put my hopes for a true Blade Runner-esque game to the wayside for a bit. Now in 2025, one of my close friends highly recommended CP with such fervor that I had to throw it on and see how right or wrong he was.

    Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world action game with RPG elements. It places you in the driver's seat as V, a mercenary in California's Night City hell bent on making a name for his/herself. V works with "fixers" in the city to grab odd jobs and "gigs" for cash, street cred, and the chance to touch immortality. V's best friend, or choom, is a big guy named Jackie Welles. Jackie's dream is to hit the big leagues in Night City, and he wants to use V and a fixer named Dexter Deshaun to do so. With their team working together, they plan to hit a score against the Arasaka Corporation that will be enough to put them on the map while also securing their finances for the foreseeable future. Everyone is about to have it made, until they suddenly don't. Enter Johnny Silverhand, the true core of Cyberpunk's story and the yin to V's yang. Johnny's soul has been secured in a digital construct that ends up in V's brain, desperate to take it over and continue a rampage of hatred against corporations. It becomes V's sole task and burden to ensure that he/she doesn't lose their mind, body, and soul to the parasitic rocker taking hold. Meanwhile, friends and foes alike work with and against V to take Night City by storm.

The Good

In a lot of ways, Cyberpunk is essentially a futuristic Grand Theft Auto. It has a lot of the same notes and tones throughout. V is not just an everyman character, but nor are they some type of goody-two-shoes. You are not going to be playing someone who is saving the planet here, and that's fine. It wouldn't work with the overall feeling of the game if you were. That feeling of immersion is what works so well.

    Cyberpunk, as a genre, is not really as niche as people think it is. The go-to association people have with it is probably Blade Runner, reinvigorated by Blade Runner 2049, but those are really just the titles that lean into the genre the heaviest. Cyberpunk has to do with a futuristic setting where there are mixes of cybernetics, people, and corporate influence on daily life. The rich have gotten incredibly wealthy, while the poor are left to scrounge even deeper in the dirt than before. Franchises like Alien, Alita, Dredd, and Robocop all utilize these elements to tell their stories. Cyberpunk 2077 just does it as a video game that is able to fully express the anti-capitalist sentiments of cyberpunk lore by placing you in the shoes of someone caught between the lower levels and the upper strata of a corpo oligarchy.

    It also does it incredibly well.

    I'm sure the graphics were pretty good at launch, but CP has only gotten better with age. This is clearly due to the large amount of patching, version 2.31 on the PS5 version as I write this, and I put this staunchly into the good category for CD Projekt. The amount of love that they have poured, and continued to pour, into the title speaks volumes about the company's feelings for their work as well as their players. There are little to no issues now with Cyberpunk's loading or graphical problems. I only had one instance where my car continued through the earth to plummet towards an endless vacuum. The rest of my time spent in the game was in awe and wonder at the scenery, the vehicle designs, the semi-futuristic spin on holograms and neon lighting, and even at the amount of different body types represented for various NPCs. Facial expressions, sweat, rain, everything under the sun... the game looks gorgeous. And it sounds the same.

    The audio for CP is another huge plus. Explosions, sword-swinging, and gun blasts are an auditory treat. The score is even better. CD Projekt threw a coin to their resident composer in Marcin Przybylowicz to leave Rivia for a moment and enter Night City. He comes with heavy hitting tracks that match the feel of the genre while also defining 2077's voice in the process. As for actual voices, the acting is pretty solid for the most part. Some could have been better. Jackie is a bit over the top, and so is Panam, but some actors really nail their roles. Judy's voice actress is phenomenal, and Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand is sheer perfection.

    I've never been a massive Keanu fan. Nothing against him, I just don't think that he really excels in most roles outside of Neo. Cyberpunk made me more of a believer. Johnny Silverhand is Night City's darling, inasmuch as a rocker-turned-terrorist can be one. His delivery as the cynical-yet-unreliable deutoraganist is the perfect compliment to the ideological naivete of V's narrative. The fact that your relationship can blossom - or fester depending on your choices - is one of the greatest components of the entire game. This can also culminate in one of the many endings Cyberpunk grants us, only further enhanced by additional narrative in the form of Phantom Liberty.

    Phantom Liberty opens up another piece of Night City while expanding on the story within. It hooks V up with additional characters to include the President of the New United States of America, a prodigal netrunner, and a special agent played by none other than Idris Elba. This chunk of story has V aiding the NUSA as they promise to help with the challenges V has been facing the entire game. Moral dilemmas compound V's choices around a compelling finale. It's a bit off the beaten path of V's journey, somewhat shoehorned in, but if more Cyberpunk is what you're wanting... Phantom Liberty definitely adds without taking anything away.

The Bad

Most of Cyberpunk's bad has been left in the rearview.

    There are complaints over the ending choices, but that is completely subjective. The fact of the matter is that CD Projekt has given us several endings to choose from and variations within those very endings that can round things out and shape them closer to how we feel they should be. This isn't a Mass Effect 3 type of scenario where a lot of the culmination might not matter. After all, Cyberpunk came out nearly a decade later and had all the kinks to work out in making finales that their players would feel as that extra bit of immersion. The only thing missing was a Rutger Hauer monologue.

    The only complaints that I have would be found in some characters falling flat. River could have been great, but he feels like such a side character it's surprising there's even a trophy attached to him. The same could be said for Kerry. Judy had the potential to be an all-time gaming companion, but Panam ended up getting much more spotlight. While I thought Judy's cuteness and overall personality was something that should have been explored more, I would have actually liked Panam's to be tapered back a bit. This is especially true if your V has anything other than a nomad background.

The Preem

Cyberpunk 2077 is an amazing game that will undoubtedly stand the test of time. I've gotten a platinum trophy on nearly 40 titles by now, but many of them could be considered pretty forgettable. I don't think this would ever be true of CD Projekt's latest and greatest. V's journey, Johnny's growth, and the overall feeling of the two will stick with me for a long time.

9/10

Nova... err, Epic, I mean.

Would you like to know more?

Another game that has some cyberpunk elements alongside its science fantasy would be Rogue Trader.