Have been it nearly another recreation from nearly another studio, Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous launch would have condemned it to the gross sales bins of historical past. Massive AAA releases dropping with some bugs is one factor; huge AAA releases being taken off the PlayStation Retailer as a result of they had been so damaged is one thing else totally.
Even then, although, within the depths of the sport’s nadir, I may see one thing within the distance, previous all of the anger and frustration of the second. A lot of the negativity gave the impression to be coming not from a spot of true revulsion, however disappointment, of individuals’s expectations of Cyberpunk 2077 being “The Witcher 3, with automobiles” being fumbled.
That spot on the horizon, as tiny because it was, nonetheless had form and type. It was hope. Massive video games merely can’t be allowed to die, so even then, as Cyberpunk was on the receiving finish of an unprecedented backlash, I may see the place this story was headed. The world loves nothing greater than a foul recreation’s redemption arc—see No Man’s Sky for the same instance of the style—and as dangerous as Cyberpunk had been at launch, absolutely CD Projekt Pink, after spending all that money and time to make the sport, would finally spend sufficient money and time to repair it?
As time did its factor and moved ever onwards, that spot on the periphery would get greater, till in the future it might displace the adverse vibes across the recreation totally. At some point, Cyberpunk 2077 could be good. Could possibly be good. Please, Cyberpunk 2077, you would hear being mentioned louder by the day, be good.
In late 2022, it seemed like that second had arrived. Alongside renewed curiosity in Cyberpunk 2077 within the wake of its glorious anime spin-off, the sport received Steam’s ‘Labor of Love’ award—principally its “most improved” prize—with Valve recognising:
This recreation has been out for some time. The group is nicely previous the debut of their inventive child, however being the great mother and father they’re, these devs proceed to nurture and help their creation. This recreation, to at the present time, remains to be getting new content material in any case these years.
We had been now free, two years after the sport’s nightmarish launch, to persuade ourselves that this was now not the identical recreation it had been at launch. Two years of labor had righted the ship, given folks what they needed. Cyberpunk 2077 was good now.
However was it? I, together with most of you, had performed it in 2020 and thought it was horrible. How a lot may actually have modified since then? With a bunch of time to kill on a current trip, and to deal with my very own simmering curiosity over the form the sport was in, I spent a couple of weeks working my means via Cyberpunk 2077, entrance to again.
IS CYBERPUNK 2077 GOOD NOW?
That’s an advanced query! But it surely’s why we’re right here, now, in March 2023. What I discovered was that sure, over the previous two years and alter a bunch of technical enhancements have been made. And after I say enhancements, I say it like a battlefield medic would, in that “sawing a person’s legs off” is an enchancment over “dying”. My first encounter with the sport in December 2020 had lasted for round 10 hours, and for that whole time, even with a comparatively new PC, Cyberpunk 2077 ran like trash. So dangerous it was distracting me from the sport itself.
Now it runs nice. With DLSS working its black magic and a bunch of patches beneath its belt, Cyberpunk 2077 is a recreation reborn on my PC—the very same PC I had performed it on in 2020—with even my modest rig in a position to run it in 4K, ray-tracing enabled, with out skipping a beat. A smoother framerate additionally made the sport’s sluggish capturing and driving sections barely extra tolerable, and better of all the whole lot seemed implausible. To this point, so good.
Cyberpunk’s numerous and infrequently mission-breaking bugs additionally appeared far much less frequent. There are some nonetheless there, ones I believe are simply a part of the best way the sport was constructed, like how automobiles don’t seem on the planet a lot as they’re dropped, nonetheless rocking on their suspension as your character first spots them. Or how police chases merely don’t work. Pedestrians nonetheless stroll and stand via each other, like they’re re-enacting the tip of Watchmen. However there are lots much less of those, and I didn’t run into any of the previously enormous points—like automobiles and bikes catapulting off the display screen—so once more, progress.
If bugs and bizarre glitches had been your main hangup, then positive, Cyberpunk 2077 is “good now”. This technical triage didn’t actually matter to me, although. I’m a Battlefield 2042 veteran, I’m used to discovering pleasure amidst uncooperative polygons. What their taming did at the least enable, although, was the chance to cease worrying about them, and concentrate on the sport itself. Not what I had needed it to be, or anticipated it to be in a post-Witcher 3 world, not what its calamitous launch had prevented it from seemingly ever being. Simply me, a clean framerate and everything of Cyberpunk 2077 forward of me.
What follows isn’t a overview. We did that already.
CYBERPUNK 2077, PART I
OK, I’ve SOME THINGS I have to say that may sound review-like. I performed via 85 hours of Cyberpunk 2077, a lot of it over my trip, I would like to speak about this with somebody.
I began this entire endeavour pondering I’d be writing about one recreation, Cyberpunk 2077, however I ended up taking part in two very totally different ones over these hours. So totally different, in actual fact, that I’ve needed to principally write this entire piece twice, since a lot of my first draft would finally find yourself within the bin.
The primary Cyberpunk 2077 I performed was how I think about—really, how I know after taking a look at Steam achievement statistics—most individuals’s time with the sport went. You aren’t led via the primary storyline a lot as you’re shoved, bombarded from the outset with pressing phonecalls, frantic messages, cutscenes the place you’re coughing up blood, instructions to journey right here, have a shootout there, and earlier than you already know it you’re on the endgame questioning why you’ve barely scratched the floor of Cyberpunk’s world, solid or myriad of RPG programs.
Writing about this Cyberpunk as I went, my notes used the phrase “dogshit” lots. The principle storyline is the very worst of Cyberpunk. It doubles down on the sport’s failed makes an attempt to be an explosive FPS, shines its brightest lights on Night time Metropolis’s dullest characters and strikes so quick that Cyberpunk’s elaborate endings imply nothing since you haven’t had the time or house to offer a shit about anybody affected.
My conclusion to this piece, because the credit rolled, was that Cyberpunk 2077 was unsalvageable. Its issues had been too basic, the scathing evaluations from 2020 right of their damnation.
CYBERPUNK 2077, PART II
However then one thing bizarre occurred. As an alternative of being dumped again at my lair in some sort of overpowered postgame, I discovered myself reloaded again to a checkpoint simply earlier than the ultimate mission. There was no actual endgame right here (the storylines as they wrap up rule that out), only a comfortable reboot, presumably so gamers may leap straight again into these remaining hours and make totally different selections, sufficient to unlock one of many recreation’s 4 different endings.
Right here, with the primary quests all however resolved and my have to see a remaining cutscene already glad, one other Cyberpunk 2077 unfurled in entrance of me. This Cyberpunk was stuffed with unresolved sidequests, solely now I had the time and house to resolve them. The sport lastly had time to breathe. It took its foot off the gasoline, stopped harassing me to kind out Keanu Reeves’ issues and started slowly serving me the sport’s most memorable quests, most with significant consequence, every one taking me on a tour of previously-unseen corners of the sport’s lavish world and giving me a newfound appreciation for its scale and element.
I met all my favorite Night time Metropolis residents on this second Cyberpunk, and I believe it’s simply one of the simplest ways to fulfill them. To have the ability to savour every little journey at its personal tempo, as an alternative of getting them crammed in between major quests. On this second recreation, the place I used to be now not following a Keanu Reeves-led narrative laced with worldwide intrigue however free to only be a man doing murderous odd jobs round city, Cyberpunk felt a lot nearer to what I had anticipated from it again in 2020. A recreation about exploration, being a handyman, uncovering unforgettable little tales with sticky ethical quandaries. The Witcher 3 with automobiles, principally.
My conclusion after this second Cyberpunk wrapped, after I’d rinsed it of each substantial (and fewer so) sidequest on the board, is…nicely, it’s what you’re studying now. My reflections of a recreation that’s nonetheless damaged in so some ways, and forgettable in lots of others, however which can be extra than that, a lot greater than most individuals who (rightfully and understandably!) bounced off the primary storyline in 2020 and by no means seemed again will ever know.
It’s nearly as if Cyberpunk’s major downside isnt with its numerous parts themselves, a lot because the urgency and order they’re thrown at you. Enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 as CD Projekt Pink designed it’s like going to a flowery restaurant and having the steak thrown at your face earlier than you’ve even seemed on the menu. Then getting your scrumptious entrée served 90 minutes later. The meals is nice, positive! However that wasn’t one of the simplest ways to eat it.
Everybody who has ever mentioned “simply strive the aspect missions, they’re higher” within the time since Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, and seemed like a copium addict on the top of a visit, turned out to be proper on the cash. I’m sorry for ever doubting you. A few of these auxiliary quests are good, however a lot of them are glorious. A mayoral candidate having a bit IT downside is a spotlight, as is the tragic and unforgettable case of a cop’s lacking nephew and a cattle farm. Claire’s story of loss and revenge is dealt with with the utmost care. Judy’s evolution from peripheral quest-giver to her stunning finale was a pleasure to play via, and Kerry’s mid-life disaster resolves in presumably probably the most cathartic second of the entire recreation. These tales are well-written, deeply fascinating and most of the finest ones don’t even want you to shoot something.
I may go on and on right here, and kinda wish to, however I’ve wasted sufficient of your time with my ideas on a recreation that’s now over two years outdated, and was written about, at size, perhaps greater than another online game in historical past. Thanks for sticking with me this lengthy.
IT’S STILL CYBERPUNK 2077
Technical fixes apart—they usually make a distinction!—that is nonetheless Cyberpunk 2077. The great things was good in 2020, the dangerous stuff was dangerous in 2020, and they’ll endlessly be that means as a result of you possibly can’t save a recreation by patching in a brand new character arc (or any character arc) for Johnny Silverhand, or flip some dials and all of a sudden make all the first-person capturing expertise really feel even remotely thrilling.
I really feel like I did the whole lot I used to be alleged to do right here, the whole lot the zeitgeist and the blip on the horizon mentioned I ought to do when it got here to this recreation. I performed it in 2020, bounced, then gave it time—time it might not have deserved if it was another recreation from another studio—to wash itself up. I revisited it to play the sport this was supposed to be.
It’s not that recreation, in fact. The “Cyberpunk will be saved” narrative is as delusional right here as it’s for thus many different big-budget failures, when success had appeared assured however for no matter cause by no means arrived (in fact Cyberpunk 2077 will at all times be, if nothing else, a monetary success). Bugs and basic shortcomings within the recreation’s construction are two very various things. One will be patched, and principally has been. The opposite, we’re caught with endlessly.
And that’s OK? I’m OK with it, at the least. There was a lot anger and frustration tousled on this recreation’s launch, all fed as a lot on folks’s expectations as a lot as the truth of the sport that was on provide earlier than us. This was the following recreation from The Witcher 3 guys, it value a lot cash to make, it took so lengthy to make, it launched so many unimaginable (and, seems, fairly fanciful) trailers, blah blah blah.
All this led to a consensus that the sport was each busted and an enormous disappointment. Now? Now it’s nonetheless a bit busted and nonetheless disappointing in a lot of the identical methods. There are nonetheless enormous holes on this recreation, with shortcomings it should by no means overcome, however decoupled from the Unhealthy Vibes of its 2020 launch I discovered myself free in 2023 to only fireplace up Cyberpunk 2077 and play what was in entrance of me.
What I discovered was a recreation that, when given the prospect, may very well be greater than only a trainwreck of a launch. It may additionally, with a bit of labor and a bit extra persistence, be one thing actually particular. And that was sufficient of a redemption arc for me.
