When you release the game with the highest hype in history you have to be ready, you will be scrutinized by thousands of super critical and very demanding eyes. This is what happened to Cyberpunk 2077 and it is the price to pay for a marketing campaign that lasted more than 8 years, with all the advantages and disadvantages of the case.
Its console version certainly does not shine for optimization, but beyond the very solvable glitches and bugs, we need to better analyze the points that greatly weaken the narrative of the game, on the one hand we can be satisfied, on the other we can ask for an effort to the developers and artists behind the IP in achieving perfection.
Obviously in a polite and proactive way.
Short introduction
Before starting with the analysis of the game there is a short opening; Cyberpunk 2077 derives from Cyberpunk 2020 (and later by Cyberpunk RED), two RPGs that have made history, among the best sellers of the role-playing game (not like D&D but we are there).
As a lover of the RPG and after having devoured every book / comic / story concerning the Cyberpunk wawe, I can be satisfied with what has been done in the game (I talk about it here in my review) but obviously the artistic direction, for some need unknown to me , had to cut a lot from the Lore and from the imaginary built with the GDR.
In this article I will tell you about every shortcoming I found compared to the original game and I will also tell you about some design flaws (but giving more importance to the narrative).
Happy reading.
[DISCLAIMER] The article wants to offer a summary to all those players who want to deepen what the game touches and does not deepen.
I'm writing this article hoping to see these improvements in the next game updates and giving us a vision of Night City that is more akin to the RPG imagery, all from my (hopefully accepted) role-playing experience.
Style and not substance
The styles are in the game, we can see them in the clothing of our V, in the loot of the enemies and in the fashion shops scattered in every district of Night City.
What is missing is a clear distinction based on fashion, if indeed the "Fashion" factor is predominant in the Cyberpunk universe in the game there will never be "consequences" depending on the look shown in the different neighborhoods. You can, in fact, shoot corporate clothes in full Neomilitarism style in the low ground of Pacifica without someone pointing a gun to your head, or shoot Redneck clothes of entropism in the City or inside a large hotel without a corporate passing by looking at you badly, maybe babbling about something.
At present, style is only a marginal prerogative that could have been better managed by providing various implications, perhaps even at a narrative level.
Reputation system and gang feuds
In the launch videos there was a lot of talk about the relationship with the street, about how much the gangs would take into account how you behave with them. The result? A cauldron of gunfire everywhere, even with the allies of the fixers with whom you actively collaborate.
We have played almost all of The Witcher 3 and remember how the reputation system affected a lot on the gaming experience, you took good care before you made a carnage in Novigrad, why not reuse the same system?
If you cooperate a lot with the NCPD (the police) why shouldn't the gangs become hostile? If you do missions arm in arm with those Maelstorm pigs why shouldn't you be hated by the NCPD and defended on the streets by the gang in case of a fight?
The suspension of disbelief is lost when you kill half the Vodoo and then continue to do quests with them without changing anything.
In this mechanic of the game it is clearly seen that there has been a cut, it is almost inadmissible that a similar facet is missing, especially for how Night City is made and how Badlands and Pacifica are made.
Netrunning e hacking
Welcome to the network!
Netrunners are outlaws who “hack” the web which is very different from the one we surf every day. In the main plot the netrunning is explained quite well, there is some lack however (even if not unforgivable).
The network in Cyberpunk has its own geography, through the optical fibers in the "NET" the runners themselves can visualize themselves as virtual entities, they can interact, exchange data, even emotions or pain, for some even death can occur.
All this until 2020, in the future (explained well in the manual "Cyberpunk RED") if you enter the network "you are ***", there is no hope, they fry your brain.
In short: in 2077 the NET was closed and it is unseaworthy, there is an entity called "blackwall" that obstructs all incoming and outgoing communication and there are the "rogue AI" which are artificial intelligences that steal all data and fry you the circuti.
To overcome this problem in Night City a subnet has been created by the “Ziggurat” corporation, the entire system is controlled by NetWatch.
Beyond the skills of Netrunning (which I liked enough) the only accesses we will have will be accessible through terminals that show old school websites, with nice contents. There is no real display of the NET, to give you an example: imagine Futurama and how they connect on the web, in RPG it's more or less like this.
When I fantasized about the game I imagined netrunning in a particular way; you lie down, have a drink, plug in and the game interface converts to negative and makes you walk / run through the streets of nightcity in "full tron style" (I don't know if you know the movie, in case you do a search quick).
In the game with this mechanic you could interface with the kiroshi (the eye implant) and navigate the cybernetic version of the city, you could move like braindance and discover subplots, dialogues, fights, camera recordings ... the only limit to a similar approach is the imagination.
Could one be more daring? I would say yes, the terminals scattered here and there are quite out of tune and add very little to the Lore.
And the relations with the netwatch?
Towards the middle of the game following the main plot we will have to deal for the first time with the NetWatch, in essence it is the division of the police that guards the NET from the various attacks of cybercriminals and netrunners, they have funds from corporations and governments and use force and higher vehicles, in addition, have access to all-encompassing access to the entire Night City network.
Their agents are called Iceman and they are almost always ruthless, frying netrunner brains which is a marvel, without mercy.
Now imagine collaborative plots to thwart threats or alternate plots to destroy the bastards who enjoy hurting behind the police ranks. Unfortunately, there is none of this in the game today.
Extreme modification of the body
There are three branches that concern the technology of body modification, even extreme: la fashionware (cosmetic modification), the neuralware (neural modification), the plants, cyberarmi, cyberottica, cyberudito, cyberarti and Bioware.
La fashionware is dealt with in the plots of Mox, doll e in advertising clips, concerns the aesthetic surgery of the cyberpunk world and includes ceramic skin, new prostheses, extreme genital modification (or interchangeable thus giving the possibility of being genderfluid at 360 °) or simply the implantation of a new scalp.
The only "fashonware" that is used is that of biomonitor which is a precursor of our technology (such as smartwatches) which make the human body interconnected with health facilities and which will always give a picture of one's biorhythmic trend. This type of modification is often mentioned, especially for trauma team service members.
It would have been a pretty good thing to use the surgery of the new millennium also on our character. Treat the central theme a little more "Of appearing at any cost" and style beyond substance. Unfortunately, this issue was only addressed with the Mox questline (fairly well, it must be admitted).
Cybersculture
In the RPG there is the possibility of remaking from head to toe, of sculpting oneself like marble and creating "a new person from scratch", perhaps taking out the right Eurodollars and disappearing from circulation with the right grafts and a new face, opening the possibility of special plots.
You start off by creating V and you can't even edit hair at a barber shop, I'm sure it is a feature of the game that has been missing for time reasons and will certainly be in development, but it is currently not present.
The remaining technologies are used by V, almost following the guidelines of the manual created by Pondsmith to the letter, the problem is another and I will explain it to you in the next paragraph.
Mental illness and cyberpsychosis
I found the part about Cyberware simply delightful, the world has moved on and in 57 years even science has made its progress showing us new cybernetic plants worthy of their name, on that there is to bow.
The problem is that the crucial part of Cyberpunk, namely humanity and cyberpsychosis, has been lost along the way.
In the RPG a fundamental part of the game is focused on mental illness related to too many grafts and the machine that takes over man, we can completely fill ourselves with cybernetic objects but removed the grafts on the arms we will not see anything by switching in the third person, without considering that the only strand of cyberpsychosis we see it treated (well) in a series of quests and in the main plot that concerns Johnny Silverhand.
In the game we will never lose humanity, no one will tell us that we are "too chromedExcept for a few rare scripted NPCs - usually scalpels - who talk about it with filler dialogues.
One of the most important parts of the construction of the suspension of disbelief, of the man-machine relationship and of technological advancement is denied; matters rich in meaning, ideas that are covered in the main plot, but rarely undertaken in side quests or in the ordinary game.
Eg; if you had faced the cyberpsychosis he could have slipped the psychosquadre and cyberpsychiatrists creating screaming stories with a crazy resonance casas on the issue of mental illness and psyche health.
What if you don't cooperate with the psychiatrist? The psycho-teams are coming!
A wasted opportunity for now. Especially if you wanted to be daring with strong themes with this game.
The relationship between man and machine and artificial intelligences
In the previous point I dealt in depth with cyberpsychosis, how much the machine can fuse with the psyche and how much (beyond the main quest) the topic has been treated with a little superficiality.
A similar point concerns the artificial intelligences, we will play the quests of Delamain (the AI of the Taxi service) in a SPECTACULAR way but going to the bottom of the game there will be no other narratives of other artificial intelligences. Recall that in the world of Cyberpunk they are preponderant over everything in everyday life.
The main quest line addresses the concept of AI in a satisfying way, but cyberpunk goes further and everyday life is also governed by machines.
Another hot spot is artificial intelligence understood as Game Design.
The scheduling of the encounters, the behavior of NPCs, vehicles and random events works a bit in its own way, I would say simply: Very bad.
If we think about it it's like uncontrollable AI in fact, it's very cyberpunk thing I admit.
I hope that the interaction of the NPCs improves, now actually for now it is very, very lacking, not to mention the stealth which is trivially from the previous generation.
Corporations, what does Militech do?
In the manual and in the expansions thearasaka it is certainly among the largest, but many Corporations are missing, I quote: Militech, News54, Ncart, Night Corp, Orbital Air, Raven Microcybernetics, Biotechnica, Petrochem, SegAtari, Trauma Team e Kang Tao.
In the setting, the largest are Militech, Kang Tao and Biotechnica, removed the first the others are just mentioned or background in the signs of the buildings.
The corporate war is more powerful than the wars between nations and yet it passes by as if the only one to master it was the Arasaska. I fully understand that it would have put too much meat on the fire, but it would have been nice to interact with Militech, not to use it only as a bank to grab precious objects, on the other hand in the setting the capitalization is almost the same as that of the Arasaka.
Here too, more could be done at the level of plots, imagine the clash between nations.
Good. Imagine now the clash of corporations with influences in different nations, BOOM.
Lack of key NPCs
Okay, maybe I ignore the narrative choices of the script group, I understand that 57 years have passed and I do not ask for the appearance of the great NPCs of cyberpunk 2020, but some are barely mentioned.
Just think of Anastasia Lucessi, Michiko, THE DAMN BLACKHAND who is only mentioned in some dialogue, Spider Murphy, Edeger and many others.
It would have been a unique touch of class if you had thought of videos, perhaps in shards to watch in augmented reality or BrainDances that narrated the deeds of these Legends - as the concept of Legend is well emphasized in the game- or maybe chess, narrated by Johnny or Rogue with Cinematics.
These are the narrative color issues that we Cyberpunk fans would have liked to see, I honestly say this with a slight regret.
An often empty sandbox, restaurants like the Lockdown
I am already sad of mine, locked up for 2 months at home without being able to see my girlfriend, imagine how bad I was not being able to sit in a restaurant in Night City or eat a nice plate of artificial crap while chatting with strangers.
In The Witcher 3 it could be done somehow, in the latest Watch Dogs as well, I don't think it was impossible in terms of implementation.
The world currently (as I said in the review) "is not clickable", you can listen to the dialogues of the characters (sometimes very interesting) and sometimes you can even talk to them, but they are rare interactions.
You can jump on the head of Saburo Arasaka's daughter while she talks to you and the guards don't even look at you, you can take out the mantis blades in front of a fixer while you walk on his head and he will keep talking, you can literally STEAL in front of the police and NOTHING happens.
These are the things that destroy credibility and "realism" and give that "rpg like any other" look to a game that "like any other" has very little.
When I started taking photographs the first thing I learned was the richness of detail, how important it is to create an "imaginary frame" to the shot and how essential the details in the frame are.
Cyberpunk is a game that is attentive to small things, even to the words with the cutlass on the walls of the elevator, but when it comes to interactions open heaven, THE COSMIC NOTHING.
I'll give you a small example, there is this crowd protesting in front of the studios, no one talks, no one interacts, they are standing there for days and days. It looks like Stone Sour's “through the glass” video.
Turning the boundless open world and the entire night city we will see very different neighborhoods architecturally, but frequented a little by the same NPCs, the feeling in the long run is of "stuck there for a long time" and unfortunately not good.
Make the world clickable, open those shops, get people talking, open the subways and trains, do something, even a little nonsense. Make this open world unique, I beg you!
Think about it at least.
Traffic flows better than in Rome and driving… forget it
Another unacceptable aspect in 2020 is the driving system, it seems to play in Driver on ps1 (remember? The one with the impossible tutorial) but with crazy graphics.
The controls are woody and not very reactive, the traffic is scripted (badly) and traffic jams are created even if you put your motorcycle on the roadside, if you crash at 180km / h nothing happens to you, if SFIORI a civilian dies and arrives police.
I like the function to recall your vehicle, it is smart and saves time, but maybe you can review that little bug of the bike that puts you under if you place yourself just to the right of the roadway.
Also in the beginning there is a great sequence shot of a gang trying to shoot you while you are with Jackie, why doesn't it happen anymore?
Imagine a reputation system, while you mind your own business come boh, the Valentinos who try to machine gun you because you have exterminated half a gang in an assault.
This is cyberpunk! Live on the razor!
But how many game possibilities are missing? And the classes?
The entire architecture of the evolution of V and the development of the plot have radically changed the concept of Cyberpunk 2020, in the role-playing game you decide a class and from that track you move to develop your favorite archetype, in the video game you will have a basic story and you will develop the skills horizontally and not vertically, but what have we lost along the way?
Of course we can play a swordsman netrunner, or a street fighter with the innate ability to move silently, but the role-playing game involved careers that were little or nothing considered in their uniqueness.
Classes in Cyberpunk
The classes in Cyberpunk 2020 are these, I will also explain the similarities that there are in the video game so you can get an idea for yourself:
- Rocker: in a way our mate Johnny Silverhand will explore this class and there will be room to be a star.
Rockers are the equivalent of our influencers, inflaming crowds, delivering messages, blasting their music and beliefs into orbit through satellites. - Lonely: the loner class is basically that of V, alone with a small group of comrades fighting for life.
The loner is the one who fights alone for a goal, either as a Killer or as a mercenary. - Netrunner: V can pursue a career as a Netrunner, but he will never have the impact (at a role-playing level in interacting with NPCs) of a true cyber criminal.
The netrunner in the game is a hacker who dribbles around the network with codes, often misanthropic and fanatic of artificial intelligence and the NET (the network) - Technical: the technician in the game is the one who creates the mods, new guns, special gizmos and engineers the engineerable.
You have a whole branch of skills and abilities, but at the story level this ability does not develop in any way. - reporter: the reporters are journalists ready to track down the conspiracies of the government and corporations, they poke their nose into the affairs of the gags and discover their relationships by collaborating with the Fixers.
In the game, you meet a TV Reporter and the former reporter police NPC who will mention this aspect of the lore, but there will be no way for V to pursue this career. - Policeman: Policemen are divided into different categories, the NCPD (ordinary police) - the MAXTAC (the most formidable cyberengineered division) - the police in the pay of corporations and the NetWatch.
V will not be able to act as a policeman but will collaborate with the NCPD to prevent robberies / murders / trafficking. - Corporate: imagine the corporate with a thousand facets, from the agent of large corporations to the money-maker in borsi, from the insurance broker to the lawyer, all white-collar professions fall within the Corporatives.
In the game you will be able to take on the role of a "Body" and reap the benefits, but the characterization leaves some time it finds by enriching only the dialogues. - Fence: they are the Fixers, in 2020 they were very influential, in 2077 they are a cornerstone, they are those who smuggle / find bargains / procure opportunities.
V in the video game will have to deal with Fixers for practically the entire duration of the game. - Nomadic: the warriors of the forgotten streets and the wanderers, what comes closest to the concept of Mad Max, live for the day and very often move like gangs of the badlands to plunder.
V will be able to play the role of the Nomad.
What play possibilities are missing?
As explained in the previous points in Cyberpunk 2077 you can mix almost all classes with the adventure of your V, what is missing is a true specialization of class that makes it unique and recognizable in one's own neighborhood or in the entire night city.
I find the choice of three different backgrounds and related customization an excellent choice of style, but many times keyboard and mouse in hand I have felt limiting the "railroading" of the game, or the intervention of Deus Ex Machina in the script that makes V a concept studied at the table, with rich and interesting nuances but never “ours”.
I'm sure that the unexplored or minimally treated classes can be a great starting point for the next DLC, but for now they leave me 60% happy.
(Editor's note: it could have been much worse)
Sex and sexuality
[DISCLAIMER: Of all the triple A's ever released Cyberpunk is the one that actually dares the most with explicit scenes, the following paragraph concerns my interpretation of the Cyberpunk imaginary and how I would have directed the topic, especially from the point of "exaggeration" and exasperation of the concept itself in the natural evolution of the media and of the man / woman - sexuality relationship]
The references to sex and sexuality are certainly not lacking, we will discover the Dolls and the Virtues of Braindance, we will see sex shop windows 24 hours a day, references to sex in every advertisement in the game, neighborhoods and stripper windows.
We will play the role of a cis / trans / homosexual character without any problem and discrimination, which is good, no one will make jokes or demonstrate homophobia or transphobia (God forbid) and this is also good.
What is missing in the game is greater care for that naughty part of the user who wants to exceed the gaming experience by exploring sexuality, the game is pegi 18 and with a nice disclaimer and an option to disable strong contents it could have been done a big job about it.
(Editor's note: the game in the sexuality part is fine even so, but it can also be revised in the following interpretation)
I will be sincere and hope no one will feel offended; I had the impression that there was a sort of modesty in dealing with sexuality on certain aspects and it seems that in the direction of this interpretative component there was a Catholic conservative.
Let's face it, we are in 2077, there are gore in the corner of the street next to the children, the gore is everywhere, there is so much Splatter that would make Tarantino cover his eyes too and you treat me like that?
I'm not saying that V has to try "certain kinks", but I find it hard to imagine a place like Night City without clubs frequented by perverts.
The body modification is more than total, you can literally install genitals and organs of sexual pleasure at will anywhere. Why not dare?
Would it really be so strange to see a man / woman with 4 genital grafts in the act of satisfying 4 different women / men while a madman records a Braindance cartridge? Cyberpunk is also this, excess, DARE!
I understand that V can be "more romantic *" and it also fits us well, but in the game there are only very "classic" scenes with banal missionaries and caresses with restrained grunts, it looks like a script made by Don Matteo ...
But what can be done beyond adding a little salt to the futuristic perversion? For example, the dealers sell Braindance cartridges that we cannot see, surely there is an ethical motivation (snuff and rapes suck and it is right that they are opposed), but what concerns clips of consenting sex or exploration of futuristic kinks would be were well received, certainly a content that would have given a lot of flavor.
Prostitution and the topic of moxes too: well but not very well, in the game we have a squad that is poorly equipped with "street" experiences (two different partners throughout the night city outside of romance) that do not do justice to entire neighborhoods a "non-clickable" red lights, it would have been nice to have transgender sex workers, for example, especially as a sensitization to transphobia given that there is a huge audience that seems to be scared of it for some obscure reason.
It is a delicate subject I realize, but we dared a lot in depicting sexuality in the game in the streets and alleys, but summing up everything is really not very tangible and gives a slight feeling of "sop", it has nothing of dystopian or post-apocalyptic sci-fi.
Practically: there is not that madness that is however opposed in every advertisement inside the game.
Trauma Team
Admit it, you gassed like never before in the scene at the beginning of the game with the Trauma Team or watching the E3 trailer, how bad you were to have seen the same trauma team just glued in the game around night city without having any feedback of plot?
I much. I admit.
We will earn a lot, maybe as corporatives we will be able to climb the pyramid again, yet there will be no possibility of agreeing with the most useful team in the game, the one that helps you in case of misfortune or from a burdensome situation.
The Trauma Team is among the most powerful corporations in the game, wherever you are if you are covered by insurance they will come and rescue you.
It is the biggest complaint ever made in a role-playing game on the health system of the States, where only the rich can have excellent care, in this case even armed and ready to get you out of any situation.
We could have hired them with good corporate insurance, we could have hacked their databases as a form of protest to insure and insure society's outcasts with health coverage, there could have been insights into tens or hundreds of primary or secondary plots, but yeah it is decided to show one of the most interesting (and denouncing) parts only as a trailer with a bang of the game.
A quest line on the subject would have been great.
FIGHT ME! That is the fights
Since the first patch I have noticed a small improvement to the match balance, but we are not there.
I think it's a lot of work to optimize a huge combination that encompasses skills / talents / cyberware / weapons, but round and round you end up with hand-to-hand combat that's just plain broken.
Visually from the Gamescom demo it has improved a lot but always has that fake aura, the fights are always cumbersome and if you rage on a single opponent the others will not touch you, there is really a lot of work to do on this front.
Another story for the "shooting" and "netrunning" department which is sometimes a bit unbalanced but remains very enjoyable for the whole adventure.
Engineering and crafting with patches
In the RPG the Technician is a class (also very strong), in the game it is represented by the branch of creation and engineering talents, too bad they have no feedback at the level of narration.
You can't be a mechanic, you can't be a repairer, you can't create bombs from scratch, at most you have the ability to create new hacks but you won't be able to mix weapons to create a particular rifle or an electrified club with special attributes.
It would have been nice to create traps, technological contraptions, modify your car or motorcycle but for now there is a basic system that is very reminiscent of the crafting of The Witcher 3.
I am hoping for an improvement in this part of the game, very interesting ideas can be extracted from this mechanic. Especially at the narrative level.
Conclusion
To conclude, dear Cyberpunk 2077 devs, I speak to you all with my heart in hand and infinite esteem. No kidding.
You have managed to bring up a huge world and you have had to compromise, you are not superheroes and you need your time.
I do not change my rating on the game but after 65 hours in the game I had the opportunity to reflect and think about what is not working in the game, a title that I waited for marking the days in the calendar, of which I spoke to friends in the pub until I lost it from that "beep" on.
As for us, true fans of the Cyberpunk genre: we will wait, listen to the community, create the impossible, take your time and then enjoy the game with us, once the pandemic is over we will gladly host you here in Abruzzo and gladly exchange some culinary notions with Polish specialties, we will be ready to toast with your alcohol and we will let you try our gentian, you are welcome and do not listen to those who threaten you with death, they are just miserable.
We wish you well, come on, we believe in you!
A hug.
I thank Pasquale Monniello for the help and company in writing the article
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