Cyberpunk 2077 Review | Cluttered and Messy

Disappointing to say the least

After going through several controversies, whether that be Industry Crunch or three official delays, we still have somehow accepted Cyberpunk 2077 as one of this decade’s most anticipated games. The game was first revealed to the public in 2013, after which it had seven years of serious development phase in which we saw numerous trailers, announcements, and gameplay. I still remember the day it was first announced, and subsequent to finishing The Witcher 3, this was undoubtedly the most heroic game I looked forward to. Sadly it has not turned out according to my desires; it’s conflicting and completely dull in loads of space. But still, knowing It’s a CD Projekt Title, I had to go through all sorts of things and complete the game.

Quick Information
  • Developer: CD PROJEKT RED
  • Publisher: CD PROJEKT RED
  • Release Date: December 10, 2020
  • Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, PC
  • Tested On: Ryzen 3600x with 1080 Ti on 1920×10800 Resolution

Pictures Taken on Cyberpunk 2077 Reshade: How To Use Reshade In Cyberpunk 2077 | Step-by-Step Guide

Story And Plot

Cyberpunk 2077 will take you on a long quest and connect you in its nerve-wracking story that’s motivating at the start, emotional in the middle, and havoc in the end. “

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Casual talk with Johnny Silverhand.

Cyberpunk 2077 focuses on the story of V and his friend Jackie Wells. V is given a unisex name; players can customize him to all sorts of extent and change his sexual orientation. Beginning the game, you can have three diverse backstories, and the accompanying interactivity naturally varies, relying upon how you start. The whole story of Cyberpunk 2077 follows Jacki Wells, V, and Johnny Silverhand, who is played by Keanu Reeves. The game doesn’t hop straightforwardly into various spaces; there is consistently a foundation and subtleties that you can either skirt through decisions, or If you are intrigued, you can find out about them from everyone. Jackie and V meet outside Night City in a desert, where V helps him smuggle Items, and they both somehow become friends. Jackie’s character is very noteworthy, and frankly, he was the solitary intriguing character and had some foundation. There are vast loads of characters in the game, a considerable lot of them aren’t intriguing, and unfortunately, the greater part of them just showed up once.

When I first started out playing the game, I was impressed with the number of choices available across all narratives. However, I later realized that nearly all of them are useless and somehow spin back to the only available option. The main motive behind such a feature was clearly to help players get more ideas about whatever they were dealing with. There were still some dialogues that potentially had a little bit of impact. But, I choose none of them because they always put V into such an uncomfortable position, and Knowing that only a few change the dynamics of the story, all choices felt unnecessary.

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Jackie Welles and T.Bug.

The direct narrative was something I wouldn’t appreciate. Initially, the game tosses such a great amount of stuff into every mission; they become somewhat muddled. In addition to that, I abhorred how fast-paced the entire story was right from the beginning. As I entered Night City and began my first mission, I felt everything was rushed. There is narrative coming out left and right from people who I don’t have the slightest idea about. The first few mission are also just thrown at you; there is no background of whatever is happening, and being honest, If I had to conclude it, I’d say it made me look like a sheep just going through the guidelines.

Nonetheless, the overall story was good at the end, it was worth it, and despite all the troublesome problems, which weren’t something I expected, I might just go back and try different endings. My take on the story is that, although it does not start with any pure motive or interest, the later stages, where Johnny Silverhand comes into play are altogether better with wonderful goals that compensate for the awful focuses.

Gameplay And Combat

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Combat.

Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay is immense; there are countless things you will explore and discover profundities of details that you wouldn’t normally expect. Beginning with V himself, you can alter body parts, work out different cerebrum factors, and even connect Cyberware, which are uncommon body segments that can be bought from the bootleg market. Other than this, there is this beautiful flat of V, which has a separate gun room, interactive computer, several posters, and a futuristic interior with a small bed on which V sleeps weirdly. Outside of this, Night City has six regions that are likewise filled with all sorts of shops where you will find additional components. The game also has futuristic cars that can be parked, called with a button, and purchased. On the off chance that you’re not keen on these, you can likewise stroll down the street, have a boxing match, complete hits for the cops, sometimes hack things around you, unlock skills, and also find lustful ways in the bar. If all these things still do not satisfy you, just head up to a kiosk and fast travel to any point on the map.

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Crafting.

With such a substantial amount of details and options, there are many unnecessary things as well. Firstly, the entire customization thing you go through at the start is impressive, but nothing more. I’d have rather seen muscles, chest, and more bodily options other than genetic features and countless eyes or lips options that didn’t feel any game-changing. In like manner, the skill system also has its flaws. Unlike the Assassins Creed Skill Sets or Fallout Perks, the options are all boring. Things like armor increase, speed, and resistance aren’t any impactful. They do not attract you towards themselves, and honestly, if other players have the same opinion as me, there is a good amount of players base not caring about them. Night City itself is huge, the maps are filled with icons, and like The Witcher 3, CD Projekt has nowhere worked on the HUD; it’s filled with icons, the map is way too dark, and I’m not sure if it’s easy to understand, or perhaps I haven’t played the game enough.

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Calling Cyberpunk 2077 Open World is fairly alright, however up until this point, it has not lived up to my desires. Like I said, Night City is vast, but it nowhere convinces you to explore the depths and have fun driving around. There are a few reasons why I felt this; firstly, the driving mechanics are mediocre at best, cars are buggy, bikes can go 360 in an instant, and the surrounding AI cars are some of the worst you can imagine. There is no such thing as AI to be precise, the vehicles do not stop if you stand in front of them; most importantly, the NPC’s inside the cars aren’t moving the steerings. Suppose you park the car in front of it, nobody honks, and a whole influx of vehicles will wait for you to remove it. Another reason why the open world didn’t feel good was also to do with restrictions on abilities and general perception of Night City. Unlike GTA, where you can have a go at cops once in a while, drive around, tease people, it’s quite hard to do in Night City. The cops spawn automatically one meter behind you, and afterward, they only keep on multiplying. Suppose you kill one of them, the stars ultimately go up, and more cops spawn each second. Here is a picture of how many cops spawned close to me in five seconds.

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Inescapable Cops.

In addition to all this, CD Projekt lied when they said they would make 1000 unique NPC’s with different behaviors; from what I’ve seen, the NPC’s aren’t engaging. They will tell you irrelevant and repetitive things. If you hang around the bar or talk with someone, no conversations like Red Dead Redemption 2 strike up, they keep saying the same things. Their narrative also feels irrelevant because you cannot hear your own protagonist’s voice. Similarly, Unlike other open-world games where if you run into someone, they get annoyed. In Cyberpunk 2077, you are likely to go through inside them or stop instantly as if you crashed into a wall. The cars are one of the worst you would see in an open-world game. The Majority of the time, they do not render; if they do, nobody is sitting inside the car. NPC’s fundamental interactivity is really poor, which ultimately kills the overall meta of an open world. Night City itself is beautiful in some parts, but for an open-world game, it features a repetitive design with countless buildings, roads, and unnecessary Ads that are all over the place

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Night City.

Although there were complaints that Night City felt empty, thankfully, CD Projekt has implemented a toggle option that can change NPCs’ density. I’m not sure about the NPC Density in Xbox One, but on PC, it’s fine; if you change it to high, the performance impact is very noticeable.

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Glowing Blue Light matches perfectly with the gun.

Combat was rather impressive, and It felt somewhat improvement, which was necessary, considering CD Projekt had entirely messed it up in The Witcher 3. The game has lots of guns, literally a lot; I haven’t counted them yet, but they must be above 50 easily. A ton of the firearms are modern and futuristic, they all feel different, and their main theme is Damage Per Second (DPS), which resonates with each weapon. You can always go with the Stealth option in Cyberpunk 2077, kill multiple enemies from behind, and go on without killing anyone. Enemies have huge hit points, and V’s backpack allows him to pick all sorts of weapons and then store them in his flat storage, ultimately expanding options for further crafting and change.

Graphics And Optimization

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Outskirts of Night City.

Cyberpunk 2077 is beautiful and as futuristic as you can imagine, but it comes with several limitations. When I first launched the game, I enjoyed the graphics of the desert; there was a bit of vibrance with all sorts of different places. However, that’s not the case with Night City. All architecture is in the same color, the graphics of the city are dull; if you aren’t using Ray Tracing, there is nothing special about it. Customarily, you will discover the daylight to be fake, and the game is too yellowish and bright in a ton of scenarios. I tried to improve the graphics by looking at video settings, but to my surprise, they were already maxed out, and changing any settings didn’t make a noticeable difference. The optimization is also below-average; I was getting below 60 FPS on Ryzen 3600x with 1080 Ti on 1920×10800 Resolution. Luckily we tested it on PC, so it was to some degree playable. Other colleagues of ours have noticed it is nowhere playable on Xbox One/PS4. In my opinion, optimization will improve, but what’s alarming is that the graphics are nowhere good for a 2020 and, in particular, CD Projekt title. I might change my thoughts on testing it with a Ray Tracing card, but again, this is no excuse, and so far, Night City has been inconsistent for me.

Specifications Used To Test Cyberpunk 2077

  • AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
  • 16.0GB 3600 Mhz Corsair RGB Pro Ram
  • 256 GB M2
  • GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Review Graphics Settings.

Preset – High and Medium with Nvidia Ansel

  • FPS In Dense Areas: 30-40
  • Average FPS: 50
  • Max FPS: 80
  • GPU Usage: 95%
  • CPU Usage: 44% at 4175 Mhz
  • Ram Utilization: 9359 MB at Average (9.3GB)

So What Is Cyberpunk 2077 Then?

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Johnny Silverhand.

Cyberpunk 2077 is undoubtedly not an open-world game; it lacks all the fundamental and necessary features. Similarly, the core mechanics or RPG aren’t exciting and worthwhile. The only genre where it would fit well is Action Adventure. The story is outstanding if you pay attention to all details and devote the necessary time to give it a chance. The narrative and writing are without a doubt special, but it comes with limitations, sometimes a lot of details are simply thrown at you, and often there will be no background to important things. If you plan on buying Cyberpunk 2077, there are few things you should keep in mind. Firstly, the game is filled with bugs, which, ironically, many people think will go away, but this isn’t Mario, fixing the smallest of things requires a complete revamp that ultimately comes with a price of huge downloads. Besides, the system requirements accessible on the official page are clearly false. The game nowhere runs properly on GTX 1060 and fourth-generation Core i7 4790, so having an ultimately expensive and powerful PC is your only choice. It’s best for console users to wait for the next-gen version because reports suggest it runs at 25 or 30 FPS at best on Xbox One/PS4.

Verdict

Cyberpunk 2077 will take you on a long journey and connect you in its nerve-wracking story, but that’s about it. It’s Open-World RPG Mechanics are mediocre at best, there are a lot of uninspiring elements in the game, and to top it off, It has incalculable bugs that are hard to imagine will ever be fixed. Similarly, it’s optimization, and system requirements are only there to misguide people. Cyberpunk 2077 was clearly not ready, and our conclusion of the entire guide would be that If you aren’t on PC Using RTX Graphics Card and you aren’t willing to sacrifice the excellent story with its bugs, then don’t play it. I had to play this game for the sake of review, and sadly, there were almost two important missions which I missed due to bugs because the camera wouldn’t focus on the thing and it showed me this car park all the time. Also, not to mention the countless hours wasted because of restarting the game to stop the bugs.

Cyberpunk 2077 Review
Bugged Mission.

The Good

  • One of the best-written games.
  • Photo Mode is madness and well worked.
  • Incredible Art and Cinematics.
  • The story is long, emotional, motivating, and havoc.
  • Night City looks next-gen but only on RTX Graphics Cards.
  • First Person Combat is pure excellence.
  • Johnny Silverhand is enticing and brilliantly worked.
  • Although Radio felt nothing special, the music, on the other hand, was joyful.
  • Side quests are unique and contribute in their manners to the main story.

The Bad

  • Only several characters have some background and are likable.
  • Poor Optimization, Even our GTX 1080 TI and Ryzen 3600x couldn’t run it properly on 1080p.
  • The graphics are super inconsistent; during the day, they look terrible, and at night they are significantly better.
  • The majority of RPG Mechanics are meaningless.
  • Open-World meta is not there.
  • HUD could have been simpler. It’s tough to understand.
  • AI is completely broken.
  • The environment lacks interactivity.
  • NPC’s are boring and irrelevent.
  • I reviewed the game again after the latest PC Patch, but bugs are still encountered every second. They are way too much.
  • Apart from the main story, I found nothing more enjoyable in Night City.

Cyberpunk 2077 Rating – 3/5

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Moiz Banoori is the brains behind eXputer. Having worked at various Video Game sites, with 8 years of Content Writing Experience and a Journalism Degree at hand, he presently monitors teams, creates strategies, and publishes qualified pieces through his aptitude at eXputer. Feel free to get in touch with him through his gaming profile on Steam and PSN.

Experience: 8+ Years || Manages Teams, Creates Strategies, and Publishes Guides on eXputer || Education: Bachelors in Journalism.

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