CD Projekt Red, well known for their critically acclaimed Witcher game trilogy, released Cyberpunk 2077 on December 10, 2020 after being worked on for over ten years.
Since the day of release, the game itself has seen its share of problems– from crashes, vehicle glitches, character glitches and much more.
Despite the technical problems the game currently has, it is still a game with potential that Sci-Fi fans are sure to enjoy.
Based off of the tabletop role-playing game series Cyberpunk, the video game takes place in Night City, located in a dystopian Northern California, where a majority of the city is plagued with crimes, gang wars and is owned by corporations, many of which are corrupt in their own ways.
The player controls the character V, who can be customized in the beginning of the game, being male or female with their appearance being customized as well as including pre-setting their skills.
When starting the game, players can choose three different life paths for V, Nomad, Street Kid or Corpo, each giving them a different background and having unique interaction options throughout the story depending on the life path.
Nomad involves V entering the city as an outsider hailing from The Badlands, a desert-like area outside of Night City. Street Kid has V as a natural born citizen of the city knowing of its reputation in addition to knowledge of the gangs, people and history throughout the city with V wanting to make it big. Corpo involves V as an agent for one of the biggest Corporations known as Arasaka.
Regardless of these life paths, they all lead into the events of the main story, although each life path will have a different meaning for V and will involve their best friend in the story, Jackie Welles.
During the events after the prologue, Jackie gave V a tip involving an upcoming job where both of them infiltrate and steal data of a program called “Soulkiller” from Arasaka; however, the heist goes wrong leaving V critically injured and on the brink of death.
After surviving the events, V finds out that the “Soulkiller” hosted the consciousness of the deceased Johnny Silverhand, a figure who was known for fighting against corrupt governments and corporations before his death 50 years before the events of the games story.
Silverhand is transferred into V working as a virus with the intention to destroy V’s consciousness and taking over his body completely.
With time being of the essence for him, V must find a way to rid himself of Silverhand before it is too late, but is the latter really the bad guy in all of this?
Cyberpunk 2077 is an action RPG, where the player character will become stronger as they level up by completing quests, defeating enemies and more.
Every time the player character levels up, they are awarded skill points, which can help them gain different skills to their advantage in addition to gaining perks to enhance gameplay, even getting enhanced cybernetic weapons such as arm blades known as mantis blades.
Dialogue options can differ depending on the life path the player chooses in the beginning of the game. Certain life paths, in addition to certain actions and routes the player takes can lead to different outcomes in the story and can heavily impact the ending of the game.
Everything that happens in the game is all up to the player, giving them freedom on who they should trust, the missions they take and deciding what choices, good or bad, would be best and go through the consequences afterwards, the fates of some of the characters of the game even depend on the players actions.
The player also can have access to a large assortment of weapons, armor, vehicles and an assortment of upgrades for said items, with higher level items being found later in the game and some unique items that can only be acquired from certain points and actions of the game.
The player is also introduced to the lore behind the world of Cyberpunk, with learning the history of the city, the corporations and even the backstory of Johnny Silverhand.
Although the game has had its share of problems at release, the potential that the game delivers still makes it worth the over ten year wait.
Gamers who decide to wait on the game will be happy to know that a next gen version will release later this year.
Cyberpunk 2077 is the futuristic dystopia RPG that can make a summer’s worth of fun.
