Well lets be honest its really not okay, but things are turning around. Cyberpunk 2077 has been out for a little over a month and a half now and there has been a roller coaster of positive and negative feedback in response to the games launch. Frankly last gen console owners got the short end of the stick on this one. Thankfully, CDPR has been very transparent about the string of events that took place leading to the games launch, and what they plan to do to regain their fans’ trust. They have been steadily releasing patches and updates, some that have been improving the game while simultaneously unveiling other bugs. At this point, the state of game is still pretty broken on consoles but solid and buggy on PC and yet it is still one of the most highest selling video games of all time. After putting over 200+ hours into the game, I can honestly say it is one of my favorite games of all time, even with the annoying bugs and glitches that plague the game. Here is my experience with Cyberpunk 2077.
The Performance Struggle
Now I can only speak for my experience playing on PC but at first I had some big performance issues. I am running a RTX 2070 Super graphics card, which isn’t the highest performance card out there, but my computer still struggled running the game. By default the game ran at ultra specs with ray tracing on and this slowed the game performance down tremendously. I had to tinker with the settings and was forced to turn of all ray tracing features and turn on DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) in performance mode in order to run the game with steady frame rates. With the set up finished I was super concerned for everyone who didn’t have a high spec graphics card because I knew it was going to have issues running the moment I started up the game. Frankly, it was shocking to get such a weird combo of insane graphics and polished detail in game and yet have texture loading issues, low frame rates, and game glitches all happening simultaneously.
The Glass Half Empty
While most of the game functioned normally, it regularly had glitches and bugs which caused the game to have random and erratic moments in and out of main story missions. In some rare cases I even had to reload my saves just to reset dialogue options or phone call glitches that were stuck. Most were not too bad, however, there were some that were downright awful no matter what I changed in the settings. Things like NPCs and cars not loading textures properly, characters going through walls and environments, duplicate pedestrians walking by each other, and cars randomly flying through the streets, etc. The list goes on and on. See slideshow below for some examples.
The Glass Half Full
Thankfully its not all bad, when the game worked properly, it was incredible and there are so many cool things dive into. Firstly, one of the coolest things was the character creator. It allows you to customize pretty much everything on your character even down to V’s privates. Having these options seems kind of unnecessary since its a FPS and normally you can’t look at yourself or even look downwards enough to even see your own body, however, the game features these mirror sections where you are allowed to look at yourself. You can even see yourself completely nude when customizing your character in the inventory menu should you choose. Besides the cool editor, the game is riddled with pockets of awesome backstory and engaging side quests. As well CDPR did an awesome job weaving in epic easter eggs into the game. In one side quest a nod is given to the popular comedy show “The Office” where the NPC you save shares a shockingly similar backstory to Hidetoshi from the show. Another incredible easter egg I found was the infant device from the game Death Stranding.
Again, when the game works, Cyberpunk 2077 is a masterpiece of game design and the character interactions are really top notch. Throughout the game V meets funny and shady NPCs that offer all kinds of interesting jobs. However, I did want to take a moment to highlight the amazing accomplishment of true immersion when V is connecting with specific romance partners. One particular quest titled “Pyramid Song” stood out to me the most. In this mission V is called by a friend and potential love interest Judy to test out some new “brain dance” technology to sync two people’s memories and experience them together. To do this Judy invites V to an old toxic lake where her hometown used to be.
(***Spoiler Alert – Mission Conclusion***)
Through this mission you see a real tragic and non cybernetic side of the world and this break away from the neon city was perfect. V is sharing chemistry with Judy as she reveals to her where she grew up and V can hear her memories as you interact with the underwater gallery of her past. This mission was brilliantly done and it reminded me of why I love gaming so much to begin with. I was mentally taken to another world with a character who I cared for and I got to experience this intimate connection to a NPC who chose to let my character into a deeper part of her story. Between the two characters everything felt organic, atmospheric, and real. The ending of the mission sees both Judy and V making love to one another in passionate form and leads to your decision to start a relationship with her or not. In these missions, I felt CD Projekt Red absolutely nailed the tone and presentation of the game and truly brought the world to life, which is something that doesn’t happen that often in games these days.
Closing Thoughts
In my last post about Cyberpunk 2077 I had suggested that there was a chance the game may struggle since it is trying to accomplish so much with its world and cinematic presentation. I expressed concerns for the combat and driving, since the game looked to be pushing maximum performance with all its features all at the same time. Sadly I was correct, and the final game has many bugs and glitches even on PC, and on base last gen consoles it is virtually unplayable. So many people were looking forward to this game and the last gen console owners were really the ones who lost out on getting a good quality game, at least temporarily. Again CDPR announced they have free content and stability patches coming out for console versions. It just sucks the game itself wasn’t fully polished when it came out even after multiple delays.
Cyberpunk 2077 is an unfinished masterpiece and a brilliant example of video games as an art form. Its cyber world is gritty and realistic with characters who you can imagine in real life. Sadly, its ambition to be this grand open world coupled with its technological limitations caused it to be held back overall and has left horrible impressions with many people. This is just awful because the content in the game is so rich and deep that you can get lost in its world easily and most of it is rewarding no matter what you choose to do in the game. The game has pretty much everything you can ask for, exploration, compelling characters, action, drama, and an awesome cyber city. For those of you who can run the game or play it on a solid PC please do so and enjoy it for being the fun chaotic open world game it is, flaws and all. And for those of you reading who are limited to console, please don’t count the game out just yet. I’m no spokesperson for CD Projekt Red or anything, but as a fellow gamer and lover of art this game is a must, its just a must have for the near future. If you can afford to wait a while I assure you the patience will be worth it simply because the game has such fun, crazy, and memorable moments.
Thank you so much for reading this post. Again I always appreciate your support, have a great day.
Inside A Gamer's Life 