**The Experience of Cyberpunk 2077: A Mixed Bag of Pros and Cons**

Cyberpunk 2077 is an experience that is difficult to pin down. On one hand, it tries to do so much and throws a lot at you, which can make it feel overwhelming and hard to know what to focus on at any given moment. The game's main storyline is the highlight of the experience for completionists, but even then, it's not without its issues. For instance, new jobs pop up and step on each other, side quests sometimes bomb, and random messages or calls are very frequent. This can make it tough to know what job or quest is being updated in the background.

On the other hand, for those who ignore all the side quests and try to mainline the story, there's a more cohesive narrative that's filled with enough surprising twists to keep you guessing and chasing. Ultimately, you are juggling three main progress trackers: one of which is tied to activities called street cred. The first-person shooting can be pretty solid, but melee weapons or just fist fighting haven't been as enjoyable for the narrator.

The storyline itself is a holographic acid trip that has you rubbing elbows with some of the town's seediest movers and shakers. You'll make temporary allies and enemies, and never really know who to trust. And then, of course, there's Keanu Reeves, who has been perfectly suited for his role in the game. However, when you're not following up on the main objectives, Cyberpunk's side story offerings have left the narrator wanting more.

When opening up the map, you'll see more icons and try to wrap your head around them. But the narrator feels that it's deceiving compared to how much there truly is to do in Night City. The game does a great job of creating a densely detailed cyberpunk setting, but sometimes it can even feel emotionally kind of empty.

It's worth noting that the narrator is only under 25 hours into the game and has yet to experience some of its more advanced features. For instance, introduced halfway through is something called a brain dance, which lets you scrub through a recorded event and examine different layers of details like sound sources, visual clues, and more. It's kind of like a VR detective mode.

The gameplay itself follows a similar implementation of the neon noir pacing seen in Blade Runner movies. A lot of it is spent in conversation, which will take up a substantial chunk of your time. However, at this point in the game, it's tough to know how much of an impact dialogue choices have made overall. Only a few times have the narrator noticed a virtual fork in the road.

**Technical Notes**

It's worth noting that Cyberpunk 2077 is available on PC, which from a fidelity standpoint, is going to be the place to play it out of the gate, especially if you have the hardware. However, the game will only work on PS5 and Series X with backwards compatibility, and there may even be slight improvements for those who own a next-gen console. CD Projekt Red has stated that a true next-gen upgrade for the game is coming later, but no date has been announced.

**Conclusion**

As the narrator finishes up this article, they're eager to keep the conversation going on Twitter or in the comment section below. They want to hear from others about their experiences with Cyberpunk 2077 and how it's affected them. The game may not be perfect, but its unique blend of gameplay mechanics and setting has made for an enjoyable experience so far.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhow do you even begin to unpack cyberpunk 2077 i mean this is a game that's been hyped for so many years that it already has tremendous shoes to fill and to be perfectly honest that's kind of not fair so putting all the hype aside does cyberpunk deliver well in some ways yes and unfortunately in other ways not so much cyberpunk 2077 is impossible to ignore and is organically interesting by nature of its amazing location and the world it has created such a futuristic circus that you can't look away and it's forcing me to keep playing simply because i'm genuinely curious of what i'll see next but does that make it good i think so at its core it's a familiar open world first person rpg that front loads a ton of systems and mechanics it tries to do so much so quickly that a lot of my time has been spent working through what everything does and figuring out if it matters there's a dizzying amount of hacking and body modification cyberware systems to explore layered skill trees and perks crafting and even more but all of these ultra ambitious aspirations and spectacle results in a chaotic experience that has its fair share of glitches and can sometimes be downright clunky so real quick before we go deeper we're posting my impressions video now because today's embargo lifts the curtain on all custom captured footage everything you see here was captured by me on an nzxt machine running an nvidia rtx 3080 in 4k with ray tracing and quality settings pretty much maxed out and performance wise that gpu combined with this game is legit and at times absolutely jaw-dropping i ran into a little bit of wonkiness every time i tried to view my character in a mirror but other than that everything looks fantastic the lighting the colors the painstaking amount of detail in night city is nothing short of remarkable it's going to blow you away you are bombarded with neon soaked eye candy from every angle and in my 20 hours of playing so far i'm still seeing new areas that are completely different from the next all meticulously designed and crafted there is a very specific vision for this world and cd projekt red nailed the aesthetic now i'm gonna do my best to keep it spoiler free from here on out but just a warning that some of the plot will be discussed and i'll also be talking a tiny bit about keanu so heads up in my 20 hours or so that i've played so far i've already had a couple bugs where i'm forced to just reload a save thankfully auto saves are generously abundant i've also seen a ton of weirdness like floating objects and characters gliding around instead of walking enemies warping around in weird patterns dialogue stems playing over each other and just some general weird character model behavior from being honest the whole thing feels a little undercooked and it's just something you gotta know going in cd projekt red says there will be another patch at launch but i just don't know how they're gonna catch everything and to be perfectly fair open world rpg jank is not exclusive to this game it affects a lot of these massive titles but beyond all of the hiccups what we have here is a very familiar first person open world rpg loop built inside a setting that is undoubtedly the star of the show night city is wild and let's be honest it's super horny like almost to the point where you can't look away from someone or something trying to bang the character builder is well it's thorough and it wasn't long before i was wishing that this game was presented in third person and the more time i spend with it the more i wish i had that option first person shooting is a huge part of the game but not being able to see my character on screen is definitely a bummer at the very beginning cyberpunk gives you the option to start as one of three different personas a nomad street kid or a corpo the last one is the character i chose to sort of kick things off with a unique prologue it doesn't take long before you're merged onto that same storyline track that's going to drive the rest of the game but your character choice does come back into play giving you specific dialogue options and insight into certain plot points so for instance my corpo background means that i escaped and left the cd corporation world behind but i still carry the knowledge of that previous life with me as i go there is a seriously dense amount of managing that you can do in this game and you're going to be tempted to loot and collect almost everything you see but for all the shiny objects that are scattered around the world you start to realize that most of these things are extracurricular and don't really require your full attention for players who want to get lost in the minutia of choosing which sneakers are going to provide the most amount of stealth ability and armor all that's there for you don't worry about that and for those that just want to pay surface level attention to those kinds of details there's no major disadvantage to neglecting that kind of granularity so for example there is an expansive hacking system built into the game which costs you hardware points as you execute different attacks you gain experience and can grow your expertise in the discipline but rarely have i felt underpowered in a situation then of course is the cyberware system which allows for body modification of everything from improved optics to upgraded bone composition the list goes on it's really an exciting idea and you can spend hours visiting ripper docks to install these body mods but so far i haven't felt a lot of pressure from the game to seek that out but that's what's cool right i mean you can choose to invest time into discovering what interests you and what's buried inside these systems and really decide how you want to dedicate your play but as an overall experience cyberpunk sometimes fumbles its moment-to-moment flow the problem is that it tries to do so much and throws so much at you at any given moment that it can feel like you or your character don't really have a firm grasp of what you're trying to accomplish new jobs pop up and step on each other side quests sometimes bomb the screen at strange moments and random messages or calls are very frequent it makes it tough to know what job or quest is being updated in the background now for completionists you're going to be spending a long time in the journal menus tracking everything down but at least that's probably familiar territory now if you ignore all the side quests and try to mainline the story there's a more cohesive narrative that's filled with enough surprising twists to keep you guessing and chasing ultimately you are juggling three main progress trackers one of which is tied to activities called street cred earlier i mentioned how i really like a third person option for this game but i have found the first person shooting to be pretty solid you can also wield melee weapons or just fist fight but i haven't really been enjoying that as much just like night city the storyline is a holographic acid trip that has you rubbing elbows with some of the town's seediest movers and shakers you'll make temporary allies and enemies and never really know who to trust and then of course there's keanu reeves who i gotta admit i was really on the fence about but a how can you ever be mad at keanu reeves and b i think the way he's implemented in the game is super smart the character is perfectly suited for him that part is great but when you're not following up on the main objectives cyberpunk's side story offerings have left me wanting more by comparison there's fetch quests and criminal encounters and generic jobs for hire but a truly engrossing sub-story arc has so far been tough to find you open up the map and you'll see more icons and you can wrap your head around but i'm getting the feeling it's deceiving compared to how much there truly is to do in night city and to that point while the game does a great job of creating a densely detailed cyberpunk setting sometimes a screenshot can say more about the personality of a place than walking around and it can sometimes this futuristic metropolis can even feel emotionally kind of empty again let me let me stress that i'm under 25 hours in this game and the main story quests have been the highlight so far hands down about halfway through i was introduced to something called a brain dance and that's been a really satisfying mechanic that lets you scrub through a recorded event and examine different layers of details like sound sources visual clues and more it's kind of like a vr detective mode by now we're all familiar with that cyberpunk motif it's not exactly the cult genre it used to be and 2077 follows a similar implementation of the neon noir pacing like we've seen in the blade runner movies a lot of it is spent in conversation and it's going to take up a substantial chunk of your time at my point in the game though it's tough to know how much of an impact my dialogue choices have made overall and only a few times have i noticed a virtual fork in the road i've been playing cyberpunk for less than a week and i know there's a long way to go anyone who's finished it at this point has not slept in six days but i'd be lying if i said i wasn't enjoying the moment-to-moment spectacle of it all so yeah there's a lot of bugs and it seems like you know this game is sometimes fighting itself to tell you something but it's so damn weird and fun to look at that i can see beyond the things that it doesn't do so well are you gonna have the same reaction to this game maybe not now just a few things to keep in mind before i go here i am playing this on the pc which from a fidelity standpoint is going to be the place to play it out of the gate especially if you have the hardware it's only going to work on ps5 and series x with backwards compatibility so you might see some slight improvements but cd projekt red has said a true next-gen upgrade for the game will be coming later on and we don't even have a date for that we're also not even sure that's going to be 2021 anyway that's gonna do it for me please reach out on twitter to keep the conversation going or let me know your thoughts on the game because it's pretty much out right now in the comment section below i'm gonna keep playing this thing stay safe everyone happy holidays and thanks for watchinghow do you even begin to unpack cyberpunk 2077 i mean this is a game that's been hyped for so many years that it already has tremendous shoes to fill and to be perfectly honest that's kind of not fair so putting all the hype aside does cyberpunk deliver well in some ways yes and unfortunately in other ways not so much cyberpunk 2077 is impossible to ignore and is organically interesting by nature of its amazing location and the world it has created such a futuristic circus that you can't look away and it's forcing me to keep playing simply because i'm genuinely curious of what i'll see next but does that make it good i think so at its core it's a familiar open world first person rpg that front loads a ton of systems and mechanics it tries to do so much so quickly that a lot of my time has been spent working through what everything does and figuring out if it matters there's a dizzying amount of hacking and body modification cyberware systems to explore layered skill trees and perks crafting and even more but all of these ultra ambitious aspirations and spectacle results in a chaotic experience that has its fair share of glitches and can sometimes be downright clunky so real quick before we go deeper we're posting my impressions video now because today's embargo lifts the curtain on all custom captured footage everything you see here was captured by me on an nzxt machine running an nvidia rtx 3080 in 4k with ray tracing and quality settings pretty much maxed out and performance wise that gpu combined with this game is legit and at times absolutely jaw-dropping i ran into a little bit of wonkiness every time i tried to view my character in a mirror but other than that everything looks fantastic the lighting the colors the painstaking amount of detail in night city is nothing short of remarkable it's going to blow you away you are bombarded with neon soaked eye candy from every angle and in my 20 hours of playing so far i'm still seeing new areas that are completely different from the next all meticulously designed and crafted there is a very specific vision for this world and cd projekt red nailed the aesthetic now i'm gonna do my best to keep it spoiler free from here on out but just a warning that some of the plot will be discussed and i'll also be talking a tiny bit about keanu so heads up in my 20 hours or so that i've played so far i've already had a couple bugs where i'm forced to just reload a save thankfully auto saves are generously abundant i've also seen a ton of weirdness like floating objects and characters gliding around instead of walking enemies warping around in weird patterns dialogue stems playing over each other and just some general weird character model behavior from being honest the whole thing feels a little undercooked and it's just something you gotta know going in cd projekt red says there will be another patch at launch but i just don't know how they're gonna catch everything and to be perfectly fair open world rpg jank is not exclusive to this game it affects a lot of these massive titles but beyond all of the hiccups what we have here is a very familiar first person open world rpg loop built inside a setting that is undoubtedly the star of the show night city is wild and let's be honest it's super horny like almost to the point where you can't look away from someone or something trying to bang the character builder is well it's thorough and it wasn't long before i was wishing that this game was presented in third person and the more time i spend with it the more i wish i had that option first person shooting is a huge part of the game but not being able to see my character on screen is definitely a bummer at the very beginning cyberpunk gives you the option to start as one of three different personas a nomad street kid or a corpo the last one is the character i chose to sort of kick things off with a unique prologue it doesn't take long before you're merged onto that same storyline track that's going to drive the rest of the game but your character choice does come back into play giving you specific dialogue options and insight into certain plot points so for instance my corpo background means that i escaped and left the cd corporation world behind but i still carry the knowledge of that previous life with me as i go there is a seriously dense amount of managing that you can do in this game and you're going to be tempted to loot and collect almost everything you see but for all the shiny objects that are scattered around the world you start to realize that most of these things are extracurricular and don't really require your full attention for players who want to get lost in the minutia of choosing which sneakers are going to provide the most amount of stealth ability and armor all that's there for you don't worry about that and for those that just want to pay surface level attention to those kinds of details there's no major disadvantage to neglecting that kind of granularity so for example there is an expansive hacking system built into the game which costs you hardware points as you execute different attacks you gain experience and can grow your expertise in the discipline but rarely have i felt underpowered in a situation then of course is the cyberware system which allows for body modification of everything from improved optics to upgraded bone composition the list goes on it's really an exciting idea and you can spend hours visiting ripper docks to install these body mods but so far i haven't felt a lot of pressure from the game to seek that out but that's what's cool right i mean you can choose to invest time into discovering what interests you and what's buried inside these systems and really decide how you want to dedicate your play but as an overall experience cyberpunk sometimes fumbles its moment-to-moment flow the problem is that it tries to do so much and throws so much at you at any given moment that it can feel like you or your character don't really have a firm grasp of what you're trying to accomplish new jobs pop up and step on each other side quests sometimes bomb the screen at strange moments and random messages or calls are very frequent it makes it tough to know what job or quest is being updated in the background now for completionists you're going to be spending a long time in the journal menus tracking everything down but at least that's probably familiar territory now if you ignore all the side quests and try to mainline the story there's a more cohesive narrative that's filled with enough surprising twists to keep you guessing and chasing ultimately you are juggling three main progress trackers one of which is tied to activities called street cred earlier i mentioned how i really like a third person option for this game but i have found the first person shooting to be pretty solid you can also wield melee weapons or just fist fight but i haven't really been enjoying that as much just like night city the storyline is a holographic acid trip that has you rubbing elbows with some of the town's seediest movers and shakers you'll make temporary allies and enemies and never really know who to trust and then of course there's keanu reeves who i gotta admit i was really on the fence about but a how can you ever be mad at keanu reeves and b i think the way he's implemented in the game is super smart the character is perfectly suited for him that part is great but when you're not following up on the main objectives cyberpunk's side story offerings have left me wanting more by comparison there's fetch quests and criminal encounters and generic jobs for hire but a truly engrossing sub-story arc has so far been tough to find you open up the map and you'll see more icons and you can wrap your head around but i'm getting the feeling it's deceiving compared to how much there truly is to do in night city and to that point while the game does a great job of creating a densely detailed cyberpunk setting sometimes a screenshot can say more about the personality of a place than walking around and it can sometimes this futuristic metropolis can even feel emotionally kind of empty again let me let me stress that i'm under 25 hours in this game and the main story quests have been the highlight so far hands down about halfway through i was introduced to something called a brain dance and that's been a really satisfying mechanic that lets you scrub through a recorded event and examine different layers of details like sound sources visual clues and more it's kind of like a vr detective mode by now we're all familiar with that cyberpunk motif it's not exactly the cult genre it used to be and 2077 follows a similar implementation of the neon noir pacing like we've seen in the blade runner movies a lot of it is spent in conversation and it's going to take up a substantial chunk of your time at my point in the game though it's tough to know how much of an impact my dialogue choices have made overall and only a few times have i noticed a virtual fork in the road i've been playing cyberpunk for less than a week and i know there's a long way to go anyone who's finished it at this point has not slept in six days but i'd be lying if i said i wasn't enjoying the moment-to-moment spectacle of it all so yeah there's a lot of bugs and it seems like you know this game is sometimes fighting itself to tell you something but it's so damn weird and fun to look at that i can see beyond the things that it doesn't do so well are you gonna have the same reaction to this game maybe not now just a few things to keep in mind before i go here i am playing this on the pc which from a fidelity standpoint is going to be the place to play it out of the gate especially if you have the hardware it's only going to work on ps5 and series x with backwards compatibility so you might see some slight improvements but cd projekt red has said a true next-gen upgrade for the game will be coming later on and we don't even have a date for that we're also not even sure that's going to be 2021 anyway that's gonna do it for me please reach out on twitter to keep the conversation going or let me know your thoughts on the game because it's pretty much out right now in the comment section below i'm gonna keep playing this thing stay safe everyone happy holidays and thanks for watching\n"