Been playing this game for weeks. I completed it and then started a new game. The game’s story is excellent, but it absolutely does not justify the tedium it makes you endure to experience it. In a 40 minute sitting, I’d spend the entire thing simply having characters dialogue at me. What’s the point of the open world then? Car chases are scripted so that you don’t even have to fire a single shot. The enemies will just eventually blow up. 70% of dialogue choices are just for roleplay and don’t change a thing or make extremely minor changes. The combat and shootouts are mid.
Act 1 is a chore to get through on replay. There are so many touches they could have added to make it interactive. The Flathead robot mission… why not let us pilot the bot in first-person to do all the tasks, like a stealth minigame? I can think of a few games that let you do something similar. Instead, it is 20 or more steps that are essentially “look at this object and wait.”
The best part of the game for me was the middle, where the plot becomes more elaborate, evocative and the relationships with Judy, Panam, Johnny etc develop. But even there the game was navigating me through a seedy open world in order to show me glorified cutscene after cutscene. Then shootouts that were really nothing special.
Witcher 3 was dialogue heavy, nuanced and compelling. It had tedium, but I never felt like the open world was superficial or that the tedium overshadowed the rest of the game. Side tasks like Gwent or contracts were fun and absorbing. The most boring expositional bit was using Witcher sense to explore, but even then at least you were interacting with your surroundings more, not just sitting there being talked at.
Did anyone else feel this way?
Yea, this game is extremely shallow.
The two things that pissed me off:
Cars in the distance aren’t real. Get a scoped weapon and shoot they don’t react, just fade in and out.
No subway system. I was so hyped to life sim cyberpunk, get on a train like in the promotional material but nope.
Essential the set dressing is a mile wide and an inch deep. Unlike other open world games where I can see someone living a life, instead cars are boring no personality behind the ai, same with crowds.
You wanted to go down; I wanted to go up. I was so annoyed when I finally realized there’s no way up to those amazing skyscraper walkways in the downtown. Those buildings are just blocks with no entrance.
I figured that as you moved up in the world eventually that whole area would become accessible, but it’s just decoration.
I didn’t hate it. Maybe a 6.5/10 game with some cool moments. But it felt like the corners they cut would have been the coolest parts of the game.
Don’t get me started on the Megabuildings, locked off content and pesky death barriers to prevent you trying to see what they cut.
“Mile wide and inch deep” is a great way to put it.
I’m playing through the game right now, and there’s a bunch of small annoyances (like getting stuck on invisible terrain while walking/driving), but I can overlook those. But so many things are lifeless beyond the basic game mechanics.
As an example, I just bought an expensive apartment. I didn’t expect a crazy cutscene or anything, but at least the person I bought it from should have shown some kind of reaction, maybe a short dialogue. But no, nothing. I pressed the button, money was subtracted, and I can enter the elevator. The person I bought it from didn’t even look up.
Compare that to something like Baldurs Gate 3, where even small unlikely interactions have surprising amounts of interactivity. The game oozes life out of every pore.
It’s depressing that this is the final state after so many updates.
Come on, a corpo slave employee not caring when Mr moneybags buys an expensive apartment is the most cyberpunk reaction ever.
Yeah, it’s no Baldur’s Gate 3, and I do hope they learn more lessons from contemporary CRPGs, but I’d say it has other strengths. I liked the combat, and I liked the story, characters, and world-building. Open worlds in most open world games are pretty shallow, and I’d say both this and The Witcher 3 follow that same template to the same ends, but at the very least, it allows you to approach an objective how you’d like after scouting it out, which feels satisfying. It’s RPG-lite, which manifests as a pretty good action game with some story branching, and I’m not upset about that, as much as I’d prefer they lean into the RPG stuff harder.
I always felt like the game was originally never meant to be an open-world game, it’s as if they were going for a mission-to-mission corridor kind of game and wrapped up a world around it to walk around in at a later phase. And many things in the game actually reinforce that idea.
I played the game at launch and the game was absolutely infested with stupid and annoying bugs, so eventually I just skipped all side stuff and just wrapped up the main story, I think that was about half-way through. Back then the open-world most definitely felt like an afterthought.
No events were happening in the world, there were entire parts of the city that were dead and empty. There were even areas blocked off by doors that were “locked” and implied there was something behind it, but some of those places I could just clip through and fall through the world because there was literally nothing behind the door.
There were few things that made it seem like an actual living world, NPCs were just wandering aimlessly, doing nothing. Just making a cool looking area and then dropping a load of copy/paste NPC clones in there doesn’t make a good open-world. If you comitted a crime the police would just spawn behind you, wherever you were. While in contrast some of the story areas seemed more detailed and have more “scripted” things happening, which is part of why I think the game wasn’t originally open-world.
Gameplay wise it was not that special either, gunplay was okay, melee felt quite unsatisfying, and outside of combat there was practically nothing to do other than just driving around. The choices you make at the beginning of the game don’t ever felt like they mattered, like they make it appear it’s a huge backstory thing that would play a role throughout the game. Nope, after the first 15 minutes it’s never mentioned again. The whole cutscene thing with Jackie after the intro feels like it was supposed to be actual gameplay, but was just cut out and changed to a cutscene to skip time.
Also the skill tree barely mattered, there were even skills like being able to breathe underwater longer, even though there wasn’t any underwater content, aside from one Judy mission I believe (which I didn’t get because she wasn’t accessible as a romance option to my character).
The only saving grace of this game was that parts of the story and characters were somewhat interesting, I liked the concept and style of the game. But it felt like a bad game when it came to actual gameplay. And some characters barely got any time to actually become interesting enough to care about.
I’ve been trying to get back in the game a couple of times, but it often just feels so lifeless and lacks any depth.
There is no chance it wasn’t meant to be an open world. The witcher 3 was a very successful open world they made.
Also, CP77 actually is in the style of elden ring that was praised for it, but CP77 came long before it. Most critiques of CP77 missed that part because the game doesn’t throw it at your face.
exactly, it’s well known the original scope was actually TOO big and they had to scale down.
I think the “breath underwater” perk in a game with literally no missions where you need to touch water except one - where you have a divesuit anyways - is the best example of how shallow the game is.
It’s been years since that oerk isnt a thing, 2.0 overhauled most of the gameplay.
Maybe don’t throw blanket statements about a game without even checking if they are applicable anymore?
I played launch version which had it. I didn’t unlock all perks this time around. There really isn’t a major diff between launch and current when it comes to the things discussed in my post except for the insane number of bugs removed.
Tell me you haven’t dug deep into Cyberpunk 2077 without telling me you haven’t dug deep into Cyberpunk 2077.
My dude, the easter eggs have easter eggs.
easter eggs don’t make a game deep or replayable.
Depends on the easter egg though, no? Look up FF:06:B5 and see how deep is that for you.
If you have to dig that deep, then it’s probably not worth it digging (for me at least).
I haven’t played Cyberpunk, but I already felt that way about The Witcher 3, to some extent. CDPR makes nice looking games with seemingly vibrant and populated worlds, but I feel like interaction with the world and NPCs is pretty thin and boring.
Man, Witcher 3 is an amazing game and a lot of the secondary quests had a pretty alluring story. I read the books too, but the game is really great. Just the combat system is a bit tedious but apart from that the game world and the story was absolutely beautiful
I like Cyberpunk. Not as much as the Witcher 3 and I think that’s mostly because I didn’t like the npcs as much. Jackie is about the only one you have a positive relationship with and he’s gone in an instant.
I agree the main story isn’t that re-playable, though I’d say phantom liberty is worth 2 playthroughs because the endings diverge pretty heavily and actually have gameplay to go with them. I find the best way to play it is to do minnimal main story, crank up the difficulty, maybe install some mods and then play it as an rpg with all the side gigs.
My mod list: `_----Cyber Engine Tweaks----
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/107----Dependancy Mods----
RED4ext
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/2380
TWEAK-XL
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/4197
REDSCRIPT
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/1511
CODEWARE
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/7780
ARCHIVE-XL
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/4198
EQUIPMENT-EX
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/6945
MOD-SETTINGS
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/4885?tab=files&file_id=72402&nmm=1----Overhaul Mods----
Responsive NPCs
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/14800
Night City Alive
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/10395?tab=files&file_id=87729&nmm=1
Random Netrunners
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/16475----Fashion----
Immersive First Person
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/2675
Virtual Atelier
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/2987?tab=files
Virtual Atelier all clothes
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/5544?tab=description
Browser Extension
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/10038__`Installed just using Vortex Mod Manager, played on very hard and trying to pick the stats and gear that I think I would pick if I actually got isekai’d into cyberpunk or something, also no crafting guns except when home at my apartment.
Act 1 is a chore to get through on replay.
Good news is if you have the DLC you can skip the first act. The DLC start puts you in front of the Church in Pacifica after fighting Placide.
I like Cyberpunk a lot but replayability is shallow like you say. Sometimes I just boot it up to punch npcs though. Make a gorilla arms build and go ham. It’s pretty cathartic.
Replay with mods on PC
Can you recommend any mods?
My favorite is the 3rd person mod…makes the game completely different and cosmetic actually matter how they look
Honestly the fact that the game puts such an emphasis on customizing your character and then is 1st person all the way through annoyed me to no end. Thanks for the recommend, didn’t know there was a mod that changed it
Yep! The only thing is that when V talks their mouth doesn’t move.
I do notice that V’s mouth will move during the radio which is bizarre and interesting that V is the audio source of the radio
It’s a shame Jali can’t be reversed engineered to get V to speak
It can be a bit janky during platforming though and interacting with items. But with the Hyst body mod that’s not really something that’s a deal breaker
Another mod recommendation: Virtual Atelier. Thousands of customization from fan mod and you can “buy” them right on the store tablet that you can buy cars with
EDIT: IMMERSIVE FIRST PERSON. there is a mod that improves the FOV of the first person view and angles the camera to be more realistic of looking through V’s POV.
Yeah if I ever give it another go I’ll definitely check it out even if it’s a little janky. I liked the intro but after the first few missions I gave up. The POV thing was such an unreasonable thing to be a deal breaker, but I really just couldn’t get immersed after spending so much time making my character and then not seeing them as part of the world
Meta-comment:
To the people who come into point-of-view threads like this one and downvote what other people took the time to share, how about describing your own experiences instead? It would make Lemmy a nicer place to be, and might even add something of value to the discussion.
Yeah, well said!
I hope those bots agree with you too!
You know, I had heard a lot about how much Cyberpunk had improved since launch, but I still couldn’t really convince myself to try it. “Cyberpunk game made by big corporate studio” always just struck me as something of an oxymoron.
With all due respect but no indie studio can create a game of this magnitude. I mean there is a lot of work put into it. Whether it was worth it is a completely different story though.
I mean, sure, you’re not wrong. It’s just that cyberpunk as a genre is pretty strongly linked to anti-capitalist and anti-corporate themes, and I think a triple-A game published by a big corporation is not very likely to adhere to the spirit of the genre.
It’s a game inspired on a polish book made by a polish studio, which is the same company from GoG, the allegedly most ethical online game store.
I’d say that, as far as studios that can make a game this big, it’s one of the most appropriate ones for a game like this.
i agree i tried getting into this game but ultimately did not really care for it. might try again someday but i got a backlog of other stuff i want to play first
i remember at the beginning, when that guy teams up with you and hypes you up to a bunch of shit you’ll be doing, i got super excited “oh finally this game is gonna really start! fuck yeah!” and then its just a fuckin cutscene
I played both games on Xbox and i like it!Cyberpunk77 i bougth since day one had lot of bugs but for me was playable on that time even with bugs lol!I like the story mode but my expectations was more higher!For me the Witcher 3 was i had a best experience and the longivity of the game is insane!Both games are good but different styles!
