I’m a little late to the fandom, but I eventually got myself a copy of Cyberpunk 2077. It was always one of those games I wanted to try, but never really had the chance to till recently. In Cyberpunk you live in Nightcity, a place filled with people mixed with various cybernetics and all kinds of allegiances. Our story stars V, a merc with big ambitions; however, a job goes south fast, and V ends up with a relic stuck inside his head with the mind of the legendary Johnny Silverhand. The relic is slowly killing him, and he needs to find a way to get rid of it before his time runs out. Also for readers to know, I did not play this game during the days it was bugged so I don’t have that experience to pull from in this review.

Now, looking at the story of the game, it’s not as straightforward as most titles. The story is not linear at all, as you have a lot of mandatory quests with their own story that you can pick and choose the order in which you do them. Additionally, you have a myriad of side gigs and other tasks to do that really show how massive Night City is. The city is vast and has an overwhelming amount of lore. It’s also full of characters who are complex and very likable. If you were to take the story and just focus on the stuff you have to do to complete it, then you have a great tale. Then you add all the side stuff, and you have an incredibly good story as the stuff on the side builds upon everything you have to experience to beat the game.

I also love how much fun the side quests are. A lot of games do stuff on the side that feels more like busy work, but here it feels like all of the quests serve some purpose. You build your relationships with other characters, resolve conflicts within the city, and side quests build on each other and continue based on the choices you make. So the stuff on the side is just as massive and important as the overall main story.

You also have very important decisions to make. These decisions are not easy, as there’s no clear right or wrong answer. You’re constantly making seemingly impossible choices that will either temporarily or permanently affect aspects of your relationships with other characters, the city, or even cause characters to die. I spent a lot of time really thinking hard about choices, as there’s no stereotypical hero in Night City. There’s just everyone trying to survive as best as they can, so you really can’t trust anyone. I really liked the complexity of making these decisions, as the lack of a clear choice made me really stop and think about what kind of character I wanted to be in this game.

The dynamic of V and Johnny is a lot of fun to explore. The two of them clearly have an influence on each other as Johnny is very much a guns-blazing type of character, while V is more down-to-earth and empathetic. The two eventually start to see more eye-to-eye as the story goes on, and it was a fun process to see as Johnny slowly opens up more and more as this happens.

Gameplay is a lot of fun too. It’s a first-person shooter where you use a myriad of weapons, but also cybernetics. You can hack into machines, enemies, vehicles, and more to play the game however you like. Do you want to focus on using weapons? Maybe you prefer a stealthy approach? Maybe you prefer to use hacks and clever plans. The gameplay allows you to customize V to fit the experience you want to have.

The story also features several different endings, and what I like is how you’re not locked into specific ones halfway through the game. This game is massive, and I mean very massive. So to have to go through all of that again for subsequent endings would be a massive undertaking. While fun, it’s also not something I can really spend time doing with my own schedule. So I like how the endings are determined by the decisions you make at the very end, and you can go back and revisit those decisions anytime to see other endings.

The only real complaint I have about this game is the driving. Driving is very challenging, and sometimes I would fail missions because I would try to turn, and my car would spin uncontrollably. I eventually got used to the driving mechanics, but the way they are done yields an unnecessary extra challenge to the game.

Overall, Cyberpunk is an overwhelmingly massive game full of main and side quests with incredible complexity. The gameplay allows you to customize your experience however you see fit. The story has several endings that you can explore without having to replay the entire game to see them, but if you do want to replay the game, you have so many decisions to make that you can play an entirely different experience each time. The only real flaw I can see in this game is the driving, which is tedious and a bit of a struggle at times. Though in a game as massive as this, having that as the only flaw I can think of is rather impressive.