So like many others here I got the game on launch and put it down for a long while. I was no CDPR fanboy, but I watched my (now ex) gf play Witcher 3 and figured CP2077 would be of similar quality.
I got it on the ps4. I don't often call a game unplayable but that's really the only word for what 2077 was at launch. I had a buddy over on new years and we played a drinking game where we took a shot everytime the game had a serious bug. We were plastered in an hour.
In 2022 i got my ps5 and decided to give 2077 a try again. It works, but it's still a stale dry husk of a game.
- I'm pretty much in agreement with everyone here on the story. Story is terrible, and so many parts of it feel like huge events that somehow get forgotten about. The only parts of it that feel like any care was put into them were the intro (nomad for me) and the ending.
- Cp2077 shines best when you're left to your own devices, to do your own thing. But it will constantly try to prevent that. The content that isn't linear/part of the main storylines also tends to consist of nothing but go here, shoot this, steal this etc.
- the cut features are incredibly evident. The car customization, for example, is still very obviously in game for spawning NPC cars, and a bare bones version of it has been made into a PC mod. The wall running/jetpacking etc also has very evident areas that are left over. There's a cyber psycho fight in a sewer drain area where there's very clearly platforms designed to jump and bounce off of.
- player interaction with the world is incredibly hit or miss. Obviously the "the world of night city is constantly changing" bit was a complete lie, but it goes even farther than that. Even when you're away from linear story quests, the game constantly fucks with your free will. There's a little side event in the shanty town near the dam where you join a shooting competition. If you win you get a gun, which is just laying out on a table. If you lose? Nothing. Which is fair. But you don't even have the choice to challenge again. You also can't just STEAL the gun and shoot your way out. Other times the game reacts to your presence in an area by spawning items/starting events that you're too far away from or not even looking for, and they pass and are gone. The free pickup in the desert is a prime example of this. If you just so happen to go to that area in general, not Even rhe movie set, just the area around it, the truck will spawn and Despawn forever.
- map is super underutilized. Each fixer only has a handful of quests, even in downtown. Almost none of them are iconic or interesting. The only time I ever felt like I was immersed in a bladerunner-esque cyberpunk dystopia was the parade mission. The rest felt like GTA 2077. What parts of the map aren't being use for cheap fetch quests, often just aren't used at all. There's tons of areas such as the hidden bunkers by the riverbed, the crashed freighter, the space center etc that could be great areas for quests, loot, etc but instead only have an audio log and basic pistol, or worse, are completely inaccessible.
- finally, the bugs. Even today the game is buggy as fuck. Controls are sometimes slow to react, menus lock up, etc. It's no longer gamebreaking. Just annoying. I had to once restart a quest because an inventory box I needed to access refused to work. Things like that.
Overall, Cyperpunk is a very pretty game, and it's got a good sense of scale, but it just feels like 99% of the world can't be interacted with. It's supposed to be an adventure in a cyberpunk dystopia and the whole things on rails.
Apologies if I've posted in this thread before, I can't remember
