‘Cyberpunk 2077’ is Great, Actually – Why I Gave CD Projekt Red Another Chance

Cyberpunk 2077 was a mess of a game at launch, crashing and burning harder than even abject failures like Anthem or Fallout 76. The toxic marketing strategy building hype around the game was compounded by heart-rending stories about crunch culture and executive mismanagement, which steered me away from my pre-order prior to launch. And once it became clear that CD Projekt Red had not only mistreated their employees, but blatantly misled the general public through its cloistered press strategy for early review codes, I wrote a scathing assessment about why I would likely never purchase Cyberpunk 2077 — even if they managed to patch it up and regain their lost good will with Witcher fans like myself.

This article, which I decided to title, “How CD Projekt Red Squandered A Decade of Good Will,” is the sort of polemic that I try to avoid writing too often. Anyone who is even glancingly aware of the state of gaming discourse knows that there’s an over-abundance of negativity surrounding all things news; so at Epilogue, I prefer to shy away from adding another shrieking voice into the cacophony. Despite this predilection, CD Projekt’s sins were too egregious for me to forgive at the time, and I wanted to document the copious news stories breaking practically every day around Cyberpunk’s disastrous launch. I wanted to come to terms with my grief that this studio I theretofore loved had suddenly violated my ethical principles and failed to deliver on their promises. Thus, I concluded my article by saying, “CD Projekt Red will have to do a hell of a lot more than fix the game they said was finished for me to buy one of their games ever again.” I have since softened, and here’s why.

Why I Bought Cyberpunk 2077

Summer rolled around, roughly seven months after the embarrassing release of the very broken and unfinished Cyberpunk 2077, and I saw the game reach nearly 50% off on a discount for the PC. Feeling like a massive hypocrite, I swept my moral qualms aside, desiring something expensive-feeling on my graphics card while the summer sales were still going and I had time off from work. For whatever self-deceptive reasons, I convinced myself into hitting the purchase button on Cyberpunk. If nothing else, I rationalized, I would finally sink my teeth into the critical conversation around one of the most built-up releases in recent memory.

I booted up Cyberpunk 2077 expecting to hate it as much as my previous article suggested that I would last year. The only things reviewers consistently praised about this game were its characters and Night City, the heart of Cyberpunk’s open world, so you might say my expectations clipped below the map like one of Night City’s many glitches. I worried about the problematic character creator, the objectifying portrayals of trans characters, the concerning caricatures of Japanese culture, and so forth. I also had little confidence that the incessant patching of Cyberpunk would be enough to tape the game together while I rattled through it, ray tracing and all. 

Ultimately, the dearth of games within my zone of interest that push my PC hardware to its limit led me to suspend those objections and engage with problematic art in the hopes that I’d experience some visually impressive, screenshot-worthy moments. In most ways, that uncharacteristic gaming risk paid off.

Incredible Visuals

In the visual department, Cyberpunk 2077 completely delivered. From the word “go,” I was smashing the screenshot button. The reviewers were absolutely right: this game’s world and characters are, to borrow the oft-memed Keanu Reeves moment from E3 2019, “breathtaking.” Night City looks alive even if the cracks show from time to time through identical NPCs or cars that can’t figure out their way around a pedestrian, etc. Each area you explore feels industrial and gritty, lined with neon lights that sparkle in the reflective puddles beneath. 

I was skeptical of playing this game exclusively from a first person perspective, but I soon came to appreciate the accompanying immersion that this feeling brought with it. Especially when interacting with the game’s extremely charismatic cast, I felt the same sort of agape-mouthed awe that I hadn’t felt since my first playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Remake. The forced perspective of specific story sequences, especially an early montage of rapid cuts — a technical achievement that defies belief — caused me to completely buy into this first person environment.

Unforgettable Characters

Simply put, the main characters in Cyberpunk 2077 are gorgeous, both in terms of their artistic presentation and graphical fidelity. These characters are completely enhanced by the stellar voice acting that elevates a generally good script to great levels. Jackie, for example, your best friend and companion during the early heists of Cyberpunk, feels as tough as he is friendly. The conclusion to Jackie’s storyline is powerful because of that compelling performance as much as the realism provided through the character’s animations. Other characters like Rogue show their age in subtle ways, revealing how far cyber technology has been able to integrate into human biological processes, somewhat concealing things like gray hair and wrinkles. And, of course, the game’s handful of romanceable characters like Judy and Panam are stunning to behold. 

My favorite thing about the characters in Cyberpunk 2077 is the amount of time you get to spend with each in one-on-one settings. Most of these characters have entirely separate arcs that don’t intersect except in a few main story beats. My romance with Judy early on, for instance, was intimate and touching, especially the scene that culminates your relationship with her. Every time Judy called me, I stopped what I was doing to go visit her, and was rewarded each time for doing so. Later on in the game, I started spending time with Panam until I had maxed out her relationship as well, giving me an entirely different perspective on the nomadic life accompanying those who set up camp in the badlands outside of Night City. Even if I was disappointed that Panam’s romance option was artificially truncated due to the gendered nature of the storyline, I still felt a bosom love for her and V’s relationship by the finale. 

My favorite character in Cyberpunk 2077 is Claire, for reasons that I will dedicate a separate article to in the future. Suffice it to say that her character felt powerful yet vulnerable, relatable in a necessary way that most games don’t even try to touch. Her vehicle, “Beast,” became my go-to vehicle for the remainder of the game once she passed it along from her garage. And with Claire’s final story scene in which she describes her past relationship with her husband, as well as other facets of her identity that are equally heartbreaking as they are lovely, I was truly delighted every time I encountered her serving drinks at the Afterlife bar.

This range of experiences that these characters provided me was vast, all things considered, and it was a mixture of the strong performances and gradual writing that helped pace me through my experience so nicely. These characters tower as tall as the Night City skyline in my immediate memory.

An Addicting Quest Structure

I didn’t intend to play Cyberpunk and think of the Witcher series, but this game lays out its mission structures in such a way that encouraged me to always ensure that my menu and minimap were clear of optional objectives before advancing the main story. It’s precisely the same feeling that drove me towards completing all story-related quests in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, for instance. Just a sheer drive to know more about the people who populate this world. 

I’ve written before about how I rarely pursue optional objectives unless I’m having an unusually good time with the story or mechanics, and with Cyberpunk 2077, I completed every side quest and optional mission (sans the ones that require you to purchase vehicles) and still wanted more. I was enjoying the story so much that I went back to earn each ending, which took an additional several hours as its own pursuit. I’ve since dipped my toe back in for 30 minutes here and there just to clear some more map markers via the game’s addictive hacking combat systems.

With Cyberpunk 2077’s myriad endings, some of which branch off of each other, I feel like I earned the “true” ending for my version of V, the protagonist. When faced with the choice that sets the game’s final act into motion, I decided to call Judy, the character who I considered my V’s true partner, and bid her farewell. After hanging up, I called Panam, of all people, who felt like my true ally amidst some less trustworthy options. Panam stopped what she was doing and drove down to pick me up, and we embarked on an epic assault involving the entire nomadic tribe from the badlands rolling up and letting loose with untold amounts of firepower on the Arasaka underground. There were losses and casualties taken during the assault, but by the time the credits rolled and my V emerged as a free woman on the outskirts, far from Night City, it was a somber and reflective mood — exactly what I felt after over 60 hours of playtime.

Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand

I haven’t even mentioned the game’s central foil for V’s character, Johnny Silverhand, famously played and voiced by Keanu Reeves. While I never quite grew to like Silverhand himself, as he is deliberately written to be a bit of a misogynistic curmudgeon who exploits V in critical moments for his selfish hedonism, I grew to appreciate his presence within the overall story. Particularly in terms of the Johnny-specific missions where he completely takes over V’s consciousness and body, I thought the writers hit their full stride in these sections. Part of this feeling is no doubt owed to my affection for Reeves, whose acting rarely exceeds expectations as Silverhand, but who I could never imagine being played by another actor.

Some of the best Johnny Silverhand sections involve him using V’s body to reunite with his old band, Samurai, a legend in the hardcore music scene. These missions vary from spending time trying to corral your old bandmates, many of whom are reluctant but still kicking with their musical chops, to actually committing crimes and so forth. My favorite missions involved the musical performances themselves — which, while not mechanically engaging, were unique to the common experiences I have grown to expect from AAA titles. 

And then of course, there’s V’s vicarious relationship with Rogue, who Johnny views a bit like a past lover, a one-who-got-away archetype. These missions with Rogue are both violent and romantic in nature, co-opting her good will towards V and memories of Johnny to rekindle the past, however vaguely. Though these characters seem to eventually realize that their budding tryst isn’t something that can be as fulfilling as their yearning hearts would desire, and this results in a botched romance attempt with Rogue. This attempt doesn’t completely sour the relationship but it makes things tense and distant for a bit between these characters. Luckily, V is there to play the impartial mediator between Johnny and Rogue.

But then there’s this sinking feeling I had in my gut every time Johnny took over, which I can’t tell if the writers actually wanted the player to feel. Maybe it’s because I was playing as a female V, but the very idea of a male character literally invading and violating my – or any woman’s – body made me feel nauseous physically and morally. I’m not asking the writers to revise Silverhand’s character, but I have to wonder how many women were able to speak up about these sequences in the writer’s room. It just strikes me as something the team didn’t consider whatsoever, and that’s an incredibly awkward facet to overlook when otherwise enjoying these main story sections as Johnny.

Am I Wrong For Enjoying Cyberpunk 2077?

Generally speaking, the fact that I could continue gushing about Cyberpunk and its characters in particular suggests to me that I truly found my value and then some while playing through the story. Along the way, there were some unforgettable setpieces, some challenging encounters, both in terms of moral decision making and in terms of combat. Traversing throughout the world was painless, if you can forgive some fickle vehicle pathing on occasion. I truly look back at my journey in Night City as one of my favorite experiences in gaming this year, as unbelievable as that statement would be if I had imagined myself writing these words last December. 

A sign of whether I think a game is great, or even beloved, is if I decide to keep it installed after finishing it. This rule doesn’t apply to all games, as some fantastic games leave little to return to, despite being impactful. The fact that I kept Cyberpunk 2077 installed — and not just for the inevitable DLC that they’ve promised — reveals to me that Cyberpunk is great, actually. I loved my time in Night City, all things considered, and the game made an overall positive impression through its mixture of audiovisual charm. 

I’m not sure that I was wrong to boycott the game at release. I can’t overlook my moral convictions, which remain fastened in place (i.e. zero tolerance for transphobia or racism, crunch culture forced by management, dishonest marketing, etc.). I still purchased something that half a year ago that I was committed to protesting through my cancelled pre-order and mordant article. Make no mistake, CD Projekt Red has singed themselves raw with these transgressions, and I think it’s a generally positive thing that they now exist under a more scrutinizing public eye. But if I can simultaneously speak for the game itself, just for this moment, I’m glad that I chose to engage with Cyberpunk 2077 for what it was: something truly breathtaking, warts and all.

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