Developer: CD Projekt Red
Publisher: CD Projekt Red
Steam Deck Compatibility?: Verified
Rrp: £64.99 (Gog, Humble and Epic) £68.98 (Steam)
Released: 25th September 2023
Available on: Gog, Humble, Epic and Steam
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 50+ Hours
Night City, the city of dreams, a place of wonder and nightmare. It’s a city of extremes where the highest highs and the lowest lows are separated by just a hair’s breadth. In Night City legends are born, just remember for every legend that rises to fame thousands fall into obscurity trying to achieve that same goal. Think you have what it takes?
I think it’s fair to say that this game had a rough launch, from all the reports it was a buggy mess to the point of being near unplayable. Sony even pulled it from the Playstations marketplace for a while and they keep some absolute trash on there. However, CD Projekt Red kept patching the game making it better in increments and then eventually released the Phantom Liberty DLC that, from what I’ve read, absolutely changed the game. That DLC alongside the award winning Cyberpunk: Edgerunner TV series that was released on Netflix (I believe Edgerunner was released before the Phantom Liberty DLC) injected new life and interest in the game. At the time of writing the latest update was Patch 2.3 released in July of 2025.
Alright, so now that I’ve covered the initial drama (in a brief manner) lets get on with what this game actually is. Cyberpunk 2077 is an Immersive Sim with a cyberpunk setting (in case the name didn’t get that away) that takes place in Night City and its surrounding areas. You play as V, a mercenary who wants to become a legend in Night City, a feat you will achieve as you play through the game, of course the question is what kind of legend will you become? That’ll be down to you.
Before I started playing I decided to spend time in the options menu so that I could try and optimise the game. There are a wealth of options that allow you to customise how the game will look and I spent quite a while testing setups with the builtin benchmark system. This allowed me to get a good balance of performance and graphical fidelity (I managed to make the game run at a fairly steady eighty frames per second for those curious). I wish more games had that kind of system included.
Once you start the game you are required to choose what lifepath your character has. This essentially determines what kind of background V had before becoming a mercenary and can change some events and dialogue options. One such event that is different based on your lifepath choice is what the prologue for V will be. Just to stress this, this isn’t some small cutscene at the beginning of the game but a whole mission complete with different characters to interact with and locations to go to. The lifepaths presented to you are; Nomad, Streetkid and Corpo. I chose nomad for my playthrough but I did quickly look at the other lifepaths just to see how different they were.
Character customisation is pretty extensive. You can even choose whether to have a penis or breasts or both regardless of your chosen gender and how big they can be (between three size options anyway, but hey mods exist if you want to go crazy). I do find it odd that your pronouns are determined by whether you pick the masculine or feminine voice though.
Once you’ve finished with your appearance you get to add points to your core attributes. These being; Body, Intelligence, Reflexes, Technical Ability and Cool. Thankfully, there’s a tooltip that explains what each attribute does.
Each attribute has a perk tree attached to it. At first you can only invest in a few basic perks in each tree, however once that attribute has breached a certain threshold of attribute points more perks become available. Some of the perks can be invested in more than once and must be maxed out in order to unlock the next perk along the chain.
So, how does one increase an attribute or gain a perk point? In the usual way you do in an RPG, by leveling up through the experience gained from completing quests and killing enemies etc. With each level you gain an attribute point and a perk point. There is a level cap in this game of sixty (which was fifty but the Phantom Liberty DLC increases it) so you won’t be able to max out all of your attributes or gain every perk. Thankfully, you can respec both your attributes and perks whenever you please.
Something else that you’ll level up as you play is your ‘Street Cred’, this increases through performing missions and impacts what side gigs and equipment are available to you as well as giving a small discount at vendors.
Along with your attributes are five skills that will improve as you use them. These skills are Headhunter, Netrunner, Shinobi, Solo and Engineer. Headhunter for example, improves when you ‘neutralise’ an enemy with a pistol, sniper rifle or throwable weapon, if you attack an enemy while undetected or perform a takedown and finally each time you put a body in a hiding spot. As these skills rank up you become more proficient with the weapons related to them, dealing more damage or reloading quicker.
As you play the game you’ll end up collecting quite a lot of weapons, armour, clothing and other items. You can break items down for components, sell them for Eurodollars (the currency of this game) or drop them, though why you’d do that when they could be useful I don’t know. If you break an item down you receive crafting components at a tier that matches the item’s rarity. The tiers range from one to five and are also indicated by a colour. Tier one is grey, tier two is green, three is blue, four is purple and five is orange. The higher the tier the higher the quality. There are actually two tiers above five but those are simply indicated by one or two plus marks and are marked as orange. Some items also have the tag ‘Iconic’ which means it’s a special item that can’t be broken down for components. These iconic items tend to be more potent than their non-iconic variants.
Most weapons can be modified in some way, be it by adding one of the many types of sight or barrels to a gun or circuitry that can add special effects.
Your weapons aren’t the only thing that can be modified. By visiting a Ripperdoc you can also extensively modify your body with cyberware (cybernetic implants). Your body can only handle a certain amount of cyberware, however, the threshold increases as you level up and can take perks that increase it greatly.
Since weapons have been mentioned it’s about time to bring up what those weapons are for. Combat in this game is very responsive, though it does depend largely on the weapon you’re using and the way you’ve spent your attribute and perk points. For example, if you’ve barely increased the body attribute you aren’t going to be very effective in melee.
In a style mirroring many other open world games, once you get beyond the prologue you find yourself confined to a single area of Night City. It’s a fairly large area but still a good space to learn the ropes.
Side missions come in quite a few forms, but one of the most common ones is known as a ‘gig’. These gigs are short missions that a specific fixer has for you. Each fixer will only give a set amount of gigs for the area they run and if you do them all they’ll give you a special reward such as a weapon or a vehicle.
Not all the side quests are marked on your map. Quite a few have to be stumbled upon and can easily be missed or dismissed as the NPC’s chattering to each other. There are also a few that are found by following clues in documents or finding a location in a picture.
I loved driving around Night City, in fact I made a point of purchasing a motorbike specifically so I could explore small alleys and areas a car simply couldn’t get to. The feel of the driving varies wildly on what vehicle you’re in control of. Some felt heavy and cumbersome while others felt like the rear of the car was on ice and then there were some that just felt wonderful to drive.
Most of the vehicles you can purchase have an autodrive feature that will take you to locations near to a waypoint, be that a mission related one or one you have set. Be aware though that it isn’t the best driver and will sometimes get confused.
You can call your vehicle to you whenever you’re on or near a road. This works almost perfectly, sometimes it doesn’t quite get to you and you’ll have to walk over to it, other, much rarer, times it’ll run you over.
Of course, if you don’t feel like driving around Night City you can also use the fast travel system or even the metro. I have to say I think that the metro system was included for those who wanted to really roleplay because when you use it you actually sit on a train and move through the world. I was very surprised to find that that was a thing you could do.
Nudity, mostly of a sexual nature is a regular occurrence in this game, on that subject sex can occur pretty often too. That is, if you choose to engage with it, there’s always an option to bow out. However, sexual imagery is a very common thing to see while walking the streets of Night City. It’s part of the setting where it’s yet another commodity to sell to you.
Actually on that subject, this game can be a sensory overload for those who are sensitive to that sort of thing. You’re constantly bombarded by adverts on screens, the noise of music etc or at least you are in some parts of the city (it’s especially bad in the megabuildings and markets). Once you get a bit outside of those areas it calms down and is nearly absent in the outskirts of the city. I don’t particularly have any sensitivity with lights and sound and even I found it a bit overwhelming sometimes.
When you get to a certain point in the main story the Phantom Liberty DLC will begin, you’ll know this because a new skill tree will become unlocked called Relic. You can’t level up the Relic attribute like the others. Instead you need to find Relic boxes inside Dogtown or receive them as you complete the DLC’s story.
The DLC takes place in an area called Dogtown that’s within the bounds of Night City but independent of it. However, some missions in the DLC will take place outside of Dogtown so it’s not entirely enclosed.
Now to clear up some confusion that I’ve seen online about this, completing the DLC can unlock a new ending for the base game. But whether you get the chance to choose that ending depends on the choices you’ve made.
Something that really surprised me was that Keanu Reeves has way more of a role in this game than I thought he would. I thought he’d only appear in missions that relate directly to the main storyline. But he sometimes would just appear during a random side mission to comment on the state of someone’s living conditions or in one case to narrate what I was doing in the style of a pulpy detective novel.
I won’t pretend that this game is completely stable. While playing, the game crashed frequently. Including as the credits rolled when I finished the game. It’s not like it crashes constantly but often enough that I learned to use the quick save function liberally. The crash usually occurred while I was in the inventory or crafting screen, I tried many times to solve the issue but none worked. I also ended up installing a mod that cut out the intro sequence and splash screens because I grew tired of seeing them after every crash.
This game has a lot of moments where I really felt like I got to know some of the characters. From the faded rocker to a drink serving racer girl. You watch them change and grow because of the missions you’ve done for (or with) them and the choices made within.
There are also a lot of truly unexpected moments of peace in the game, I didn’t expect to find myself having a short break with guided meditation or to get a quiet moment to watch the city from above.
The fact that I continued to play this game even with all of its crashes is something of a testament to how much I enjoyed it. I even debated modding it further to increase the level cap. I didn’t do it in the end because that would change the balance of the game and it wouldn’t be representative of the game ‘as is’, which is vital for reviewing.
Do I recommend this game? Y’know what, yes I do. Even with all its crashes this game is a wonder to behold. I have 150 hours in this game (the approximate time is how long it would take to rush straight to the end) and want to go back and try the other lifepaths, make different choices and see what would happen.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
The Outer Worlds
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
