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!
Cyberpunk is a great game, it has a great story that is marvelous told. That is the games biggest strength and one of its biggest limitations too. Heavy story driven games like cyberpunk don't mix very good with a open world with its many detractions and side quests. If a game has a strong story that will capture the player, making side quests and open world design a burden, or into something that gets ignored.
Logically viewed everything that V would do after having Jonny implanted in his/her brain should be laser focused on the task to learn more about it and to find a cure or solution. There should be no driving around and playing mommy or daddy for some freaked out cabs or other side quests. Yes, doing side quests could be explained as a way to get resources for the main tasks, but as those side quests are completely optional there is nothing really backing that explanation up.
So you either have to ignore a life threatening condition to play side quests or ignore that huge part of the game and fixate on the main quest.
Cyberpunk has no real "sandbox" moment because the open world really only opens up after you get the world largest cyber brain virus implanted deeply.
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.
They actually added the subway system in an update to the game.
I’d say cp77 still isn’t the game they hyped up over the years, but it is now a fantastic experience in my opinion, especially modded
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.
I didn't make it far through the game, I quit once I realised how lifeless the open "world" was.
I mean i dont think its the best game ever or anything, but compared to say breath of the wild which is celebrated for its open world for some reason but which is just 99% empty space with a thousand rocks you have to turn over, cyberpunks world is so much more dynamic and alive. There are tons of little hidden quests that you have to stumble upon or be in the right place at the right time. There are tons of little hidden easter eggs, like a dead sniper on one roof with a log entry, and on the roof opposite that a bunch of dead gang members with a corresponding log entry. You really have to search and read everything in cyberpunk to find the little gems, and by the end theres a lot of unnecessary loot and repeated data files, but when you stumble across the reallt interesting hidden bits it makes it all worth it i think. Regardless if you play for more than an hour or two and take the time to explore then its obvious a lot of care went into crafting the world, more than just creating a dumb little puzzle and then copy pasting it 50 times all over the map.
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.
Baldurs gate has fucking ruined me.
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.
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.
That's my take on it too. The story they wanted to tell does not mesh well with an open world game, but since the people loudly wanted something like "RDR 2 but Cyberpunk" they felt obliged to attempt to shoehorn it in.
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.
Completely agree. I think having you play through that part would have made a huge impact on how you connect with Jackie. Maybe they felt it would have pushed the Keanu introduction too deep into the game?
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.
They've added some touches to the open world, but I think it was too fundamentally broken to be easily patched. The new skill tree from 2.0 is actually good though and I think the combat is pretty fun in its current state, even without going to mods.
Maybe they felt it would have pushed the Keanu introduction too deep into the game?
I was thinking that too. I think during development it might've shifted, since I think Keanu originally wasn't in the game, and they wanted to make him part of the game quite early on.
I would've liked if they had extended the Jackie chapter and moved the Silverhand arc to a later act. It would've meant that people would just be dropped in the game and let them explore the world carelessly before the story kicks up to next gear. But they probably realised that the game wasn't good enough to pull off the open-world part, so they decided to get on with the main story right off the start.
Could be, could be. I think your suggestion would make for a better game with less conflict between what the main story is saying and what the game is presenting in the open world. Having the story emphasize how fast V is dying, only for the player to then fuck around with car races and random merc contracts and whatnot really doesn't work all that well as far as immersion goes.
Jackie's death would have also been much more impactful if we'd have spent all that time with him playing through those six months.
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 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 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 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.
I actually felt it was one of the best games I've played in the last 10 years. I really enjoyed the story. The game is beautiful. I love the amount of immersion that is possible, especially with mods. I've played through it twice.
I really, really wish we could inspect weapons. One mod gets close, but it isn't the same as a Rockstar-style weapons inspection. We don't even get to zoom in on the models in inventory. A damned travesty because the weapons are gorgeous.
But overall, I find it hard to fault, especially given its state at launch.
I mostly had fun, and felt the work they did to make Night City feel like a proper city, as opposed to the tiny village-sized "city" typical of open world games, really showed. (For example, the fact that people walking down the street had different ages, body types, and walking styles made it easy for me to forgive the occasional pair of NPC clones spawning next to each other.)
But yes, many of the activities/events offered by the game ended up seeming a bit pointless because their outcome was more or less predetermined.
Moreover, the RPG aspect of the game lacked depth, which seemed like a lot of wasted potential given that there were plenty of characters that could have been really interesting to get to know. Instead, the character development was nearly all Silverhand, nearly all the time, and I didn't even have much influence over how that relationship developed.
Spoilers ahead:
What about Jackie? He was supposed to be my best friend, but I never had experiences with him to make me feel that way, and then he was gone in just a few scenes. What about Panam? She was so determined to make a difference in the lives of the people who mattered to her, yet she all but vanished once we bonded, after just a couple of missions. What about Judy?? Her personal mission-like encounter was really promising. We supposedly fell in love and were planning to leave the city together, yet for the rest of the game, we had no interaction but "dates" consisting of the same half-dozen lines of dialogue and two or three brief animations, repeated over and over again. I'm sure there are more examples, but I think I've made my point.
I think the biggest disappointment for me was the ending, though. And the other ending that I got by reloading and picking different options, and then the third ending, and the fourth. They all felt like such empty let-downs that I went online to read about the rest. [Edit: These might have been Phantom Liberty endings; I don't remember for sure.] Surely there must be some good ones, right? Right?
The only vaguely satisfying ending that I found was a secret one that (IIRC) requires specific choices early in the game, and a very strong bond with Silverhand, and letting the game sit at a particular dialogue screen for several minutes without picking any option. The endings that players are actually meant to experience left me feeling empty. The great deal of time I had sunk into the game was for nothing after all. I guess that could be considered appropriate for a cyberpunk dystopia, but as an experience and a story, it left me feeling cheated. I wished I had my time back.
So, as I said, I mostly had fun playing it, and it had its share of highlights, but I don't expect to ever play it again. I hope CD Projekt Red keep much of the technical progress they made with this game (I was so relieved that my character's movement was responsive for a change!) and work more on character development and player agency in the next one.
Ah, see, I love the game. I’ve been replaying it, actually. I think the endings, yeah, they’re all pretty sad. Even the one ending where
Tap for spoiler
You actually get the cure, it’s a massive, massive bummer. Life moves on without V, and they are stuck. They try to go back to their life, and they realized it’s all gone when they got what they were trying for the whole time. Every ending but one is genuinely sad.
And that’s super duper rare, it feels like. I truly appreciate that everything was a gut punch. I really like my V, and when I’ve replayed it I make them the same way (looks-wise, I have made different builds). The male voice actor was not for me. I think he sounded like a douchebag and I couldn’t root for my own character. And that first play through I was honestly a little disappointed with the game. But when I found “my” V, I was much more invested.
I love the difficult choices they saddle you with. It was a big part of the game for me because they really made you feel like there were no right options, or two right options, and you weren’t just choosing black or white, you were choosing moral grayness or moral grayness. And you had to sit with those choices and, as OP pointed out, watch the consequences unfold for the—I feel, very well-written and acted—NPCs.
I really love the game. It and RDR2 are my favorites. I was never a gamer growing up. In my thirties I started playing games, but I am a huge story person—books, movies, tv shows—and I think the stories and the characters made it. So when I found games that let me really get a sense of these characters, even if there is a lot of dialogue, it’s like I’m playing a really long movie. That’s ideal for me. I could see how some people who game heavily wouldn’t like it though. But I fuckin love that game and its spiritual twin (IMO), RDR2. Both maybe “limited” for true gamers, but for some filthy cazh like me, fuckin excellent and highly enjoyable.
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 have replayed it a bit and twice extensively but that is mainly because 2.0 changed the way the game works so much I started over.
im replaying the game in vr rn, usinf luke ross real vr mod. it bringsnonly barebones vr capabilities, you still need kbm or controller, but honestly, the open world complaint simply disintegrates in vr. a world this perfectly crafted is simply a joy in vr. since vr is generally slower, the dialogue parts also feel way less slow and tedious, and when modded appropriately difficult, you really start roleplaying to your charavters strength. starting off as a weak ass meatbag, having to stealth everything, chroming up more and more to the point where you go from dying in 4 shots to being able to go beserk bring a real sense of progression to it. currently modding via the new nexus app, as vortex doesnt work on linux, so i cant make a collection yet, but once i have it, i will definitely share it. i have 680 hours rn, 300 of them in vr (120ish i the current run) and i'm enjoying every minute of it
Tbh once i got through the boring introduction, I spent more time ffing around than actually progressing the story. If you do jobs instead of the main story, and consider that as the main gameplay loop the replayability is insane.
The real problem is how the game tries to funnel you into finishing the game, like the main quest is always there occupying the quest log when you open it, everytime you do a gig it defaults back to it etc...
Honestly the game is more fun imo when you are just running/driving around interacting with the world and accidently doing gigs rather than bee lining the story.
I really hate that there isint any new game + and that they cap levels. They should add a bigger spike of difficulty too.
I'm a weird critter and play things differently from most, I think 😅 My greatest fun tends to be alting hard, trying nearly every imaginable build. Beat up the same jerkwad thirty times just to try out all' the toys, that kind of thing :3 I did get annoyed at having to wait for the map to open up but I replay beginnings so many times anyway... 🤷 I wanna go back to CP77 pretty badly, too 😅 Am stuck on a laptop that I can't imagine running it playably but even just driving around was fun for me. Helped me through a rough patch a night or two, actually.
Also liked how well-done the story bits felt, though maybe that's partly because I was told they're really good and just expected them to be 🤷 I do remember some bits fondly, though.
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.
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
I haven't got around to playing it yet, but what you've described sounds a lot like The Witcher 3 for me.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it enough to finish pretty much everything (except all the Skellige question marks which thoroughly outstayed their welcome), and Hearts of Stone is better than Blood and Wine, but the gameplay was pretty flat throughout, and most of my enjoyment was in the cutscenes and dialogue and following threads to their inevitably grim conclusions. It's not a game that I would ever replay.
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