Cyberpunk 2077 Review – Preem Chrome or Total Glitch?

Quick Summary 

• 🎮 Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S 
• 📅 Release Date: December 10, 2020 
• 🏢 Developer / Publisher: CD Projekt Red 
• ⏱️ Playtime: 40–100+ hours 
• 🧭 Genre: Open-World RPG, Action, Sci-Fi 
• 🧠 My Verdict: 7/10 Johnny Silverhands

Let’s get something straight before we start. Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t some indie passion project or a solo developer’s dream realized through years of struggle. Cyberpunk 2077 is a triple-A project backed by one of the biggest studios in the industry, CD Projekt Red, with a budget that could probably fund a small country’s annual GDP. We’re talking about a studio that had The Witcher 3 under their belt, millions in funding, hundreds of employees, and nearly a decade of development time. The bar here isn’t just high, it’s in the stratosphere.

I’ve spent over 200 hours in Night City at this point. That’s not a flex, more like acknowledging I’ve given this game way more chances than most people would after its catastrophic 2020 launch. And honestly? It paid off, kinda.

But here’s the thing: Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t the masterpiece everyone desperately wanted it to be, and pretending otherwise does nobody any favors. It’s good now, sometimes great, occasionally brilliant but it’s not sitting on my top shelf next to Morrowind or Baldur’s Gate 3.

The Promise

Remember the hype? CD Projekt Red coming off The Witcher 3, ready to redefine open-world RPGs again. The cyberpunk genre, this philosophical beast born from Gibson’s Neuromancer and Ridley Scott’s rain-soaked streets, finally getting the AAA treatment it deserved. We were promised a living, breathing metropolis where every choice mattered, where corpo scum and street samurai collided in morally gray warfare.

“Although, believe me, we never intended for anything like this to happen.”

What we got in December 2020 was… well, a mess. Crashes every hour. NPCs T-posing into oblivion. Police spawning behind you like some budget horror game. Console versions running at what, 15 fps? It was broken in ways that felt almost insulting, considering the years of development and marketing blitz that preceded it.

But I’m not here to rage about ancient history (plenty of people already did that). What interests me now is what Cyberpunk 2077 became after CD Projekt Red spent years patching, updating, and eventually releasing Phantom Liberty. Did the game find redemption? Yeah, partially. Is it everything we were promised? Not even close. But it’s worth your time now, especially if you’re into dystopian sci-fi and don’t mind a world that looks better than it feels.

Night City: A Beautiful Corpse 

The Visual Masterpiece

Night City itself is genuinely impressive from a visual standpoint. The density of architecture, the layering of vertical spaces, the way advertisements scream at you from every corner it looks right. The neon-soaked aesthetic is there, the corporate surveillance state is palpable, and walking through districts like Japantown or the combat zones actually feels oppressive in exactly the way it should.

Environmental storytelling works here. Graffiti tells stories. Back alleys hide secrets. The verticality creates this sense of being trapped in a massive cage of steel and concrete, which fits the cyberpunk ethos perfectly. Light and shadow play across wet pavement, sound design hums with industrial melancholy. You can stand on a rooftop at sunset (yeah, there’s actually daylight here, unlike proper Blade Runner), watching the layers of the city stretch toward the horizon, and feel like you’re somewhere that exists.

It’s a city that wants to swallow you whole, and visually? Mission accomplished.

The Hollow Core

But here’s where things fall apart: the NPCs are essentially mannequins with voice lines. They follow predetermined paths, disappear when you’re not looking, and react to violence with the emotional depth of cardboard cutouts. I’ve seen NPCs cower in the exact same animation pattern dozens of times. After a while you stop seeing people and start seeing code.

Compare this to Red Dead Redemption 2’s world (yeah I know, different scope, different engine) where people actually exist beyond being set dressing. In RDR2, NPCs remember you. They react to weather, time of day, your reputation. In Night City? They’re props. Very pretty props, but props nonetheless.

The world simulation just isn’t there:

• Economy doesn’t matter (you’ll be swimming in eddies by hour 20).
• Police AI remains hilariously bad even after fixes (though better than launch’s teleporting cops)
• Outside of scripted quest content the city feels static
• Traffic patterns are fake, NPCs have no schedules or routines
• You can’t interact meaningfully with 99% of what you see

You’re not living in Night City, you’re touring it. And for a studio with CD Projekt Red’s resources? That’s disappointing. This should’ve been the benchmark for open-world simulation, not just open-world visuals.

Combat and Other Gameplay Systems

The Good Stuff

Gameplay in Cyberpunk 2077 is where things get interesting. You’ve got shooting, hacking, stealth, melee pick your poison and build around it. The cyberware system lets you customize V into a mantis-blade-wielding psycho or a netrunner who fries brains from the shadows. Conceptually it’s solid, and when it clicks, it really clicks.

I went full melee for most of my playthrough because honestly, nothing beats the visceral satisfaction of knowing your enemy’s last sight was your katana cutting through the neon haze. There’s something primal about closing distance while bullets ping off your subdermal armor, then slicing through three gonks before they can reload. Sandevistan cyberware turns you into a chrome-plated god of death, slowing time while you carve through enemies like they’re standing still, but I didn’t use it, too easy and boring especially combined with Byakko katana.

Build Variety

Post-2.0 overhaul, character builds feel meaningful:

• Netrunner: Hack everything, spread quickhacks like digital plague, never fire a shot 
• Solo: Tank build with Berserk operating system, face-tank damage and punch through walls Stealth Assassin: Silenced weapons, optical camo, ghost through missions 
• Tech Specialist: Smart weapons and tech rifles that shoot through cover 
• Melee Maniac: Katanas, mantis blades, or gorilla arms for pure close-combat chaos

The skill trees got restructured to actually make sense. Early game balance was atrocious (you could break everything by hour 10), but later patches fixed much of this. Now there’s weight to your choices, consequences to specialization. You can’t be good at everything anymore, which forces you to commit to a playstyle.

Where Immersion Goes to Die – Stealth

And then there’s stealth. Oh boy. Look, I love sneaking through enemy bases as much as the next player (Dishonored and Deus Ex taught me right), but Cyberpunk’s stealth system is shallow in ways that genuinely surprised me. Lighting doesn’t matter. Weather doesn’t matter. Shadows are purely decorative.

You can crouch in a brightly lit hallway and enemies won’t see you if you’re technically “hidden” according to the UI indicator. Meanwhile you can stand in pitch black darkness during a thunderstorm and get spotted instantly if the game decides you’re not behind proper cover. It’s all binary. You’re either detected or you’re not, with zero regard for environmental conditions that should absolutely affect visibility.

Compare this to games that actually respect environmental stealth mechanics. In Splinter Cell you used shadows. In Thief you needed darkness. Hell, even Skyrim had basic light detection (though I’ll admit that bar is low). Cyberpunk 2077 just… doesn’t care. Rain pouring down? Doesn’t reduce enemy vision. Thick smog obscuring the street? Nope, they see you fine. Standing in complete darkness? Doesn’t help unless you’re crouched behind an object.

The system works on proximity and line of sight, nothing else. It’s functional for basic sneaking but there’s no depth to it, no environmental strategy beyond “stay behind cover and crouch-walk.” For a game obsessed with cyberware enhancements and tactical options, the stealth feels weirdly divorced from the world it inhabits. Optical camo cyberware becomes mandatory because the environment won’t help you at all.

The Issues

Gunplay feels decent, better after updates, but can get repetitive. Enemies on higher difficulties turn into bullet sponges, which isn’t hard, it’s just tedious. That’s fake difficulty, the kind Oblivion pulled with its level scaling artificial challenge that insults your time rather than testing your skill.

Hacking is where the philosophy actually shines through. You’re manipulating systems, turning the city’s own infrastructure against it. It’s cerebral, slower, methodical. But again, too powerful once you understand it. Late-game netrunners can clear entire buildings without entering them, which feels godlike in the worst way. Power without consequence gets boring fast.

The game struggles to balance power fantasy with meaningful challenge, something a studio of this caliber should’ve nailed from the start.

About The Story Noir with Manufactured Tears

The Core Narrative

The main narrative is strong – V’s story dying slowly while sharing headspace with a dead rockstar terrorist hits hard when it wants to. It’s noir, it’s melancholic, it’s fatalistic. The writing handles moral ambiguity well, characters have depth, dialogue doesn’t feel like a video game script most of the time. The ticking clock of the Relic chip creates actual urgency, something most open-world games fail to achieve.

But here’s my gripe: sometimes these characters feel too emotional, too pushed. The game wants you to care so desperately that it occasionally crosses into melodrama. Every major character has some tragic backstory, some weighty moment designed to make you feel. Judy’s got her trauma, River’s got his, Panam’s got hers. It’s exhausting after a while.

I appreciate good writing, but there’s a difference between earned emotion and manufactured sentiment. Dragon Age: Origins knew how to let characters breathe without constantly demanding your tears. Cyberpunk 2077 feels like it’s holding your hand and pointing at the sad moment going “see? SEE? You should cry now.” Sometimes it works (Kerry’s questline genuinely got me), but often it feels manipulative.

Johnny Silverhand: The One They Got Right

Johnny Silverhand is the standout. His ideological friction with V creates genuine tension. He’s an asshole, a hypocrite, a revolutionary who failed spectacularly and refuses to admit it. He talks big about destroying corporations while being the most self-absorbed narcissist in Night City. That hypocrisy makes him fascinating.

The dynamic between player and engram actually explores transhumanism, identity, and mortality in ways most games wouldn’t touch. Are you V with Johnny’s memories, or Johnny wearing V’s face? Where does consciousness end and programming begin? These questions matter, and the game doesn’t always give easy answers.

Keanu’s performance sells it too. He’s not trying to be Neo or John Wick here Johnny’s bitter, angry, haunted by his own failures. It works.

Side Content and Quests

Side quests range from brilliant to forgettable:

The Great Ones:

• Sinnerman (existential horror about faith and commodification)
• Pyramid Song with Judy (quiet, personal, actually earned its emotional beats)
• The Hunt with River (detective noir that goes dark fast)
• Panam’s storyline (found family done right)

The Forgettable:

• Generic gang shootouts
• NCPD scanner hustles (literally just map markers with corpses)
• Fetch quests disguised as “gigs”

The quality is inconsistent but when it hits, it hits. The best side content in Cyberpunk rivals anything in modern RPGs. The worst feels like padding to justify the open-world structure.

Technical Evolution

Launch version was unplayable for many. The current version is more stable. Not perfect, but stable. Frame rates hold (I’m getting 100+ FPS with my setup which is what I need), crashes are rare, visual bugs still exist but don’t break immersion constantly. CD Projekt Red clearly spent years in damage control mode and it shows.

Graphics and performance have been refined. Lighting looks better, ambient occlusion creates proper depth, ray tracing (if you can run it) genuinely enhances the atmosphere. Reflections in puddles, neon bleeding across chrome surfaces, shadows that actually behave like shadows this is what the game should have been at launch.

But scars remain. AI quirks still pop up (NPCs doing weird pathfinding, occasional physics glitches, cars dropping from the sky when you summon them). World simulation improvements are minimal. You can see where the foundation cracked even if the surface has been repainted. Some things just can’t be fixed with patches, they needed better planning from the start.

For a studio that delayed the game multiple times, this should’ve been the launch state. Not the redemption arc.

Phantom Liberty They Finally Getting It Right

What Changed

The Phantom Liberty expansion is where Cyberpunk 2077 finally becomes what it should’ve been from the start. Tighter structure, espionage tone, actual pacing instead of chaotic sprawl. Dogtown feels different from Night City proper decayed luxury, military occupation, survival tension replacing neon excess.

The 2.0 overhaul that came with it redesigned perks, improved AI, refined combat flow, New Relic Perk Tree. Character progression finally feels meaningful. Choices have weight. Skills interact in interesting ways. The expansion doesn’t just add content, it fixes the foundation of something that should’ve been solid before the base game even launched.

Dogtown’s Atmosphere

Dogtown is Night City’s corpse. The main game shows you corporate glamour and street-level chaos, Dogtown shows you what happens when the system collapses entirely. Kurt Hansen’s Barghest militia runs the show through violence and intimidation. Refugees scratch out desperate existences in bombed-out hotels. The Combat Zone isn’t a metaphor here it’s literal warfare frozen in uneasy ceasefire.

Thematically it’s about rebirth. V gets another chance at survival, CD Projekt Red gets another chance at their reputation 😀. It’s not perfection but it’s fulfillment of intent the game they promised, compressed into 20 hours of focused storytelling.

This is the version that redeems Cyberpunk 2077’s legacy. Not completely, not universally, but enough to matter. And honestly? This level of quality should’ve been the baseline, not the redemption story we had to wait three years for.

Modding – When Community Fixes Your Game

Why Modding Matters Here

The Cyberpunk 2077 modding community has done serious work fixing what CD Projekt Red couldn’t or wouldn’t address. PC modding scene turned a good game into a great one with the help of one of the best mods for Cyberpunk, which is both impressive and damning. Should we really need mods to fix a triple-A game’s basic systems? That’s the question that lingers.

How Mods Change the Experience

Mods don’t just polish the experience they fundamentally alter how Night City feels. Enhanced Police turns law enforcement from a joke into an actual threat. You commit crimes, you face escalating consequences.

The modding tools released in 2025 unleashed proper creativity. Community creators can now develop content that feels native to Night City’s aesthetic rather than obviously external additions. Quest mods, new cyberware, expanded romances the community is building what CD Projekt Red should’ve included.

But here’s the thing: console players don’t get any of this. They’re stuck with vanilla experience, bugs and all. That’s another failure of the base game relying on PC modders to complete your vision means half your audience never gets the “definitive” version.

Visuals and Sound: Neon Symphonies

Art Direction That Actually Delivers

Art direction is fantastic, one area where CD Projekt Red absolutely nailed their vision. Post-launch refinements improved lighting contrast, density, ambience. The visual language of Night City (neon chaos versus corporate sterility versus street grit) communicates theme effectively. You can stand on a rooftop and just look at the city, watching the layers of advertisements and traffic flow below, and it works. I even made some screenshots during my playthrough.

The game’s approach to cyberpunk iconography balances reverence for genre classics with contemporary style. Night City draws obvious inspiration from Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell while establishing its own visual identity. Fashion design alone tells stories of corpo suits versus nomad leathers versus street kid chrome.

Sound Design as Emotional Architecture

Music and sound design are genuinely excellent. Industrial beats, melancholic synth, human voices cutting through mechanical noise. The soundtrack pulses with identity:

• Samurai – Johnny’s punk rock rebellion
• Ritual FM – Darksynth and industrial for that proper cyberpunk dread
• Body Heat Radio – Sultry neo-soul that plays during intimate moments
• The Dirge – Metal and aggression for combat zones
• Radio Vexelstrom – Pop music as corporate propaganda

Audio cues build atmosphere. Gunfire echoes differently in alleys versus open plazas. Cyberware hums with technological menace. Rain on chrome sounds wet in a way that makes the city feel tactile. Voice acting (mostly) sells the performances though some side characters sound like they recorded their lines in a different room.

Phantom Liberty shifted aesthetic balance toward grounded tension instead of flashy excess. Dogtown’s soundscape emphasizes military occupation and urban decay, creating auditory environments that feel distinctly different while remaining thematically coherent.

This is one area where CD Projekt Red absolutely delivered on their promise.

Themes: Chrome Without Consequence

What the Game Tries to Say

Underneath the bugs and broken systems, Cyberpunk 2077 actually tries to say something. Transhumanism, commodified freedom, memory as identity, technological salvation as illusion these aren’t just window dressing. The game asks uncomfortable questions about power, control, and what remains human when flesh becomes negotiable.

The relic chip serves as the game’s central metaphor. Johnny Silverhand’s digital resurrection forces both V and players to confront questions about continuity of consciousness. Is digitized personality genuine life or sophisticated simulation? If your memories can be copied, what makes you you?

The game suggests these boundaries have become irrelevant in Night City. Nobody questions cyberware ethics anymore it’s just another commodity. That acceptance is more horrifying than any body horror the game shows.

Where It Falls Short

Compare this to earlier cyberpunk works Neuromancer, Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell. Those stories are darker, grittier, more grounded in existential dread. I prefer Blade Runner’s rain-soaked melancholy, its quiet dread. That film understood cyberpunk is about what we lose when technology advances, not what we gain.

Night City is too loud, too colorful, too eager to make you feel cool rather than complicit. The atmosphere is there but muted by the need to be entertaining first, thoughtful second. It’s cyberpunk filtered through AAA game design sensibilities which dilutes the philosophical horror that makes the genre compelling.

The game wants you to feel like a badass chrome samurai when you should feel like a desperate survivor in a dying world. That’s the disconnect. Blade Runner made you watch a man realize he’s not real. Neuromancer made cyberspace feel alien and dangerous. Cyberpunk 2077 makes everything feel like an action movie with philosophical pretensions.

Still, when the game slows down quiet conversations with Johnny, moments of reflection before endings, side stories about broken people in a broken world it remembers what cyberpunk actually is. Those moments redeem the spectacle. They’re just too rare, buried under hours of shooting and looting.

Endgame and Replay Value – What’s Left After?

Post-story content exists. Gigs, NCPD scanner hustles, random encounters scattered across the map. But it’s thin honestly. The open-world loop doesn’t satisfy the way contemporaries like GTA V or RDR2 do (hell, even The Witcher 3 had better post-game content). Once the main story concludes Night City feels emptier than ever. Your legacy doesn’t really persist beyond quest flags and occasional NPC dialogue.

What you get:

• Endless gigs (generic combat encounters)
• NCPD scanner missions (literally just “go here, shoot gang members”)
• Vehicle races (mediocre at best)
• Random loot scattered in apartments
• Photo mode opportunities (which are genuinely good)

What you don’t get:

• NPC reactions to your completed story
• World state changes based on your choices
• Meaningful activities beyond combat
• Reason to keep playing after seeing your preferred ending

Replayability comes from different builds and story choices, not from the world itself responding to you. Multiple endings exist, some devastating (the suicide ending is brutal), some hopeful (Star ending with Panam hits different). They’re worth seeing but the journey there feels samey the second time around.

There are hidden secrets though. Easter eggs scattered throughout, environmental puzzles, lore fragments that reward exploration. Tarot card graffiti tells Misty’s story. BD recordings show what happened before you arrived. Environmental storytelling hides in corners. It’s not completely empty, just mostly. Those little discoveries help but they’re breadcrumbs in a city that should’ve been a feast.

I’ll probably replay it sometime for a different build (netrunner looks fun) but I’m not rushing back like I do with Morrowind or BG3.

My Verdict: Good, But Far From Great

Cyberpunk 2077 evolved from fractured ambition into coherent vision. It’s no longer the disaster of 2020 but it’s also not the masterpiece CD Projekt Red promised or fans desperately wanted. It’s a good game now, sometimes great, occasionally brilliant but always carrying the weight of what it could’ve been.

After 200+ hours I can recommend it. The main story works, combat is genuinely fun once you find your build, Night City looks incredible, and Phantom Liberty delivers. Modding extends the experience significantly on PC. If you’re into dystopian sci-fi and can accept a world that looks better than it feels, you’ll find plenty to enjoy here.

But I’m not putting this on my top games list alongside Morrowind, Baldur’s Gate 3, or even The Witcher 3. It’s too flashy when it should be contemplative, too eager to please when it should challenge, too shallow beneath the chrome. The world doesn’t feel alive the way truly great open-world RPGs do. NPCs remain props, systems lack depth, and the philosophical questions it raises get buried under action movie spectacle.

For a studio with CD Projekt Red’s talent, resources, and time? Cyberpunk 2077 should’ve been legendary. Instead it’s just… good. Really good in places, frustratingly mediocre in others. That gap between expectation and reality colors everything, even now.

Will I replay it? Yeah probably. There’s enough mechanical depth to justify different builds, enough story variation to explore alternate paths. Kerry’s questline deserves a second look. Full netrunner playthrough sounds interesting. Maybe a corpo run to see different dialogue options.

But it won’t ever hit the way Morrowind did (systems so deep you could break them in beautiful ways), or Baldur’s Gate 3 (choices that actually ripple through the entire narrative), or Kingdom Come: Deliverance (historical authenticity that makes you feel medieval Bohemia). Those games transported me. Cyberpunk 2077 entertains me. There’s a difference.

Redemption doesn’t erase failure but it can give failure purpose. Cyberpunk 2077 found its purpose just took four years longer than anyone expected. And that’s the real tragedy here. Not that it failed initially but that we all knew it could’ve been so much more.

The game works now. It’s stable, pretty, mechanically solid, and occasionally profound. That’s enough to recommend it. Just don’t expect the revolutionary experience the marketing promised 🤔

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