Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) [Xbox Series X]

“Swap meat for chrome, live a BD fantasy, whatever, but at the end of it all, it’s the code you live by that defines who you are. “

-Johnny Silverhand

Hello, dear readers! It’s good to be back writing games critique again and under that fabulous new logo and site name! To celebrate, I’m going to tackle a particularly thorny title that stirred up no small amount of controversy on release, though I’m only going to mention that particular element in passing, as it is worth talking about, if not entirely focusing on. Let’s talk, my dears, about Cyberpunk 2077.

Released in the September of 2020 by beloved Polish studio CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 was massively hyped, super heavily marketed (I mean even John Wick himself was pushing it on the masses, though more about his role later) and you couldn’t go near social media or the other (inferior) gaming websites without hearing something about this game, and why it was going to blow all other games out of the water.

Then it was released, and things got… nasty for CD Projekt Red. The game was a broken mess, riddled with bugs, many of which were game-breaking, especially on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It didn’t play much better on the PlayStation 5 and Series X/S at this point either, with Sony pulling the game from their store altogether amid the backlash and the publisher honouring mass refunds. The damage to CD Projekt Red’s formerly impeccable reputation was done, and they were forced to go back to the drawing board and put the game back together again.

This is where my experience with Cyberpunk 2077 begins. I watched the situation with it for months, keeping my distance until I could resist no more, and got the game cheap from my local supermarket, to play on my new, monolithic Xbox Series X.

Let’s see how I fared with this infamous title, shall we?  Oh, and before we start, I had to use a lot of found images for this one, as my Series X saves screenshots in such high definition that I’m unable to upload them! Wow!

The 8-Bit Review

Visuals: 8/10

Cyberpunk 2077 is a pretty game, in a bleak sort of way. Night City itself looks amazing, an urban jungle that’s not only sprawling but also very vertical in design. Mega-buildings and skyscrapers dominate the city’s skyline, with flying vehicles wending between the penthouses and huge, neon signs lighting up the sides of buildings with garish (and sometimes surprisingly… adult) billboards and advertisements. If you’re thinking of Blade Runner, then you’re on the ball here.

Unlike my other favourite cyberpunk game series, Deus Ex (apart from the last entry, to be fair), Cyberpunk 2077 also has a full day/night cycle, which not only shows off Night City’s glorious nightscape but also how it looks by day too. Chrome shines, graffiti covers the walls, and the buildings that player character V can enter all look suitably dirty and filled with junk. Apart from the homes of the rich, of course, which look downright heavenly and a far cry from the grim hovels of the lower classes.

But Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t just about Night City, the urban sprawl is surrounded by some rather uninviting badlands, full of abandoned villages, open roads, and massive junkyards that litter the horizon. After spending a while in the tight streets of the city, a sojourn into the quiet wastes can be rather refreshing, bin bag mountains and all!

Character designs also look excellent, and very much in-fitting with Cyberpunk’s universe. V themself is fully customizable visually and can be not just male or female, but a rather impressive spectrum of gender types. V’s friends and foes also have some brilliant designs, most notably Johnny Silverhand, AKA Keanu Reeves himself, who often pops up to talk to V throughout the game. Other notably good-looking characters are disgraced corporate bodyguard Goro Takeshima, wasteland warrior Panam Palmer, and psychopathic Arasaka goon Adam Smasher. NPCs also have a nice range of appearances, with all manner of augmentations, styles, and body types, which helps the city to feel a little more real, with lower class and corporate civilians having very distinct styles.

Weapons, gear, and vehicles also look really good, with highly detailed models and a good variety over all three. There are so many different styles of weapons that it can be hard to keep track of them, and the car models look absolutely stunning, with detailed interiors that could easily be real. The more pricey cars even have no windscreens, a computer monitor springing to life that does the same job. This is, of course, true to cyberpunk as a genre, both grounded and very sci-fi at the same time.

But all is not perfect in the world of Cyberpunk’s visuals. Graphical glitches to still happen at times, even on the current-gen consoles. I’ve had cars sink into the ground, people just pop into existence in front of me, and defeated enemies, sometimes missing heads, try to get back up only to ragdoll back down again after being very definitively killed. The way some characters walk can also pull you out of the immersion, with some of these guys moving like they’re trying to be the Incredible Hulk for a laugh, proper carpet carrier stuff!

Overall, this game is very pretty though, it really captures the cyberpunk aesthetic and does an impressive job of making Night City and its denizens feel more real and believable. 

Audio: 8/10

The world of Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t just visually impressive, the audio also puts in a lot of work to bring V’s adventure through Night City to life. Ambient sounds of distant cars, crowds of people going about their business and distant, unpleasant sounding siren sounds straight out of Blade Runner will be keeping you company throughout, occasionally spiced up with distant gunfire as NCPD and gangs clash, and people hurling abuse at each other. 

Guns of all types sound meaty and substantial, from a basic handgun to a monstrous heavy machine gun, and different makes of models do all sound distinctive from each other. A sniper rifle’s bassy boom, for example, sounds a lot different from the snap of a Lexington revolver.

The main praise for Cyberpunk‘s audio, however, must be given to the frankly stellar voice acting. The obvious praise goes to Keanu Reeves, in the role of Johnny Silverhand. The last thing I saw Reeves star in was Bill & Ted 3, so this role was initially quite jarring, as Johnny is violent, foul-mouthed, manipulative, and unpleasant, nothing at all like the lovely Theodore Logan. Keanu remains breath-taking throughout, breathing so much resentment, regret and anger into Johnny that his character just steals every scene he’s in.

But Neo From The Matrix doesn’t carry it all upon his mighty shoulders, the rest of the cast are also fantastically voiced, as one would perhaps expect from the studio that brought you The Witcher 3. Cherami Leigh did a fantastic job of providing female vocals for V, coming across as cocksure and pugnacious most of the time, and delivering a really strong performance in the character’s darker moments too. I also loved Rome Kanda as Takemura. Kanda breathes life into this morally tortured character and really helped me to believe that Arasaka’s former bodyguard, now on the run and teaming up with his former enemies, was a real person, not just a two-dimensional character. It’s fair to say that every character in this game, from Johnny to the various fixers that offer you jobs, is voiced excellently.

I did encounter one or two negative elements, however. One strange, recurring glitch that I ran into was the ambient city sound becoming very loud for minutes at a time, often drowning out conversations that I would have enjoyed listening to and even gunfire during battles. It takes you out of the moment and sounds awful.

Know what else is terrible? The in-game radio. I listened to each station as much as I could stomach and, honestly, you’d be better turning it off the moment you get into a vehicle. I know that, ultimately, it’s down to taste, but Cyberpunk 2077’s music just made me reach for that mute button! 

Thankfully, the ambient soundtrack fares much better, the background music very minimal for most of the time, before swapping to a techno-rock soundtrack for shootouts that does the necessary work to get one’s pulse-pounding. Whilst not as memorable as The Witcher 3’s efforts, the soundtrack does a decent enough job here and helps to inform the level of tension one should feel as one wanders around being a Night City legend, shooting gang-bangers, and sneaking about in the shadows.

Narrative: 10/10

For all of its jankiness, controversy, and bad marketing, Cyberpunk 2077 knocks it out of the park when it comes to the story. Now, I will be talking mild spoilers here and there, so if you’re holding out for that updated Series X/PS5 only version, skip to after the next image…

Cyberpunk’s story follows V, who can be from three different backgrounds: street kid, corpo, or nomad. To clarify, the street kid option sees V grow up in the grim streets of Night City, corpo grows up in the moneyed corporations, and nomad sees V raised in the dust-blown badlands outside the city limits. My V is a street kid, as this made the most sense for me, a character that knows the city, yet grew up with nothing, dreaming of becoming a legend. One complaint I kept hearing before picking up this game was that the selected origin makes little difference on the character of V or their development, and maybe this is true, though I personally think this may be an overreaction. Sure, it doesn’t add much content-wise, but it does flavour V themselves, allowing for extra options in dialogue where appropriate. For example, my V knew little about the corpos, but knew Night City’s culture like the back of her hand, adding a nice touch to the role-playing aspect of the game.

V begins as a relatively unknown mercenary in Night City, doing jobs for the city’s various fixers alongside her best friend, Jackie Wells, an ex-gangster and standup guy who would do anything for his friend. The duo gets their big break early on, when ruthless fixer Dex Deshawn involves them in a daring heist, to steal a mysterious “relic” biochip from the prestigious Konpeki Plaza hotel, where it is in the care of Yorinobu Arasaka, heir to the Japanese mega-corporations fortune and all-around shady guy.

After some preparation work, the heist finally begins, and all goes well initially, until V and Jackie accidentally witness Yorinobu murder his father, Arasaka’s CEO, in a fit of rage. Things ge wildly out of control, with V and Jackie having to shoot their way out of the hotel, under attack by Arasaka’s merciless security forces, accused of the murder. Jackie is killed in the attempt, and V is forced to insert the relic biochip into her skull in order to save it from being destroyed, which would make the whole endeavor pointless.

After a series of betrayals and rescues, V discovers a horrible truth: not only is she Arasaka’s most wanted, not only is Jackie dead, but now the biochip has activated in her skull, beginning the process of overwriting her brain with the digital ghost of famous rocker/terrorist Johnny Silverhand. Once the process is complete, V will be dead, her body belonging to somebody else. At first, Johnny is all for it, pushing hard to kill V as quickly as he can so that he can rejoin the world, but things soon settle down as the two go through the events of the story together. 

V’s mission is simple: free herself from the effects of the biochip, whatever the cost. But nothing ever stays simple for long, and as time passes, V comes to not only understand Johnny but also sympathize with him, eventually ending up in a rather heartwarming friendship between the two. Add in the constant threat from the ever-present Arasaka corporation and Night City’s vicious criminal underbelly, and V has many hurdles ahead of her indeed.

I recently finished the game, and the ending really stayed with me afterward, making me think of all of the awful things that V and Johnny went through, as well as all of the good friendships and experiences along the way.

Gameplay: 7/10

Sit tight dear reader, we have a bit to unpack here…

Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world action RPG, this of course means navigating your way around a city map picking up quests, which can also be given by phone calls. Quests are split between main quests, side quests, gigs, and rides.

Main quests are focused on V’s central story, and lead toward the game’s conclusion. These missions are usually varied in content, contain excellent set pieces and dig deep on the immersion and action. Some of my favourite main quests are bringing down an aircraft in the badlands (which reminded me of that scene from Elysium where Matt Damon forces down his old boss’s flying Bugatti), sneaking through buildings along the route of a parade whilst neutralizing snipers, and the lead up to, and execution of, the heist mission early in the game.

Side missions don’t really add much to the main narrative, but still provide varied challenges with their own, compact stories. These are usually activated by finding them on the map and are handed out by Night City’s fixers. Whilst the stories and conditions are variable, side missions usually focus on assassinating some unlucky soul, sabotage, or thievery. There are also a few notable side quest strands with more to them, such as those taken on for V’s friends, (ie, Claire’s street racing storyline, or Judy’s attempt to create better conditions for the working girls in a club. These story-led side missions are fantastic and play out like lower-stakes versions of the main quest.

Gigs are similar to side missions but tend to have a little more story to them, and more variables that offer bonuses when met. For instance, remaining undetected whilst stealing files from a computer would earn V more money than just storming in there and cutting everyone to pieces with mantis blade implants. Other than that, these missions play out pretty much the same as side missions.

Rides are… barely worth mentioning, really. V shows up to a location with a car in it, and can buy it if they want to. The fixers seem to spend most of the early game spamming V’s inbox with attempts to sell her cars, less crimelord, and more Swiss Toni.

Surely there could have been an easier way to sell you cars in this game, why not have a website that V can visit from the computer in her apartment, from where cars can be bought? These exist now for goodness sake!

Sticking on the subject of rides, I have to say I am largely not a fan of Cyberpunk 2077’s driving. Cars seem oddly weightless and slide around all over the place as if on ice. Even the coolest cars in the game seemed pretty unbearable to drive to me, and this isn’t helped at all by the minimap, which doesn’t zoom out when V is driving, resulting in turns being missed with shocking regularity, even the satnav-style line on the map doesn’t help with this. Thank goodness for motorcycles then, which at least feel like they’re (mostly) connected to the asphalt, and actually handle like vehicles are supposed to. There are many vehicles to be had, but once V inherited Jackie’s motorcycle, I never needed to buy a car at all.

It’s not just vehicles that V will be interacting with either, for you will be finding lots of guns and armour in the game too. And I mean lots. Cyberpunk’s combat is a stats game, with every weapon having different damage statistics and modifiers, such as poison or fire damage added to the base damage. Most guns can also be modified with silencers and different types of reticles, of which you’ll find tons during your time in Night City. Weapon choices include handguns, assault and sniper rifles, shotguns, bats, swords, and a few other notable murder devices, and all come in various styles and specialties. For example, guns can come in Power, Tech, and Smart variants, which all have their own perks and drawbacks, for example, a power revolver can ricochet bullets but is slow-firing in doing so whilst smart weapons use an inbuilt AI to steer bullets toward enemies.

Armour points are added in the clothes you wear, though these stats are incredibly arbitrary, with a simple vest sometimes having higher protection levels than a heavy Arasaka chest plate. All this really makes for is hilarious fashion choices, mixing and matching some very odd clothing choices to keep those golden stats high and result in characters looking like they’re from the set of Back to the Future 2. V can also utilize grenades of different types, my favourite being a laser emitting thing that cuts baddies to pieces, and has access to healing via MaxDoc inhalers, which give an instant health boost, refilling the rest of the health bar over a few seconds. Whilst using these could add a really intense level of strategy in a battle, they are far too common, and so can just be spammed in a gunfight, taking away any illusion of danger. I had about 600 of them by the end of the game!

V can also be augmented with cyberware, once you have enough money to pay for the privilege. This includes all kinds of perks, like armoured skin, chargeable high jumps, resistance to poison, and a couple of additional weapons, like Berserk arm upgrades, or the very cool-looking Mantis Blades, which fold out from V’s arms and are capable of dealing horrific damage on enemies. Augmentation is always a key ingredient in the cyberpunk pie, and it’s used to good effect here.

We’ve had a lot to go through here, eh? Let’s finish this section by looking at how V gets stronger throughout the game, aka leveling up. V has five areas that can be improved: body, intelligence, technical ability, reflexes, and the rather nebulous “cool”. Each of these stats governs attributes like speed, strength, hacking ability, stealth, and conversational options, as well as allowing V to interact with certain doors and terminals throughout the adventure. 

Yes, Cyberpunk 2077 still has its problems here and there on the Series X, and some elements of the game aren’t strong, but overall it plays well, and Night City is an impressive creation.

Themes: 10/10

So, before we talk about the more specific theme of Cyberpunk 2077, let’s talk about the themes of the genre at large. Cyberpunk stories are set in universes where technology has advanced in many ways, whilst social structure has decayed, often into dystopia. These stories tend to be set in sprawling metropolises, permeated with the extremes of late capitalism and vice. Notable examples of cyberpunk would be Blade Runner and its sequel, Altered Carbon and William Gibson’s Neuromancer, as well as games like Deus Ex.

In this regard, Cyberpunk 2077 hits the nail on the head. The big corporations, like Arasaka and Militech, control the city from their great glass towers, whilst the government is powerless to resist them, and the lower classes live in hovels and grim apartments, surrounded by neon signs that never go dark, whilst airships float above, covered in gaudy billboards. 

But this is the stage, and the central theme stands upon it, the idea that alliances can form in the most unlikely of places, and that anybody can find redemption, so long as they put in the effort, and are willing to make a few sacrifices, to do so.. Whilst V’s friendship with Jackie is natural and easy to root for, her growing relationship with Johnny Silverhand is harder fought for, with the dead man straight-up trying to hijack V’s body the first time they meet, fuelled by fear and anger at being trapped in cyberspace for half a century. But the two form an unlikely friendship as the story pans out, Johnny appearing to V regularly in order to offer his advice, opinions, and snarky insights. At the end of it all, V is faced with the ultimate choice, to keep her body for herself, or let Johnny have it after all. It sounds like a no-brainer here, but in that moment, surrounded by the lore of the game, it’s a tough decision to make.

In the scenes where we get to experience Johnny’s memories and play as the man himself, we witness a man on the edge of complete self-destruction, pushing away his friends, drinking and dosing himself into oblivion, and otherwise being a total arse. But during his time as a digital ghost in V’s head, his physical form long decomposed, he develops a new outlook and actually starts to help put right his failings of the past. In the end, V can choose to let Johnny take her body, otherwise, Johnny chooses to relinquish his claim and let V keep her life on amicable terms. 

It’s always gratifying to see hope blossom of decay and desperation, and Cyberpunk 2077 portrays this well, whilst building a strong world typical of the genre around it.

Replayability: 9/10

There are many variables to the story of Cyberpunk 2077, all of them certainly intriguing enough to warrant a few playthroughs.

First off, there are a few different endings to consider, deciding whether to follow Johnny’s plan to storm Arasaka HQ or let V keep control and do things her way. Or maybe you can just surrender yourself to the mercy of Arasaka itself, or overdose on pills and end it all there and then. There are a few permutations here that have certainly intrigued me and lured me back for another round of life in Night City.

I am also curious as to how choosing a different background would change conversation options. A good few important conversations in the game were steered by V dropping an insightful Street Kid option in there, so imagine if she dropped some Corpo or Nomad wisdom instead, and how things could differ from there!

Also worth considering are V’s romantic options. Unlike most games with this feature, V can’t just hook up with everyone, each of the potential lovers is into different kinds of people, you know, like real people. Kerry Eurodyne is into guys, whilst Judy is more into a female V, for example. So if being a loved-up, Night City paramour is what you want, you’ll want to mix up your V on each playthrough.

Finally, most major missions have different paths that can be taken, adding up to a lot of different experiences. It is also possible to save a character that the game heavily implies is “good as dead”, which has lured me into another playthrough for sure, as I wasn’t happy that this particular character bit the dust when they did.

There is a lot to be experienced in this game, and a fair amount locked behind different decisions as you play through the story, adding up to some fantastic replay value.

Challenge: 7/10

Cyberpunk 2077’s difficulty level is one that changes dramatically over time, as V gains more experience, and therefore levels and skills, and is more able to put the hurt on the baddies. This will sound instantly familiar to anybody who’s played CD Projekt’s other big RPG, 2015’s The Witcher 3. V can be torn to pieces by a gang of random hoods, to begin with, but come back to them a few hours later, with higher stats and better gear, and they’ll be lambs to the slaughter. If you stop by these same mooks at the end of the game it will be even more jarring, with the player able to wipe the floor with them with little to no effort at all.

Whilst this isn’t an issue per se, it does create some quite irritating barriers early on that break the immersion a bit. For example, V is able to survive an absolute onslaught of heavily armoured Arasaka soldiers in a story mission, only to get utterly creamed by four raggedy punks in an alleyway straight afterward. Due to the fact that all damage is stats-based, silenced weapons are utterly useless early game, with enemies being able to survive headshots like V is flicking pebbles at them, not firing bullets. This means that stealth approaches to missions are only feasible by grabbing enemies from behind and using a takedown move on them, which makes these jobs much more difficult than in the late game, where my silenced revolver was one-shotting most baddies from afar, with little difficulty at all.

The trade-off here, however, is that progression really does feel worthwhile, with V going from delicate street thug to Night City legend as the game progresses. Providing one chooses a favourite weapon type and sinks stats and perks into it early, you’ll soon be kicking ass and taking names.

And hey, Cyberpunk 2077 does have a few difficulty levels too, so if you’re not feeling challenged enough, you can always crank it up!

Personal Grade: 10/10

Weren’t expecting that, were you?

I’ve put a lot of time into my first playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, getting drawn into the story, developing a real attachment to the characters, and falling in love with the grimly beautiful locales of Night City. Before (finally) hitting the final mission and sealing V and Johnny Silverhand’s fates, I became obsessed with mopping up every single landmark on the map, completing gigs and assassinations from the badlands to Corporation Plaza. I just couldn’t bring myself to wrap it all up, and I was much the same with The Witcher 3 as well.

Yes, there are still glitches galore, but I encountered precisely zero game-breaking ones, and a frankly excellent story more than balanced this out for me.

I completed Cyberpunk 2077 in the morning and immediately restarted, something which I have never done in twenty-eight years of gaming.

Aggregated Score: 8.6

Winst0lf is a blogger, reviewer, and podcaster who began his internet journey thanks to the lovely people on this site. You can find his blog here, and his podcast, Shart Select, here. Every time you read one of his articles, he lets out a little cheer!