It was a really tough time reviewing Cyberpunk 2077 ahead of its disastrous release in 2020. I remember some stores sending out incredibly powerful gaming rigs to provide an experience like no other, but console codes weren't made available until just a few days before the embargo and general release. I played it on PC at the time, and while it felt unfinished in many ways, the experience was as buggy as you'd expect for a game with incomparable atmosphere.
Despite multiple crashes, a strange glitch that left enemy weapons floating in the air whenever you killed them, and numerous other persistent issues, Cyberpunk 2077 had its source. Even though I didn't want to, I fell in love with Night City thanks to the characters who call it home. So I stuck with them through several playthroughs ahead of launch, moving from Life Path to Life Path to see exactly how my origins would influence my upcoming adventure.
Why are people so excited about the release of Cyberpunk 2077?
Cyberpunk 2077 begins with players choosing three distinct life paths: Corpo, Nomad, and Street Kid. These choices will affect how you grow up in Night City, what you do for a living, and what you think of the numerous megacorporations that mistreat everyone who has the misfortune of calling it home.
It also features a unique prologue, but the real story doesn't begin until you begin your journey into the grand Night City. In your first playthrough, you begin life as a Street Kid, a rowdy punk who grew up on the mean streets of Night City and knows exactly how to deal with the crooked cops and predictable criminals that rule it.
V knows exactly what to say and how to act when closing deals and navigating the criminal underworld. Unfortunately, when a car deal goes wrong, they end up teaming up with Jackie and become best friends forever. Every life path you choose is essentially a means of setting the stage and ensuring that Jackie and V become comrades, but some choices lend themselves better to this inevitability than others. Even if V has risen to the top while working for one of Night City's many giant corporations, one betrayal is enough to send him into full mercenary mode.
Disbelief aside, I'm struggling to think of another RPG that makes these first choices feel so monumental. Normally a decision or detail about the backstory would eventually show up in dialogue, so you'd just have to choose a few options from a menu, but that's what happens here.
My favorite game has always been Nomad. Because long before the game begins, we get a glimpse of the ruined desert surrounding Night City. Even if it's brief, being able to drive it yourself and reluctantly team up with Jackie on the open road ties us together more than a cutscene ever could.
Each of these introductions feels like it could have been hours of gameplay on its own, but CD Projekt Red decided to keep things short and sweet before we get into the thick of it. But even if that happens (even after seeing V and Jackie become best friends forever in the killer montage), it'll still be a while until we see the title card.
Cyberpunk 2077's opening is one of the best in RPG history.
I will always remember the first task I was able to play with Jackie, at least outside of the LifePath introduction. Because it's also part of the first public gameplay we've seen for Cyberpunk 2077. V and Jackie emerge from an elevator into a ruined apartment building in search of a single target. A naked woman is currently overdosing in an ice bath a few doors down.
You'll learn how to use stealth attacks to take out enemies, how to use a few early quick hacks, and how to blow up bad guys right before the trauma team shows up to pick up the client. It's an incredibly fast-paced action moment as we drive through Night City, where we see exactly how V lives his life between jobs. Dirty work has become the norm and they seem pretty happy.
Meeting Judy Alvarez before her death as well as Jackie Welles and other famous players who would appear throughout the campaign also helps make this introduction that much more difficult.
That means a job pursuing the big leagues with Dexter DeShawn sees V become embroiled with Arasaka, Jackie dies, and the ghosts of rock stars become trapped in their brains without a care in the world. Title card and the true beginning of Cyberpunk 2077.
During this introductory sequence, much of the open world is blocked off from the player, but they are given the illusion of freedom and the option to embark on a few optional quests while also making meaningful progress in Night City. While this prologue quest continues. The metropolis is so dense and atmospheric that it feels truly massive in a way no other RPG does, and there's still so much more on the horizon.
V and Jackie's bond cannot be understated here either. Because it's the main driving force behind everything you do in Cyberpunk 2077, until V and Jackie are murdered in cold blood. Sneaking into Arasaka's clutches with a wish and a prayer is a truly thrilling set piece, one that changes everything about V's life in a matter of seconds. If you wake up in a pile of trash with a hole in your yard and Keanu Reeves demanding your attention, you have a compelling reason to stand up and fight. To keep going even though this broken world is trying to hold you down.
You might define the opening of Cyberpunk 2077 as simply one of life's paths, but for me, everything I experience until the title card appears suddenly allows me to make Night City my own. Five years later, I still can't stop thinking about how much fun I had for my first few hours with this game, and how I've barely finished it since.
cyberpunk 2077
- released
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December 10, 2020
- ESRB
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M (Mature): Blood and gore, intense violence, nudity, strong language, excessive sexual content, drug and alcohol use.
