Few videogame companies are as hallowed as CD Projekt Red. After releasing the stellar “Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings” and “The Witcher 3”, you can’t blame gamers for hanging on to their every word. In an industry increasingly skewed toward multiplayer triple-A titles, the Polish company stood out for their dedication to creating immersive single-player experiences. Then “Cyberpunk 2077” came out in December 2020.
Real life was still smack dab in the middle of a pandemic that only seemed to get progressively worse. Everywhere you looked, the general public were keen for any kind of escape. The hunger for games and high-tech experiences was palpable in any shop that sold them. The only issue for consumers was that, in the parlance of Cyberpunk, the experience turned out to be far from ‘preem’.
Cyberpunk would endure one of the most controversial launches in videogame history, selling millions of copies but delivering an experience many would consider broken. Reports of game-breaking freezes and an unfinished open-world left fans fuming. I know firsthand because I was one of them.
Fast forward a few years later and the game is in an exceptional state. Multiple patches have helped put the days of insistent freezes and clipping, for the most part, to rest. The game runs buttery smooth on next-gen tech, giving those of us hype for the high-octane open-world promise of CD Projekt Red exactly what we were looking for.
Dipping your toes into the bleeding world of Night City is immersive, even bewildering at times. There’s a bevy of lingo to get used to in a setting that wears its charm and character on its sleeve. That should come as no surprise given the IP’s background as a pen-and-paper RPG from the 80s.
Fans of the exceptional anime “Cyberpunk Edgerunners” or the genre the game represents will find plenty to love about this sandbox. A recently launched expansion, Phantom Liberty, has given gamers even more reasons to stay jacked in. There’s no better time to play this amazing RPG than now. Make your ‘scratch’, stay ‘gato’, and try not to flatline before you’ve made it big.
Words and photos by Ismael David Mujahid, Executive Editor