Cyberpunk 2077 is CD Project Red’s latest game. It gained a lot of traction and fame for its impressive art style and great world building–but can these features excuse the low framerate and buggy nature of the game?
What is Cyberpunk 2077?
Cyberpunk 2077 is an RPG (role-playing game) based on the tabletop game of the same name. In Cyberpunk 2077, you play as a mercenary named V. After a failed heist, V is forced to put a cybernetic chip in their head that contains the personality of Johnny SilverHand (played by Keanu Reeves), a musician/mercenary who is slowly destroying their mind. The end goal of the game is to find someone to remove the chip from V’s head.
Where did this game go wrong?
The combat in Cyberpunk is somewhat underwhelming. Most gunfights are just comprised of two basic steps: shoot, move-to-cover, shoot, move-to-cover, rinse and repeat. Melee combat is a bit more varied, with options to parry, block, and dodge, but spamming the left mouse button usually gets the job done–ending the fight before you get to perform complicated or interesting maneuvers.
The stealth aspect of the game is more complex, especially when you mix your stealth gameplay with the hacking element of the game. Technically, you can hack during combat, but you can only hack one enemy at a time, and most of these hacks require good stealth techniques.
Cyberpunk’s performance can be questionable at times; the game is infamously riddled with bugs. Most of the bugs I have encountered are purely visual and did not hinder any gameplay, but in some areas there are a large amount of glitches happening, and frame rates slipping between 50 frames-per-second and 40 frames-per-second. But considering I ran the game on PC with the graphic settings at medium, as well as having a video card and processor better than what Steam recommended, the game had no reason to give me even this much trouble. To the game’s credit, it didn’t completely crash while I played it (like it has for other players).
Should you buy Cyberpunk 2077?
While the game has fixed a lot of bugs, the lack of satisfying combat may discourage some potential buyers. If you can look past the bugs and the combat, you will still get a vast world full of rich stories to explore.
But I would wait for the game to drop from its $60 price tag before picking it up. My final review would be a 7/10–a game worth owning, but not for $60.
Cy Meacham 
Ethan Walker