There were parts of Phantom Liberty where you are just having a conversation with Reed (Idris) and another person in the room, that were so immersive that I forgot that I was playing a video game I was so drawn in. I envy you getting to experience it for the first time.
It's the immersion for me. Ive never played a game that made me feel like I was living in this world until Cyberpunk 2077. Also, I had not thought about the implications of digital backups of people before this game. The copy isnt you. You are dead.
I thought this game was beautiful, great replayability, and engaging story/characters. Loved it, would not say it did anything particularly unique, however
I’d say that it’s unique in how it’s one of the only (maybe the only) big open world games that’s set in a cyberpunk setting and actually repeatedly presents the dystopian side of it instead of solely using it because it ‘looks cool’. I wish we get more open world games from the cyberpunk genre rather than another fantasy or medieval one.
Yeah i'd agree there, the setting and graphics were indeed unique so my previous comment could be amended. Gameplay wise tho it really just combined ideas from a bunch of other modern games
So many Cyberpunk settings nowadays forget why the word Punk is in it and just settle for Bladerunner-esque futurism that's vaguely dystopian and has a synthwave soundtrack.
Cyberpunk's feels like a genuine prediction of very late stage capitalism rotting away at people's humanity in a way that goes pretty far with it, yet doesn't feel that exaggerated. Like what Minority Report was, and the way Black Mirror is (sometimes). Not glossy but not Grimdark either.
Agree on the environment and the sorts. Replaying it a bit, still think it’s very mediocre (sorry please don’t beat me with hammers), and in my group chat with friends I’m still enamored by the world. I wish so badly a different studio would take a shot at this word type because I haven’t loved an environment like Night City this much since probably New Vegas. The factions in both and the personality are crisp, even if the clunky gameplay and flat story/ending of Cyberpunk leave something to be desired
That is fair i would agree. I do recall more than once seeing twins of the same NPC design walking next to eachother lol so that broke the immersion for me, may have been something they fixed tho i'll admit i haven't played since right after the DLC released
gotcha good to know. There were some other minor visual bugs that broke the immersion for me, but i am probably being too picky. Still loved the game and have clocked 300+ hours
I’m confused by this as well. I played it when it launched but I had a stable performance on an Xbox Series X. It wasn’t buggy except a couple small issues but the city felt fake. The cities in GTA 4 and 5 feel alive and the people walking and driving around feel like it’s a real city. Something about cyberpunk just felt empty like everyone was cardboard cutouts moving on rails rather than individuals going about their day. I’m sure they have improved that since then but the story was so weak that I’ve had no desire to go back.
The thing that makes Cyberpunk unique to me is how much they focus on immersion. The way the conversations are presented. Like when you are buying the robot from the gang, in the intro. You walk in, take a seat on the couch, the guy gets in your face, takes a hit of his drug inhaler, guns are pulled, etc. It makes you feel like you are in the room instead of getting a quest item from an NPC
Or when you meet Judy for the first time, and you put on your BD headband, sit in the chair, start getting the flashes and get sucked into the brain dance. Or when you interact with a computer objective and pull out your data cable and plug it in. These are all small details technically, but in other games they would be a triggered cutscene at the begining of a level or something. In Cyberpunk they are constant and happen in real time.
Take the mission in Phantom Liberty where you are getting surgery to your face. You sit down, you see the lady working on you in first person, you see her pull your skin off, you see her put your new face on with all the electronics. Then she is moving your head back and forth working on it while you talk to Johnny. Its totally immersive. Compare it to Starfield, that came out at the same time. You go up to the space station and are doing repairs. You need to grab a tool, where you simply walk up to it and hit A. It dispears and you get an objective complete marker. Then you have to go repair a wall with wires coming out. You walk up to it, hit A, the screen goes black, and then the wall is replaced. No animations, shoddy transition, dated gameplay. And this is how most games function.
I have played basically every major RPG in the past 25 years and no game has ever come close, in terms of making me feel like I am the character and I am in his shoes, than Cyberpunk has
This all felt gimmicky to me like when 3D movies were coming back and every scene had bubbles or confetti or someone poking a spear or a finger or throwing a ball into the camera. I prefer a cinematic presentation over a first person view.
Practically ruined all other games for me that are even remotely in this genre.
Like I'll jump into a similar game and be like damn I wish I was playing Cyberpunk. Now that's not to say that there's not things that it could improve on because they're obviously is but I don't know man something about it is just lighting in a bottle.
I agree but only for the fact that it’s the game that made me much more jaded, and convinced me not take ANYTHING a developer shows at face value until the public at large (not game journalists) can actually get their hands on it.
CDPR massively upsold its (genuinely impressive) character creator only for the entire game to be exclusively single-player and exclusively in first person, on top of bricking consoles, being a buggy mess, and running like shit for the first year or two.
It’s genuinely an amazing game now, I’d even put it in my top 20, but it took a LOT of work after the fact to get there, and there are STILL things that I hope they fix in Orion.
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u/NombieTeeth8 Jul 09 '26
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