Cyberpunk 2077 Part 1: Problems
By: Ekrem Atamer
Tags: Cyberpunk, Videogames, Design, Analysis, Gaming

After spending a considerable time on the controversial Cyberpunk 2077, I decided to write some improvement ideas. But before talking about improvements, I need to talk about the problems, right? So let’s start there.

Of course I had to use Johnnyboi here

For those who want to get right into it, here are the articles that delve into particular topics (updated as I write them)

If you want to read more about the problems I see, the original article continues from here:

All of these articles may have spoilers. I guess it should be expected anyway due to the nature of them but you’ve been explicitly warned.

In fact, I’m starting with some spoilers right away! So far, I’ve had three toons. The first was a Street Kid who asked Panam for help (which was the only option besides the default two) and let Johnny to go on at the end. I played him semi-stealth with revolvers and snipers but his build was pretty messed up with high technical, craft perks I didn’t use and random perks left and right. The second one was a Corporate melee with Reflex and Body focus that had no one to ask for help and went for the Arasaka ending. I tried the “gun ending” in this one, too. Also, I quickly increased the difficulty to hard and very hard during this run. I’ve started a Nomad recently on v. hard who’s going to be a Netrunner and a full ghost (no detection, no killing). These combined with a bit of afk-time sum up to a total of 130 hours.

So I’ve had the chance to experience the game in different ways. When I think about the points to improve in the game, I realized it boils down to some basics which are:

The story pace and segmentation: ie where the story milestones are The difficulty: ie difficulty of every aspect at different points in the game The effect of choices: ie our ability to change the course of the game in minor or major ways Open World: There aren’t enough sandbox or open-world-specific elements.

These are broad topics, of course. If I wrote an article about each, they’d be too long. Plus, these are intertwined topics which makes isolating them pointless. So what are some bite-size aspects of the game to tackle? Let’s try these:

Mission Choices: While there are different ways to solve a “zone”, the quests themselves rarely change despite having dialogue options that suggest they would Life Paths: The starting experience is too brief and while there are a lot of dialogue options, see (1) and once our life in the streets start, our old life is never relevant Difficulty: Fights are too easy, especially if you know what to do. Harder difficulties seem to be simply about higher enemy stats. There is no difficulty outside combat. Static World: Whatever you do in the game; Night City, its gangs, law and fixers are always at the same place, reacting the same, nothing ever changes. Character Looks: Not only character customization is limited, it’s also pointless when we thought looks were everything.

These will be my main topics for the next articles. There are a couple of other topics that may also be tackled such as Crafting but I don’t have enough to write about them.

I’ll update this article with links to the articles (on top) as I create them. Ready to run our imagination in Night City? I know I am. See you in the next one!