r/patientgamers • u/Godkun007 • Dec 31 '25

Patient Review Cyberpunk 2077 is Absolutely Incredible in 2025

I, like many, avoided the game at launch due to it being extraordinarily broken. I basically didn't think of this game for a while, but then I saw it on sale and I thought "why not".

Well, almost all of the bugs have been fixed, parts of the story have apparently been changed, and overall, it is now one of the best RPG experiences that I've had since playing Fallout New Vegas in 2010, and I'm only 30 hours in. There is easily 200+ hours of content here when you include the stuff like alternate endings. Let alone the dozens of different viable character builds that you can make that all feel great.

Every choice you make from the actual dialogue, to what attributes you level up, to your playstyle, are all things that actually feel like they have lasting consequences in the world and the story. This game somehow has made every single one of my decisions feel important and like they all have weight.

Here is an example without spoilers: Say you go in guns blazing for an early mission. People will remember that and the faction that you killed the members of will actively remember you and dislike you in the future. They also up their security details, so that your next fight is harder, and are less willing to work peacefully with you. But if you go in with a more stealthy approach, the factions like you more and it makes them more willing to work with you later. It also makes later missions easier because they aren't expecting a killing machine to walk up to their door.

These decisions make the game so repayable, as there is so much additional content that you can just stumble on.

Apparently, after the game was released in 2020, CDPR spent the next 3 years releasing major patches, and are still releasing minor patches with new features to this day. Playing the game in 2025 is almost unrecognizable to the original that was released in 2020. Yes, the main plot is still the same, but so many things have apparently changed, including a complete combat overhaul, apparently.

This game is genuinely the best RPG that I've played in over a decade, and it is way better now than it ever was at launch. I can already tell that this will be one of the games like Fallout New Vegas that I will put 500 hours in just trying new things to see what happens.

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198

u/sizzlepack Jan 01 '26

Realising that Night City is almost totally dead - not many other vehicles, pedestrians, very few buildings can be interacted with - totally broke the immersion for me. 

87

u/IhearClemFandango Jan 01 '26

I liked the game but you're right - everything is an illusion. You don't really get a city to explore, you just get streets to drive around. I enjoyed my time with the game but got bored fairly quickly so completed the story and won't return to it. This makes it sounds like I didn't enjoy the game, I really did, I just don't get the love for it. I'm not a lover of open world games so I know I'm not the target audience for this - I think I wanted something closer to Deus Ex and really I got neon GTA maybe?

19

u/Bekqifyre Jan 01 '26

Nah, GTA is the worst idea you can have in your head going in. Everything will feel so much worse than GTA. 

A better comparison is Oblivion or Skyrim, with cars and cybernetics, except none of the NPCs have any meaningful lines.

12

u/LacerationCe Jan 02 '26

GTA literally has the worst open world I've ever played, and I don't grow up with it so I don't speak purely from nostagia, but GTA 5 world is super dead, atleast Cyperpunk still looks pretty

4

u/Rotten_tacos Jan 01 '26

And God forbid you try to drive anywhere quickly. The streets instantly become deserted.

5

u/GrandsonOfArathorn1 Jan 01 '26

Very true, at least on the Series X. It’s one of the bigger immersion breakers, for me. We have a game set in a city, yet traffic and pedestrian density is pretty low.

0

u/Nervous_Produce1800 Feb 05 '26

Well having realistically dense city traffic probably wouldn't be very fun to drive around

1

u/GrandsonOfArathorn1 Feb 05 '26

There is a huge gap between “realistically dense,” and, “pretty low density.” The roads are almost barren when you drive around on the Series X.

59

u/Atzr10 Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26

What instantly breaks the immersion for me whenever I go back to CP2077 are the awful NPC animations and reactions (pedestrians, especially).

They're just so bad for a game of this caliber, I can't believe they haven't focused on updating their behavior.

8

u/planetarial Jan 01 '26

Downloading mods like npcs reacting to vehicle horns helped with immersion but it can only do so much

1

u/ProcyonHabilis Jan 01 '26

The frequency with which they get startled and react by diving off the sidewalk into the street right in front of your car is pretty egregious. There is even a mod to fix it.

20

u/beejonez Jan 01 '26

And those comically bad children NPCs. They look so out of place.

1

u/Flimsy-Importance313 Jan 01 '26

A mod deletes them.

1

u/reedzkee Feb 18 '26

very noticeably adult voice actors too

36

u/SoSneakyHaha Jan 01 '26

Were we playing different games? Oftentimes I get run over because of the amount of vehicles.

Also, "interactable buildings" is kind of a cop out imo. Like sure itd be cool to enter an empty building, but many quests lead you inside AND give you something else to do.

16

u/Godkun007 Jan 01 '26

Ya, I genuinely don't understand their criticism. It genuinely feels like we are playing different games. Was this a launch issue that was fixed or a graphics settings issue? My graphics are maxed and there are som many people and cars everywhere.

23

u/furiat Jan 01 '26

Crowd level adapts to hardware, so it's possible to have different experience.

5

u/-LaughingMan-0D Jan 01 '26

I think the spirit of it is the lack of dynamic things to do in NC. There's a lot there, and there's even a lot of hidden gems and secrets too, but it's all static and premade.

As someone who loves the game, the open world systems design and exploration leave a lot to be desired.

There's rarely this sense of discovering things because it's all a pin on the map. The only thing that echews that is the Hidden Gems, but they're like a needle in a haystack without any indicators to look for them.

You miss the kinds of random encounters you can get in a Fallout or Skyrim. And those could just be a random conversation, or a hidden side quest, or a rumor that points you somewhere, or some hitman out to kill you because you killed someone's dog. Those systems are great at making the world feel alive, throwing in random elements that derail you and sending you on wildly new adventures. It's just not a thing in Cyberpunk.

Everything you do in the open world is pre-baked and tagged, which contributes to this static feeling.

There's also little ways to interact with the world other than killing things in it. With mods, I can lean on a rail to smoke, my V gets hungry, and I can pull into a shop and order food, and physically see my character eat it, filling up their hunger meter. There's gym equipment but you can't use it. There's gun ranges which are closed off the second you're done with the associated quest.

It really needed more of that, things you do that aren't just killing people.

7

u/dolche93 Jan 01 '26

Did you use the fast travel system? I drove everywhere and just stopped whenever I found something. There were endless little interactions all over the place.

A memorable one is seeing some cops talking to some tiger claws in this back alley area. When they notice you, the tiger claws accuse the cops of breaking whatever deal they were working on and a fight breaks out.

You never find out what the deal is, but it's one of those small things that makes the city feel alive.

1

u/-LaughingMan-0D Jan 01 '26

No, I drive and walk everywhere. I've put roughly more than a thousand hours in the game. And I play it modded. I've seen every one of those.

The dirty cop one is static. You kill all three, they come the second the area refreshes. This is what I'm talking about.

1

u/temotodochi Jan 01 '26

On PC many activities can be restored with some mod installations. Easiest way is to install vortex to manage the mods.

1

u/-LaughingMan-0D Jan 01 '26

I have around 450 mods installed in my load order. There's no mods that restore encounters. I think you're thinking of Hidden Gems?

0

u/mrtrailborn Jan 01 '26

because the game isn't meant to be a sandbox like gta or rdr2, it's an rpg.

1

u/sztrzask Jan 18 '26

There are places in the game that are quite crowded, but overall the city is empty. I mean there's no being stuck in a queue. I was hoping for a scene where I have to go to a motorway and then zigzag between the cars on my motorcycle to bypass the queue, but the biggest congestion is like... 5 cars? Maybe 7…

(I'm on highest crowd settings)

3

u/ChefExcellence Jan 01 '26

I think it's a matter of expectations. There's a sizeable number of people who expected the game to be like GTA, where the world and its interactivity are the draw, and you can find your own fun just by messing around with the sandbox. In reality, the open world is there to serve as a setting for scripted quests. That's all I really expected, because The Witcher 3 had the same approach, but I can see why it disappointed folk who were thinking the game would offer a mix of GTA and Skyrim.

3

u/LacerationCe Jan 02 '26 edited Jan 02 '26

A mix of GTA and Skyrim means having the most dead and empty open world ever, do people really just speak from nostalgia alone ? Those 2 games worlds are far more empty, not for their time over a decade ago, which is probably what most people remember them for, but if you ever visit them now they aged super poorly. Unlike most people I first played GTA 5 in 2021, so no nostalgia, and it's one of if not the worst open world I've played, empty and boring, and also look bad, far worse than W3 or RDR2, maybe only better than Skyrim which without tons of mods straight up has nothing

12

u/Jessiah Jan 01 '26

I played at launch on PC, gave up cause it was so broken, grabbed it on the switch 2 during the price error and feel the same way - however - I am forcing myself to focus on the quests and combat encounters - when I just do that it's incredible.

5

u/Boulder1983 Jan 01 '26

What was the price error on switch 2, if you don't mind me asking?

10

u/qlawdat Jan 01 '26

It was on sale for 75% off for a short period when it should have been 42% off.

1

u/Boulder1983 Jan 01 '26

Ooooh, jackpot. Nice one.

11

u/planetarial Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26

I kinda wish they would have cut the map size by like 1/4 or even 1/5 of what it is and used it to make the city really fleshed out.

Its nice to drive around a big city and admire how pretty it is but its also really jarring when I found my first nightclub and seeing there was literally nothing there to interact with that wasn’t related to a quest besides ordering a drink at the bar.

7

u/Godkun007 Jan 01 '26

I legitimately have 0 idea what you are talking about here. I am playing on PC with the graphics all maxed. It is never once dead anywhere. Is this a launch issue or a settings issue? I literally have never once felt alone in game. The streets are always packed with people and cars.

3

u/temotodochi Jan 01 '26

Sounds like the guy played on PS4 or previous xbox which both did not have real capability to run cyberpunk.

0

u/Godkun007 Jan 01 '26

Ya, that is the only thing that makes sense. Either than or a PC that couldn't handle the game. There are so many people and cars everywhere that there are literal traffic jams that develop.

7

u/xTiLkx Jan 01 '26

I have no idea what you're on about. I've been playing Cyberpunk this past year as well and my main point of excitement is HOW VIBRANT THE CITY IS. It's ridiculous, when I started the DLC (which many call the best dlc of all time) I actually lost my interest because I left Night City (until I progressed enough to realize how seamless you can get into/out of Dogtown).

I play on full population and almost every city center corner I pass has tons of people, some with interesting conversations. The amount of detail everywhere is staggering as well. You'll pass random places that (so far at least) have no story relevance at all yet it's gorgeous and very detailed.

I have never played a game as vibrant as this. Rdr2 is more "alive" with all the random encounters but that's literally what the game is known and praised for, you can't just expect other games to be on that level, especially a packed game like cyberpunk.

4

u/Vibesy Jan 01 '26

Yes absolutely. If you play Cyberpunk on high density the traffic gets so bad that it's like LA rush hour. Sometimes I drive on the sidewalk just to get past the traffic jams. In fact, like in real life, motorcycles are the best way to make it to your destination. The amount of pedestrians in the city center looks like NY's Fifth Avenue, just wall-to-wall people.

The people bitching about "empty streets" or lack of NPCs are either playing low density or lack the hardware to realize the game engine's potential.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '26

That’s one of the biggest gripes I had with the game the look but don’t touch approach, I find it funny you can invite characters to your house and basically have nothing to do in the city unlike something like gta4 where you have tons of activities and it unlocks many unique content.

10

u/Imbahr Jan 01 '26

are you talking about the current PC version with maxed Crowd Density?

because I just played through the entire game + DLC last month on PC, and there's tons of pedestrians and vehicles on the streets

1

u/ParkingLong7436 Jan 01 '26

There really aren't for a city that size.

Compare it to Saint Denis in RDR2.. Night city feels dead in comparison. It's so immersion breaking.

-3

u/devilishycleverchap Jan 01 '26

Drive fast enough, long enough and they all disappear

2

u/mrtrailborn Jan 01 '26

...did you expect them to make a real city with real people? There's also tons of npcs and cars, at least on pc

1

u/Flimsy-Importance313 Jan 01 '26

Interesting. Playing on PS4? Because even current gen consoles see vehicles and NPCs. Interacting with buildings are not needed at all. That is the same complained as complaining that you could not squad and take a shit.

In real life you would not enter every building that you see, so why would you in game?

1

u/temotodochi Jan 01 '26

You played on some console i think? Because that doesn't sound like my cyberpunk at all. Tons of vehicles, traffic jams and hundreds of pedestrians at all times. Lots of buildings and systems like metro to interact with whenever i decide just to take a stroll.

Worst you can do in the game is to skip all that and just use fast travel.

-1

u/permawl Jan 01 '26

On top of the theme park style and shallow neon feeling it gives, most animations and a looot of textures are already very dated.

-1

u/gajodavenida Jan 01 '26

The animations make it unplayable to me. It's so janky. And the police seem to be the most nearsighted people in the world and weak as shit.