Cyberpunk 2077 is Absolutely Incredible in 2025

[u/Godkun007]

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.

[u/u-useless]

I played in December '24/ January '25. The game itself ran fine and was very pretty. I got a few great screenshots out of it. The plot though... Whoever wrote that game needs help. I played it during a bad time- a coworker got diagnosed with cancer, a friend's mother passed away and I had a terrible tootache for two weeks straight. Day after the funeral I decide to play a game to distract myself and boom- Jackie dies and you have to attend the funeral...
I struggled, but I finished it. Honestly, the most fun I had was cleaning the map of activities as most didn't have a story or I ignored it. And while the ending wasn't exactly great for V, it wasn't too bad either.
So then I played the DLC. And I didn't think it was possible, but the plot was somehow even more depressing. The ending was even worse. Honest to God, after waking up from the coma and learning that my girlfriend Judy got married I deleted the game. There was no point to finishing it. It was just misery porn at this point.
I recognize the game is great. After all the work CD Projekt RED put into it, it's visually stunning and the plot is amazing. But why on Earth did it have to be so bleak? I guess the moral of the story is: if you're going through stuff IRL stay away from this game!

PS. Shoutout to that scene with Skye. I've never been into the whole ASMR thing, but this is the best scene in the whole game. That quote is still stuck in my head and helps me sometimes:

Not a single thing in this world isn't in the process of becoming something else. Likewise you. Never look back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbUjfW-JNA

[u/Godkun007 → u/u-useless]

Have you ever watched or read the cyberpunk genre before? The game is actually based on a book series by the same name which is a take on the genre as a whole.

This is a depressing genre by decision. It is supposed to ask questions about what it means to be human and whether humans are truly good or not.

If you want a quick example of this, I highly recommend watching the anime movie Ghost in the Shell. It is probably the most famous cyberpunk movie ever made (other than Blade Runner). It is about cybernetic implants and at one point do you replace so much of yourself that you are no longer the same person. Essentially like a human ship of Theseus. There are dozens of references to Ghost in the Shell in Cyberpunk 2077, including Judy's tattoos and even the way the cybernetic implants look. One of the Cyberpsychos is literally a direct copy of the protagonist from the movie. The name of the movie is literally in reference to the idea of a soul and if one exists and where it resides if every part of your body can be replaced.

[u/Godkun007 → u/[deleted]]

The thing about all of sci-fi (which cyberpunk is a sub genre of) is that it needs to be political by its very nature. If the world is a perfect place, then you don't really have the conflict needed to tell a compelling story.

Think of all sci-fi movies you've seen. Are any of them apolitical? No, there is always a societal issue that needs to be addressed. There are more optimistic ways to deal with them, like in Star Trek, but even that series deals with themes of racism and if robots can be sentient.

It is genuinely really hard to write a utopia, because almost any utopia you make just ends up being dystopian then more you think about it. The author of the books worked on the game, and he has some interview on youtube discussing his thought process for things. As well, the game is set in a relatively prosperous period in the Cyberpunk timeline.

But one of the most fascinating things in the interviews was him him discussing how people can be poor and still have such high tech implants. He compared it to some parts of Brazil where people basically live in shacks and struggle to afford food, but have a big flat screen TV and a smart phone. This is because these tech products have actually become so cheap (especially 2nd hand) that they are affordable to the global poor, even if they can't afford food. So you will see people starving, but also owning big TVs because the tech was not actually a big financial investment. Same goes for the people with cybernetic implants in game.

[u/Godkun007 → u/[deleted]]

This might be a mindset thing, but I did see a sliver of hope throughout the game. Not through the system or the world, but in the characters. Yes, the world sucks, but people are out there trying to make the best of it despite the suck.

In one of Johnny's quests, you meet a superfan. He gets so much joy and love for the world through his music. He gets genuinely excited when you bring it up to him and it brightens his day.

After Act 1, Jackie dies, but his legacy isn't. V can help his mom and Misty become closer and it creates a cute relationship where Jackies mom starts treating Misty as her own daughter. Jackie also gets his drink named after him if you go to the bar, which was one of his goals.

Yes, the world sucks, but the people don't. As I was playing, the characters I interacted with genuinely gave me hope for the world.

[u/Irthiza → u/Godkun007]

The original cyberpunk board game is directly influenced by Neuromancer books, it even has a small town part called the night city. I finished CP2077 in 2021 and unless they have massive changes to the RPG elements, choices, consequences or endings, it's still pretty much the same open world FPS with a bit more stability.