Cyberpunk 2077 Deserves a Second Chance

Cyberpunk 2077 is a video game that is as controversial nowadays as it is beautifully written and designed. For a game so hyped since its announcement back in 2012 in a dramatic, hyperrealistic, conceptual teaser, Cyberpunk 2077 had a chaotic launch period that turned the emotional power of expectation into rage and disappointment. The promises studio CD Projekt Red made to players of providing an immersive unparalleled technological experience in this cyberpunk space called Night City, with extensive character customization and a lot of places to explore, combined with the company’s positive reputation based on the popularity and praise of their most famous game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (which probably pushed for the development of The Witcher TV series on Netflix), amounted into a hard drive of anticipation that was emboldened by names like Grimes and Keanu Reeves joining the roster of characters.

However, with the issues that came from a rushed release due to several internal and external forces (investors want their money’s worth from a game in development for eight years and fans just can't wait anymore after several launch delays), the game’s first version did not technically perform well, something that made many consumers disappointed enough to overlook Cyberpunk 2077’s terrific everything else.

Cyberpunk, or The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future, is originally a 1988 RPG board game developed by Mike Pondsmith with his company R. Talsorian Games Inc, heavily inspired by Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, two very prominent stories that are arguably the origins of the cyberpunk genre of dystopian futures, characterized by moral conundrums based on the technological advancements of the time. (My previous article on Alita: Battle Angel already introduced the cyberpunk genre, so if you want to know more about it, check it out). This first game tells the story of how the world came to the dystopian future of 2013, beginning its history in the 80s. The second game, set in the 2020s, expands the lore of Night City. The third game explores the ramifications of a fourth Corporate War in the 2030s (as it is very known, technology had many of its great leaps because of significant conflicts), and finally, Cyberpunk Red is a revised version of the third game, set in an alternative timeline that serves as a prequel to Cyberpunk 2077. Is this confusing at all?

Because the launch of the video game was nothing but confusing and unsatisfying, fans were not happy. The PC version of Cyberpunk 2077 saw some minor bugs that only slightly hindered the gameplay experience, but the console versions for PS4 and Xbox One were jammed with glitches that prevented gameplay and proper engagement with any aspect of Night City, the characters, and the story. It is not difficult to find countless video compilations on YouTube or Reddit depicting the unfortunate examples of how the game did not go through a thorough troubleshooting phase before launch, pointing to a weird and chaotic rushed development process in the part of CD Projekt Red in regards to software implementation and optimization. T-poses, characters getting naked all of a sudden, standing up and phasing through their vehicles, textures with low resolutions, cars that are difficult to drive, and infinitely phasing below the map are some examples of the glitches that are hindering fans’ ability to immerse themselves in the future world of Cyberpunk 2077.

For such hype (I am not kidding, the preorder numbers reached 8 million copies before the release date of December 11th, 2020, CD Projekt Red’s biggest launch ever, already covering their development expenditures, and they sold 5 million copies more the week after), the results were not the perfection everyone wanted. In crisis mode, the game studio promised to refund the customers that felt Cyberpunk 2077 was nearly impossible to play and enjoy, letting them keep their old copies if they wanted to try it out still but reimbursing their money in a show of goodwill. CD Projekt Red then immediately tasked the development team to create patches to fix the bugs and glitches, and by March 2021, they have only released one major patch that was not able to address all the issues fully. A new one was scheduled for later February, but due to the studio being hacked by cyberattacker trolls, who stole internal legal documents, employee data, and source codes for The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Gwent and may or may not have already sold them in the black market, they postponed the second patch to the end of March. And to rub salt into the wound, CD Projekt Red investors are suing the company for being misled about the state of the “unfinished and unplayable game” before its release.

But why am I talking about all of this? Because I believe Cyberpunk 2077 is much better than many fans and all the news headlines care to admit, and it deserves a second chance. As I mentioned before, the story and moral dilemmas it presents, the characters, and most importantly, the cyberpunk aesthetic (the fashion and music are my favorites) are aspects the game not only succeeds at making satisfactory but emotional and engaging enough to drive audience members (gamers and backseat viewers) to reflect upon what they experienced for days on-end. What is better than to finish a book, TV series, movie, or song and to keep thinking about what the message behind the story/lyrics means and how it affects and applies to one’s life? To discuss with others such effects and how memorable the whole experience felt?

I do believe CD Projekt Red released the video game in an unfinished state. Technological development has raised the threshold of game quality significantly as gamers today experience fewer and fewer bugs that genuinely affect gameplay and better graphical resolutions that make gaming an awe-inspiring affair (Last of Us Part II is a perfect example). And because RPG video games are distinguishable from any other media of storytelling by giving audience members the ability to mold and lose oneself in the stories through controlling character actions and dialogue, the gameplay is a crucial aspect any video game should nail. I am not somebody who cares as much about how the game feels in one’s hand or how easy and seamless it is to progress through a story than what is being told, but it is essential to think that plot and characterization/acting alone are part of what makes books, movies, and tv shows stand out, not video games per se. Still, the game’s plot and worldbuilding should be praised.

Cyberpunk 2077’s narrative is a precious piece of code. The game discusses the nature of facing and accepting death, finding family and love in the unlikeliest of places, technological immortality, trying to find oneself in a broken world (something very relatable in today’s current climate), achieving one’s dreams against all odds, and keeping one’s principles and moral codes even in the toughest of times.

It has three different beginnings that end up with protagonist V (Vincent or Valerie) working with their friend Jackie as mercs in Night City, the US’s hub of technological innovation, entertainment, and crime located in-between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and accepting a job to steal something called the Relic, an implantable prototype chip that contains the consciousness of Johnny Silverhand. With time, the Relic physically modifies V’s brain to match Johnny’s memories and higher cognitive functions, killing V in the process, so the story develops into both characters working together to separate Silverhand from V’s mind, culminating in 5 different primary endings. The voice acting is fantastic (Keanu Reeves does his part well, and his persona Johnny Silverhand is enticing as this full of himself punk-rocker Jiminy Cricket-like cybernetic construct in V’s head) and the portrayal of characters like Judy and Panam, who are the primary romanceable options of the story, is captivating; one an emotionally awkward Braindance editor (advanced VR that permits customers to feel the sensations of the person who recorded it) and another a fiery nomad who wears her heart on her sleeves in the best kind of way. Still, almost every single character introduced in the missions and side mission is as alluring as Jackie, Johnny, Judy, and Panam.

But the narrative and characterization are only part of Cyberpunk 2077’s uniqueness and ingenuity (I felt a gut punch watching every single ending). Night City’s rendering and the game’s musical production and costume design are breathtaking indeed (see what I did there?). Beginning with the Californian town, Night City is beautiful day and night. During the day, the architectural cubic and cylindrical silhouettes appear stacked together in various shapes connected through walkways and above the ground roadways that make the city look both too tight and narrow from the ground up and too big and sprawling from an above perspective. Technological innovative high rises blend with simpler one-story houses located on the ground floor or even under bridges, creating this contrast where the wealthy people and big corporations live closest to the sky (heaven), and the poor inhabit the spaces nearest to the ground (underworld/hell) in this social gap that permeates the thematic of Cyberpunk 2077. Yet, during the night, the colors emanating from high rise buildings, holographic and electronic billboards, decorative lights, and store displays in shades of blue, yellow, purple, red, green, and orange coalesce into a mesmerizing perpetual night show that contrasts with the prominent denigrating and criminal activities that occur at this time of the day. That paints Night City as this enthralling trap that lures you in with promises of grandeur only to suck your soul out of your body at a moment’s notice.

Night City’s design is only matched by the main character’s costumes. Players can customize how the protagonists look with many different clothing options won and collected throughout the game like in any RPG, but if a player is interested in boosting their stats (it makes it easier to progress through the story), fashion is thrown out of the window. Gamers can look sexy and stylish as V, but that will not help them win the game. NPC avatars wear some of the garments available to the protagonist in preprogrammed looks, though, so taking a stroll out in the streets is the best way to appreciate how much thought and stylistic cohesion went into designing Cyberpunks 2077’s fashion of the future. But for all the main characters in the story, their style matters. Their costumes are very iconic because they depict their personalities in fun, unique ways, and they are not overtly technological or manufactured in an incredibly innovative manner (at least the game does not mention this), but implants and prosthetics enhance a few of the character’s bodies, something that transcends the boundaries of style and fashion.

Beginning with Panam, because of her background as a nomad (groups of people that perform bounty hunter and mercenary jobs all over the country), her design lacks a touch of technology. Instead, Panam looks like a biker with her red and grey motorcycle crop top vest jacket with a collar that closes into a choker, safety harness above a sand yellow-green wooly shoulderless shirt (wearing a safety harness like a belt is a fashion statement indeed), fingerless gloves, black nails, and jeans pants with tire-like knee pads. Her style is the definition of bold yet delicate, as her jacket and pants feature comfortable protective pads and on the outside look badass, but upon taking them away, her shirt exposes a lot of body, covered and protected yet again, now by the harness. Panam’s jacket by itself was given to her when she entered her nomad clan. So, her costume tells the story of a woman that appears to have this firm and bold disposition, but in reality, her drive and dauntlessness are shields to protect her inner vulnerability and her fear of messing up her relationship with her nomad family and with her friends and love interests.

Like Panam, Judy is also very emotionally vulnerable, but instead of Panam’s seemingly brazen personality, she is much more reserved and aloof when you meet her. Her style is then a representation of the strength she wants to exude. Judy wears a tied-up t-shirt like a bra, black leather-like overalls with a silver-studded punk belt, and black laceless v-shaped boot shoes. Her look is fierce, very revealing, and straightforward, but she does not wear it out and about in Night City because of her reclusive personality, so it seems Judy chose her outfit as a way to personally empower herself without the judgmental guise of anybody. Moreover, her costume is only black and white to drive attention to her tattoos and hair. Her tattoos represent her personality, as some examples include lots of colored red roses, spider webs, ghosts, laser sharks, fire trucks, the name Moxes (her gang formed to protect women of Night City), the number 13, and the lyrics for Pyramid Song from Radiohead. Judy prefers exposing her skin as a way to convey what she likes and who she is to anybody (including herself) without having to speak to them directly. And her green-pink hair is styled in a buzzcut so the hairless side can clearly display her implants, a signal of her work as a Braindance editor.

Unlike Judy and Panam, Johnny Silverhand is full of himself. He is the quintessential representation of the self-destructive punk-rocker (he is the lead singer of the fictional band Samurai) that believes the world is twisted, but instead of using only music to convey his distaste toward corporations dominating the world (and causing several world wars), Johnny also blows up a “corpo” building to become a legend of Night City and to kickstart a movement to make the world a more beautiful place. The song Never Fade Away, which in-canon was written by Samurai and performed by Johnny, can be interpreted to represent the endless struggle to live in a world that is ugly, violent, dystopic, and destructive. It may sound cheesy, but Never Fade Away, performed by Olga Jankowska, is hauntingly enthralling, and the lyrics can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, as an existential dilemma or a romanticized point of view, so you should check it out. Therefore, his style combines rockstar clothing and tactical wear. Johnny wears a bulletproof vest over a tank top with the logo of his band, wine glossy tight fitted pants, black heeled dress shoes, military dog tags, and his iconic aviator sunglasses, and he also has an entirely metal prosthetic left hand he uses to play his guitar and punch his enemies.

Other character styles that are interesting to point out are Rogue’s, Evelyn’s, and Hanako’s. Rogue (Johnny’s ex-lover) wears a very iconic neon yellow and black crop top sweater with the word “Survive” (a piece that seems to work in the 2070s as well as in the 2020s) that leaves her midriff exposed to a black implant she has between her breasts and waist. This cardigan really speaks to Rogue’s commanding attitude and survival at all costs morality. Evelyn (the character that tasks V with stealing the Relic) is even more stylish, with her cyan and pink plumed black robe-like jacket, blue hair, disco ball v cut dress, and red thigh-high boots. She is an escort so, part of her fashion identity is to show and attract, something very apparent in her style. Finally, Hanako (the daughter of the main villain Saburo Arasaka) represents Cyberpunk 2077’s perspective on the impact of wealth on fashion. The costume players see her wearing is an Haute couture white skintight latex-like high neck dress and white shoes with golden high heels. But what stands out from the outfit is the golden detailings that appear in the collar and back and slither through her arms ending in her hands as metallic finger coverings. These gold detailings are conductive sensory enhancements, typically seen as thin grey lines in other characters. So, because Hanako is part of one of the most influential families in the world, she can wear Haute couture at any time of the day and have better, shinier, and more beautiful sensory implants than the rest of Night City.

Conclusively, Cyberpunk 2077 suffers from an unfortunate case of rushed development due to external pressures that resulted in a captivating narrative and design experience being coupled with faulty gameplay at best. So, if you want to give Cyberpunk 2077 a chance, you can either wait to play it on consoles and PC after the prominent patches are released, or you can go to Twitch or YouTube and watch the whole story as a backseat viewer. I am sure that if you love a thought-provoking plot, very likable characters (you will undoubtedly love Panam), and an easy to get invested in highly bingeable content, and you find yourself wanting to consume more cyberpunk media, you will have a memorable and transformative time. Also, I assure you, Never Fade Away, sung by Olga Jankowska, will not fade away from your memory for quite some time because “A thing of beauty - I know, Will never fade away.”

Cover Image Via