Gaming History 101

Despite being released just over 4 years ago, there’s consistent draw to return to Cyberpunk 2077, an open world first-person RPG by developer CD Projekt Red (of The Witcher fame) based on a tabletop game simply entitled Cyberpunk. The first 15 months or so of this title’s life was a tragic tale of poorly optimized console versions that were borderline unplayable and drove players to avoid the game completely. At the time I first picked up and played the game, it was available on Playstation and Xbox for a mere $10 at big box retailers, the version I purchased at Best Buy even came with a free steelbook. Then came the big version 1.5 update that supported the new generation of consoles and ironed out a lot of the problems in February, 2022. Finally on September 21, 2023, the title was once again overhauled with a 2.0 update that provided gameplay changes, additional enhancements, and an expansion, Phantom Liberty, two days later. Needless to say the history of this title is a roller coaster that thankfully concludes in a redemption story.

I first took the plunge into Night City as protagonist V in May, 2022, on my Xbox Series X. Despite initial hesitations and a distaste for rewarding publishers that release games in unacceptable shape, I enjoyed it, completing a female run in 42 hours. Back then I remember feeling like the characters you meet, aside from Panam and Takemura, were largely throwaway with sudden breaks in their stories. I also remember thinking that many of the early systems were annoying, such as having to use spec points to do basic things like upgrade weapons and the armor system affecting your aesthetics prevented me from feeling like I was truly roleplaying V. Side content was also harder than I expected, especially hunting cyberpsychos that could kill you in a few shots but had to be taken down non-lethally in ways the game barely explained. In the end, I would consider it “good, but not great” (or 3.5/5 for those of you who just need a score).

Now playing the 2.2 release, not only has Cyberpunk 2077 changed significantly, but so has my PC hardware. These days my gaming PC consists of a 12th generation i7, an RTX 4070 TI, a lightening fast SSD, and 32GB of RAM to boot. As the release of Phantom Liberty hit the shelves of physical and virtual stores alike, I was tempted to dive back in. Given the very positive feedback of the 2.0 update, praise for the expansion, new ray tracing features (including full path tracing on PC), and a killer deal on the Ultimate Edition, I decided it was time for a replay on this newest and best version. Boy, am I glad I did.