I bought and played Cyberpunk 2077 on release day all the way back on December 9th, 2020. Within my first sixteen hours, I posted a review of the game, stating that while it was a visual and artistic spectacle, the technical shortcomings and bugs that plagued the game at launch left it in a rather poor state, choosing not to recommend it until it was better optimized and patched up. Despite this, I went on to complete the game and all of its content in about 80 hours. While over those 80 hours I had enjoyed what I had played, I'd come to realize that Cyberpunk 2077, even aside from it's marred technical performance, was at the time a game that was nearly all spectacle, and little substance. It's regrettable that this was the case, because the spectacle that is Cyberpunk 2077 was unlike anything at the time. An open world cyberpunk setting almost fully realized in its art design, visuals, presentation and lore. The problem is that CD Projekt Red promised so much more than visual splendour. The game was advertised as a deep, responsive RPG, with storylines and progression developed explicitly to respond and react to the players actions, and therefore bring about consequences that ultimately led you down your own, distinct path in Night City.

As an open world title, elements of this are true; you can roam anywhere, approach quests in (mostly) any order, and are generally free to do as you please. The issue comes however in the form of the quests themselves. Cyberpunk 2077 has dialogue tree after dialogue tree after dialogue tree, and yet nearly in all cases those branches end up intertwined at the ends anyway, creating the illusion of action and reaction, decision and consequence. There are some instances where your decisions do have an impact on the characters and world around you, but even in the best cases they're limited almost exclusively to the quest those decisions were made in. Nothing truly branches out, and therefore there's not much truly conveys to you, the player, that your actions did indeed bring about consequences, good or bad. Ultimately, the only thing decision that is effected by the end of the game is your choice of ending, of which become open as a result of certain quest lines you chose to complete. How you arrive to the point of making this choice is the same no matter what. Night City on paper; in it's lore, writing, and design, presents itself as deep and complex, but your interactions with it are unfortunately, for the most part, shallow.

Three years on, it's clear Cyberpunk 2077 could never live up to the hype propagated by CD Projekt Red's image, their marketing, and the mania surrounding its launch. Even had the game released in a non-buggy state, it was clear to see just how much had been paired back by release. My main gripe was the lack of a responsive and evolving world and story, but there have been numerous Reddit posts and YouTube videos going over the lack of promised features, demonstrating cut content, and lack of quality of life features that open world games have been graced by for many years before even the games inception. Indeed, it has been three years, and in those three years CD Projekt Red has, for one reason or another, stayed the course and righted the ship that is Cyberpunk 2077. Years of updates and development on the DLC expansion has led us today, with the recent release of the 2.0 update, and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.

While neither content addition broach the issue of the games initial promise of a deeper, more interactive storyline, I've long accepted that this wouldn't be fixed. It's an issue that goes straight to the core of the game, and is better remedied by a new release; a sequel if you will, rather than a band-aid patch. What we did get instead however is in my eyes a resounding victory lap for the game as is. Vehicle combat, a driving overhaul, an actual vehicle shop, completely revamped skill trees, finishers, combat overhaul, better merchants, optimized performance, and still more, and that's just going over the free 2.0 update. Phantom Liberty adds a swath of new guns, new cars, a whole new area to explore, a new skill tree, and about 20 or more hours of additional quests, gigs, and side missions. Both additions fix so many of the qualms people had with the games initial release, and while it doesn't fix all of them, it bring so many additions to the table that it at least partially makes up for it. Since both were released, I've put 30 hours into a brand new playthrough, and I can say for certain that it's been so much more engaging than it was for the 80 that I put in the first time around.

On a side note; Cyberpunk 2077, broken as it was at release, was still a technical marvel. Night City is one of the most visually realized locations ever made in a virtual world, and the insane engineers at CD Projekt Red have chosen not to slow up on that one bit. Over the years in conjunction with Nvidia they've released several groundbreaking updates that introduce some sort of ridiculous new visual technology. Their latest, Nvidia's Ray Reconstruction pushes the visuals of the game so above and beyond anything else on the market right now that, in almost certain terms, Cyberpunk 2077 is the best looking PC title ever made thus far. Pathtracing, though it may be experimental by the games own admission, transforms the visual makeup of the game so drastically that even though I only have a 3060ti and am playing at 1080p, I'm putting up with just barely 30fps at times just to play the game with it on. I realize this sounds snobbish, but as someone with a 144hz monitor, I only bring it up because I normally strive for higher framerates over visuals, and Cyberpunk 2077 is now my sole exception to the rule.

Cyberpunk 2077 isn't perfect, and it certainly isn't everything CD Projekt Red promised or advertised, but as the game it's become, it's at it's definitive best. I feel comfortable recommending it wholeheartedly now. Even with all its flaws there aren't many games like it, and with those flaws mitigated it is an absolutely stellar title.