> Gameplay Type: First Person Shooter Role Playing Game
Summary: A long anticipated release with eight years of development time, the game’s launch has been plagued with bugs and poor performance as well as decidedly mixed reviews. Regardless, the title offers gamers the largest open world cyberpunk universe thus far, so despite the rather uninspired art design and a plot that brings nothing new to the genre, this game is the best available to allow players to immerse themselves in a cyberpunk setting.
This is a very dated and seriously opinionated review.
I call this genre of game, "Illusion of choice" games, but to be fair to cyberpunk 2077 it still does it better than any other games of its type.
If you think of it as a tree and each decision point branching out to millions of possibilities and outcomes then you'll be extremely disappointed, but if you think of it the other way, of a strong narrative that has a funnel of lots of different ways to reach the same outcome you'll find there is an impressive amount of ways to interact with the world.
If you suspend your disbelief and never play through a second time, then you may even come away feeling like your choices had severely important consequences.
That's about as good as you'll ever get from the genre. If you want full world simulation then you'll ironically end up with a boring game, because if all choices have genuine consequences, then it becomes impossible to tell a narrative, and you end up with something like rimworld or dwarf fortress. Impressive games in their own right, but are story generators not story-tellers.
Haven't really played CP2077 so I can't tell, but I was always of the impression that CRPG works best for fantasy or apocalyptic (System Shock, Fallout) genres because the world is typically much less complicated and the information doesn't travel easily, so it doesn't have to be fully simulated (especially in terms of consequences to your actions).
That I believe was always a problem for true cyberpunk games. In cyberpunk stories, information is everything. I am not sure I have seen a game that does cyberpunk really well by leaning into this complexity.
I enjoyed the game for the reasons you mentioned. I'm even able to enjoy the completely scripted and linear railroad shooters just like I'm able to enjoy a Hollywood blockbuster when my mood calls for it.
I have some issue with the initial marketing and the discussion surrounding the game though: choose your own backstory? Absolutely no impact at all, except some pre-recorded wingers in dialogues. RPG with a skill-tree? Absolutely 0 impact, you always have a way to get to a closed room, regardless of the perks you pick. And even if you pick non there is a vent open.
As long as you are aware that you are getting into what is basically a linear story in an open world, instead of another CD Projekt RED game _à la_ Witcher 3 which involved side stories that are as fleshed out as other full-sized games, yes it can be enjoyable.
It still one of the most amazing open-world futuristic games I have personally explored, which is a shame considering the rest of the game.
I love cyberpunk as a genre/style/aesthetic but there are almost no open world videogames that actually nail it.
For me the cyberpunk aesthetic basically requires bustling small streets with tons of detail (shops, trash, crowds). That's where most games that try to use an open world fail in my opinion. We just don't have the technology yet to create these dense detail rich scenes without a lot of work on the developers/artists side as well as keeping it performant so it can run on mainstream gaming PCs.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a prime example of that in my opinion. Most parts of the city look like it's Covid again and people must stay at home. Some parts of the map come remotely close but the illusion breaks once you inspect your surroundings.
I like Cloudpunk (https://store.steampowered.com/app/746850/Cloudpunk/) a fair bit but even that suffers from the walkways and buildings feeling slightly empty. At least the pixel art style helps it from falling in the uncanney valley that cyberpunk constantly dips in.
I think Cyberpunk has a good basis but as you say, it's heavy weight; they did increase or tweak crowd density in an update I think, but also it's a PC game so it can be modded and improved as hardware gets better. The challenge - and you already see it on lower crowd density numbers - is getting enough unique and different characters. Cyberpunk seems to have a number (dozens?) of NPC characters making up the crowds, but it gets repetitive and you frequently see identical ones.
Procedurally generated characters would already improve that, and some games do have it but they tend to pick from a fixed set of animation and behaviour stereotypes still. More of those stereotypes make it better (think GTA), but it's still fixed.
I don't think going all in on procedural generation or even AI would fix it though; especially AI has a tendency to go for a mean / average character quickly. And in video games, you still want predictability.
That said, maybe a different visual style (lower fidelity or 2d) would work.
I would add Citizen Sleeper to the list. Board-game inspired narrative cyberpunk RPG with a nice story. I loved it and currently I'm playing the second one. It's a short game. Took me around 10 hours to finish though I didn't go throught all the tasks or the full DLC.
I absolutely loved Burn::Cycle on the Philips CDi, where it was the definitive version (apparently the visuals were much better than the PC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoLw7SEmLYk
The gameplay itself was a bit rough, but the music and immersion I felt while playing it I still recall to this day.
I second that - they do write "this list has been truncated to those titles with heavily involved narratives with settings and themes that are decidedly within the genre", but a game about a hacker hired to hack the AI controlling a space station, who gets a neural implant as a reward for completing the task, and then wakes up after the operation to find out that they're the only survivor after the AI ran amok, is as cyberpunk as it gets...
Cyberpunk 2077:
> Gameplay Type: First Person Shooter Role Playing Game Summary: A long anticipated release with eight years of development time, the game’s launch has been plagued with bugs and poor performance as well as decidedly mixed reviews. Regardless, the title offers gamers the largest open world cyberpunk universe thus far, so despite the rather uninspired art design and a plot that brings nothing new to the genre, this game is the best available to allow players to immerse themselves in a cyberpunk setting.
This is a very dated and seriously opinionated review.
> this game is the best available to allow players to immerse themselves in a cyberpunk setting
Depends what you mean by "immerse". If it means driving through Night City on your bike and enjoying the view, sure.
If it means role-playing as a character and building it your position in the city via meaningful choices with consequences, really not.
I call this genre of game, "Illusion of choice" games, but to be fair to cyberpunk 2077 it still does it better than any other games of its type.
If you think of it as a tree and each decision point branching out to millions of possibilities and outcomes then you'll be extremely disappointed, but if you think of it the other way, of a strong narrative that has a funnel of lots of different ways to reach the same outcome you'll find there is an impressive amount of ways to interact with the world.
If you suspend your disbelief and never play through a second time, then you may even come away feeling like your choices had severely important consequences.
That's about as good as you'll ever get from the genre. If you want full world simulation then you'll ironically end up with a boring game, because if all choices have genuine consequences, then it becomes impossible to tell a narrative, and you end up with something like rimworld or dwarf fortress. Impressive games in their own right, but are story generators not story-tellers.
Haven't really played CP2077 so I can't tell, but I was always of the impression that CRPG works best for fantasy or apocalyptic (System Shock, Fallout) genres because the world is typically much less complicated and the information doesn't travel easily, so it doesn't have to be fully simulated (especially in terms of consequences to your actions).
That I believe was always a problem for true cyberpunk games. In cyberpunk stories, information is everything. I am not sure I have seen a game that does cyberpunk really well by leaning into this complexity.
I enjoyed the game for the reasons you mentioned. I'm even able to enjoy the completely scripted and linear railroad shooters just like I'm able to enjoy a Hollywood blockbuster when my mood calls for it.
I have some issue with the initial marketing and the discussion surrounding the game though: choose your own backstory? Absolutely no impact at all, except some pre-recorded wingers in dialogues. RPG with a skill-tree? Absolutely 0 impact, you always have a way to get to a closed room, regardless of the perks you pick. And even if you pick non there is a vent open.
As long as you are aware that you are getting into what is basically a linear story in an open world, instead of another CD Projekt RED game _à la_ Witcher 3 which involved side stories that are as fleshed out as other full-sized games, yes it can be enjoyable.
It still one of the most amazing open-world futuristic games I have personally explored, which is a shame considering the rest of the game.
Calling art design uninspired and plot that brings "nothing new" has to be the dumbest take about art I've seen in a while.
I wonder if they actually played the game to write such nonsense.
Shouldn't the Watch Dogs franchise be on this list?
Beneath a Steel Sky (1994) should be on this list.
It's freeware, available from GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/beneath_a_steel_sky
I recommend the Shadowrun series on Steam. Not large games but really fun.
I admit I'm not fully attuned to the cyberpunk genre, but I loved playing Mean Streets[1] as a kid and feels it should get a mention.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_Streets_(video_game)
I love cyberpunk as a genre/style/aesthetic but there are almost no open world videogames that actually nail it.
For me the cyberpunk aesthetic basically requires bustling small streets with tons of detail (shops, trash, crowds). That's where most games that try to use an open world fail in my opinion. We just don't have the technology yet to create these dense detail rich scenes without a lot of work on the developers/artists side as well as keeping it performant so it can run on mainstream gaming PCs.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a prime example of that in my opinion. Most parts of the city look like it's Covid again and people must stay at home. Some parts of the map come remotely close but the illusion breaks once you inspect your surroundings.
I like Cloudpunk (https://store.steampowered.com/app/746850/Cloudpunk/) a fair bit but even that suffers from the walkways and buildings feeling slightly empty. At least the pixel art style helps it from falling in the uncanney valley that cyberpunk constantly dips in.
I think Cyberpunk has a good basis but as you say, it's heavy weight; they did increase or tweak crowd density in an update I think, but also it's a PC game so it can be modded and improved as hardware gets better. The challenge - and you already see it on lower crowd density numbers - is getting enough unique and different characters. Cyberpunk seems to have a number (dozens?) of NPC characters making up the crowds, but it gets repetitive and you frequently see identical ones.
Procedurally generated characters would already improve that, and some games do have it but they tend to pick from a fixed set of animation and behaviour stereotypes still. More of those stereotypes make it better (think GTA), but it's still fixed.
I don't think going all in on procedural generation or even AI would fix it though; especially AI has a tendency to go for a mean / average character quickly. And in video games, you still want predictability.
That said, maybe a different visual style (lower fidelity or 2d) would work.
The Ascent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_(video_game)
Definitely the best cyberpunk world right now. It looks absolutely stunning. Id love a Witcher 3 style game in that world.
There is currently (for a week, until 2026-08-10) a Cyberpunk-themed sale going on on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/category/cyberpunk
I would add Citizen Sleeper to the list. Board-game inspired narrative cyberpunk RPG with a nice story. I loved it and currently I'm playing the second one. It's a short game. Took me around 10 hours to finish though I didn't go throught all the tasks or the full DLC.
I absolutely loved Burn::Cycle on the Philips CDi, where it was the definitive version (apparently the visuals were much better than the PC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoLw7SEmLYk
The gameplay itself was a bit rough, but the music and immersion I felt while playing it I still recall to this day.
System Shock should be on this list.
I second that - they do write "this list has been truncated to those titles with heavily involved narratives with settings and themes that are decidedly within the genre", but a game about a hacker hired to hack the AI controlling a space station, who gets a neural implant as a reward for completing the task, and then wakes up after the operation to find out that they're the only survivor after the AI ran amok, is as cyberpunk as it gets...
A couple more worth mentioning. Beneath a steel sky, flashback.
Syndicate (1993) should be on the list.
100% I spent endless hours playing this on my Mac back in the 90s.
Missing my favorite - Transistor
Also missing the classic Dreamweb.
And we can't mention Transistor without shouting out Darren Korb (and Ashley Barrett on the vocals) for its amazing OST:
https://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/transistor-origin...
It plays an important role in the story, so it double the reasons to talk about it :)
It is safe to assume anything Darren Korb works on has an amazing OST.
Heck even the games that aren't that good (of which there is arguably only 1) have an amazing OST.
> of which there is arguably only 1
IYKYK :)
Wat, no SpectreVR?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(1991_video_game)
An oversight. This was one of the very first viable multiplayer network games and it definitely belongs in the list ..
The list got hugged to death so I can't view but, but shoutout to Neocron!