Five things for which even haters must praise Cyberpunk 2077

The dust after the premiere of Cyberpunk 2077 has not yet fallen, and I do not think anyone expected such a blow. We are dealing here with a situation somewhat similar to that of the Czech Kingdom Come Deliverance – an equally impressive production in which the CryEngine engine generating Slavic landscapes defeated the most popular consoles on the market: PS4 and Xbox One. In fact, Daniel Vavra himself – the main producer of the Kingdom – has recently spoken with a great understanding of the Polish game and called it a “technological masterpiece”. He feels that he has gone through similar dilemmas and problems. Only that KCD was expecting a group of RPG or story fans, and around Cyberpunk he made only a little less noise than the confusion of the next GTA.

Perhaps it would be better if the CDPR publishers did the same maneuver as Microsoft with its Flight Simulator. As late as the summer, many were expecting a version for Xbox One, and the developers cleverly avoided specifying the console model they were preparing the game for. This one was created mainly on PCs and just after the premiere, it was rather clear that the XOne, which had been underdeveloped for years, would not be able to attract such graphics. Recently, without any scandal, it was finally announced that the console version would appear one year after the premiere and only on the next generation. Can you? You can

Only once with Cyberpunk, the hype was incomparably bigger than with a niche game about flying, and two – for such decisions was the last bell before the announcement of pre-orders in 2019. This would have involved the loss of millions of pre-orders, falls in stock market quotations, and the huge anger of players. Or less than now? We will not know that anymore. Milk has spilled and there is still patching up the game and restoring the reputation. It is worth remembering, however, that there is another side to the medal – a beautiful, sensational game on PCs, where bugs are much less and the graphic design delights with details.

If Cyberpunk 2077 initially came out only on PC, and then it was quickly adapted to the next-gen consoles, this is what we would mainly be talking about – bugs would probably be relegated to the background. Because the creators of The Witcher 3 again made a really great game in many respects, which, unfortunately, quite a lot of players have no chance to find out. You can complain about the decisions of CD Projekt RED, complain about mistakes and shortcomings, “hate”, but it’s hard not to be delighted and not to praise those elements that turned out amazing and thanks to which this title shines among others on the right equipment. So – what did we like so much?

RTX ON!

Speaking of shining … Many new technologies need time to adapt to the market and fully show their capabilities, and this is probably the case with RTX in Nvidia graphics chips. We screwed our noses at the ray-traced reflections in the occasional puddles in the Battlefield V trailers, still seeing no reason to rush to the store for an ultra-expensive graphics card. Some later released games did look a bit better with RTX, but it is the reflective Night City of Cyberpunk 2077 that seems to be a good reason to switch to the new technology.

It’s not just about the usual differences in low and high details, or that something is more detailed or less. In places covered with neon light, where it also has something to reflect on, the locations gain not only the appearance, but also the atmosphere, increasing the immersion of staying in Night City. Fact – these effects are uneven and here and there the raytracing introduces minimal differences, but when it shines in full – the impression turns out to be amazing and allows you to completely forget about any errors. Considering the still-high prices of RTX sets, it is even worth trying for Cyberpunk to play in the cloud, where we will find the cheapest option to experience this game in the highest details.

Talk to me, Judy

Once upon a time, there was an LA Noir game that took a revolutionary approach to facial animation and expressing emotions through facial expressions alone. Everything happened back in the times of the Xbox 360 and was predefined – planned in advance. This technology somehow did not catch on, so to this day, we can see close-ups of lifeless puppets on wooden faces in the most expensive AAA productions, which smack their lips to the rhythm of their words. Cyberpunk 2077 is making another revolution in this respect!

With facial expressions and facial animations, NPC CP2077 is ahead of other games by a whole generation, thanks to the special technology of procedurally generated animations of this body part. It is not only about the expression of the face, the synchronization of the mouth with the words, the gaze directed at the hero controlled by the player, but also the entire behavior of our companions in the conversation. Nowhere else have I seen such natural movements and behavior of the side characters. They can sit, get up, walk, stare at their computer screens, just go about their own business naturally, and have a conversation at the same time.

The first moments with Jack are impressive, but only the conversation with Evelyn and the meeting with Judy make you feel like you are in the chair. With the right frame in the room and the size of the screen, you can feel in VR mode, but without glasses! Another great example is the scene in the bar where we watch Jackie’s leg twitch nervously. Everything the NPC characters do is natural and familiar. We are never knocked out of immersion by going into some dialogue mode where only a stiff talking head is visible. We live in this world, we are one of the inhabitants of Night City, we really play as V, not just control it.

The music is more than cool

In the box with the PC edition of the game, you can find a CD with the soundtrack, and by pasting the code to download the files, you get immediate access to the digital version of the soundtrack. The creators are not ashamed of the music from the game and it is hard for them to be surprised. It is just as important a component of the whole experience as feature quests and graphics. It turned out to be a great success that we gave up on well-known hits or references to the synt hwave climates of the 80s. Instead, we focused on diversity and songs specially created by these less or very little known performers.

The result is a sensational mix of species, in which everyone will find something for themselves. The music is most appealing, of course, when driving a car, when we can freely set up our radio stations, but it is worth paying attention to all those moments when playing in the background is not so obvious. Night City is generally rarely quiet. When we cross its streets, we can still hear something somewhere, even from the tips left there.

The music perfectly emphasizes the atmosphere during the mission, sometimes only through some rhythmic bass, sometimes a song resounding somewhere. You can even get caught up in the fact that if you only hear the sounds from the speakers, you immediately know where you are, what is around you at the moment. Music and sound play a similar role to graphics – they help create the game world, the city of Night City.

I’m from the city – you can see and feel it

Interestingly, the artists managed to achieve such a realistic effect in spite of a certain comic bookiness and the obvious addition of fantasy in the world shown. It seems that everything is exaggerated, but it also seems real. I was very impressed by the verticality of Night City – how much it stretches upwards, and not only wide. The role of light in such scenery has been perfectly recreated. Walking through some corridors of the block of flats, you get the impression that it’s nighttime, but in the meantime, you finally go out into the open street and it turns out that the sun is shining. The perspective of the first person also plays a very important role in the immersion, which, surprisingly, does not seem to be added by force, as in GTAV or RDRIA. Night City looks great through the eyes of the protagonist and I’m not sure if switching to TPP mode wouldn’t take away a lot of the atmosphere of the game and reality of the city.

To envy such eggs…

I do not mean a character creator, but a brilliant, masterful collection of cyber eggs, cyber eggs – easter eggs. What can be found in Cyberpunk 2077 probably surpasses this type of content in all other productions, and even in many of them combined. On the one hand, I would like to throw brilliant examples here, as if from a sleeve – on the other hand, I understand that many are still playing or are just about to start their adventure in Night City and have personal fun discovering its secrets.

Suffice it to say that Cyberpunk 2077 is probably the greatest and best card or monument to contemporary pop culture and internet culture. We will find here not only references to the most famous games, books, movies, and series, but also memes or internet stories that used to laugh there, years ago and still appear somewhere. There are references that are understandable only to Poles and those that will be caught mainly by Americans or fans of a given work.

The creators were able to be so subtle that they did not limit themselves to the most obvious associations – in one case of a multi-season series, they were able to extract two sentences from a completely side character who, on a scale of several hundred episodes, appears for only a few dozen seconds! You can see that the devs had a lot of freehand here and poured their passions and tastes into the game world – from fans to fans. Easter eggs from Cyberpunk 2077 are like a time capsule of our generation and in this respect, we will definitely remember this game for a very long time.