Why I’m worried Cyberpunk 2077 is going to be a disappointment – Reader’s Feature - HHUK | UK News

Cyberpunk 2077 Keanu Reeves screenshot — Cyberpunk 2077 – are you worried? (pic: CD Projekt)

A reader voices his concerns about Cyberpunk 2077 and how little of it has been seen in public, as he worries it could be a major let-down.

I’m writing this on Wednesday and, at the moment at least, Cyberpunk 2077 is still due out on December 10. I’m sure I’m not the only person that’s been dreading that it would be delayed again though, especially as an extra delay would almost certainly push it into next year. But so far so good, everything seems to be on course for a 2020 launch. So why am I still worried?

Well, I imagine you know the answer to that as well, in fact there are several reasons to be concerned about the game and I’m about to list them all. I didn’t think there’d be any point at first, but actually it’s a surprisingly detailed list.

1. Console footage
Incredibly, this month was the first time we ever got to see the game running on a console. That sets off a huge number of red flags, especially as even then we never saw it running on an ordinary PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, just the upgraded consoles. Even the footage we did see, which was presumably carefully edited, showed signs of issues and a lot of the Xbox one, in particular, was all inside.

Even as someone looking forward to the game, I have this horrible feeling that when it launches it’s going to be a technical mess, with months’ worth of patches needed to get it working properly. Like a Ubisoft game but worse.

2. The dialogue
The reason I’m looking forward to Cyberpunk 2077 is not because I’m a particular fan of cyberpunk, or even sci-fi in general, but because The Witcher 3 is my favourite game ever. And a big part of that appeal was the dialogue and the characters. For me The Witcher 3 has some of the smartest writing in all gaming. Very few people are purely good or evil in the game and even the worst characters have some kind of explanation for how they act.

The characters in The Witcher 3 act and talk like real people but everything I’ve seen from Cyberpunk 2077 seems anything but. It all seems very try-hard and artificial. I’d never guess the same teams were involved and I still can’t believe the same people are doing the script, because it’s almost cringey at times at how hard it’s trying to act tough and be ‘mature’. Like a teenager pretending they’re a grown-up.

I would add characters as another major concern, but I don’t honestly know enough about them to really say anything. I can say there’s no-one in any of the footage so far that I’ve liked but I guess that’s not enough to go on. But already I’m beginning to miss the fact that you’re not playing a named character, and instead a customised one with no proper personality.

3. The action
What’s concerning about this issue is that this kind of secrecy isn’t unknown in gaming and it is almost always a sign that something’s wrong. Obviously, the coronavirus is a factor here but the number of hands-on previews of the game since it was first announced years ago are miniscule. Why? What possible reason could CD Projekt have for being so secretive? If Ubisoft can organise a streaming demo for Watch Dogs: Legion why can’t the same happen with Cyberpunk 2077?

Well, one obvious reason is that it’s not very good. They have no experience with first person shooting and even looking at the videos there’s something kind of janky and unconvincing about it. I know the combat wasn’t the best part of The Witcher 3 but it did it’s job; I’m worried that Cyberpunk 2077 won’t though. But of course I don’t know whether I’m worrying unnecessarily because almost nobody outside of CD Projekt has had a chance to play it.

From a game that was at one point my most anticipated of all time I now have a really bad feeling that it’s all going to be a terrible disappointment. I don’t know though, there isn’t much evidence – I admit that. But that’s the point. At this stage, two weeks before it’s out, we should know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into but I can’t work out if this is going to be game of the generation or flop of the generation.

By reader Sutur