
More than that, Night City feels crowded and alive in a way many video game cities often don't.
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A full picture of Night City unfolds quite slowly, and the game rewards you for paying attention as it does. Other facets, like the outsized role of corporations or the internecine battles between the city's criminal factions, come out more organically through conversation. Some facts, like the extreme gulf between rich and poor or the personal integration of cybernetic implants in pretty much every single citizen, are apparent just from observing the carefully crafted people and architecture. Slowly, you piece together how Night City works through context.
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There's a minimum of overbearing tutorials explaining how to do every last thing, and the game offers almost no pedantic expository dialogue breaking down the rules of the world. Whichever of three archetypes you choose for the protagonist, simply named V (I went with the rough-and-tumble hard-luck "Street Kid"), that character is already broadly familiar with the avalanche of names, tech concepts, and futuristic slang that other characters sling with confidence. (Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.)Ĭyberpunk 2077 doesn't throw you into the deep end of its world so much as it simply treats your character as a well-established part of it from the jump. Cyberpunk 2077 gets so close to utter believability that you can't help but pick out all the inherent video game imperfections. It's the uncanny valley effect, just extended to an entire city. More often than you'd like, Cyberpunk 2077 leaves you scratching your head.

The smoothness of the presentation makes it all the more glaring when you run into major holes in the game's simplistic combat, encounter frequent glitches, or reach confusing moments when the conversational or plot paths break down. Just existing in this space is a joy, whether you're eavesdropping on the citizens going about their day or diving deep into the city's criminal and technological underworld.īut the more you start poking at that facade, the less convincing it seems. It's a truly stunning imagined city of the future that doesn't feel like a scaled-down virtual compromise.

Open-world games like Grand Theft Auto to Watch Dogs are just facades, after all-giant virtual theme parks that try to get gamers to suspend their disbelief and buy in to fully inhabiting a new world.ĬDPR's Night City-its retro-futuristic take on Los Angeles-is a triumph of speculative urban, architectural, and narrative design. Links: Amazon | GOG | Official website Cyberpunk 2077, the first game by CD Projekt Red since 2015's triumphant The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, delivers perhaps the most ambitious open-world facade to date.
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Platform: Windows (reviewed), Xbox One, PS4, Stadia (PS5 and Xbox Series X/S coming soon)
