After giving the game hours of chances for its fundamental design quirks to grow on me, I’ve decided to stop playing this game. This is not the proper state that this should be played at. No, I’m not talking about performance issues since this is fixable as what the graphics guide I’ve made has shown. It’s not even the bugs, the graphical glitches, or the collision issues. These are all treatable by future patches.
But it’s the actual game design itself that’s currently incomplete, disjointed, and superfluous. For example, dialogue choices don’t matter and it’s insulting to include conversation options when there aren’t even substantial consequences to be had in a game that’s supposed to be an RPG, and inspired by a tabletop RPG. Regardless of your chosen line, characters would simply respond as if they heard one specific dialogue from the protagonist.
“..feels more like a quality assurance session than a genuine cyberpunk adventure“
The AI is atrocious. NPCs behave like they were coded by high school students learning their first coding lesson. Their routines, if you can even call them that, are so basic and superficial that AI pedestrian traffic simply stop working at checkpoints and never move anymore. For me, the basic standard that should always be used as a template for open world design is Grand Theft Auto V, a game that came out more than seven years ago in an aging PS3 in its final generational year. To not at least match the very basic AI rulesets of that seven-year old game in 2020 is simply unacceptable.
The world, despite having one of the most beautiful and graphically-advanced settings ever rendered in current hardware, is jarringly empty and lifeless with no potential for genuine emergent gameplay. (Unless you count the bugs as one) NPCs simply either walk around, repeat canned animations, or engage in combat with other NPCs because it’s a scripted event. The AI in this game is severely lacking in depth, self-awareness, self-preservation, and complexity.
Speaking of combat, the hand to hand combat is uninspired as well. It’s floaty, non-impactful, and imprecise. The lack of convincing damage animations during melee doesn’t help its case as well. It’s such a shame because there can be a good game hidden underneath the problems.
The lore that they’ve established here could be one of the richest and most compelling video game lores IMO. The fact that I stayed inside an elevator for minutes just to finish an in-game debate show is a testament to the potential of its writing to tackle relevant real-world issues and present them in this hyper-corporate, mechanized interpretation of the future. The soundtrack is also well-fitting and inspired with surprising variety of music genres. Pulsating techno beats that punctuate action segments provide that temporary dose of adrenalin which contrast long stretches of nondescript dialogue.
For an RPG, shooting is quite responsive as well and way more playable as a shooter game than other shooter RPGs. But it quickly falls apart when the AI decides to freak out and does stupid things like run around in circles and freeze in place while turning their backs to you.
It’s heartbreaking to see a game developed with blood and tears come out in this state. That’s why I won’t progress through the game and consume its hard-earned content in an experience that feels more like a quality assurance session than a genuine cyberpunk adventure. I’ve already requested my refund of the game and I also encourage others who are suffering with all the bugs and glitches to do the same. I’m still positive this will turn our like how The Witcher 3 ended up. Let’s all wait for patches first to fix the its major problems and then dive in. But if you’re one of tough-willed ones who can tolerate these issues and are unfazed by the incompleteness of its systems, proceed at your own risk.
Matthew's Couch 