Cyberpunk 2077 review round-up – Breathtaking, but buggy

Eight years, plenty of hype, and one breathtaking Keanu Reeves moment later, Cyberpunk 2077 is officially here. The entire situation regarding early reviews has been an odd one. Only a handful of outlets and influencers got their hands on code early enough to allow them to dedicate a chunky portion of time to playing the game, with other sites and reviewers receiving their code this week.

Our man Brad is on the case though, and even though I’m disappointed that he wasn’t able to download Cyberpunk 2077, play 30-40 hours of the game, collect his thoughts, and compile them into a meaty review in a single day so that we could rake in tens of clicks, I’ll only give him a light thrashing because it is the festive season after all. I’ll only release some of the review-motivation hounds on him.

Anyway, what do the critics have to say? The consensus around Cyberpunk 2077 is that it’s good, really good! The RPG elements are solid, the world is amazing, and its beautifully designed. It’s also currently riddled with pre-release bugs, but that should be sorted once the hefty day one patch is installed. It’s also worth noting that the game isn’t as “punk” as you’d expect it to be, but it still has plenty to offer with a main campaign that’ll last you at least 30 hours and sidequests that’ll extend your tour of Night City even further.

Here’s what the critics had to say:

GameSpot – 7/10

It’s hard to get into Cyberpunk 2077’s world in general. So much of it is superficial set dressing, and there’s so much happening all around you–ads going off at all times, gunfights breaking out in the streets, texts coming in about cars you’ll never buy–that a lot of the game feels superfluous. The side quests and the characters they showcase are the shining beacon through the neon-soaked bleakness of Night City, and they give you room to explore the best the core RPG mechanics have to offer. These are what carried me through an otherwise disappointing experience.

IGN – 9/10

Cyberpunk 2077 kicks you into its beautiful and dazzlingly dense cityscape with few restrictions. It offers a staggering amount of choice in how to build your character, approach quests, and confront enemies, and your decisions can have a tangible and natural-feeling impact on both the world around you and the stories of the people who inhabit it. Those stories can be emotional, funny, dark, exciting, and sometimes all of those things at once.

PC Gamer – 78/100

Cyberpunk 2077 remains a loving, faithful treatment of the genre, and one that constantly urged me to look for the silver lining in every shit-soaked gutter…I found it moving and life-affirming in the final moments, even in the face of near certain death and a relentless onslaught of bugs. I suppose it’s an appropriate thematic throughline though: Cyberpunk 2077 is a game about V coming apart at the seams, in a city coming apart at the seams, in a game coming apart at the seams. Play it in a few months.

Polygon – Unscored

Like the city in which it is set, Cyberpunk 2077 may give off one impression when regarded from afar, one carefully constructed through years of marketing hype, but once players experience it up close, they’ll find that the truth is something else. On one hand, it’s a more earnest and sincere game than all its edgy marketing has suggested. On the other, though the word cyberpunk evokes a radical vision of the future, there’s nothing revolutionary on offer here. Instead, it’s a game obsessed with the past.

VentureBeat – Unscored

What Cyberpunk really is, however, is a big open-world action role-playing game. What it’s not is a look at gaming’s future. Instead, it feels like a summation of where we’ve come in gaming since the Xbox 360 generation. It feels like a game built by people looking around to see what works — like Grand Theft Auto’s open world, Watch Dogs’ hacking, Assassin’s Creed’s quest-filled maps, Fallout’s combat and character progression, Mass Effect’s dialogue system, Batman: Arkham Knight’s crime scene investigations, and every games’ skill trees. At the same time, Cyberpunk doesn’t try much new. It feels big and expensive — and getting all of these parts to fit together seems like an impossible challenge. But because of this, Cyberpunk 2077 is a glimpse at where we are and not what is next.

Game Informer – 9/10

Cyberpunk 2077 is dark and disturbing at times (frighteningly so), but the majority of its content is fascinating, and loaded with depth through the various RPG systems and lore. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Night City, and Johnny Silverhand is a great partner to see the sights with. Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t overstay its welcome with its critical-path story, and invites players to jack in and stay for hundreds of hours of unique content should they want to. It didn’t blow me away like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, but is still a hell of an opening to what will hopefully be a new series.

GamesRadar – 5/5

Cyberpunk 2077 is a paragon of open-world gaming, offering the kind of freedom to explore and define your character that provides a new pinnacle for the genre. It takes everything we celebrate about open-world games, and learns from it, implementing best-in-class variations in a world that’s so dense and detailed. Add in the human-like level of reactivity and emotional depth that it brings to its narrative, and it all combines for the most spectacular experience. Take a trip to Night City immediately.

Last Updated: December 8, 2020