Absence (and a shit-load of updates) really have made me fonder of Cyberpunk 2077.

My second attempt at the game started from remembering how fun the movement was – specifically, being able to just push aside NPCs while running. It seems like such a tiny little detail in the scheme of things, but not only is it an insanely good quality-of-life measure whose lack immediately gets felt in other games, pushing NPCs around also makes them more real. It is the difference between walking through tall grass in a game and seeing the blades bend, rather than a 2D texture awkwardly rotate.

Coming from Starfield, the dialog and general interaction is also miles beyond. I’m not going to say Cyberpunk has ruined other RPGs for me, but even the other best examples in Baldur’s Gate 3 and the Mass Effect series seem… almost immobile in comparison. To say nothing about the stiff talking heads of Starfield and other Bethesda games. Come 2024, if your RPG doesn’t have Idris Elba casually stepping over a chair for no reason while relaying quest details, what the fuck are you even doing?

I also appreciate the ability to exit conversations by just walking away. I occasionally employ that IRL.

So, yeah, overall I am having a blast. We’ll have to see if I maintain the momentum to reach the endgame, as currently I am just doing all the new expansion stuff. The whole Johnny angle never really appealed to me and I burned myself out doing side-quests as a result. Will history repeat itself? Does it even matter if it does? Stay tuned.