Cyberpunk 2077 and loving a world that hates you. 

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The strange thing about cyberpunk as a genre is the fact that so many people yearn for it. I think it says something about the world we live in. It's like we have all of the dystopia, but none of the flashiness.

I clocked in over a hundred hours and 2 playthroughs before discovering that Arasaka had built a memorial for the tower Johnny blew up. I wandered into it completely by accident, and was just like "woah."

This game may have the most accurate depiction of humans struggling with mental health and suicide I have ever seen depicted anywhere. I remember the horrible situations and the consequences, the tolls it took on their psyches. It just seemed so real. The the way the characters process survivors guilt. If you choose the secret ending with V committing suicide, My god the phone calls are scary realistic. I rememeber actually tearing up when I saw Judy’s face stained with mascara that had been cried away who knows how long ago and the way the sadness hung off every word she said. And just going back to V. That ending, it seems so… real. A person who has been fighting tooth and nail to stay alive, and fight to go on maybe get revenge. And in the end, they’re just tired and want it to be over. No sadness, no fear, they want their own terms, under their control. It sent chills down my body. Like I said. It felt real. Same with Ev, you didn everything to help her and did your best and in the end you save her. Only for her to end it. Trauma is very real and this game handles it masterfully. Okay rant over

One thing I love about Night City is to compare it during the day. During the night it looks beautiful, flashy, colorful, cool. But during the day when the hot sun shines on the city in the afternoon it looks dirty, you see the smoke, and the pollution. It’s like a drug that looks flashy and beautiful at night, but during the day when you come down from your high, you see how shitty the city really is.

On my second playthrough I unlocked the cool ending with the big house on the rooftop and when I was looking through the glass in the living room I felt sad. I thought, "Man, Jackie would have loved this." and decided to pull out my phone to say goodbye to him again. Imagine my surprise when I hit the call button and V actually talks to Jackie's voicemail, with the same emotion in his voice that I was currently feeling in that moment. That moment stayed with me for a really long time.

Never before has someone so succinctly described what I love about Cyberpunk settings - I know it's a terrible place; I know it's a depiction of despair and hopelessness; I know it's a warning of sorts; but the way it looks, the way it *feels* is unmatched. You hit the nail on the head and beyond. This video gets me.

Cyberpunk's World is the definition of "If it hits, it hits". Its the japanese influence, the Tech, design in all aspects - from people to places. Whether a district is supposed to look run down or futuristic & polished, there is always a cohesive aesthetic to it, which is often missing from the real world, it all looks intentional. Its a Video Game so you are not in any real danger, so the vibrant, overly stimulating, action-filled, buzzing city of diverse characters is just exciting. It taps into your desires of exploring a foreign area and freedom of doing whatever you want in that area - its honestly has a similar feeling to going on vacation to a place with an entirely different culture. A part of us lowkey wants that experience of being lost in a vivid, urban, colorful, overwhelming place with that kick of slight energizing volatility and mystery for once - as long as we are not in ACTUAL danger, the immersive world of a video game is perfect for this. Our current futuristic mega cities are sad, bland, being stuck at office jobs, libertarian ideology, everyone looks boring and the same, filled with crime and artifical networking bs, but we dont have the vibrance, the aesthetic...Its like our version of Cyberpunk is worse than the actual genre. Our real life Cyberpunk has the same issues, but without the style, excitment and stimulation.

I think, inevitably, the overall story of Cyberpunk 2077 is more about finding your community, your family, and realizing that you can always find the people who will love and support you where you're at. Jackie and his mom didn't have to open up their home to you. You don't have to befriend Judy, or Panam, or River, or any of the other questlines in that vein, you chose to seek out community in those moments. It's looking at the environment and going "This sucks, but at least I found what matters." At the beginning, you're chasing glory and wanting to leave a mark on the world. In the end, you realize you make your mark on the world in the community you end up forging. The ending that makes this the most clear to me is if you take the easy way out. How many people call your voicemail to grieve? And even if the world sucks, there's always something to look forward to, and that you inevitably do matter, whether or not the game makes you believe otherwise.

This feels like a love letter to night city

I'm nearly 150 hours playing and I think I've used Fast Travel maybe 3 or 4 times. I'm always enthralled by the atmosphere and vision of Night City that we're given, and I have been a fan of Night City since I played the TTRPG of Cyberpunk 2020 back in the 80's. I just love everything they have done to make the city feel alive.

"Maybe they named it Night City as a lampshade about how dark the world can be, but sitting out here on this bluff somehow this places looks like every star in the sky to me." You sir, are a goddamn poet.

Jackie's death really hit for me too. I knew it was coming but he was such a likeable character and they didn't just snuff the lights from nowhere. We saw him shit, bleeding out and 5 minutes later he finally succumbed to the wounds right as we made it. I feel like it's hard to build a connection with a virtual character but after Jackie's death I swore to myself I'd use his bike for everything to keep Jackie close.

I'm a 50 year old dude, so I didn't think much about it the first bunch of times I jumped into a car in Cyberpunk, or there was a radio on close by, heard a song I liked, and just stayed in the car or close to the radio, until the song was over. Just today it occurred to me that there may be a couple of generations of kids that have all their music downloaded, have never listened to the radio, and have never experienced the little joy of hearing a good song on the radio, and being excited that they happened to be listening at the moment that song was playing. Cyberpunk may be the first or only time for a whole lot of people to have that experience.

Your commentary on Night City and the duality of the love and hate for it is spot-on, and it perfectly captures the feeling that I have with the environment in particular. I am currently ~100 hours into the game and I am obsessed with the noir that the game encapsulates, but it also feels like how Night City is advertised to be; a place of opportunity, money, success, connections, and hope. And maybe it feels like that's how I *want* Night City to be, but then I see the gang wars, the XBD's, the rampant crime, the corrupt NCPD, the Megacorps, the twisted Ripperdocs, and the individual fixers that pull me out of the idea of what it is and pull me into the reality of Night City; it's just another place that chews you up and spits you out.

I truly appreciate that you didn’t put any music in the background. I’ve gotten subconsciously tired of video essays with snarky, half-backed jokes and lo-fi tracks, or whatever playing behind the VO. No music gave my brain a rest and it’s easier to concentrate and actually remember what you’re saying. And for that reason alone, I now subbed to your channel. Thank you.

So many people I've watched complained or commented on the different life plan,, saying something along the lines of "A Cheap Trick, Lazy planning/game design etc" But your the first person I've heard actually make it sound like a positive and not a negative,, and it makes perfect sense.. .no matter how different these individual characters past lives are,, in Night City it'll all end the same And wow,, thanks for that

I consider myself a "completionist". I feel compelled to get every achievement, explore every quest and get every item in games. During my first Cyberpunk playthrough, when the floor collapses under V and Johnny pushes you to get the F out of the building after meeting Arasaka Hanako, I did just that. Never even thought about the possibility of going back and saving Takemura. After finishing my first playthrough I realized that the death of Takemura can be avoided. That I was so into the story, so invested in what was happening at that moment that it activated my "fight or fly" response... and I fled. I'm still a completionist. I'm still playing the game trying to get everything the game has to offer me. But with every playthrough, I realize I'm more and more involved with Night City and its inhabitants. That I honestly could care less about my own (V's) destiny as long as I at least try to help the characters in my life. And I realize that the moments that I enjoy the most are the moments that involve Panam, Judy, River, Kerry or any other character. I just love the way the game values human connection in a world that is designed to chew you and spit you out without a second thought. Anyway... I clearly loved your video. Thank you for posting it.

I can't form words that describe how much I love this game and this video perfectly captures what makes Cyberpunk and Night City so fucking impactful and amazing.

fun fact: most (if not every) night city legends are player-made characters from mike pondsmith's (the creator of the cyberpunk universe) old group that he used to play the og cyberpunk tabletop rpg in the 80s with, morgan blackhand being his own character and the reason he isn't mentioned much in 2077

Night City isn't just a world to play in. Night City is it's own character... like an unbeatable antagonist in the background. Faceless and unknown, yet all around at all times. It's truly amazing

man the phone system and the text messages in this game REALLY hit. On a first playthrough especially it's just SO close to feeling real, really well done and adds a lot of humanity and life to the side characters

Dude, I loved Night City from the instant I read the last sections of CP2020 back in the very early '90s. I explained it to friends and they fell in love with roaming Nightcity just looking for that next big score. I literally squealed in joy on hearing CDPR were making the game with Max Mike on board. Even with all the bugs and on a base PS4 at launch I played it - to discover that despite needing more time to code things they had nailed the mood/vibe/feel of the City. Not much makes a 40+ yo, army veteran manifest moistness behind the MK-I eyeball, but walking into the Afterlife for the first time (or even Totentanz, as the irony of naming a death metal club after Liszt's Dance of Death still makes me smile to this day) almost made them malfunction. ...and no, I don't fast travel. I also only ever drive in first person. Keep the content coming.

Night City is a dream that you're scared that you want. Something terrible and dark but...there's a promise, or a very good lie, of freedom.

I'm so happy that someone did this video. I often bump into people dissing the game's world because "there is not much to do in it", i.e. there are no random card minigames and stuff. I think people are missing the point with the city design and the dialogue system. They want the dialogues to give you some sort of points for given answers, as a pat on your identity. Like, yeah choom, you managed to click on the A-hole response, here's a nice little evil point for you, to reinforce your playstyle and to completely misinterpret our core story theme. But really, what both of those gameplay elements strive to do is to immerse you into the feeling of being V in Night City. And we have gorgeous views, architecturally distinct districts, lifepath dialogue options and hidden checks that provide just enough roleplay to make this V completely different from your previous ones. (I sometimes feel like they are too seemless to notice and most of the players don't even realize how many of those conversations depend on hidden variables. After close to 600 hours of gameplay I still find new ones.) I really like how immersive this game is from a purely roleplaying perspective.

Beautifully written. Night City brought me back 13 years to the same feeling I had seeing the lights of New Vegas in the distance from the cemetery in Goodsprings. It's incredible how some games just have that power to evoke such feeling.

One of, if not my favorite games of all time. Been playing it for a while now, well over 200 hours, and likely to at least double it. Im glad people are still getting into and loving this game, even after it's launch

There’s a 9 hour night city ambience video on here and I listen to it all the time while studying or sleeping. Such a wonderful world

I had a kind of surreal experience with the ghost town bar, when I turned on the power and was about to leave I heard something from the bar and I was like "what? No one should be here I just killed almost everyone here." I walked in and found out that there was no one there but it felt so lively it looked like something crazy happened and then everyone just left all of a sudden.

I use fast travel under certain circumstances. For example I refuse to drive and walk to V's apartment because the process of getting to the space itself is so laborious. Otherwise I largely really love the process of driving around the city.

I'm nearing 600 hours on cyberpunk and have been in love with the world and atmosphere since release date. Even though the unfinished nature and countless bugs persisted throughout my experience, the world drew me in again and again regardless. There hasn't been a game that immersed me as much as cyberpunk and I'm glad to see others feel the exact same way.

Regardless of how screwed up night city is, everyone is accepted. Race, gender, sexuality. It doesn't matter, you're a person in their eyes unless you have a big name like Adam Smasher or something. Then you're like a God amongst people, but that's the beauty of it. Everyone is just trying to live in a city that is so beautiful on the outside, but so scary on the inside. One moment, you could be enjoying a breezy walk on the side of the road, or in the desert, watching as the lights dance before your eyes, the next could be gunshots towards, or at you. Flying by your face until inevitably, you seem to stop functioning. The reason why night city is so beautiful, and why it's people are beautiful, Is because any moment could be your last. By taking it in, you're living in the moment, until it's gone. That's why everyone is accepted, because they could be gone the next day, so why put them further down into the ground, if they'll be put into it tomorrow? Cyberpunk 2077, Is a beautiful game. I hope it continues getting love and support that it deserves

I have over 200hrs played, completed everything possible in the game at launch and recently started a second play through. It's just such an amazing game and despite it's troubles with a rocky launch, it has easily gone down as one of the most special experiences I've had with a game in my life. You can tell how much hard work and passion went into it to create such a captivating world and stories.

This video should be titled “A love letter to night city.” It’s beautiful and describes to a tee how I also feel about this game in a way I never could. Thank you

I honestly fell in love with Cyberpunk 2077 because of the ending with Panam (especially if you play the nomad path), V, in my opinion, after Jackie's death was back to being alone. After leaving his own clan at the start of the game, he is alone, no family, no friends, nothing to his name, only a dream to be someone in Night City, until Jackie comes into his life. Jackie, or rather his death, is the catatlyst for V realizing how pointless his dream actually his, what's the point in achieving your dream when you don't have anyone to share in the happiness with. That, coupled with the fact that the job that killed Jackie, was the same job responsible for V, having a chip in his brain that is killing him makes it all the more tragic. Panam and the Aldecaldos represent the hope for a better future, Night City is a very toxic enviroment, it corrupts, it can take anything and everything from you in an instant and thats what it's doing to V, Johnny in the later half of the game realizes how V must be feeling and the fact that they both can't stop the inevatible from happening. But again, that's where Panam comes in, Panam and her ending with V represent what V actually wants in life, a family, and hope for the future. V is still very much sick even at the end of the game, but Panam doesn't give up on him, Night City constantly takes and takes from our characters but the Panam ending feels like our characters reclaiming their lives from this nightmarish city, V taking his life back so he can be with the person he cares about and his new family, and Panam not giving up on V and letting Night City take someone else she cares about by helping V find a cure to his illness Cyberpunk isn't a nihlistic story, it's a tragic story about someone who is stuck in a terrible situation but there are moments of beauty in this terrible world. I hope that CDPROJEKT RED keeps putting more content into this game and doesn't stop after the Phantom Liberty DLC

I love hearing what other people lay at Jackie’s funeral, it shows how well they managed to flesh out Jackie in a relatively short amount of time because each little item shows a different aspect of his complex character. I always choose the book, I think it shows off that jackie had a deeper introspective side that he hid behind his tough goofball exterior.

I finally gave this game a chance 3 years after its release and... Its breath taking. I fell in love with this world, the same as I fell in love with Skyrim and Witcher 3. I can loose myself walking everywhere. Checking every nook and crannies. Explore. Roleplay. Pretending to be an urban explorer. Help the NCPD. Pick up gigs. Night City just felt so... alive. It is so big, so intricate, so beautiful, so sad, and yet...its also the closest to reality a game could ever be. Reality sucks. Politics sucks. Capitalism sucks. All of V's ending sucks. In real life, we rarely get the chance to choose where are we born or the situation we're in. Plato or Aristoteles (I forgot) once said, "In life, we choose the best option among the many worst available consequences. Because perfect happiness is a dream that Man relentlessly pursue and holds only in their heart, but rarely held within their hands" and THIS is why Cyberpunk 2077 story telling shines. Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't have a good ending. V is dying. That's it. Johnny is parasite in V's brain. Sacrifices must be made. I chose Johnny's ending once because I'm a bleeding heart like that and I ABSOLUTELY regret it after Johnny ghosted Vic (and everyone else) its so heart wrenching I cried. In the end I made V did what David did in Edgerunner. Went out with a bang. I can't help but love Night City... because of its the people, the connectiom V made, the logs V found in dead bodies. I realize not only I fell in love with the city, but that love also comes from the fact that there are still good people even though NC is a shitty place. That's why we're introduced to Padre Sebastian first in street kid. Jackie second. T-Bug We have Vic as the reliable father-doctor figure. Misty, Regina, Wakako, Judy, Panam, Kerry, River. Everyone. Heck, I think V is a very, very, very lucky person. They found reliable friends and family in a city so cruel and shitty....its why we, as player, love night city because ultimately V, IS us inside the game. These character were programmes to care for V and in turn, they care for us. I totally get you man. I totally get you. I won't ever survive if I were suddenly dumped in Night City...but I'll still love it anyway. Just like humans were naturally programmed to notice bright colors whilst in animal kingdom, bright colors are synonymous with poison, toxic, dangerous. Bright colors, just like the Neon Lights of Night City.

Yup my thoughts exactly, not listening to the popular opinion and actually buying the game was one of the best decisions I've made, amazing world

Agreed I can count my fast travel in Cyberpunk in one hand. Great love letter to a great game

Out of both the game and the anime Lucy is by far my favorite character however I feel like Rebeccas life and death represents best how little value human life has in Nightcity. One of the most fun and likeable personalities dies as a collateral damage like she was worth nothing. In other stories and fictional worlds where even main characters can die they usually get meaningful, symbolic and larger than life types of death scenes but in Night City you get gunned down next to some trash bins or goomba stomped by a psychopath and end up forgotten. Such a beautiful but cruel place

I find that cyberpunk, both the game and the wider genre, is largely about people finding their place in a world that wants to do nothing but grind them into meat. Ghost in the Shell with Kusanagi trying to understand what she is as someone whos entirely given up her flesh, Akira and Tetsubo letting himself be overtaken by power to try and prove himself, Bladerunner 2049 and Kay wanting to be someone. The examples go on and on and on. I think what really draws people to these worlds isn't just the flashing lights and the cool tech and big buildings, but the idea of finding purpose in a machine that hates you, especially in a time like now where so many of us find ourselves without purpose.

We both started the same -- fresh from ER, expecting a lot of bugs (granted, I encountered my fair share), and having prior knowledge of story beats and launch state. We both ended the same -- in a toxic, yet satisfying relationship with a city that simultaneously gives you every reason to love her, whilst giving you every reason you probably should drop her like a hot rock. It's telling that I retreated to NC after stressful days at work. Where my job as a merc (or whatever I was roleplaying as at the time) was leagues more dangerous than my RL job. Where I'd seen a corpse everyday, despite never having seen one in reality. Where Corpos are overt about their dealings, rather than trying to cover them up like in our world (or using legalese/corpobabble). Where realistically a joytoy gives me more lovin' than my romance partner (in-game). Where I can play a post-apocalypse in Santo Domingo and Pacifica, visit New York in Heywood and City Center, take a short vacation in the Southwest through the Badlands, and return to a new normal in Westbrook and Watson. It's easy enough to say that NC doesn't cause misery...the people who live there do, but NC is the container for the bugs, both literal and metaphorical. She keeps trying to kill me, repulse me, warn me, rob me, and yet...I love it...I thrive on it. The characters I've played so far are a merc -constantly on the verge of cyberpsychosis - who realizes she's addicted to near-death experiences, and an ex-cop, ex-corpo private investigator/vigilante who - the more he tries to justify his actions - realizes he just loves delving into the murk. NC, in trying to strip me bare of all faith and hope, ends up giving me joy and making me feel alive.

As many issues as cyberpunk had from its release, the one thing that kept me invested was the amount of detail the world had. Everything from the streets and back alleys all the way to the inside areas of the city. So much detail that told its own story about the state of the city. I refuse to believe that the game was a blatant cash grab from the actual developers because the amount of passion they had to have to make this world so detailed speaks volumes.

The Columbarium also holds my favorite Easter egg, where you can find Roy Batty’s ending line from Bladerunner “All these memories will be lost to time, like tears in rain.” And that line fits Night City perfectly

There's also a turtle buried in the columbarium.

I’ve always loved the cyberpunk genre. Not just the Cyberpunk trademark, the Genre. The first ever music i ever made was cyberpunk, my own world I make my art of is a cyberpunk dystopian New Orleans, and the genre has had so much more affect on my life than i would like to admit. You wrote it well. The world doesn’t like you. You’re alone in the world. The game exemplifies this. The world really doesn’t care about you. There’s stories that go on even without you. If you bail on Pan Am, her story still goes on. Takemura’s story continues if you ditch him. It all goes on and on. And there’s no happy endings in the cyberpunk genre. Just like life, is no happy ending, and we all know it. Death, is certain. And thats what I love about cyberpunk. The world will keep going even if these characters die.

You may be unsatisfied with the view count, but the quality of this is sublime. One great thing about Cyberpunk is the hidden agendas. Most "conspiracy theories" about the game rely on examining situations and seeing past the surface. The more you explore, the more you can determine the character and true goals of the people you thought you understood. For instance, Wakako Okada is notoriously ruthless and won't hesitate to cast aside anyone who becomes a liability. So why would she risk the wrath of Arasaka for you? She doesn't.

Good for you, I never fast travel in night city, I prefer to drive around because it makes you feel alot more immersed in the city . Plus there is no rush.

Cyberpunk is special. It failed at overall expectations, but it far exceeds the ability to display a world that we fear yet find enthralling to experience.

I'm so glad someone else gets the wonderful appeal of this game. It's easily my favorite comfort game when I can't sleep, I love just wandering about the map, truly immersing myself into the game more than I ever have in a RPG. So many people to this day just shrug Cyberpunk off as just being a meme or some bug-ridden disaster, but it's one of the most underrated gems of the past few years. You earned my sub, very thoughtful analysis. :)

I feel you have explained Night City beautifully. The way the hustle and bustle (when it decides to render in properly on my base Xbox One) just shallows you up is brilliant. Then we have the contrast of the sheer emptiness of the Badlands where people are few and far between but there is community that it sometimes felt to be missing in the city. Overall the game just pleases me so much that like someone else has commented on here I only fast travel to Vs apartment due to how long it takes just to get to it regardless of what route you take

lol dude I feel you on the discovery of the fast travel beacon, I straight up still never use them. I found out after 200 hours "I love this world but Idk If I was supposed to" is so deep dude damn

I have never ever used fast travel in both Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, there's so much detail CDPR puts in their games, that I never felt like I need to use it. And then the atmosphere in the Witcher games and Cyberpunk is just some of the best you can get in a game.

I spent about 2 hours taking pictures in the lobby of the fancy hotel that the big mission with Jackie is in. I find myself wandering around and exploring all the little alleys and shopping areas and desert towns and so on. Slick video, I look forward to your next one.

i think you managed to express in words how i have felt about cyberpunk and its world since the game released, this is seriously an incredible video

I'm happy to see all those comments who describe exactly how I feel. I'm not a guy in real life that has a lot of luck. I'm just adding more and more illnesses as years goes by (I'm 17) and the feeling of V dying really helped me to fight through these difficult times. It helped me feel less lonely and I felt like I was able to explain to panam and others what I was feeling in reel life. I'm trying to make my friend and member of my family to watch edgerunners to show them a bit of my pain. And how I feel everyday. This feeling we all had at the end of edgerunners. This game added a real spark of hope and joy in me and I can't express how much this game means to me. ( Sorry for the bad English)

Beautiful video. It perfectly sums up everything I feel about the game. I rarely use fast travel. I just hop on my motorcycle and tour the city; it never gets old.

I loved this game from the beginning. And I'm glad cdpr stuck with it in the end that the anime helped introduce fans like you. You really get it. Great video!!

I was so lucky to.. in all these many years to never be spoiled of Jackies death.. and I didn't see it coming.. I was certain he would be there with us along the way.. AND THEN IT WAS ALL RUINED BY JACKIE HAVING A GUN STUCK INSIDE HIS HEAD DURING THE CUTSCENE!

"V isn't the main character of Cyberpunk 2077, Night City is". Still my favorite quote in regards to this game and world. We can cycle through as many MC's as we want, but you can't replace Night City.

I really resonate. I always find myself purposefully driving or even walking/parkouring around the city, just for fun. It is the most immersive game world I have ever seen, often times feeling like it bleeds into real life and vice versa. Incredible aesthetics, characters that were brought to life and felt like real friends, and endings that made me ponder the meaning of life.

That was really impressive. You describe Night City's ineffable, melancholic beauty like no one I know has been able to. This toxic relation the residents have with the City, of course it hurts them, crushes their dreams, breaks their spirits but there is beauty, for those who can see it, ephemeral and inexplicable as it is. This City is all you ever were, all you've ever aspired to be, the person you were shaped to be cannot fit into any other mold. For when hurt, crushed and broken is all you are, are you not going to love this place? Why would you ever miss the night sky? This labyrinthine monument to corporate greed isn't too bad, after all.

I’ve been waiting a looooong time for someone to come out and say this. This game has one of the most immersive and intricate environments I’ve ever seen as an avid open-world gamer.

I feel like what makes Cyberpunk so alluring is the parallels but also the differences that are so apparent to us. We can say from where we are now "this is dystopian and bad, BUT I KNOW HOW" and I think most people would prefer the ability to know for sure that the world is a certain way, even if it means its relatively worse than what we have today.

I've never been able to describe what I love about Cyberpunk 2077 exactly, there's just so many parts that draw you in and won't let you go that make you fall in love with it because it isn't like any other game. So this video feels like the perfect embodiment of Cyberpunk to me, awesome work Thane!

I didnt play 2077 much my first run through when it launched but after the patches I wound up with over 130 hours as I grew to love the city's back routes or creating my own, they really made adventure in this game feel amazing.

Cyberpunk, as genre, and as I see it, is some kind of postmodern mythology. What makes it mystical and attractive is the fact that, while it exaggerates everything that's wrong with our world, it also exaggerates the drama and epic around it, creating this tragic but romantic atmosphere

From the very first minutes, Night City makes it actually pretty easy to find your bearing and "learn" its layout. Of course districts are pretty unique compared to each other, but also streets within those districts have certain design elements that can be picked up quickly, so i found it super easy to connect the city layout in my head and never thought for a moment about fast travel. The cars drive horrible, but the music is also a big factor in this. Driving around with CP2077s Radio stations just feels Cyberpunk and it provides those calm or reflective moments for me.

a lot of my friends asked me why i enjoyed cyberpunk so much and i never really managed to explain why and now i can send them this video because it explains it all so well

Gotta say thank you for putting into words something that was vexing me. I'm also a late arrival to Cyberpunk 2077 and expected a train wreck but got a game I play more than all of my other games. And I am an abuse victim who's life was hell until recently. From birth to long after adulthood I found myself abused by my parents, sibling and even lovers. And now I'm in therapy and have a chosen family who loves me and I pick up Cyberpunk and it puts me through my own traumas again as well as...I'm not sure. It just keeps me in the game. And gives me hope. And I'm never sure if that's a good thing. And I think that's might be why I always choose the Star ending. I mean I also always romance Julie and let's face it that is the best ending a couple of sapphics can have in Night City...and I think it reflects my own experiences of having to survive a hell and getting away from it. I mean I was even raised in North Carolina and what is that acronym but NC and boy did that fucking state hated my queer ass guts. And all I wanted to do was get away. And here I am unable to put down a game that re-stimulates all that trauma and heartache and let down. I'm not sure why this world of toxic influence works so well, maybe it is that final moment driving off into the sunset with the Nomads but...Night City and Cyberpunk 2077 somehow make a horrible dark cruel place so much fun to explore and interact with and eventually escape. And I'm grateful I can play it. And really grateful I got to miss the worst of the bugs.

I’ve fully played Cyberpunk thrice - once at launch, once after 1.5 in February, and lastly, after Edgerunners. Seeing this game improve has been amazing, as has seeing people realize what I saw since launch - just how good this game was despite the performance issues. And each time I’ve played, I’ve found something new to love about this game. Some new quest, or item, or some of the features they added. When they added wheel glow to the bikes, I stopped using cars. When I found a sick new sword, I changed my build. When I found a new quest, I stopped and thought about the world of Night City. Cyberpunk is amazing, and I really wanna play it again before Phantom Liberty. I might not with all the other games on my plate, but god damn is this game addicting.

It is insane how much I relate to you. Apart from using fast travel regularly, I also often drive to missions and discover more stuff I didn’t notice in my first hundred hours of playing. As much as you and I thank CDPR for not giving up on the game, I thank you for making this video.

What really got me from the lore it's that Night city feels like a living entity on it's own right. A creature that will always offer you a chance to throw yourself against the meat grinder and find out who you are. No matter if you are the lowest bum or the highest corpo, this city (it's people) will always put you to the test and surprise you with something new (or old ;) ). And if you try to tame the beast it will devour you whole, no matter who you are. Really good video mate, very well produced, the edits are on spot and capture the atmosphere perfectly... if this is your first video you absolutely nailed it!

This made me realize I never thought to fast travel either. First playthrough was Jan 2023 (waited until I knew it was relatively stable) and it lasted a little over 100 hours. Remember seeing the skyline from some vantage in the Badlands and realizing I really loved this world and would miss it when I finished the game (despite all the technical flaws that I still encountered). Remarkable because I don't feel that in a lot of games, and for the reasons you stated- it's a dystopian world full of violence, desperation, and people trying to screw you over... it's supposed to be alienating, but as you meet the characters and find the humanity underneath you feel a connection to it. Also blasting through the city on the Akira bike never gets old.

I know exactly what you mean, but I'm not sure I drew the same conclusion. Like, when I picked up the game my hand-eye coordination had got bad enough that trying to drive around wasn't really an option, so I just had V walk everywhere I needed to go. Now, I grew up in an area very close to by to one of the most deprived locales in the country, and walking around Night City I really got that same feeling of absolute crushing poverty and misery. As though everyone's walking around having just been told that they've got an inoperable cancer. Even Jackie's boisterousness came off as almost kind of forced in that light, as though he was desperately trying to put a smile on things. The cheap food you get from street vendors, that probably shortens your life by the bite, homeless people crammed into every corner, no space the eye can rest without some insipid advertisements, it was all there. That was probably the most immersed I've ever felt in a game, wandering around the streets in the early morning light listening to the city sounds. But there was no joy in it, for me or V. Cyberpunk's is not a world I would ever like to live in, though it seems to have happened anyway.

I think part of why Cyberpunk is fun to drive in is because you can find stuff to do on the way, and failing that, it's really fun to drive in the first place.

totally get your love for the world, as I've been obsessed with it ever since the first trailer for this game came out and I learned about it. Idk what their plans are after Phantom Liberty but I hope they don't stop creating content and games for this world because it's so cool. I can't think of many games that I have been immersed as deeply in as I was when 2077 came out. That's part due to the disturbingly uncanny similarities to the modern world and the projections of the future, but also in the love and care that went into the details of the game map itself. Granted, it didn't turn out to be as fleshed out as they made it seem it would be in the years leading up - Partly because it might have been too ambitious of an undertaking, and because they were rushed by investors to finally put it out. I think many, including myself, expected or hoped for a much more expansive and branching RPG experience, akin to the ttrpg it's based on. Instead we got a more focused narrative on rails. Yes there are a few different endings, but not that many and not that greatly different from each other. Yes there are tons of side quests and choices and branches that lead off the main narrative, which are all great. But to be fair, I don't think it's possible to build a truly open RPG video game that has enough content to support such open ended exploration and story, like a TTRPG can - at least not under any reasonable time and budget constraints. By that I mean - Imagine yourself as you were following along the story of 2077 and you ended up in the Pacifica district, and just found the area and the factions and the stories there just particularly interesting. You could stay with the Voodoo Boys and work for them, earning their trust, until eventually joining them, and your main quest adapts into them helping V do some crazy netrunner stuff to save him from the Relic. Or getting involved in the war between Voodoo Boys and Netwatch, and searching for hidden corpo blacksites from the time of the Red to dig up powerful old tech. Or joining the Animals. Just imagine if instead of a "journal" of quests that just sit there until you decide to go pick them back up later, the story adapts to your choices and where you decide to focus your time. You start doing tons of jobs with the Voodoo Boys? Then story adapts to lead in that direction, and the main story changes to no longer have Takemura's quests expire or not become available anymore. Anyway, just going off about cyberpunk at 3am. I just love this world and genre, and really hope it keeps growing and gets the attention it deserves.

Totally feel the same way. It's interesting for me to see that there are a lot of people who feel the same way. Thanks for posting!

The cyberpunk universe is one of the only dystopias some people wish to live in.

The border guard talking to his coworker in the nomad prologue about how people from the outside see this city like an oasis pretty much. Then he says how wrong they are, and it's pretty much hell to even live. Putting it simply, it's a spiderweb, and the Spider is the corporate overlords you WILL be in debt to. It hits so much harder to listen to them in that prologue after watching Edgerunners

I haven’t even played the game more than maybe and hour, but just hearing you describe Jackie’s funeral made me cry. It hit very close to home. Descansa en paz Jackie.

Really nice video. I really enjoyed listening to your take on Night City, agreed with much of what you had to say.

Usually I'm someone who will end up using fast travel and cyberpunk is one of those few that I naturally just drove or walked around instead of fast traveling. No impulse whatsoever. The city design is immersive as it is; the multitudes of people no matter where you go and it just feels so alive, especially at night. I'm glad I got it on sale but knowing that cdpr have really been trying to improve it over the years it's well worth 60 in my humble opinion

For me, cyberpunk had a different meaning... I was(am) kinda lost, I don't have fun anymore, nothing pleases me, I just study, work and sleep lately, so when I was about to sell my pc since I saw no sense in it anymore, I found the anime, and unlike everything else I did it kept me, I finished it in two days even with college by morning and work by afternoon So i decided to give the game one more chance because I saw so much of the real world behind all the gun fights and blood of the anime, and just like that, a game managed to keep me interested, even the Caliburn managed to give me a feeling hearing it roar that I couldn't feel even in the last forza horizon games. I kinda am still depressed and even scared to see a game so close to real live at least in the country I'm from, but I'm grateful, I was an avid gamer back in high-school and I thought I had lost it, and cyberpunk awakened the gamer inside me again, awakened the pleasure I had from playing, it certainly created a memorable moment of my life.

The thing about cyberpunk's map is that it's really easy to get anywhere in vehicle or on foot unlike a lot of game and so it's actually part of the fun to immerse yourself and not use the fast travel

while playing for the first time, that scene where yorinobu chokes out saburo? it's so weird to say, but i was so immersed into the game and the current story my immersion was actively *broken* i've genuinely found a love for this world and its environments so seeing someone else just talk about the beauty of it in the way i feel is just so neat

I'm a bit late, but I thought I'd leave a comment letting you know what sold me on this world. I was just jumping around, going to a gig, when I decided to climb up this fire escape that was blocked off so you couldn't get to the roof, so I decided to climb it. I managed with a bit of double jump manoeuvring, to get to top of the building, looked at the scenery a little, then went back down the fire escape. Only when I got near the bottom, I noticed some blood, so I went back up. There was a body there, with an conversation between the body, and Wakako, the fixer. The merc, got jumped during a gig and called Wakako for backup, Wakako said she sent someone to help. The merc however, after half an hour of holding on to life, realized there's nobody coming and finally gave up. This little storyline could've just as easily not been there and the game wouldn't have been any worse for it, there was no quest leading here, no map marker, no gig, it was just another merc in NC trying to make a living and getting screwed by a fixer. It just made me realize just how different this world is to most others, how detailed, how full of stories. There probably are many places such as this one, unassuming, with their own plot that is just waiting to be found. The city GDPR created is amazing, the whole game is amazing....

Out of every game I've ever played, cyberpunk may be my favorite. The world feels so raw and crazy like the world went mad and looking at the "real" world, I can see it happening.

I’m addicted two years later after taking a year break they added a lot of good content , Kudos for the perseverance 🔥

The thing about achieving greatness is that you often forget to do good in the process, the world of Cyberpunk is a great example of this. It's a great and vibrant potential future that nobody would want to live in. But it's still so very human and we could see ourselves living in it and hating it. But there would still be moments where we could forget the bad and love the separate moments between the bad, we could live for those moments, and thrive for those moments. Because despite the many flaws there's a charm there that we see reflected in real life. There's both beauty and horror in Night City, and sometimes it looks all too familiar... Cyberpunk 2077 is a depiction of a terrible future and yet I don't hate it.

As someone who grew up in a half Latino fam(Moms German/dads Mexican) when I learned about Jackies father it reminded me of what my own father had to go through with my deceased grandfather. I always choose the belt.

My favorite thing about cities IRL is the psychedelic nature of the buildings and lights at night combined with all the empty, forgotten, abandoned spaces where technology and architecture coincide to alienate life... I love that I can roam all these places in Night City and not risk my actual life and limb or legal trouble. I also love the permanent impermanence, with scaffolding and construction gear being used as replacement for real infrastructure. There's a lot about this game I find annoying but the city... The city is fantastic.

What I find best about Night City is that it gives you hope. Even in the most bleak, hostile environment it's citizens find ways to be happy and moments of joy with people they love. I get the feeling that people will beed that reminder in the future.

This is the ONLY game I've ever played that I just plain forgot about Fast Travel. I used it once pretty early on when I was wondering about the Purple Box things on the map. It took me a while to even realize that I had only used it that one time when I first discovered it. Such a neat game, I wish it was a little less repetitive and it's way too easy to get overpowered but it's still a game I come back to at least once a Year, so it's not really even a huge complaint! I SOOO want a VR version of this game- lol, I was typing this right as you said the same thing in the video!

I had to stop by and say a few words, so, if im talking too much, give me this one, k? Cyberpunk 2077 was the first AAA game i buyed with my adult money, a game that i was not about to play with some friends, and, i had the same mindset of the game, that it was a glitchy mess, that the game was bad, and, i gave it a shot. I were blown away by the city, the story, the gunplay, every single nook and cranny that the game gave to me. And i played before watching EdgeRunners, i did as much side quests i could, and all of them were at least a little bit memorable, i, got sunk in this cyberpunk world for weeks and, when i finished it, i felt that void that you feel when you finish a big game, and it was good. Great Essay buddy, you did a great job.

I had a similar experience not knowing about fast travel till one time I stared at the map for so long I noticed the legend said “fast travel” and realized it was possible, after that I traversed the game almost entirely by running and fast travel, not much car use by comparison, so I kinda inverted, went from not using it, barely using it, to constantly using it

This is exactly how I felt about Jak and Daxter 2 as a kid. I fast travel like a mad man in cyberpunk but I completely understand the “spell” it casts on you. CD Project Red only needed maybe 1 more year of development and they would have won game of the year

I don't fast travel either and I cry about it when a game doesn't have fast travel There is something odd about crossing a bridge knowing I'm leaving Watson seeing the buildings change or seeing life disappear as I get close to Pacifica I sometimes find myself just going around driving with no end goal and just enjoying my expensive ass car I did a shit ton of missions to get

My first play thru was Streetkid, as I personally feel this is the canon start of V story and how he met Jackie in a unexpected way, where they both got beaten by cops

night city is why cyberpunk is my favorite game of all time. night city and everyone in it feel as real as the controller in my hands