Yesterday, the ♑devs at CDPR took to Twitter to ask for feedback on Cyberpunk 2077’s quests. Along with the still ongoing complaints about bugs and requests for various single-player DLC packs, there were some serious answers. I’m not sure exactly what these answers will be used for - The Witcher 3 is already known for its stellar side quests, while the well seems too poisoned for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cyberpunk 2077 to ever get a sequel. In part because of the game’s own toxic🌸 marketing, in part because building up a fanbase that was extremely loyal to a game they were yet to play backfired spectacularly, and in part because a year on from launch the game still has several issueꦗs, Cyberpunk 2077-2, or Cyberpunk 2078, or whatever it’s to be called, doesn’t seem likely.
I don’t have the best history with Cyberpunk 2077. I played it at launch on PS5, meaning I had a significantly better time with it than those on PS4 or Xbox One - still, with Cyberpunk 1.0, I had a crash every 30 minutes or so. I’ve written before on why 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cyberpunk 1.0 should be in a museum. More than that though, its biggest problems come not from bugs, but from the content itself. Cyberpunk 2077 is a dichotomous game - it has several strong female leads, but 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:takes a dim view of women. It 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:lets you haꦇve a girldick and gave us🌜 Claire, one of the most rounded and developed trans characters in gaming, but also offers a world that is deeply binary. It has a sharp, punk rebellion, but it also respects 𝔍the police. It’s counterculture used to promote headphones, gamer chairs, and influencers. It’s gorgeous and it runs like shit.
It’s a strange game to talk about. I was and continue to be one of the game’s most outspoken critics, calling out Cyberpunk’s marketing, content, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:anti-consumer business practices. Yet before I even think about praising the game, I feel th🔴e nee💖d to establish where I stand on it overall. Another dichotomy - it’s the world’s most talked about game yet it’s impossible to reasonably discuss.
Let’s leave that aside and get back to the quests. One quest seemed to be getting mentioned over and over again, and it was a quest I’ve never seen get the spotlight before - Sinnerman. People talk a lot about meeting Johnny, or working with Panam, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:or Pyramid Song, but Sinnerman never seemed to ♎get 🦂a mention. Finally, it’s getting the recognition it deserves.
We come to another dichotomy now - Cyberpunk 2077 has a terrible narrative but excels at telling stories. The main plot, where a terrorist in your brain slowly kills you while you roar through the desert on your motorbike, is surprisingly dull and flat. Yet the side stories, the ones tucked away off the beaten path, are far more engrossing than the typical filler quests we’ve come to expect from modern RPGs. Who can forget Brendan the talking vending machine, or the talking Clippy gun, or Us Cracks? I still firmly believe they are the game's most underrated characters, and their rain-soaked, noir-shaded stalker quest proves it. But let's get back to Sinnerman.
One of the game's darkest quests, Sinnerman revolves around a man, Joshua Stephenson, who is on death row and finds religion. It's actually the first stage in a series of quest lines, and on its own is a fairly uninspired follow quest. However, this leads to There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, which sees Joshua try - and ultimately fail - to apologise to the sister of the man he killed before you take him for his last meal. This all leads to the finale, They Won't Go When I Go. In it, you nail Joshua to the cross, just as Jesus was, and stay with him until he dies. His final thoughts are being recorded in a braindance, so that others can experience the enlightenment of Christ's suffering for the world.
Games often struggle with religion. It's a sensitive issue, and it often doesn't adapt to a medium that, despite telling more grisly and rounded stories, still needs to grow up. Cyberpunk 2077 is in many ways an indictment of this immaturity - but in Sinnerman, even as it asks you to hammer in the nails yourself, it seems to understand the sanctity of what it is doing. It's a mission with minimal gunfire, that moves slowly and is all about telling a futuristic but deeply human story that resonates with the ideas of today - That’s what cyberpunk can be, and that’s what Cyberpunk 2077 should have been like. While too much of the game is concerned with memes, movie references, and mundane murder, Sinnerman takes its time and pierces through the pretences the rest of the game has. It’s a shame the rest of Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t live up to it.