Cyberpunk 2077: 7 things you wish you knew before playing

After seven long years of hype and anticipation, Cyberpunk 2077 is finally officially released. As fans would expect from a game from CD Projekt Red, the studio behind The Witcher 3, it’s a massive and complex game. and a very good one too. It has a surprisingly compelling story and a gigantic open world to explore in Night City.

I have spent over 40 hours with the game so far. It’s many hours, but I still feel like I’ve seen only a fraction of what Cyberpunk 2077 has to offer. Still, there are some helpful things I’ve noticed for those who are re-starting the game on Thursday, tips and tricks that you wish you knew before loading the game for the first time.

What a difference backstories make

When you start the game, you will have a choice of three backstories for V: Street Kid, Nomad, or Corpo.

Your choice will have two main impacts. First, it will affect the opening time of the game, as you will start in a different part of Night City, mixing with different characters, depending on which one you choose. The Corpo begins in an office building, the Street Kid in a posh bar, the Nomad in the Badlands desert outside of Night City. However, about an hour later, you will end up on the same trail as a rental gun alongside your friend Jackie.

The second, more lasting effect is that you get different dialogue options depending on the backstory you choose. I went for Corpo, which gave my V the ability to maneuver politically in certain difficult situations. In other words, your backstory doesn’t make as big of a difference as you might be concerned about.

Stack attributes

More consequently, you will have the option at the beginning of the game to distribute points to six different attributes: Body, Intelligence, Reflexes, Technical Ability and Cool. Within each of these attributes, you will have perks that you can unlock.

At first, I distribute the attribute points and perks semi-evenly. I had an idea in my head that like the skill trees in most AAA games, I would end up unlocking all perks eventually anyway. In truth, it’s much better to choose up front how you want to approach combat and tailor your attribute points and perks accordingly.

Generally speaking, there are two ways to handle combat: force and stealth. But within this there are subdivisions. Within the force, you can specialize in melee weapons, punching, or gunfights. Within stealth, you can optimize your detection (the Cool attribute and related perks that make it difficult for enemies to detect you), hacking abilities (you’ll hack nearby tech to distract / damage enemies), or stealth death offenses (like throwing daggers) .

Obviously, you will adjust your style as you progress through the game. But don’t do what I did and try to keep balance, balance is for fools.

Don’t just play the main mission

I had around five days to (try) beat Cyberpunk 2077 and get a review , so I was largely forced to ignore the side quests and focus instead on finishing the main story. I recommend that you do not do this.

Cyberpunk’s history is one of its strengths. The relationship between V and Johnny Silverhand, a mercenary played by Keanu Reeves trapped in V’s head, gives it a welcome focus. But Cyberpunk is as much about exploring Night City as it is about seeing the narrative through to the end. The game itself encourages this, and asks you to take a break from the main mission to do other things.

And those things are good. The side missions are really fun, often more than the main missions. They’re varied, from reigning in seven AI-powered taxis that have gone rogue (this was one of my favorites, as rogue cabs had personalities that were often legitimately funny) to solving the mystery of a murdered mayor, and spin Night City as a living and sprawling city.

Just as important, doing more side missions will give you access to better endings. I “finished” the game in about 25 hours (some critics, having done even fewer side quests than me, did it in 15-20 hours), but it’s clear from the ending that I got that there are many possible endings, and that I have the worst . Do more side quests and you’ll get more determined and satisfying endings for V.

Don’t always use fast travel

This one is in a similar vein. There are fast travel spots throughout the city that you can use, especially tempting when your objective is on the other side of Night City. Sometimes you will not have time to waste time, but you will often be rewarded for traveling by car or motorcycle.

There’s a ton to do in Night City, and you’re sure to find something great if you travel by hand. You’ll often find various cool things to come across as I’d find myself making regular stops on the way to the next mission location after seeing this or that icon calling me on the HUD map.

At the very least, you will often find crimes in the pipeline to commit, and the Night City Police Department will pay you if they separate you and arrest (read: kill) the criminals. Fighting crime often also generates solid loot, so you will rarely be disappointed in the payoff.

Do gigs to earn money

Aside from the side missions, in which you will help a character complete a primary objective, there are “jobs”. These are more mercantile: a “repairman” will ask you to go do work for them, such as incapacitating an enemy, sneaking through a hideout and placing a tracker on a vehicle, or carrying an ally at risk from one place to another. . You are a gun for hire, after all.

These are fun and often challenging, and they won’t take more than 10-20 minutes. You will need money in Cyberpunk, to buy cars, new weapons and various upgrades, and so far I have found that doing these gigs is the best way to go. (There is definitely some kind of get-rich-quick scheme in the game, but I haven’t found it yet.)

You can totally fail in side missions

Just one quick thing to note: you can absolutely fail side quests and will never have a chance to do them again.

The first time I experienced this, I was halfway through a quest revolving around a murderer trying to apologize to the mother of the guy he killed. Towards the end of the search, one of the dialogue options I had was “Alright, I’ve seen enough” (or in that sense). I thought it was a cool reverse psychology trick, so I chose it. No, my employer just said “OK, fine” and the search ended. There are no repetitions.

The same goes for challenges. At a concert, I participated in a shooting contest, with a special rifle as the top prize. I was second and got nothing. There was no option to do it again: I just lost, and that was it.

No two games will be the same

As you can see, choices matter in Cyberpunk 2077. This is especially true of the main story. Don’t go into the game under the impression that your choices make only minor cosmetic differences. The way you react and how you go about completing missions can have a drastic effect.

I discovered this early. In the opening section of the game, you are tasked with obtaining a piece of military technology from a gang, and you have the option of meeting with an operative from the megacorporation from which the technology was stolen. When I demoed the game in June, I didn’t bother to run into the operative, and as a result I had to shoot out of the gang’s hideout. When I played during this time, I met the operative and as a result, the forces in his body had a shootout with the gang, letting me slip away more easily.

The result was a completely different experience, and I suspect the same is true for basically all missions and in more drastic ways. Keep this in mind when you play – your decisions matter.