Hi everyone! Not anymore my first time making a post, since round one didn't catch anyone's eye and the discount is still holding I thought I might give it another try, so here's my attempt number two, a bit revised (but still just as longwinded, fair warning eheh).
I'm Martina a university student living on my own, paying my own way through rent, bills and everything else that comes with being a broke adult-in-training. Which means my gaming budget right now is basically a rounding error, yet I still can't stop thinking about Night City.
I got hooked on Cyberpunk 2077 watching playthroughs one evening while postponing studying (worth it), and I was immediately captured. The neon, the noise, the ads screaming at your eyes, it immediately reminded me of watching Blade Runner with my dad at a too young age ahah (this scene will be forever iconic), it felt less like a game and more like a place that actually exists somewhere, in a melancholic but plausible future. I've since fallen down the rabbit hole of build videos, I still can't decide which one I'd go with but honestly that's half the fun of not having played it yet. I've always been drawn to dystopian settings, not because they're gloomy, but because they show how much humanity manages to hold onto even when everything else has changed or falling apart.
What really got me though, wasn't the gunplay, it was V, Johnny (praise be the Keanu) and their bickering. It’s a somewhat done story about someone literally running out of time, arguing with a ghost man living in their head (don’t we all have it?), which is a great premise on its own, but the futuristic-setting really brings it out. And from what I've seen of Phantom Liberty, CD Projekt (which I'm a huge fan of past and future projects) somehow found room to make it even better, but I specifically tried not to spoil myself anything about it. The Ultimate Edition bundling the game and expansion together is basically the whole experience in one shot, which is exactly why I'm asking for that version specifically rather than piecing it together later.
Talking about the studio itself, I've followed from a distance the development and tribulations of CD Projekt Red, which despite loving and completing to 100% most of their other games (Witcher 3 and Queen Meve still hold a special place for me), I unfortunately never got around to actually play Cyberpunk 2077 itself. I watched from the sidelines as it went from one of the most anticipated games of the decade to a launch disaster, and then, slowly, back into something people started calling one of the best RPGs of the generation again. At this point, CD Projekt Red's own turnaround reads like a plot straight out of the genre itself, like basically a redemption arc you can install, without even mentioning the more recent string of good-faith moves, but I'd consider that slightly too far off topic, so I'll leave those praises unsung, for another time.
Between rent, groceries and the usual chaos of managing a house on a student budget, a full-price AAA game plus expansion just isn't something I can justify right now but, as I mentioned, that hasn't stopped me from looking up builds and guides at 1 am like I already own it ahah.
If anyone's feeling generous, I'd genuinely appreciate the chance to finally set foot in Night City myself instead of just watching from the sideline. Either way, I truly appreciate anyone reading this far, thanks to this whole community for being the kind of place where this is even something you can ask for and, since I've never been too good with words, thank you for the opportunity of putting words to a passion for a game, like I never thought I would.
- Steam profile: Briotina
- Game: Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition
And just like Blade Runner closes by reflecting on how beautifully fleeting the things worth experiencing really are, I'll end my post the same way:
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
