Cyberpunk 2077 has finally launched; reviews have been posted and the conversation is pretty much hitting a fever pitch at this point. Different people have different opinions on the game and we’re even seeing some notable differences between the different versions of the game thus far which aren’t all good. With every major release of a super popular game, you’ll have a lot of that though. Lots of buzz, fanfare and even a little bit of controversy here and there. All of that is well and good but one thing that many are starting to notice about Cyberpunk 2077 is that the sheer depth of its experience is making me question whether or not they’ll ever really complete the entire thing.
And by complete I don’t just mean run through the story one time and watch the credits roll. I’m talking about seeing everything there is to see, doing everything there is to do, and appreciating all of the little moving parts in Night City and its many substories that there are to see. I am one of those people. with there being so many great games out there to play these days, it’s going to be a rather tall order for me to give the amount of time to Cyberpunk 2077 that it requires to truly look under every one of its rocks and see everything that it has to offer. That’s not to say that the game doesn’t deserve to be fully experienced, but when you juxtapose the sheer size of this single game with how many other games there are out there to play on top of also having work and Life to maintain, it’s not as realistic a goal as you might think when you head into most other games, to see everything this game has. As such we have a list of 5 big reasons why I’ll probably never complete Cyberpunk 2077.
The three different life paths
I’m all about choices, options, and the ability to see different sides of a large open world game with multiple playthroughs, but I think I’m probably getting more than I bargained for with Cyberpunk 2077 effectively offering me three entirely different character types, and thus, storylines with its life path system. While it is true that the vast majority of characters, and quests of Cyberpunk are available to all of its life paths, some things are not and are unique to each one. This essentially means that in order to truly complete Cyberpunk 2077 and see every single thing it has to offer you will have to play through the story at the bare minimum 3 times giving each of its life paths at least one playthrough. with the campaign being 20 years or so hours, that alone immediately triples the amount of time you’ll need to play making it well over sixty if you really want to explore. and that’s assuming you find everything there is to find on each and every play through which is in and of itself, unlikely. and leads me to my next point
Alternate story arcs
As if having three distinctly different starting points of Cyberpunk 2077 to choose from wasn’t enough. We also have a plethora of different story arcs for different characters that can all unfold in different ways depending on how you answer questions and how you complete -or fail to complete- certain tasks. It is true that answering a question a certain way, as small of a thing as that is, can totally change the trajectory of your play through and completely eliminate certain things from your options later on down the road. the alternative is also true where certain things can also open up to you depending on what you do that otherwise would not have. This not only increases the amount of things to do in the game but, by eliminating certain outcomes from being available to you depending on your actions, it also exponentially increases the amount of time you’ll need to play the game in order to see everything there is to see and do everything there is to do.
Ongoing crimes to solve
While Cyberpunk 2077 has a vast array of story missions and side quest one of the more compelling side activities is getting involved in certain ongoing crimes and either solving them or using them to your advantage. This is obviously something you can totally ignore if you just want to see the story but if you really want to get your fill of Cyberpunk 2077 and get every pennies worth about 60 bucks you’ll need to look into these as well, making the playtime much longer than you might have expected.
Collectables
I’m a huge fan of different sorts of collectibles and games. Odds are if you picked up Cyberpunk 2077 you are too… at least to some extent. Whether it’s objects you can find in the world to put in your house or graffiti you find throughout the city, or any of the numerous things in between, Cyberpunk 2077 has given the player a lot of reasons to look at every nook and cranny of the map to find all of the little things there are to find. this is the type of thing you can do at any point in the game other than the few closed off portions. so whether you are a fan of running around before really getting too deep into the story and doing this or after you’ve completed the story or sometime in the middle when you are just looking for a palate cleanser activity, the sheer amount of collectibles in Cyberpunk 2077 world is more than enough on its own to keep you invested in the game for many more hours than the main campaign contains.
Vehicles
I don’t know about you but one of my favorite things to do in open world games is to explore all of the different types of vehicles and ultimately pick my favorite knowing that I’ve made an ultra informed decision. Usually this isn’t totally doable until after a campaign is finished and all options have been unlocked, but in any case Cyberpunk 2077 has a lot of different vehicles to get around the city and I intend to do my best with uncovering all of them. CD projekt Red was sure to cram in different types of vehicles including several bikes all of which will have different pros and cons for different situations and all of which will likely be beneficial in one way or another so it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with all of them and learn how to operate them. Learning all of the different quirks of all of the different sorts of vehicles is sure to be a massive undertaking and a huge time-sink.
Surely there are plenty of other reasons why Cyberpunk 2077 is promising to be one of the most densely packed and time destroying games of all time. But those are the top five reasons as to why I will probably fail to totally see everything there is in Night City. It’s not a bad thing as I love the idea of a game feeling bottomless, at least from the perspective of the amount of free time that I have these days, and I’m looking forward to doing my best at seeing as much as I can of the world despite the unlikelihood of me ever truly doing it.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.