I’ve put over 20 hours into Cyberpunk 2077 and I’m enjoying my time in Night City so far, despite all the bugs. V and all the supporting characters are dynamic, unpredictable, and just downright entertaining. Even though CD Projekt Red has created a well thought out RPG, there’s just one gnawing issue that I can’t seem to get past…

The life paths don’t contribute anything significant to the game.

Sometimes developers put out information about a game to simply drum up hype and increase sales. This, of course, is a smart marketing tactic. Give the players an odd and unique feature to look forward to when the game is released. If done right, the unique feature that the developers are advertising will get people talking around the water cooler at work spreading word of mouth and further increasing sales.

We’ve seen this done before recently with Red Dead Redemption 2 with the developers putting out the information that your horses’ balls will shrink in the cold. This is completely pointless information and it adds nothing of true value to the game. However, 2 years after the initial release and that’s an innocuous feature that I still remember about this game.

Features like this are fine in video games. Gamers aren’t staring at the TV to see if Rockstar made good on their claims (well, maybe some people did), and it’s not something that will be held against them either if Rockstar didn’t deliver on their promise.

The problem comes in when you have a game like Cyberpunk 2077, which allows you to craft your character down from their genitals and up to the hair on their head but doesn’t allow players to take full advantage of one of the earliest choices in the game.

Before Cyberpunk was released, the life path choices were a huge selling and talking point. I was a part of threads discussing which choice was best for a particular player and their particular play style. Loading up Cyberpunk for the first time, I felt like I was making a huge decision when in actuality, the life paths don’t contribute much.

Life Path Benefits

Yes, you’ll have a different opening scene in the game, and players can make up a backstory about how their V got there, which is what the true essence of an RPG is. Yes, you’ll have different dialogue options when speaking to certain people. Aside from that, life paths don’t mean anything.

This makes me feel as if the life path options were just something to drum up more sales.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making light of the countless hours it must have taken to write out the different ways a conversation could play out depending on your background, it just seems that life paths are lacking in content.

How Could It Be Better

Imagine if the life paths changed which guns you could use, or which abilities you could unlock. Imagine if CD Projekt Red took a page out of Rockstar’s book and made it so that players had to be a part of a certain group to access exclusive equipment or money-making opportunities. That would be amazing in Night City.

Not diving into the life path choices a bit more just feels like we were given a shallow representation of what it would have been like to live that life in Night City.

A corpo with the ability to purchase property and small businesses. A street kid with his/her own drug trafficking ring. A nomad with his/her own body shop. All of which require an investment and will bring in a daily return of eddies to V’s pocket. These are just some of the ideas I have in mind when it comes to life path choices.

CD Projekt Red has been known to add robust DLC that provides more dynamics to the game. The Witcher 3’s blood and wine is a perfect example, so these changes may be coming in the future.

Anyway, thanks for reading. As always, stay Gritty Gamers.