Cyberpunk 2077 is in a reasonably great place today. After a dumpster hearth of a launch, the next-gen replace, 2.0 patch, and Phantom Liberty enlargement have gotten CD Projekt Red’s open-world RPG to a decent state. The 2.1 patch that launched this week provides a pleasant little bow to the sport as its “final large replace.” It has long-requested options like a working subway you possibly can take throughout Night City, and it additionally lets V, its mercenary protagonist, spend a little bit time with their lover of their residence. The outcomes are an lovely stay-at-home date along with your paramour, however for as candy as it’s, these hangouts underline one thing that felt overlooked of the Cyberpunk 2077 redemption arc: the romance.
To expertise the adjustments myself, I referred to as Kerry, the getting old rocker I romanced throughout my playthrough of the marketing campaign, over to my place and instantly seen that the dialogue as we greeted one another was reused from the bottom sport. There had been some temporary new additions once we sat down on the sofa collectively—we cuddled and shared a quick kiss—however then we went again to discussing the identical three topics that had been accessible between us earlier than the two.1 replace.
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Cyberpunk 2077‘s romance replace is made up of cute little moments
At first, I believed this was it. While it wasn’t nothing, it additionally wasn’t price booting the sport again up for. Then I stood up and seen a number of different areas of my residence had been interactive in a approach they hadn’t been earlier than. I may now meditate with Kerry, or we may dance like dweebs to the now iconic “I Really Want To Stay At Your House.” We may take a scorching bathe, and once we did, I discovered that if I appeared in my lavatory mirror, Kerry would come up behind me and provides me a shoulder therapeutic massage. It’s exhausting bearing the burden of being a Night City legend, so my shoulders do want a therapeutic massage, really.
I ended the night time and woke as much as Kerry subsequent to me in my very own mattress, for as soon as. Part of me feels prepared to put in writing these romance tweaks off as a low-lift however candy effort to squeeze some fanservice into Cyberpunk 2077’s final large replace, however one other half is pleasantly stunned at how significant the small moments felt. For so lengthy, Kerry has felt like he lived on an island I may go go to. With this alteration, it appears like I’m lastly capable of share a little bit little bit of my world with him. Still, although, it wasn’t game-changing.
Small issues just like the reused voice traces and the dearth of great new additions carry me again to questioning why CD Projekt Red didn’t do extra with its 4 love pursuits. Even when Cyberpunk 2077 was in shambles and getting dragged on-line, gamers all the time had a whole lot of love for Judy, Panam, Kerry, and River. Perhaps as a result of that was by no means in query, it by no means turned a precedence to repair within the face of all the sport’s different issues. But man, getting to hang around with my previous trashbag boyfriend makes me want we had extra time.
Phantom Liberty may have accomplished extra with romance
Broadly, Cyberpunk 2077 hasn’t accomplished as a lot with its romantic storylines because it has its ability bushes or bugs. In a world with out an enlargement, I wouldn’t have thought it wanted to tweak its love tales considerably. The precise relationships, and the tales they advised, had been all fairly nice as is, and even earlier than the most recent replace, CD Projekt Red had added small adjustments like letting you sleep with and get up subsequent to your important different. Minuscule changes, certain, however they helped me really feel like I had one thing to return again to after I did crimes within the harmful Night City.
CD Projekt Red’s tackle romance has all the time been messy (strive to not recall The Witcher’s collectible playing cards), and Cyberpunk 2077 boils down identification and attraction right into a bizarre Punnett sq.. Each of its 4 romanceable choices corresponds to 1 type of binary attraction. Men looking for girls can journey round with Nomad pariah Panam, girls looking for girls discover companionship with Braindance editor extraordinaire Judy, girls looking for males shack up with disillusioned cop River, and males looking for males can placed on a present for the ages with rocker Kerry.
For all of Cyberpunk 2077’s assertion that type can fluctuate to 1’s whim, its inflexible understanding of attraction and intercourse has all the time felt at odds with the world’s bigger ethos. It is so stringent, the truth is, that it basically locks anybody who isn’t bi or pan into particular tales as a result of—in the event you select to have a accomplice in your lifetime of crime—it is going to be one particular person, and just one particular person. There isn’t a alternative, there’s solely doing with or doing with out. You just about should make do with what you’re given, and relying on components like your life path and your ending alternative, the connection could also be doomed to fail, and also you simply get a foul roll of the cube with out an choice to pivot.
In my case, I did make do. As a man-seeking man, I used to be funneled right into a relationship with Kerry that at one time didn’t jive with me, however as years have handed, I’ve come round on the man. His story now feels intimately woven into that of my V. Kerry’s change into my second-favorite character in Cyberpunk 2077 behind my V, whose story of trying to find belonging inside Night City has stamped itself onto my soul. So even after I was taking part in Phantom Liberty and loving it, I felt like I’d left a part of my Night City story again dwelling. There had been factors after I may inform newcomers like netrunner Songbird about him, or—if I discovered a spare minute between all of the spy thriller espionage—I may name him or go to him at his place to inform him what was happening. But the connection my V held most pricey was all the time on the again burner.
Phantom Liberty is, by design, fairly disruptive to the unique Cyberpunk 2077 story. It needs to be to pull off the ending it does, and that disruption means not all the pieces I liked from earlier than acquired a lot, if any, highlight within the enlargement. But realizing it was the one enlargement we had been ever going to get for Cyberpunk 2077 had me hoping we’d get one other likelihood to capitalize on the issues that everybody liked. These 4 characters are those followers will bear in mind as we, finally, go into the subsequent sport, and but, they felt like planets orbiting V, by no means colliding or making me really feel like I had a bunch of pals in Night City. They had been simply people I checked in with and by no means noticed in a room collectively. There are even factors when Panam texts me about loving Kerry’s music, however I by no means acquired to introduce them.
Perhaps I’m spoiled by Mass Effect 3’s Citadel DLC, which was posed as the ultimate addition to Commander Shepard’s story and in addition took time to say goodbye to everybody. While Phantom Liberty’s new ending provides its love pursuits a number of new traces of dialogue to contextualize its twists and turns, it doesn’t let me say goodbye. Phantom Liberty wasn’t attempting to be Citadel, however because the crew strikes on to the subsequent sport, I can really feel the void. I want I’d gotten to take Panam to a Kerry live performance and see her fangirl out once we went backstage. I want I’d gotten to see Judy and River bicker concerning the cop’s place in Night City. I’d have taken the outing of my spy thriller shenanigans to make new recollections with Kerry, as a result of these is likely to be all he has of me when that is over.
CD Projekt Red created one thing actually particular with Phantom Liberty that managed to reexamine all the pieces Cyberpunk 2077 went by to change into the sport it’s right this moment. But V’s lover solely acquired passing mentions and a bittersweet cellphone name. Kerry will all the time be necessary to my Cyberpunk story, however the truth that there was no likelihood for our relationship to meaningfully develop in Phantom Liberty appears like the largest missed alternative of an in any other case wonderful comeback story. But hey, I gained’t say no to a different shoulder therapeutic massage.
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