A few months after Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty launched alongside v2.0, I stepped into Night City for the very first time. The experience was baffling. If I wasn't puzzling over the different kinds of operating systems and playstyles, I was getting an eyeful of every townie's butt cheeks as they strutted about Watson looking like randomized Sims. I powered through the weirdness and learned to embrace it, going on to complete it three times in less than six months.
Anything I didn't understand was chalked up to being a newbie. The lack of handholding or mechanic explanations confounded me at first, but I reminded myself that I was playing a three-year-old RPG for the first time. Maybe developer CD Projekt Red saw no need to tutorialize it too much for the hordes of returning fans, I wondered?
Only now, on my fifth playthrough, has curiosity finally gotten the better of me. One YouTube rabbit hole later thanks to videos like this, I've been confronted with how incredibly different this game was at launch. Not just in terms of being far more stable and less prone to bugs and crashes these days, but in the evolution of some pretty interesting mechanics and systems that I honestly wish I'd gotten to experience for myself. Cyberpunk 2, take note please.
Threaddy to rock
I adore games that let me diva out. I want to be the most dripped-out baddie in the Badlands, so it makes sense that one of my biggest draws into the world of Cyberpunk 2077 was V's impressive wardrobe.
I made it my mission from day-one to traverse every nook and cranny of Night City in search of the coolest threads V could lay her chromed-out hands on, and for the most part, I succeeded. One thing I shrugged off on my hunt for sartorial supremacy was the fact that clothing items, much like weapons or cyberware, are color-coded into tier grades. In the end I'd just assumed it was a Night City classist thing; grey tier-one gear was simply the cheap bargain bin stuff I'd start out with, while orange tier 5 pieces might run me a few more eddies in exchange for looking like street punk royalty. It wasn't until I finally took it upon myself to research why clothing items are tiered despite only being cosmetics that I started to feel left out.
Surprise, surprise: the color-coded tier levels on clothing items in Cyberpunk 2077 are a vestige from a time when they did serve a greater purpose. Once upon a time, gear could be crafted out of tiered parts just like quickhacks, weapons, and grenades, granting V different buffs and armor values depending on the tier level. They even had mod slots!
This resulted in some truly, uh, interesting fashion choices as players sought to min-max the hell out of their gear (as you can see from the vintage screenshot above, circa-2021). Transmog didn't exist at all, so it was perfectly acceptable to slink into a stealthy thief gig dressed to the nines in stilettos, a polka dot bra, and a hideous fluorescent beanie.
Suddenly, it all made sense. I feel highly privileged to be playing a version of the game that looks and feels fantastic, but there's something fittingly absurd about mercs cutting about Corpo Plaza like a half-dressed Barbie doll found in a dumpster. Sometimes I feel bad for being the only fashionable person in Night City as it is; how could these commoners possibly compete with Queen V's perfectly coordinated red, black, and gold outfits? But in another life, I, too, was meant to be clad in mesh vests and office slacks. Maybe I'm the weird one for sticking out like a sore thumb after all.
This is not me championing for CDPR to bring back a transmog-less world in Cyberpunk 2077. I'd sooner zero myself than let Judy see me in stained sneakers. But I do wonder how it would have felt to play the game relying on my gear to actually power me up rather than adding yet more weight and importance to the ever-grindy path of cyberware leveling instead.
Chop shop
It's too easy to be the most chromed out queen this side of the Blackwall, let alone the best-dressed merc.
While I'm at it, why did nobody tell me that cyberware used to come with added steps, too? Higher-level tech could only be attained at specific ripperdocs in a pre-2.0 Night City, incentivizing players to travel far and wide in search of unique ways to buff their builds.
Much as I love being faithful to V's pseudo-pops Vik Vector, it makes so much sense to me now that this is how cyberware was supposed to work, considering how districts used to be level-locked. Watson, being the pre-Heist mission "tutorial town", is the perfect low-level training ground to get familiar with the games' mechanics before nudging the difficulty level up. You can still only buy or craft tier-appropriate items tied to your character level these days – with the exception of clothing of course – but once your V is strong enough, they can get any bit of cyberware et al from any ripper closest to them.
Removing the gated difficulty settings makes for a more realistic RPG experience, with varying enemy toughness largely a surprise that keeps you on your toes until you see a quadruple-segmented health bar, but it does take away some of the signposting that helps players know exactly how they are progressing. One of my biggest difficulties with Cyberpunk 2077 when I first started playing was having literally no idea how crafting worked, or what a Sandevistan was, or which of the many, many mission pop-ups I should be tackling first.
I understand why that sense of overwhelm is part and parcel of the overall experience, but I do think CDPR missed a trick by cutting the ripperdoc stock exclusivity factor alongside the zoned difficulties. Imagine getting a call from that one doc across town who has something awesome in stock – he can't talk about it on the phone, and can only hold it for you for a few in-game hours. Or what if specific rippers specialized in different areas, offering a huge range of skeleton or appendage upgrades that grant you an extra special bonus in return for seeing a true connoisseur? Some of the lore of the ripperdocs has been lost in the homogenization of their craft, and it's something I would love to see rectified in the sequel.
I tell you all this as I dig deeper into my fifth playthrough. I'm a stone-cold corpo with a chip on her shoulder to match the one in her neck, both tucked beneath layers of plush nanoweave and velvet, as she searches for fair competition in the game of threads. It's too easy to be the most chromed out queen this side of the Blackwall, let alone the best-dressed merc. Please, Cyberpunk 2: look to your past to give me a challenge. I'll be waiting at Embers with Hanako until then. She, at least, knows how to dress.
Wake up, samurai, there are plenty of other games like Cyberpunk 2077 for a dose of dystopian RPG mayhem!
