So CD Projekt Red’s most anticipated AAA title of the year is now out in the wild (glitches, crashes and all!) and despite some of the game’s shortcomings we’re loving our time in Night City. Having hit the street rep level cap as well as finished off the story, we think we’re in a pretty good position to give you some tips and tricks for making your playthrough the best it can possibly be, so without further ado here’s how to dominate the streets that little bit faster.
Pace Yourself
Yes we know it’s the thing every reviewer, tip guide and Twitter account is shouting but honestly, it’s true. Cyberpunk 2077 is a massive title, far surpassing our wildest hopes for Night City and it’s surrounding Badlands. You can play the game however you like and by powering through the main story you will unlock additional side activities faster – for example street racing which pops up surprisingly far into the main story missions.
However we found that spending a few hours completing gigs (sidemissions), random gang encounters, Cyberpsycho encounters etc helped us progress our character and made both combat and stealth much more engaging than it is in the first dozen hours of the game.
(Cyber) Leg Day
Cyberpunk 2077 seems pretty straightforward initially, from its point and shoot combat to it’s ‘sneak up behind them’ stealth options. That changes pretty dramatically as you expand your Cyberware arsenal.
Top of your Cyberwishlist should absolutely be one of the two available leg enhancements which offer either a charge jump or double jump – they completely change the game and the way you interact with it. Unlike titles like GTA where it almost feels like cheating to get on top of buildings, Cyberpunk encourages it, even offering Assassin Creed style takedowns if you land on an enemy from above. It gives combat and stealth a much wider feeling of freedom and there’s nothing more satisfying than finding a high-up open window into an enemy base.
Deck Building
The other key Cyberware upgrade I’d recommend is improving your Cyberdeck. The game doesn’t do such a great job of explaining how these work but basically higher-level Cyberdecks have more free slots for ‘quickhacks’ (abilities) and you can use these in and out of combat. For example I’ve split my loadout between a handful of combat quickhacks like ‘short circuit’ which is great against robotic opponents, and stealth skills such as ‘reboot optics’ which temporarily blinds most enemies – perfect for sneaking past an annoyingly placed guard.
You can of course go old school in Cyberpunk and steer away completely from quickhacks but you’re missing out on a lot of hackery fun. Come on you can wipe an enemies short term memory – who doesn’t want that power!
Less Need For Speed
You can purchase vehicles across Night City from a certain point in the main story, however in my time they were never particularly game-changing. Night City is mostly packed with sports cars so anytime you’re looking for a slick ride it’s pretty easy to pick one up, so the only real reason for dropping 100K+ eddies on a vehicle is if you’ve purchased everything else you’ve been after – we’d recommend picking up Cyberware and some decent quickhacks first before even touching the games vehicles.
Whether you want to then sink your remaining eddies into your armour, weapons or vechiles is up to you.
Suns Out, Guns Out
In my entire playthrough of Night City I only ever purchased guns once I was satisfied with every other area of my build. This isn’t to say that the guns of Cyberpunk 2077 aren’t important – they definitely are, but they’re so plentiful you’ll be wasting your cash until at least level 30 as you’ll very quickly out level them and upgrading them to catch up can be pretty costly.
One trick for improving your arsenal is to move to take on one of the higher level gangs in the South East of the City, or take on some of the higher threat Cyberpsychos and NCPD missions which often drop rare if not epic tier weaponry.
Worst comes to the worst you can always use the games crafting system although you’ll need to purchase a specific perk in order to do so.
Perk It Gurl
Depending on which attributes you focus on during your playthrough, you’ll likely end up swimming in perk points. Don’t feel like you need to spend these early on. As you use specific skills you’ll unlock more and more available perks for each skill group and some of these later skills can be gold. It’s a good idea to map out which perks you’ll eventually be wanting to pick up as all perks are visible from the start, however, remember that some will have multiple levels that can be very worthwhile.
Kill. Em. All
Speaks for itself but whether you’re levelling your skills, street cred or just after a handful of eddies, whenever you pass a group of gang members there’s no shame in throwing a grenade or two.
Cyberpunk 2077 seemed to push the idea of gang reputations in the run-up the title’s launch however now we have our hands on the game one of my biggest surprises was the lack of any kind of rep counter (I was thinking something on the lines of Fallout). Instead you can massacre any gangs who show as potential enemies and you’ll never have to deal with any wider consequences.
Blue Means Stop
The one exception to this rule is the Night City Police Department. Unless you know what you’re doing you’re best steering clear of these guys. There’s no real bounty system in place at the time of writing this, and you can escape their wanted radius without too much trouble – even on foot! But in a straight fight the NCPD pack a real punch and they will appear out of nowhere – don’t expect a bunch of cop cars rolling up, these guys will pop into reality armed and ready before you even realised you accidentally blew up a civilian. You’ve been warned!
Save Often
Speaks for itself but it’s the one thing we really wish we could get into the habit of. It will save you a lot of pain when you make a bad dialogue call, get caught by a stray bullet or just get stuck in the floor (as happened a hell of a lot in my playthrough!).
If you hit the menu button there’s an option to quick save so no excuses – it will definitely save you some headaches in the long run.
HD Really Not Ready
Without a doubt there’s plenty of bugs in Cyberpunk 2077 but one of the key ones you want to check is the HDR option in the video section of the settings menu. We honestly have no idea how they’ve done such a bad job of optimizing the high res capabilities but (for now at least) switch this off and save yourself a headache.
So what did you think? What tips would you give to a player just starting Cyberpunk 2077 and one nearing the endgame – let us know and we’ll include the best recommendations in a future article.
