Empty collectibles. Elements from The Witcher that failed in Cyberpunk
Table of Contents
Let's not talk about the tarot cards, because it's one big misunderstanding.
A map dotted with question marks is a feature of many games today. Neither The Witcher 3 nor Cyberpunk 2077 managed to avoid it. These icons – whether they distort the idea of exploration or not – functioned quite well in the former game (maybe with the exception of the unfortunate Skellige, who the hell thought it would be a good idea?). They almost always brought you to interesting locations, monster nests, places of powers, most of the time offering useful loot, or even triggering new side quests.
In Cyberpunk 2077, the devs not only flooded the map with icons – making it rather unreadable – they also filled Night City with generic quests. There were several types of activities (theft, sabotage, neutralization, rescue and property recovery), but each one was almost identical, boiling down to either infiltrating an area, or killing everyone inside, and finding an item or person. Most of them could be done quietly, sneaking up and eliminating enemies unnoticed, but doing the same for the thirty-first time felt redundant, no matter what method you chose.
It would be bearable if the related micro-stories were interesting and the rewards offered for them were useful. But unfortunately – the stories weren't fun to read through, and the rewards were mostly piles of junk or some items that sufficed for the next hour of gameplay, to then become redundant, and the modest amounts of cash could be used to buy cars and get the Autojock achievement. Collecting futuristic cars may have some potential on paper, but it has turned out to be another ineffective filler, intended as a reason for earning more money. I have not seen an RPG with such a troubled economy system as Cyberpunk 2077. Crafting Grandmaster gear for all Witcher schools in Blood and Wine made more sense – even though we only needed one set, and the errand was terribly time-consuming. Nevertheless, I collected all the cars – I wanted the achievement – although I mainly drove Jackie's ARCH.
At least the FPP delivered
Initially, we were supposed to observe V from TPP, just like Geralt. Some people did not like the FPP idea – there were even mods enabling the choice of perspective – but I, to my own surprise, did not miss the sight of my avatar's back. I cannot imagine riding the streets of Night City without seeing them from first-person.
