The truth about Cyberpunk 2077 is that the game has always been great, dare I say excellent. I loved its story, its setting, its combat, soundtrack, and much more. The state it was released back in late 2020, that was the unforgivable part. While the game itself was excellent, it was clearly released without proper care. I had a blast playing it on a PS5, but here’s the thing: I brute forced a PS4 game on vastly superior hardware in order to enjoy it on a borderline passable way. It looked great, and ran at 60fps for most of the time, but it was still riddled with glitches and would crash two to three times a day. I get why a lot of people decided to skip the game altogether. I don’t blame them for boycotting it.

A lot of drama ensued after Cyberpunk 2077‘s release. It got delisted from the PSN store. People demanded refunds. Reports about CDPR‘s working conditions were published. After overhyping us for years, the once beloved Polish company, most famous for The Witcher 3, had let us down. They needed to fix Cyberpunk 2077 pronto, but in a humble manner. Stop with the hype machine, go back to the drawing board, fix the damn thing for next-gen machines (the ones the game should have been slated for in the first place), and re-release it with some perks for early adopters and skeptical consumers.

This is exactly what CDPR has done, now that the next-gen versions of the game are finally available. I am not going to commend the company like I did with Hello Games and their iconic No Man’s Sky comeback story, but they have finally released Cyberpunk 2077 in a glitch-free and appealing manner, just how we’ve always wanted. To top things off, this upgrade is available for free for owners of the original build, as well as available as a free trial for those willing to give it a shot, but worried about having to deal with technical setbacks.

I had spent over one hundred twenty hours on the original version of Cyberpunk 2077, so I was already used to the controls, overall gameplay, visuals, and most importantly, what would usually make the game crash. I knew the places that were plastered with assets and textures, which would almost always result in the game having a panic attack and freezing or closing down entirely. My first task with this PS5 of the game was analyzing if it still crashed upon reaching these areas while driving at blistering high speeds. I then proceeded to shoot everything and everyone, in order to summon police guards to fill up the screen with NPCs and AI-controlled enemies. The game managed to stick to a stable framerate at all times, without ever crashing. I did a few other stress tests with it, and nothing happened. Cyberpunk 2077 seems to be fixed. Hooray!

With that out of the way, I wanted to analyze the improvements provided by this next-gen port. To be fair, improvements were noticeable the moment I started downloading this build: at a mere 55GB, it is almost half the size of the PS4 version. Considering the PS5’s stupidly small storage size, saving up to 45GB on my SSD is a cause worth celebrating in my books. Upon booting it up, I was shocked at how fast its loading times were now as well. That initial loading menu, where you listen to news reporters recapping the story so far for you? Borderline instantaneous. You can basically press the circle button right away and start your cyber shenanigans in Night City.

The DualSense’s features, such as improved haptic feedback, usage of the adaptive triggers while driving and shooting, as well as a great usage of its speakers, are all featured in this version of the game. As a whole, the gameplay itself hasn’t changed. Everything that was good about it is still great, and the one little bit that wasn’t, the dumb and useless crafting system, is still dumb and useless. I didn’t notice a vast improvement on the visuals, aside from the faster texture loading. That’s not exactly criticism: Cyberpunk 2077 was already shockingly gorgeous on last-gen machines, which was the main reason it almost made their GPUs explode. The PS5’s power allows the game to look as pretty as it can be, with my only main gripe being the disparity between the quality of main NPCs against sidequest characters.

There are a few new sidequests here and there, as well as some new items, but as a whole, this is still the same game as before. I really didn’t want to spend another one hundred hours with it in order to write this review, but thankfully, I had kept tons of save states due to the aforementioned constant crashing issues I’d face while playing the original port back in 2020. I could revert back to some important quests, talk to important characters, notice how bland Keanu’s portrayal as Johnny Silverhand still is, and more. All with the benefit of no glitches and vastly improved loading times.

I am not going to call this a commendable effort, because honestly, this is how Cyberpunk 2077 should have been released in the first place. Sadly, committing to last-gen platforms at first, combined with fan demand, death threats, and the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in a botched version of a great game that left a horrendous first impression. That is not the case with this PS5 version. This is how Cyberpunk 2077 should be played. It looks great, it performs like a dream, it takes advantage of the system’s features, and is almost entirely devoid of issues. If you were waiting on this version before finally diving into the lunatic world of Night City, fear not. You can finally enjoy this brilliant title without having to worry about having your immersion ruined by crashes and t-poses.

 

Graphics: 9.0 The biggest “improvement” when it comes to visuals is the fact that the framerate is now rock-solid and all textures are loaded almost instantaneously. As a whole, the game still looks the same, which isn’t criticism. It was already punching above its weight two years ago.	Gameplay: 9.5 The combat is still as good as ever. So is driving. Both have been improved thanks to the inclusion of DualSense features. The only thing that is still really annoying is the utterly useless crafting mechanic.
Sound: 9.0 A great soundtrack and phenomenal all-around voice acting… except from Keanu. He phoned the hell in.	Fun Factor: 9.0 Being able to enjoy a fantastic story and immersive world without having to worry about crashes and performance issues is what I’ve been waiting for since late 2020. The additional next-gen improvements are the icing on the cake.
Final Verdict: 9.0

Cyberpunk 2077 is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and PC.

Reviewed on PS5.