Cyberpunk 2077 Transforms Combat Into An Artform
23.10.2023 - 17:29
/ screenrant.com
Although still, multiple years after release, ultimately fails to live up to many of the promises of its pre-release advertising, the game excels in one crucial area — its combat. From the time of its troubled launch, has gone through several major updates, including its DLC,, but still lacks many of the features that might be expected from an open-world RPG on the level of something like. However, in exchange, 's core is well above most other games in the genre, allowing the game to have intense firefights while still maintaining varied RPG systems.
While first-person, open-world RPGs along the lines of or tend to have plenty of options for combat, the actual feel of combat in those games can be a mixed bag. Especially in older games in the genre, weapons can have a tendency not to feel very responsive or impactful, and in many cases, enemies don't react to damage until their health has been depleted, which can lead to battles feeling like low-impact slap-fights. Making real-time combat satisfying in the midst of heavily number-reliant RPG systems is a hard task — and one that handles particularly well.
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While not without its own flaws, the combat of is one area where it excels above other first-person RPGs like or for several reasons. The animations of weapons, the various available approaches to combat, and the relative difficulty of the game all contribute to combat that's substantially more compelling than most other games in the same genre, with patches, like 's 2.0 update that coincided with the release of, refining the systems even further to create a thoroughly engaging combat system.
Like many games with compelling combat, 's animations greatly contribute to the feeling of power and impact regarding weapons in the game. Guns, especially heavier pistols, shotguns, and sniper rifles, have a heavy kick when fired, making them satisfying to shoot, and in response, most enemies react accordingly to being hit, flinching, getting knocked down, or even flying with a big enough impact. Even melee weapons, which can typically not feel particularly impactful in first-person RPGs, have stylish animations and attacks — although the game's hand-to-hand combat systems are, admittedly, not the deepest.
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Additionally, to avoid one of the more prominent issues with combat in first-person RPGs — enemies that don't respond or react to being hit. Outside the hardest difficulty or especially resilient enemies like bosses, 's enemies flinch and recoil from hits, creating the sense that the player's attacks are dealing effective