Cyberpunk 2077 review – could it ever live up to the hype?

PC (version tested), Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PS5, PS4; CD Projekt
Blade Runner meets Grand Theft Auto in this sprawling hellscape of a role-playing game, which is extraordinarily immersive but let down by misogyny and xenophobia

So here we finally are, in Night City. Almost a decade after it was first announced, CD Projekt's massively ambitious role-playing game has launched into a swirling maelstrom of hype and controversy that befits its salacious, histrionic setting. Like the technological MacGuffin at the centre of the plot, Cyberpunk 2077 is highly advanced and ingenious, but also bug-ridden and irresponsible.

You play as V, a cybernetically enhanced street hustler looking to make their name on these squalid, vicious streets, taking infiltration and assassination jobs for the gangs who've carved up the criminal underworld. While attempting to steal a cutting-edge biochip from a powerful corporation, you implant it in your own head, unknowingly infecting yourself with the digital ghost of dead rocker and anarchist Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves, essentially playing Theodore Ted" Logan's asshole brother). If you don't get him out of your brain, you'll both die.