In a somewhat jarring tone-shift to previous trailers, this week’s launch vid is remarkably subdued, and somewhat unsettling? Listen, I wasn’t prepared for a cyberlass to be whispering in my ears about getting bullets in my head.
Where previous vids were all synth-rock bombast, hacky gunfights and cyber shenanigans, this launch trailer gives us a more sombre view of Night City. V rides passenger with their trauma as they recover from a gig gone wrong, and it’s only near the end that we see the katanas come out for some slashy murder. Instead, lots of presumably important characters tell us about what a big deal we’re gonna be, with a couple even leading us off to the other room for some cyber-naughties. We weren’t among those to get early Cyberpunk codes, so our review will be a while coming yet. But early reviews speak to a game plagued by technical troubles (many of which may hopefully be amended in a day one patch), so perhaps it’s best to wait a minute to see how it pans out anyway. Our pals over at Eurogamer have been plugging in the hours, with Chris Tapsell’s Cyberpunk 2077 impressions describing a game that sits far from where its (often crass) marketing would suggest. Cyberpunk 2077 is out this Thursday on Steam, GOG and the Epic Games Store. You can pre-load it now - although it’s worth noting you probably shouldn’t if you suffer from epilepsy, with some early reviews reporting that certain visual effects were triggering seizures. Not great!