Cyberpunk isn't just good now, it's amazing
Cyberpunk 2077's big update and DLC finally make good on a big promise
Listen to this week’s episode
We can't believe it either: Cyberpunk 2077, a game we tore a new one when it first launched in 2020, is GOOD now. Like, really good. Find out what's so great about its new Phantom Liberty expansion, and what players can expect from the new 2.0 update!
Plus, in the back half: a conversation about what it means for publishers to release video games in unfinished states and repair them years later. Has this become part of the playbook? Or was Cyberpunk the last mega-mess?
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Games discussed:
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 patch and Phantom Liberty DLC, Blasphemous 2
Books discussed:
Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin
Movies and TV discussed:
Plante’s Letterboxd list of “Horror movies for people afraid of horror movies.”
The American Scream (2012), The Thing, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, No One Will Save You
Have questions for The Besties?
Drop them in the comments! We aren’t able to respond to every question, but we read all of them and answer some in episodes!
Next week on The Besties and The Resties:
On Tuesday’s episode of The Resties: Cocoon and No One Will Save You
And on next Friday’s The Besties: Indie games extravaganza, including Blasphemous 2; El Paso, Elsewhere; Chants of Sennaar. And Justin finished Sea of Stars!
Bonus links:
A 4K scan of the original trailer for The Thing
6 major takeaways from Hollywood writers’ new WGA contract
Plante’s rolling list of the best Blu-rays and 4K UHD releases of 2023
Polygon’s glowing review of Cocoon by the wonderful Grayson Morley of Backlog
Taki Udon’s review of a $1,700 handheld
In case you missed it: New Besties merch! Stickers! A pretty pin!
Having not yet listened to the episode: I'm not some frothing-at-the-mouth big-G Gamer, but you all got this wrong originally. Not so much the bugs part, although I played it at launch and did not have any T-posing or anything like that. More that the systems were pretty fun (if extremely weird, like crafting and upgrading) and the story was really good. It might be the best Keanu performance of any media, something about him just works in this game. I rarely play these huge games twice and I had just as much fun with a second character years later as I did originally playing it, maybe more fun. I will say in terms of the original critiques, beyond the fair criticism of launch problems, Ron Funches criticism about doing jobs for the police was dead-on. That did feel wrong and Ron put his finger right on it. Kudos on that observation... for a game about fighting world-dominating corpos, you do spend most of your time killing strivers like yourself.
Now, however, comes the huge caveat: I have never understood what this setting offers to the younger audience. Like, if you didn't grow up in that moment in the late 80s and 90s when Cyberpunk and Shadowrun were TTRPGs, phreakers like Captain Crunch were already legends, growing up on stories like Steve Jackson Games being raided by the FBI... Cyberpunk 2077 is 100% built on nostalgia for that era. Back then it still seemed like a distant but distinct possibility that corpos would monitor and control all aspects of our political and social lives. We essentially now live in that dystopia except the boringest version. I'm always surprised that this game resonates for anyone under the age of 40. Anyway thanks for the venue, that's been on my mind since launch.
1. Griffin is wild for recommending The Thing lmao
2. For a spooky-but-not-scary movie, I would highly recommend the Japanese thriller Cure.
3. This is a questions specifically for The Resties: What do you both think games journalism will look like in the next 5-10 years? It feels like there's more options than ever for people to engage with games criticism (streamers, YT reviews, TikTok, etc.), so I wanted to know if y'all had any thoughts on what that might look like in the future.