I love how much stuff there is to do in Cyberpunk 2077. ittedly, in my first playthrough, I skipped most of the side content because it was hard to discern what was worth doing. The map - pre-Update 2.0 - also felt cluttered, and I was already convinced I wouldn't enjoy Cyberpunk anyway to warrant putting in the extra hours. However, after having played through the game two more times - and absolutely loving it - and beaten every Gig, side quest, and several dozen ND Scanner Hustles, I can safely say that I'm a fan of what Cyberpunk 2077 has to offer.

However, as much as I truly love Cyberpunk 2077's side content - at least some of it - I can't help but feel like it has been poorly implemented. There's a frustrating dissonance when it comes to the way that Cyberpunk 2077 wants you to interact with its story, themes, and characters, and the way that it wants you to interact with everything Night City has to offer. It is something that has only grown more annoying the more I play, and has even made me feel like side quests are a feature Cyberpunk 2 must fix.

Cyberpunk 2077's Side Quests Make No Sense

Why Is V Doing Gigs When They're Dying?

I love Cyberpunk 2077's main plot of V wrangling with their mortality, pushing themselves to the limit, and sacrificing everything in order to find a cure to what will ultimately kill them within just a few months, while also honoring those they've lost along the way. The bonds V creates with the large cast of memorable characters felt genuinely meaningful to me, and Cyberpunk 2077's excellent writing is some of the best in the business. However, as good as it all is, it completely ruins the logical reason for engaging with any of the side content.

Cyberpunk 2077's side quests are amazing, but they make absolutely no sense in the context of the wider narrative. V is dying and obviously wants to prevent that, but is also content to while away time completing missions for the police or Fixers. While that was a part of V's life prior to Jackie's death and Silverhand worming his way into V's brain, it should no longer be a major focus for them. As a result, I feel completing any of the game's 250 odd side missions ruins Cyberpunk 2077's immersion, at least when it comes to the narrative.

It feels completely counterintuitive to me to be forcing V to go out on meaningless Gigs to help people they don't care about for absolutely no real gain other than money, which doesn't bring them any closer to finding a cure. However, I also don't want to miss out on Cyberpunk 2077's best side quests, so I then feel compelled to complete them. This results in me driving around completing side quests and watching as day turns into night and back into day dozens, if not hundreds of times, creating a frustrating sense of ludonarrative dissonance.

I did try roleplaying that V was completing these Gigs prior to getting Silverhand put into their head, but that's made impossible by the fact that he frequently pops up in even the most minor of missions. The solution to this problem would be to make Fixers promise V some form of information about the cure, Arasaka, or even Silverhand, for completing all their Gigs. Frankly, any form of connection between the side content and the main content would have helped Cyberpunk 2077 maintain its status as one of the most immersive games of all time. Alas, there is none.

Cyberpunk 2's Main Narrative Needs To Work Around Its Side Quests

It Avoids Ludonarrative Dissonance

It is never satisfying to have to choose between roleplaying in Cyberpunk and missing out on some of its best content, or giving up entirely and accepting that half of your experience simply won't make sense when put into context. Of course, there's nothing that CD Projekt Red can do about it in Cyberpunk 2077, as it is an issue inherent to the core plot's structure and sense of urgency. However, this is something that can be avoided with the sequel, especially if CD Projekt Red refrains from forcing players into another life-or-death situation.

I absolutely do not want Cyberpunk 2 to drop all of the side content, as it helps to flesh out the fascinating lore of Cyberpunk's universe and plethora of interesting factions. It also allows the player to grow their character, unlock new gear, buy into the cyberware fantasy, and attempt to create the David Martinez build to become so ridiculously overpowered that they breeze through the main content without a problem. However, it needs to be handled with more grace and no longer feel secondary to the main plot.

That's not to say that Cyberpunk 2077's writing is significantly worse in the side content, or that CD Projekt Red didn't put any effort into its side quests. Some of its best work can be found in missions like "Heroes", "The Hunt", and "Sinnerman" to name just a few. Rather, CD Projekt Red should better intertwine these phenomenally written quests with the main story to remove any form of ludonarrative dissonance and ensure that players feel like they can be done at any time and aren't stopping the flow of the main quest just to deal with them.

Side Quests In Games Need To Be Better Integrated Into The Main Story

They Often Feel Secondary Rather Than Integral

Of course, I'm under no illusion that Cyberpunk 2077 is the first game to do this. Open-world games have suffered from this problem for a long time thanks to their innate conflict of wanting to give players the freedom to explore at their own pace while also needing to push them toward the central narrative. Some open-world games favor one over the other, such as Dragon's Dogma 2's lack of emphasis on the main plot to allow players to prioritize the journey. However, a lot of games try to have both, such as the infamous Fallout 4.

Developers should stop trying to cram these hyper-focused narratives into the most freeform structure in gaming.

Fallout 4 was my first encounter with this problem, as I constantly felt frustrated by the purported importance of locating my son while also messing around completing any side quest I could get my hands on. This dissonance heightened Fallout 4's major plot holes, which, in turn, worsened my overall experience. Fallout 4 isn't the only game I've played that did this, but it is strikingly similar to Cyberpunk 2077 in this regard, namely in both games' insistence on having a main plot revolve around an urgent situation while also encouraging players to take the open-world at their own pace.

To me, the solution seems obvious, not just for Cyberpunk 2, but all open-world games going forward. Simply put, developers should stop trying to cram these hyper-focused narratives into the most freeform structure in gaming. Cyberpunk 2077's main story would have worked far better in a more linear framework, which is why, at least to me, the main story works so much better when I play through it without engaging with any of the side content.

While I completely understand the desire to make Cyberpunk 2077 an open-world game, as it allowed CD Projekt Red to create one of the most ambitious urban environments in gaming, it came to the detriment of the experience as a whole. Knowing what structure best suits the story that you're trying to tell is crucial to delivering it as impactfully as possible, especially in the medium of video games. CD Projekt Red surely knows this, and hopefully, if Cyberpunk 2 is to be another open world, will ensure to avoid making the same mistake twice.