Cyberpunk 2077 (PC, 2020)

Cyberpunk 2077’s great visual variety, massive sense of scale, and gorgeous ray-tracing implementation make it a wonderful space to just walk and drive around in, even if you’re not convinced by the gameplay and story.

Suggesting Cyberpunk 2077’s charms may only be skin deep is a fair criticism (though I’d disagree), but that skin sure is impressive. The heights of buildings with a draw distance generous enough to let them fill the sky with a sense of awe and foreboding, the dazzling lights that permeate the dark streets, it’s all a thick atmosphere of concrete, steel, and neon that has firmly unseated the old titans of PC graphical excess. We’re gonna be testing new GPUs on this thing for years to come.

While 2077 has impressive moments early on, for me it was the meetup with Takemura in the diner that really pulled me in. I walked there (as I prefer walking to driving in this game whenever I can), taking in the sights and sounds before settling into a booth and having a conversation with the ex-Arasaka agent. As he talked, I glanced over to my left, out the window, which was gently distorting the lights and reflections from outside, and was just hit with the sense of place and scale. I glanced over to my right, out the diner door, to see the hustle and bustle of the city outside still going on all around us. Such a wonderful sense of atmosphere.

Its gameplay shortcomings are well documented, but Cyberpunk 2077’s visual grandeur, whether you’re in the thick of Night City or observing it from the outskirts of the Badlands, can sure as hell draw you in. — Claire Jackson