Heart

Cyberpunk's cynicism is evident from the instant you load. Corporations openly abusing the people that work for them. Crooked cops starting shootings in the streets. Rows of people modified with chrome on the streets, unable to make ends meet. It really does hit a little close to home sometimes, and the game doesn't stop there.

Depression, abuse, and suicide, are all subjects the game tackles, without a coat of sugar. The characters aren't happy in the world, predicament, or job they're in. Every day is a struggle, filled with injustice, bloodshed, and pain.

You certainly dish out a decent hand of those yourself. Dragging people into things they don't know the scale of, helping someone only to see them fall further down the pit, and slay many to achieve your goal.

It's all of this, which is why I think the game's heart is so powerful.

The shooting, the swearing, the streets; the chaos of it all makes Tarot Card Reading, sitting down to drink down a beer, or witnessing a breathtaking view next to someone you trust, hit much harder than any bullet every could.

But the most unique to this game, is how those heartfelt moments happen to V themselves. 

Mass Effect has tons of heartfelt moments like this. Comforting Tali on her Loyalty mission, listening to Joker & Garrus trade jokes, sitting down to watch the stars with Samara. Even linear games like The Last of Us have things like the Giraffe scene.

But rare is it in RPGs, or games in-general, to listen to the character inhabited portray real fear, concern, and doubt over their friends, and even themselves.
Something I always pictured for Mass Effect 2 is Commander Shepard standing alone in their Captains Quarters for the first time, taking a their first Shower since waking up, and staring at the mirrors, searching for scars that are no longer there. Feeling that they're the same person, but seeing with their own eyes, evidence to the contrary.

I didn't think I was crazy for wanting moments like that in a science fiction RPG, and Cyberpunk has confirmed I was. It's those things that make ending the game on a sunset to the city (in my case, some endings are much sadder)  land in a way I never expected when starting.

(Delays for Randomly Mine took place for the same reason as the Q&A, the game mentioned here. Things will resume to normal next week.)