It's no secret that Cyberpunk 2077 let a lot of players down. The RPG still has a great story, some particularly interesting NPCs, well-written romances, and a well-developed setting. What it was unable to do, however, was live up to the massive expectations built up over the seven years between its announcement and release. It is unlikely to ever live up to those expectations, even though many of the bugs that plagued the game's initial retail release have now been fixed.
If Cyberpunk 2077 fans want to enjoy a far more flexible roleplaying experience in the same universe after beating the game, they should check out Cyberpunk RED, the latest Cyberpunk TTRPG. Here's what makes Cyberpunk RED so interesting, how it can give fans who enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 more insight into the world, and how it can help scratch the itch of players who felt unsatisfied by the video game.
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Cyberpunk RED is set in the 2040s, while Night City is still recovering from the Night City Holocaust explored in Johnny Silverhand's memories in Cyberpunk 2077. The detonation of a nuclear bomb in the Night City Arasaka HQ in 2023 destroyed a huge part of downtown Night City and killed around half a million people.
The aftermath of the explosion, as well as the orbital weapon strikes of the Fourth Corporate Wars and the firestorms of the mid-21st century, caused the sky over Night City and much of the world to be completely red for two years, with deep red sunrises and sunsets well into the 2040s. This period of Night City's history was known as the Time of the Red and will be interesting to many fans of Cyberpunk 2077, helping fill in the time between Johnny's death and the events of the game. It isn't just the setting that's interesting, however.
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While the original Cyberpunk TTRPGs can risk being pretty inaccessible compared to the familiar first-person design of the video game, Cyberpunk RED made some useful rule changes to make it easier for role-players to dive right in. Cyberpunk's health track mechanic, for example, is replaced with a more accessible Dungeons & Dragons-style hit point system.
Instead of there being many different types of weapons based on their manufacturers, Cyberpunk RED breaks them down by type instead, helping keep things consistent and allowing players to focus on roleplay rather than stats. Similarly, Cyberpunk RED doesn't have its lifepath system affect the player's stats or skills at the start of the game, allowing them to focus on roleplaying in the world of Cyberpunk without getting bogged down.
To sweeten the deal, the Cyberpunk RED book, which is over 400 pages long, has a huge amount of lore for players to sink their teeth into. It comes with stories like The Fall of the Towers, Black Dog, and Never Fade Away, each set in a different period of time and helping flesh out many of the lore elements only hinted at in 2077. Never Fade Away takes place in 2013, when the original RPG was set, The Fall of the Towers fleshes out the immediate aftermath of the events of 2023, while Black Dog explores 2045, the year the new TTRPG takes place.
Many fans felt Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't the revolutionary next-gen RPG experience they were hoping for. Cyberpunk RED can help give them the total roleplaying flexibility many were expecting in the video game, allowing them to craft their own character from scratch and explore a whole new angle on the world of Cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions currently in development.