My time with Cyberpunk 2077 is probably coming to an end this week. I’ve played for nearly a solid month and have really enjoyed my time. Somehow I really lucked out and the game has been running fine on my Playstation 4 Slim. I haven’t crashed since the first few days of gameplay and everything works and looks great! It’s not the be-all, end-all RPG I was hoping for…but that’s the point of this list!

I won’t be doing a review of the game because my experience has been really different from most people’s. But if I were, I’d rate Cyberpunk 2077 an 8 or a 9 out of 10. I’ve had that much fun! But the game doesn’t offer nearly enough diversity or variation to warrant more than one complete playthrough, at least not for me. There’s promise of future DLCs and possible fixes, so I think I’ll keep my hopes up a little bit. And perhaps if CD Projekt Red adds some of the items on this list, I might come back. But as I’m writing this, I’m just finishing up a few last bits and pieces before starting the final mission, and then I’ll lay down my controller and move on to something else.

So while I’m still interested in Cyberpunk 2077, how about a list of things I’d like to see added to the game in the future. Join me after the jump!

6. Clothing transmog

This one is an easy one, I would think. Basically, “transmog” is where you can make one piece of clothing look like any other piece of clothing you’ve found, while keeping the stats. So let’s say I find a really ugly blouse in the game, but it has the best armor I’ve ever seen! Transmog would allow me to change the ugly blouse to look like a cool jacket, while keeping that awesome armor! As it stands in Cyberpunk 2077, if you want to upgrade to better armor or stats on clothing, you’ve got to accept that you may look silly.

I didn’t bother with that in my playthrough. I wore what I wanted and just hoped it had good enough stats. Or when every single hat in the game looked dumb, I just went without a hat and that extra armor boost. Oh well.

5. More unique hacking

In my one playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, I’ve gone with a largely hacking-based character. It’s essentially the mage class. When you approach a bad guy, you can just scan them and hack into their brains, then issue various commands/spells. You can zap their brain, blind them, lure them towards you, or cast a virus that spreads to other bad guys. At the higher levels, you can turn them berserk, knock them out or force them to commit suicide, where they shoot themselves in the head. It’s fun! But I wish there was more.

Specifically, I wish there was more hacking in the open world. You can hack a lot of devices…but mostly it’s just to distract bad guys. Like, you can hack a vending machine to spit out snacks, and that will serve to distract bad guys so you can sneak up behind them. And that’s largely it. I want to hack into cars on the street and control them. I want to turn on a building’s sprinkler system. I want to be able to hack into a bad guy’s body and control them like a puppet. There are a lot of options and a lot more fun to be had beyond forcing bad guys to pull out a handgun and shoot themselves in the head, though I do do that a lot.

4. More romance activities

For some reason, one of the things I expected to happen in Cyberpunk 2077 was that I’d get to romance whoever I wanted. I like a good romance in my role-playing games, and I thought I’d be able to flirt and seduce whoever. I quickly realized that was not the case, and that the game — like most games — has very specific romance options, all of which have a very specific path and set of dialogue choices to make happen. And this leads to a very, very, very poorly animated sex scene. I expect better.

Then this also leads to a whole lot of nothing afterwards. Once you’ve sealed the deal and started a relationship with your chosen paramour, they are pretty much dropped from the game. They become a static NPC that you can visit, where they will engage in the same repeating dialogue. That’s it, and it’s a damn shame. I wish the game would add some romantic activities. Come up with new scenes if you visit their apartment. Allow the player to invite them over to the player’s apartment for something. Go out on dates!

I remember in Grand Theft Auto IV. You could call up your dates — or your friends or cousin — and pick them up in your car and take them out bowling or to a bar or to a comedy show. It didn’t advance the game at all, it was just some role-playing fun. I wish I could take Judy to a Night City stand-up comedy club! Come on!

3. Merc social system

In Cyberpunk 2077, you play V as a “merc”, which is a specific role in Night City of a person who goes around pulling off jobs. These jobs are arranged by “fixers”. These are specific jobs in this world, with a lot of people talking about these systems…but there’s no actual ranking or social system for these mercs and fixers. There’s just you and the various fixers who call you up for a job. In game the other day, I ran into a different merc in one of the city’s random encounters…but rather than being able to talk to the person as an equal, they immediately attacked. I was forced to hack their brain and make them kill themselves.

Which got me thinking…there should be a system for tracking/ranking/socializing between various mercs. V should have peers and be able to interact with those peers. There are plenty of rival systems in different games, like in Shadow of Mordor or in the Assassin’s Creed games. I think that would be a fun way to really flesh out the merc/fixer relationship and give V some competition…or maybe some friendly rivals.

2. In-game customization

Another obvious piece of gameplay that insanely wasn’t a part of Cyberpunk 2077 on launch is the ability, in-game, to alter your appearance. The character creator is OK, but once you set your hairstyle, hair color, piercings, tattoos and even makeup, you are locked into that for the entire rest of the game. There are no hair salons, no tattoo parlors, no anything to change anything about your basic look. That’s ridiculous! That kind of in-game character customization has been a given for years, for gaming generations. But not in Cyberpunk! Good thing I was glad with my character’s looks, so I haven’t regretted that in the game. But I would have loved the options to change my hairstyle or add tattoos while playing along. That’s basic game stuff!

Beyond customizing your character’s looks, the rest of your personal belongings should also have customizing options. You should be able to take your vehicles to a shop to get them customized. You should be able to customize your weapons, to get new colors and paint jobs and doodads. You should be able to style your apartment how you like, changing up the fixtures and the colors. There should be so much more!

1. Third-person (and better) cut scenes

There aren’t really cut scenes in the game, so much as scenes dedicated to dialogue. But these scenes could have been cut scenes. And they could have used our in-game character models to appear in third person. Some early videos of Cyberpunk seemed to indicate this would be a thing…but it’s not in game. Third-person character appearances happen in plenty of other games, but not Cyberpunk 2077. It’s a damn shame. This would have really helped immerse our character, let alone actually allowing us to see them. I would love to see my V, fully voiced, interacting with the people of Night City.

Of the cut scenes we do get…man…they are terrible. Are the animators really that bad at using these in-game models to make cut scenes? Whenever they try to animate any of the characters, it’s a weird mish mash of bodies and armies and ADR dialogue and looks ugly as all heck. I would love some actually good looking cut scenes, hopefully with my character involved in them!

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