If you know, you know...
It starts as a low hum, a quiet tremor in the soul, long before the final mission marker even appears. You feel it first in the deliberate slowing of your steps through the glittering streets of Night City. You find yourself taking the long way, just to hear the rain sizzle, as the neon signs reflect in the asphalt. You stand next your car, engine off, tuned the radio to 98.7 Body Heat. "Night City" by REL & Artemis Delta playing - the song washes over you, a perfect, painful testament for a place you have not entered but have never left... That’s when you know. You’re not just finishing a game. You’re preparing to leave a place that became home, and to sever ties with ghosts who became family.
I came to this game blind, thinking it was just another GTA set in a futuristic timeline. I was so arrogantly, devastatingly wrong.
Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t just tell me a story. It performed surgery on me without anesthesia. It etched the characters into my neural pathways with the delicacy of a ripperdoc. Panam’s fierce, vulnerable loyalty that made my chest ache. Judy’s righteous anger and tender heart, a quiet storm I wanted to shelter. Claire’s grief, a ghost in the rearview mirror that became my own. These aren’t NPCs. They are living, breathing echoes in a digital world that feels more tangible, more real, than the silence in my own living room after I shut it down.
This game has ruined me. It has cast a shadow over every other game. How can I go back to simple tales after feeling the raw, unforgiving humanity of Night City? After having my heart synced with Johnny Silverhand’s corrosive, charismatic rage? This game is a masterpiece that doesn’t just sit on your shelf - it takes up permanent residence in your psyche.
And now, the withdrawal sets in. The desperate, clawing dread. I hover over the point of no return, paralyzed. I do another gig. I buy another jacket. I drive to the badlands just to watch the sun bleed into the pollution, because as long as I don’t finish, the story isn't over. The goodbyes aren’t real. Night City is still mine. The city itself - that magnificent, monstrous character - still whispers to me, its promises and lies a melody I’m not ready to forget.
The cruelest joke? The sequel, Project Orion, is a universe away. 2030 they are saying. A lifetime!
How many playthroughs will it take to fill that void? How many different lives can I live in these Night City streets, chasing different versions of salvation, before my save files become a memorial to my own longing?
So I delay. I drive. Night rain blurs the windshield, the city lights smear into tears on the asphalt. I tune the radio to 98.7 Body Heat... What other side missions can I do?
This is more than a game. It’s an experience that leaves a phantom limb behind - the ghost of a life lived in the dark, radiant future. If you know, you know. And if you know, you’re probably driving those rain-slicked streets too, delaying the end, because letting go is the hardest quest of all.
So tell me choombas… how did you survive the silence after the music stopped? How do you fill that void?
I came to this game blind, thinking it was just another GTA set in a futuristic timeline. I was so arrogantly, devastatingly wrong.
Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t just tell me a story. It performed surgery on me without anesthesia. It etched the characters into my neural pathways with the delicacy of a ripperdoc. Panam’s fierce, vulnerable loyalty that made my chest ache. Judy’s righteous anger and tender heart, a quiet storm I wanted to shelter. Claire’s grief, a ghost in the rearview mirror that became my own. These aren’t NPCs. They are living, breathing echoes in a digital world that feels more tangible, more real, than the silence in my own living room after I shut it down.
This game has ruined me. It has cast a shadow over every other game. How can I go back to simple tales after feeling the raw, unforgiving humanity of Night City? After having my heart synced with Johnny Silverhand’s corrosive, charismatic rage? This game is a masterpiece that doesn’t just sit on your shelf - it takes up permanent residence in your psyche.
And now, the withdrawal sets in. The desperate, clawing dread. I hover over the point of no return, paralyzed. I do another gig. I buy another jacket. I drive to the badlands just to watch the sun bleed into the pollution, because as long as I don’t finish, the story isn't over. The goodbyes aren’t real. Night City is still mine. The city itself - that magnificent, monstrous character - still whispers to me, its promises and lies a melody I’m not ready to forget.
The cruelest joke? The sequel, Project Orion, is a universe away. 2030 they are saying. A lifetime!
How many playthroughs will it take to fill that void? How many different lives can I live in these Night City streets, chasing different versions of salvation, before my save files become a memorial to my own longing?
So I delay. I drive. Night rain blurs the windshield, the city lights smear into tears on the asphalt. I tune the radio to 98.7 Body Heat... What other side missions can I do?
This is more than a game. It’s an experience that leaves a phantom limb behind - the ghost of a life lived in the dark, radiant future. If you know, you know. And if you know, you’re probably driving those rain-slicked streets too, delaying the end, because letting go is the hardest quest of all.
So tell me choombas… how did you survive the silence after the music stopped? How do you fill that void?
M