Summary
The reveal trailer forCyberpunk 2077describes Night City as the “worst place to live in America”. Despite this, everyone still wants to live here. I’m guessing it’s because the housing market is an absolute steal. I’ve hardly spent a week in this dank, dystopian hellscape and I already have five properties under my belt from Corpo Plaza to Japantown. Wherever I find myself, I’m only a brief drive away from a warm bed and some freshly brewed coffee. I can even burn off some incense if I’m feelingextrafancy.
For years, V only had a single apartment across Night City located in one of its megatowers. She was stuffed into a small domicile alongside thousands of others as some sort of insular society began to build out around her. It’s a solid piece of world-building and great to return to throughout your playthrough, but aside from taking on a few rare quests and digging into your stash for new weapons and clothes, there wasn’t much of a reason to do so unless you were leaning hard into role-playing.CD Projekt Redknew this was a problem and decided to introduce a number of purchasable apartments in an update back in February 2022.
Suddenly having a selection of apartments to purchase across Night City was exciting, and helped make its buildings feel less like empty facades. Sadly, by the time of its release, they were also quite expensive, requiring a fair amount of grinding in gigs and side jobs to earn the pennies required to access a humble new abode. Once it did, actually visiting them was a rather one-note tour of cool new features before you bailed and went back to your old place because the staying power just isn’t there.
Cool, this flat is way roomier and comes with some bespoke animations, but once I’ve seen them even a single time there’s no reason to be here again. I can’t invite people back to my apartment, nor does my character ever comment on when or where they are, so it starts to feel like a glorified tour instead of a place I can call home.Phantom Libertyfixes this slightly with the ruined husk you may access after meeting President Myers, but even that is a place I forgot existed.
However, the expansion also makes the in-game economy way more generous. I totally get why, since it wants you to be visiting Ripper Docs and other storefronts far more often where you will equip new cyberware and clear out your inventory of unneeded firearms and clothes. With Update 2.0, Cyberpunk 2077 has overhauled vast amounts of its gameplay systems so it’s easier to focus on a specific build or, you know, actually play it like an RPG. Before, that just wasn’t possible, so most of your money and the merchants you’d spend these pennies on were ignored. This isn’t the case anymore, which means gigs need to pay more to compensate. I’m not sure apartments were part of the conversation when these changes were made though, given I was able to purchase all of them and still have enough left over to upgrade myself.
Cyberpunk 2077 is meant to becyberpunk, and while Phantom Liberty and the new base game ending makes good on these thematic promises in a lot of ways, the housing often doesn’t. I would have loved a questline where you were fighting alongside the lower class against corpos who were happily raising rents and pricing locals out of places they’d once called home. Not only is this a timely commentary on our world, it also takes a bite out of glaring inequality seen everywhere you look in Night City. Endless swathes of billboards constantly juxtaposed with streets wrought with piles of trash and starving children, fights breaking out because most of the people in this world are doing all they can to survive. I would have loved to see that reflected in a quest, or even have a monthly rent I need to constantly take into account because nothing in this dystopia comes without a price.
It’s a missed opportunity to expand on the lightweight Cyberpunk themes of a game that is all too frequently too much bark and not enough bite. It’s gotten better over time, but I can’t think of a more fitting way of getting such messages across by bleeding its most prescient themes into mechanics we’re forced to interact with. Even Starfield offered a perk where I had to pay off a mortgage in exchange for my dream house. 2077 needed to tackle things similarly but get dirtier, grittier, and be more willing to explore stories and shine a light on the worst part of our world, and what it risks turning into if we don’t stand up for what’s right.
I can’t afford to buy a house in real life, but you’re telling me a hopeless future where the rich are richer than ever offers multiple chances for a street gal to become a real estate mogul is realistic? I think not…
