Cyberpunk 2077 is infamous for how highly anticipated it was versus how disappointed fans were at release. Despite mandatory crunch time for employees working on the game, the vision of what Cyberpunk 2077 was meant to be could not possibly be finished on the timeline CD Projekt Red proposed. Fans were understandably frustrated that the game they had hoped for, and that had been indicated by early footage of Cyberpunk 2077, did not match the bug-ridden final product from which a lot of early design concepts had been cut. While CD Projekt Red has been working to rectify this since the game's initial release, there is still a huge discrepancy between what Cyberpunk 2077 was supposed to be and what it turned out to be.

The 2018 E3 trailer for the game showed the playable character, V, in a monorail car surrounded by other inhabitants of Night City. The narration over the trailer emphasized the variety of characters V would be brushing elbows with in Cyberpunk 2077, and the short clip of a busy monorail car made the world seem alive and bustling. Obviously, a rapid transport system is not typically a high priority with gamers, this was a feature of how immersive Night City was supposed to be, and its absence from the actual game added to the disappointment felt by players.

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Fan Intervention

night city train mod

The significance of the lack of metro or monorail in Cyberpunk 2077 is best elucidated by the welcome response to a mod that lets players ride trains around Night City. The mod, created by KeanuWheeze and posted on Nexus, includes 19 explorable stations as well as rideable metro cars. The mod makes use of what remains of a subway system in Cyberpunk 2077, which is fast travel points at NCART stations and the unfinished monorail system seen in the set dressing of the city. The mod is limited, though, and there's no way to have the NPCs of Night City ride the monorail with V.

From a practical sense, the fast travel points are sufficient, and Cyberpunk 2077 had a lot of game-breaking glitches to address after the initial release. There are still many fans hoping for Cyberpunk to introduce more robust customization options and other improvements, and it is entirely uncertain whether CD Projekt Red ever had plans to return to the scrapped metro system. However, despite its flaws, Cyberpunk 2077 does have a fan community that is making the best of what the game turned out to be. Mods such as this one show the love that still exists for the game's concept and overall atmosphere, as well as reemphasizing the ways many games can be improved or altered through well-made, fan-created mods.

Why a Metro System is Important to Cyberpunk 2077 Fans

Cyberpunk 2077 trailer still

Now that improvements and patches have made Cyberpunk 2077 more playable, some of the finer details that could have made Night City into a much more immersive and lived-in world are becoming clearer. With open-world games like Cyberpunk, one aspect important to fans is how much world there is to explore in the game. Since players expect to pour hours into these games, a small and limited open-world can quickly become apparent. While technological and processing constraints still do dictate just how much can be included in a flashy, high-definition world like Night City, small touches of care in the design can make the world feel enormous. Since Cyberpunk's rocky development is well documented, it's easy to see how some of these finer details may be missing in the game, but that doesn't mean fans don't still want them.

Not only does a metro system make Night City feel more immersive and real, but it makes sense for the genre and themes of Cyberpunk 2077. Even narratively, there are plenty of reasons for the metro to be a part of Night City that players can explore, as the system would further emphasize the wealth and class disparity of the world. While Cyberpunk will be getting a big update in 2022, KeanuWheeze's mod may be fans' only way to experience Night City at a slower and more pedestrian pace through a metro system. In the end, it doesn't make a huge difference if Cyberpunk has a metro system or not, but features such as a working subway or more non-mission-related places to explore would have made the world of the game feel more nuanced, immersive, and impressive.

Cyberpunk 2077 is out now for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

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