Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that Cyberpunk 2077 isn't exactly the game many hoped it would be. In the years leading up to launch, developer CD Projekt RED painted a picture of a shining sci-fi city packed with life and detail the likes of which we'd never seen in a video game before.
Come November 2020, what we actually got was a broken mess and a sparse open world that failed deliver on many of the promises made.
One of the main issues with Night City is that it falls so far short of many other video game metropolises. There are constant bugs and minor irritations that will take you out of the action and remind you you're playing a video game, and none of these are quite as glaring as the fact that the police of Night City are useless.
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Thanks to a combination of bad AI and poor planning, Night City police will very rarely respond to your crimes in an appropriate manner. And when they do, they don't even chase the player properly. They just appear out of thin air. It's rubbish, frankly, and Cyberpunk 2077's quest director Pawel Sasko hasn't helped matters any with his bizarre explanation for why the game doesn't have cop chases.
During a recent stream (thanks, Forbes), Sasko explained that the lack of proper chases comes down to development time. Which is fair enough! Unfortunately, he also argued against the idea that all open world games have - or even should have - police chases. He then pointed out that Elden Ring and Sonic Frontiers won't have such features, which I suppose is true. But what Cyberpunk 2077 has that these others games don't is a police force, so I'm not entirely sure what he's getting at there.
Sasko then said that the Grand Theft Auto and Watch Dogs games are the only two he can really think of with police chases, which... well, you can imagine how well that's gone down with fans. Over on Reddit one user swiftly put together a video compiling a huge number of games with organic chases, including Simpsons Hit And Run, L.A Noire, Driver 2, Just Cause, Far Cry 3, and even Jak II.
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"Police AI can't even react to gang members firing guns in front of them," joked one user. "How does anyone expect them to drive cars?"
"Yeah, they have some stupid excuses for everything it seems," agreed another. "None of them want to admit their game is seriously lacking and not up to par, they just want to deflect and act like nothing is wrong. When something is very seriously wrong."
Basically, don't expect police chases to be added to Cyberpunk 2077 anytime soon. Unless Elden Ring gets 'em first, that is.
Featured Image Credit: CD ProjektTopics: Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red