As they continue to grow in scale, excess content persists as a major problem in open-world games, and Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't do anything to address this. In Cyberpunk 2077, the phrase "way too much" can be used to describe almost every system.

Open-world design became incredibly popular because it gives players the freedom to explore vast worlds and play games however they choose, so it's only natural that developers would continue to push the scale of these games. But that scale has gone way too far. It's great if a game's world is big and beautiful, but it eventually becomes so huge that the quality of that world's content suffers as a result.

Related: Cyberpunk 2077 On PS4 & Xbox One Visuals Disappointing Some Players

The condition Cyberpunk 2077 was released in is, frankly, pathetic. For the most part, the game is fine on PC, but it was clearly not ready for release on console. On all platforms, it's littered with bugs, and that can likely be directly tied to the size of the game. Night City is beautiful, but it contains so much bloat that there was no way bugs weren't going to be a problem. There's too much loot, the inventory is a mess, the skill trees are complete disasters to navigate, and the list goes on. At some point, a line needs to be drawn defining what's actually necessary in the game - not just for the sake of the player's experience but to allow for a better allocation of development resources.

Cyberpunk 2077's Map Icons Are Laughably Overwhelming

Cyberpunk 2077: It's Time For Games To Scale Back

The first time Cyberpunk 2077 players are given control in Night City, everything is immediately dropped on them at once. Opening the map grants players a complete clown-show of icons that are indistinguishable from one another. Generic, open-world busy work is fine, but Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't do anything to differentiate between main quests, side quests and busy work; it all looks exactly the same. And then there are icons for every merchant or service possible, as well as randomly occurring crimes. It's way too much, and it's particularly glaring after Assassin's Creed Valhalla directly addressed this issue when it released just one month ago.

Cyberpunk 2077 isn't a bad game, but it doesn't feel like CD Projekt Red learned anything from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Nearly all of the bloating issues in Cyberpunk 2077 were found in The Witcher 3, and with the exception of a shorter story, they're all exactly the same here - if not a little worse. At some point, developers need to look at a game that took as long to make as Cyberpunk 2077 and ask themselves why. A tighter, cleaner package would have gone a long way in addressing Cyberpunk 2077's issues, and it should serve as a lesson for developers moving forward. It's O.K. for a game to be a little smaller.

Next: Cyberpunk's Many Problems Prove More Delays Were Needed