It's wild to think back on the fact that we first heard about CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 over seven years ago. While initially we just saw a teaser trailer for the game for the first time, it already showed so much promise, style, and most importantly, a striking and bold new world to explore. Fast-forward to 2020, and we're now just about six months away from the release of what has been one of this generation's most anticipated games. Even if it didn't include Keanu Reeves, I couldn't be more excited for Cyberpunk 2077.

Right from the get-go, I (like many, many others) have been eagerly waiting to hear more about Cyberpunk 2077. Despite there being a few years of little to no information on the game coming forth, CD Projekt Red has delivered bigtime in the past two years on bringing us up to speed on its wildly ambitious new project. That all kick off two years ago with a show-stopping cinematic trailer at E3 2018 that reintroduced the world of Night City, and a more extensive gameplay demo at last year's show to give us a taste of how deep that Cyberpunk 2077 can go.

I still remember watching that E3 2018 trailer from the Microsoft press conference and just thinking to myself, "this game looks badass" (especially after rewatching the trailer numerous times). In every possible way, Cyberpunk 2077 showed me something that I couldn't wait to get to my hands on, from its detailed and grungy futuristic world, a deeply layered RPG experience, to a story that seems like it it will have so many turns, turns, and WTF moments. Of course, I'm also a sucker for thumping futuristic synth soundtracks and stylish cyberpunk settings, and Cyberpunk 2077 seems like it is going to deliver that and then some.

Of course, the initial reveals and announcement of Cyberpunk 2077 all happened before the release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which arguably changes everything when it comes to my anticipation levels for CD Projekt Red's next title. In fact, almost more than anything else, The Witcher 3 is perhaps the biggest reason why I have such high hopes for Cyberpunk and what I hope to see from the Polish studio on a bigger, more ambitious scale.

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[pullquote]"Even if it didn't include Keanu Reeves, I couldn't be more excited for Cyberpunk 2077."[/pullquote]

The Witcher 3 is arguably my favorite game of the generation, even though that's not exactly a surprising thing to say given how much the game has been acclaimed over the years. But even then, The Witcher 3 is truly deserving of its massive success, and so much of my experience with the game since I played it four years ago has continued to stick with me ever since. From the memorable Bloody Baron questline, to exploring Toussaint in Blood and Wine, to understanding its richly layered characters like Geralt, Trish, Yennefer, and Ciri, everything about The Witcher 3 had me hooked into its deeply-engrossing world. I went through The Witcher 3 in about the course of two months, and for that whole time I solely focused on everything that Geralt's world had to offer.

Like getting deeply entrenched in an epic fantasy novel series, The Witcher 3 just kept me wanting to dig deeper into its world and characters, and I couldn't get enough of it as I played, having went through the first two games as preparation for my time in The Witcher 3. It's even one of the few games that I've ever 100% completed, something I rarely do for most games, but for a game that affected me as deeply as The Witcher 3, I knew I had to see it through to its complete end. Combined with Netflix's surprisingly great Witcher series, my love and adoration of the series has only extended further, and over Christmas I just picked up the entire collection of Andrzej Sapkowski's novels to start reading.

Cyberpunk 2077

[pullquote]"I can't wait to get lost in CD Projekt Red's futuristic world for hours on end, and the stories that we'll be waiting to discover in Night City."[/pullquote]

CD Projekt Red have only proven themselves as masters at creating richly-detailed and thoroughly compelling worlds, and the fact that Cyberpunk 2077 seems to have a world as expansive as The Witcher's only excites me even more. If there is anything that I love in video games, it's the ability to get drawn and lost into a world for hours on end, and what we've seen from the world of Cyberpunk already has me on board. I've even picked up the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit in an attempt to understand the universe that the game will be drawing from, and I'm hoping to play it with friends soon to enhance what I will end up seeing in the game.

Though they're completely different experiences in their own right, I can only imagine that at least some of the care and craft that went into Geralt's epic journey will translate to Cyberpunk, and it's a big part of why Cyberpunk 2077 has been my most anticipated game of 2020. While Cyberpunk was among the wave of highly-anticipated games for this year that saw delays--in this case going from April to September--I would be happy giving CD Projekt Red all the time and resources they need to make Cyberpunk 2077 the experience that I am hoping it will be.

Following up one of the most acclaimed games of the generation is no easy task, but I have full faith that CD Projekt Red is going to deliver something not just incredible, but in the wise words of Keanu Reeves, something "beautiful." Though we have another seven months until it releases, I can't wait to get lost in CD Projekt Red's futuristic world for hours on end, and the stories that we'll be waiting to discover in Night City.

Cyberpunk 2077 will release for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Google Stadia on September 17, 2020, and you can pre-order the game right now over on Amazon.