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One dedicated Cyberpunk 2077 player has hit the level cap before beginning The Heist mission, meaning before the opening credits have rolled.
Reddit user uO__Ou shared their self-inflicted challenge, noting that it “took so damn long” while confirming a playtime of 40 hours and 30 minutes. Game tracking website How Long to Beat pegs Cyberpunk 2077’s entire main story at around 25 hours and 30 minutes in total, meaning the player spent more time in the opening area than it would take to actually complete the game.
Cyberpunk 2077 opens with a handful of smaller missions before the crux of the story kicks off with The Heist. Per open-world game standards, it also limits players to the opening area of Watson during this time, meaning just a fraction of the game’s total activities (that award experience points) are available.
uO__Ou overcame this somewhat by using an exploit that allowed them to leave Watson. This doesn’t activate the dozens of side quests or other open-world activities available in Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City, but does offer better grinding locations.
“Go to Pacifica, Batty’s Hotel for, in my experience, the best farming spot,” uO__Ou said. “Repeat it over and over and over. Took me 40 hrs but, to be honest, if I did this more efficiently, it can take less than 35 hours. Just don’t forget to sleep every hour for an experience boost and to use different weapons for your sanity and for skill progression.”
Cyberpunk 2077 uses a similar progression system to the likes of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, where players can engage in different activities to level up specific skills which contribute to the overall level. Being stealthy and getting headshots, for example, upgrades the Headhunter skill, while crafting items upgrades the Engineer skill.
uO__Ou used these different skills to eventually reach the final Level 50, though it could have almost certainly been reached faster by actually progressing the main story. With developer CD Projekt Red now done with Cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion Phantom Liberty, and focusing on a sequel codenamed Orion (and upcoming The Witcher games codenamed Polaris and Sirius), however, fans are having to come up with quirky challenges like these to keep themselves entertained.
Practically nothing is known about Orion so far, as CD Projekt Red is still in the process of creating a North American studio in Boston to develop it. It has been called a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 though, and may feature more involved life paths.
In our 9/10 review of Cyberpunk, IGN said: “Cyberpunk 2077 throws you into a beautiful, dense cityscape and offers a staggering amount of flexibility in how you choose to take it from there.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.