It bears repeating as a result of it’s nonetheless laborious to think about: Cyberpunk 2077 is without doubt one of the nice comeback tales of recent gaming. After a disastrous launch, with bugs so extreme that Sony briefly eliminated the sport from the PlayStation Retailer, the group at CD Projekt Purple refined each factor of the play. In 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 was a laughing inventory. In 2022, Cyberpunk 2077 was every little thing motion RPGheads dreamt of. In 2026, CD Projekt Purple is crewing up for Cyberpunk 2, which is able to undoubtedly be hyped past perception (no less than as soon as Witcher 4 lastly drops). Cyberpunk 2077’s viability as a multimedia franchise is proof constructive that the creatives at CDPR had a factor price combating for after the economic-driven calls for of its first launch almost cratered it. The tabletop RPG model of the property, which predates CD Projekt Purple’s AAA title, has solely grow to be extra widespread. The Phantom Liberty DLC redeemed lingering frustrations. The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime is revered (and award-winning). The official Cyberpunk TCG broke Kickstarter data and will grow to be its personal pillar within the gaming group. Six years later, the property is scorching — which makes the truth that a complete sequel to the sport has slipped beneath most followers’ radars: Cyberpunk 2077: Turf Wars.
Except you’ve been to your native Dave & Busters within the final 12 months, you haven’t performed Cyberpunk: Turf Wars, the franchise’s first arcade cupboard (and launched completely to D&B in 2025) . Once I stumbled upon Turf Wars earlier this month, I eeped on the discovery and an opportunity to play what I assume was a first-person light-gun shooter that might put the unique recreation’s open-world on rails. It’s straightforward to think about “Time Disaster for Neon Metropolis.” Surprisingly, that’s precisely what Turf Wars isn’t. Developed by LAI Video games and manufactured by Sega Amusements Cyberpunk 2077’s arcade iteration is mainly a Nineteenth-century Coney Island taking pictures gallery dragged into the trendy age. One or two gamers wield mounted airsoft rifles and blast away at bodily targets. Projected photos flip these bodily objects into enemies, civilians, and power-ups. The entire thing has heft and grit: I’ve not shot many actual weapons in my life, however I used to be stunned by the cumbersome fake firearm’s recoil. Disturbing however true, the Cyberpunk 2077: Turf Wars rifle will jolt your physique greater than an AR-15.
Photograph: Polygon
Perhaps sooner or later I’ll perceive the “story” behind Turf Wars’ story mode however the gist is actually vibes: it’s you versus rival gangs within the neon-soaked future world that console gamers know from the sport. Different modes embody a co-op for the story mode and a “versus” problem designed for max bragging rights. There’s additionally a single-player sniper mode to present the sport a little bit of extraction-shooter-level stakes the place restricted ammo and tighter civilian pictures pivot the sport from a race-against-time expertise to 1 the place ever pull of the set off counts.
The primal simplicity of Turf Wars feels staggering within the present arcade scene, which is never aiming for the essential pleasure of taking part in arcade video games. Locations like Dave & Busters and Chuck E. Cheese function like casinos, and the non-ticketed video games are principally all cell ports on big vertical screens. The “retrocade” and “barcade” ideas exist to present misplaced Q-Bert cupboards a protected dwelling but hardly ever discover room for contemporary originality. Someway the pinball house is richer than video video games — Pokémon simply obtained one. So, regardless of being a 12 months late to D&B’s unique Cyberpunk 2077 recreation, think about me head over heels for it by advantage of its very existence. When Redditors caught wind that is how the sequence would enter arcades, they flipped out it wasn’t a light-gun recreation. To which I say: Why do the very same factor at a unique scale? What’s the purpose? Based mostly on Edgerunners and the TCG, that’s not even the Cyberpunk playbook at this level.
Similar to CDPR did with the core recreation, Turf Wars pairs newfangled design with time-proven mechanics for a singular stay expertise. The sport gained’t substitute Cyberpunk 2 in anybody’s coronary heart, however it’s an excellent reminder that the franchise prevailed and has loads of room for enlargement.
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The way forward for Cyberpunk is coronary heart — actual characters, actual stakes, and a narrative that cuts deeper than chrome, in contrast to 2077.
