The dystopian future of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition feels at once far-fetched and recognisable. Come for the high-tech combat and jaw-dropping visuals; stay for the thought-provoking storyline that makes this extraordinary roleplaying game pulse with life.

As a mercenary named V, you decide the reputation you’ll establish on Night City’s neon streets. Maybe you’re a smooth corpo agent who charms his way past bouncers in a back-alley club. Or a netrunner who fries enemies’ cybernetic implants with a flick of her wrist.

Whoever you become, this Ultimate Edition sets you free in the most dazzling version of the Cyberpunk world ever. Intense vehicular combat has you blasting roof-mounted missile launchers and leaning out of your car window to trade fire with foes, while the masterful Phantom Liberty expansion story arc stars Idris Elba as a hardened spy torn between duty and conscience. On Mac with the M3 chip or later, hologram-gilded skyscrapers shimmer in the sun, thanks to hardware-accelerated ray-tracing powered by MetalFX.

That technological muscle yields truly cinematic set pieces, such as the wild opening mission of Phantom Liberty, where you dodge enemy fire to rescue the president of the New United States from her downed orbital jet. But Cyberpunk 2077 also embraces quieter moments: helping a grieving mother say goodbye to her slain son, or soothing a self-aware self-driving cab spiraling in an existential crisis.

In a world where humans can swap out any body part for a high-tech replacement, Cyberpunk 2077 poses a thought-proving question: How much of our humanity are we willing to sacrifice for a chrome-plated future – and what will we fight to hold onto? By keeping its action grounded in such moral quandaries, this expansive vision of the future never lets spectacle eclipse the storytelling.

Don’t rush through the main story, which is about V’s battle to remove a brain implant housing the digital ghost of a rock icon (voiced by Keanu Reeves). The narrative is interwoven with smaller gigs offering valuable upgrades, rare gear and unexpected heart.

Cyberpunk 2077 is based on the 1988 Cyberpunk tabletop roleplaying game, which was set in the far-flung future of... 2013.

Based in Warsaw, Poland, CD Projekt Red is the award-winning studio behind The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and other hit RPGs set in meticulously built worlds full of memorable characters and complex moral choices.