Cyberpunk 2077's Expansions Shouldn't Expand Its Map

thegamer.com:

In replaying Cyberpunk 2077, the activity I find myself doing most isn't one of the game's selling points. Though I hack, shoot, drive, and weigh in on plenty of important decisions during my time with CD Projekt Red's RPG, that isn't the core of my experience with the game. Instead, I spend most of my time trying to open doors.

In the years leading up to its release, Cyberpunk 2077 seemed like my ideal game. I love first-person RPGs like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. I'm a big fan of cyberpunk fiction and Blade Runner is my go-to comfort movie to throw on when I can't get to sleep. Two of my favorite games of all-time, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Red Dead Redemption 2, are set in dense open worlds. Cyberpunk 2077 seemed like all of those things grafted together into a beautiful sculpture of flesh and chrome.

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But, man, those doors. The promise of the open-world genre has long been, "See that mountain? You can climb it." So, it was disappointing to return to Cyberpunk 2077 a year-and-a-half after my initial playthrough and be reminded that this game's mountain equivalents — the gorgeously designed skyscrapers and scuzzy neon-drenched stores that shape its evocative cityscape — are mostly not open to the player. See those mountains? Okay, yeah, seeing them was basically all we had for ya.

It doesn't help that, for the most part, the doors are presented as real, functioning entrances. Many games make a clear visual distinction between usable and unusable doors. Think about the two kinds in Dishonored. Accessible doors have handles, while inaccessible doors are jagged metal sheets. Even from a distance, you can tell which doors