This will be more of a review of the physical product itself rather than the game. You've likely heard plenty of reviews of the game already and you're free to believe whichever you wish but I encourage you to not just blindly listen to the hate and complaining. This game is incredible.
Yes, it has its fair share of bugs and performance issues, but those problems will be fixed in time. When you look past them, the game reveals itself to be a veritable masterpiece of open world RPG design. It's my GOTY for 2020 and is rapidly becoming one of my favorite games of all time. From the compelling setting and world building present in the Cyberpunk franchise to the downright PHENOMENAL narrative, storytelling and quest design, this game is a must own for any fan of open world games, narrative-driven RPGs and just the cyberpunk genre in general.
Anyways, I don't only give this 5/5 for the game itself, but for the incredible quality of the physical content here. As is advertised, this comes with a physical case. It doesn't contain the game on discs but instead, it gives us the game's soundtrack on a set of physical discs. Along with this, it includes a plethora of other physical and digital goodies. I'll touch briefly on them below:
- World compendium: while I was hoping it'd be full-color, the compendium is a small booklet akin to old school game manuals, but it only delves into the details of the world. It's very well-written and helps newcomers to understand the world as it is in the game. Again, I wish it was full-color instead of black-and-white but hey, I'm certainly not complaining.
- Map of Night City: the map is a fantastic poster-sized map of the city and its various districts. It's printed on paper, so it's not extremely durable but if you're careful, it would look great on the wall.
- Postcards: printed on thin card stock, you receive three postcards from different districts of Night City. There are more than three districts in the city so I'm unsure if these are randomized for each customer, but you get three different ones nonetheless. They look straight from the dark future and are very well-made, as though you could buy them in a gift shop in the city itself.
- Stickers: high quality matte stickers including ones of the logo for the legendary in-game band, Samurai. Not much to say except that they're great and would look awesome on a laptop, guitar case or whatever.
- Digital goodies: they're exactly as described and are a great addition to your Cyberpunk collection.
Now, in addition to all of that, the case includes a sheet with a message from CD Projekt Red, thanking all of us for being patient and for trusting them with our purchase. It also includes the digital game code on a credit card-like card with a scratch-off surface. This code redeems exclusively through CD Projekt's store, GOG, and believe me, that's NOT a bad thing. Unlike purchasing digitally through Steam, the physical version of the game not only places a physical set of objects into your ownership but you also own the digital game as well, as GOG is DRM-free. On other platforms, you merely lease the rights while GOG gives you ownership of the games you purchase, even if you purchase them digitally through their store.
As an awesome extra (thanks to Best Buy), I received a collector's steelbook of randomized artwork. As with virtually all Steelbook brand cases, this one was well-made, wasn't scratched and it just looks great with my collection.
Overall, I not only HIGHLY recommend the game itself, but I recommend getting the physical PC version if you're able to. Even if you don't passionately love the game, even if it's just another enjoyable game for you, owning these pieces of the collection feels 100% worth the money. Plus, like I mentioned earlier, you actually own the game itself, a plethora of physical products AND cool digital goodies, all for $60 (or less). Definitely worth the purchase. Massive credit to CDPR for still holding on to the superior days of physical distribution and, not only that, but they also do it RIGHT.
PS: How could I forget? Just as an added option of awesome, the game's case artwork is reversible, meaning you can choose the male or female artwork for the game's protagonist, V.