Cyberpunk 2077 has many minigames, but only one of them is deserving of a full release. From the delightfully buggy auto-scroller platforming of Roach Race to the run-and-gun action of Trauma Drama, Night City is full of arcade treasures for V to get sucked into. Of course, by 2077, most interactive entertainment has been replaced by Braindances, or BDs, neural recreations of all the thoughts, emotions, and feelings a real individual experienced while doing something thrilling. But arcade cabinets still line the back walls of shops, restaurants, and bars, and the denizens of Night City frequently compete for high scores in some of the day’s biggest releases.
While all of Cyberpunk‘s minigames are fun, most of them are only really enjoyable in short bursts. After all, they’re arcade games: chasing that number-one spot on the leaderboard can be addicting, but eventually, the machine has to make room for someone else to insert a few coins. And even once a V sets that Trauma Drama high score and gets the special Trauma Team loot in a hidden Cyberpunk event, there’s little replay value in most of these minigames. But there’s one exception: a Cyberpunk minigame with a ton of incentive to play and replay, and the opportunity to have a different experience every time.
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Cyberpunk 2077’s Arasaka Tower 3D Deserves A Full Release
Cyberpunk 2077‘s minigame Arasaka Tower 3D could benefit from a standalone release. Added by Cyberpunk‘s 2.0 update, this is a first-person shooter rendered with DOS-inspired 2.5D graphics: players navigate a three-dimensional maze, but all the enemies and items in it are flat, two-dimensional objects. It’s heavily inspired by Wolfenstein 3D and the original Doom, both of which could be considered pioneers of the FPS genre. Like its predecessors, Arasaka Tower 3D is fast-paced and linear: every bullet and health pack count as players attempt to escape the 120-floor tower before a bomb goes off.
The minigame even has a bit of a story behind it – it’s flimsy on its own, but does tie in significantly to a few major figures in Cyberpunk‘s lore. Arasaka Tower 3D stars Johnny Silverhand himself, in his daring raid on Arasaka Tower undertaken in 2023. This is the same event that V witnesses after first installing Johnny’s Relic engram, during the mission “Love Like Fire.” It’s very telling as to Johnny’s reputation in Night City: many see him as a badass, Doomguy-level action hero fighting for the greater good.
Unfortunately, Arasaka Tower 3D isn’t so easy to find. Players aren’t likely to see it in the back of a Ripperdoc’s waiting room like Trauma Drama or Roach Race. In fact, there appears to be just one working Arasaka Tower 3D cabinet in all of Night City. To play it, V will have to travel to the decrepit old church near Biotechnica Flats, also known as the Protein Farms. Don’t worry, as the fun little minigame isn’t the only reward here: the church is also key to unlocking Cyberpunk‘s free Demiurge vehicle.
Arasaka Tower 3D is an amusing little diversion from Cyberpunk 2077‘s main quest, but it could easily stand on its own with a little expansion. For one thing, although it’s set in a 120-floor tower, only five of those floors are actually explored during the minigame, which takes about ten minutes to complete. The maps are pretty small, and could easily be expanded into larger, Wolfenstein-sized environments. Playing as Johnny Silverhand is fun, but that chapter of the main game is all too brief. Expanding Arasaka Tower 3D into a full-length game could give players more time with the iconic rocker, perhaps even depicting some of his earlier exploits.
Like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, Arasaka Tower 3D also contains a variety of secret areas, including a bonus basement floor with fragments of QR codes spread throughout it. This grants even the minigame version a fair bit of replay value, something that would only grow with a full-length release of Arasaka Tower 3D.
Boomer Shooters Like Arasaka Tower 3D Have Gained Popularity
In recent years, so-called “boomer shooters” have skyrocketed in popularity, creating the perfect pre-existing genre for a full release of Arasaka Tower 3D to slot into. These Doom-inspired titles employ similar graphical styles and fast-paced gameplay to Arasaka Tower 3D, and have met with both critical acclaim and commercial success. Standalone games like Ultrakill, Dusk, Amid Evil, and Nightmare Reaper have applied the classic Doom formula to new settings and genres. The phenomenon has even extended to major franchises, with Warhammer 40,000 putting out a 2.5D FPS, Boltgun, in 2023.
All this is to say that there’s definitely a market for a full release of Arasaka Tower 3D. There’s a lot of love out there for similar games, especially when they manage to be as atmospheric as Dusk or as frantic as Ultrakill. It’d take a little tweaking and a lot of expansion to get Arasaka Tower 3D to that level, but such a thing is certainly possible in a full, standalone release.
Arasaka Tower 3D Wouldn’t Be The First CD Projekt Red Game To Get A Full Release
The Witcher’s Gwent Is Now A Standalone Card Game
A previous CDPR game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, introduced a card-based minigame called Gwent. In it, players place cards themed after soldiers, monsters, and machines on a virtual battlefield, hoping to overwhelm their opponents by clever strategy or brute force. There’s even a collectible element to it, as players may win, buy, or earn cards as they travel through the world.
The minigame was an instant hit, and its popularity grew so much that in 2018, CDPR put out an official, standalone version called Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. The online Gwent was free to play with buyable card packs, and monthly content drops through the end of 2023. Although seasonal updates have ended, the game is still available and active as of early 2024. Arasaka Tower 3D could follow a similar trajectory to Gwent, with a full-length release following its in-game popularity. It has even more potential for seasonal content, as a full release of Arasaka Tower could include both single-player and multiplayer modes.
But for now, the dream of a full-length release for Arasaka Tower 3D is just that – a dream. CDPR is hard at work on other things, and may not be able to incorporate a spin-off into its busy development schedule. Absent any official announcement, the best thing to hope for is an expanded version of Arasaka Tower 3D in whatever the successor to Cyberpunk 2077 turns out to be.
Cyberpunk 2077
Based on the 1988 tabletop game, Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person action RPG game set in a dystopian cyber future developed by CD Projekt Red. Players will tackle the streets of Night City as customizable protagonist V, who struggles to keep their memories intact after receiving a strange cybernetic implant that slowly overrides their memories by a deceased celebrity known as Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves.
- Franchise
- Cyberpunk
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 4 , Xbox One , PlayStation 5 , Xbox Series X/S , Microsoft Windows
- Released
- December 10, 2020
- Developer(s)
- CD Projekt Red
- Publisher(s)
- CD Projekt
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG , First-Person Shooter
- Engine
- REDengine 4
- ESRB
- M
- Platforms
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows, Google Stadia
- Publishers
- CD Projekt RED, CD Projekt
- Mode
- Single-player
- Rating
- 7/10 Steam; 9/10 IGN
