Just a bridgeman doing his thing.
I never played the first one but i’m a fan of challenging games. From what i’ve read after getting my ass beaten by single random bandits, the combat is better and more fluid than the first game. Fewer locked in animations is what i gather is the biggest change.
The one thing you really have to get in your brain is do not spam attacks. You will die. Your stamina is like armor in that the lower your stamina the more it hurts to be hit.
Like i said, once it clicks it’s great but boy oh boy was it frustrating to learn.
I played for a bit. Then i read an article about them putting you in bot matches if you lose two consecutive matches. Then i tested if it was true and once i confirmed it was i stopped playing.
I don’t mind playing against bots to learn the game if that fact is stated. I do mind being lied to about a game in which i think i’m playing against humans when in reality i’m playing against bots just to keep engagement up.
Have you tried the Star Wars Jedi games? Fallen Order should run fine on your machine and possibly Survivor too but that might be a little much for your rig. \
They’re both wicked fun games that award exploration. I would call them souls-lite not soulslike since they are much easier than something like elden ring or sekiro (that doesn’t mean they are easy though).
Play Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s enormous. It’s difficult and the turn based combat is something you’ll have to get used to but it’s incredibly fun and deep.
I’ve put 1300 hours into the game because if you get bored you can just start a different character and try the story from their perspective. There are dozens of ways to complete every encounter.
Act 1 is a chore to get through on replay.
Good news is if you have the DLC you can skip the first act. The DLC start puts you in front of the Church in Pacifica after fighting Placide.
I like Cyberpunk a lot but replayability is shallow like you say. Sometimes I just boot it up to punch npcs though. Make a gorilla arms build and go ham. It’s pretty cathartic.
So that’s why KCD2 was stuttering before the update. I was getting so mad having to restart my console.