Reflections on Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is an excellent game plagued by mismatched expectations, a buggy release, and a surplus of hype.¹

It’s also a quintessentially cyberpunk story — the world and story of Cyberpunk 2077 are informed by and centered on influences that stretch back to William Gibson’s Neuromancer (and the entire Sprawl trilogy), along with Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and a bevy of others. It is, as its name suggests, a cyberpunk game through and through.

Cyberpunk: World-Building and Characterization

I’m going to start by saying that I have not played, read, or otherwise engaged with the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2077 is based on — I’ve leafed through the core rulebook once and that’s about it. My interest in and my understanding of cyberpunk as a genre stems from the works of William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and the like. Literary influences drive my affection for the genre and my sense for what it is and what it is not.

Fundamentally, cyberpunk stories center on anxieties about the future. Unlike more typical science fiction, cyberpunk stories envisage a world not 500 or 1000 years in the future, but a world 30, maybe 40 years out. A world much like our own, but with the a few more grains of sand through the hourglass. A world controlled by corporations and crime lords, a world in which legitimate business and crime are nothing but two sides of the same coin, a world in which governments fade into the background and day-to-day survival hinges on stringing together a series of jobs and criminal acts just to stay afloat. And a world in which technology serves not to level the playing field, but to enrich the wealthy and protect the powerful. Cyberpunk may look like neon and chrome, but cyberpunk is about chronic inequality, exploitation, and the ravenous pursuit of profit without regard for humanity.

It’s bleak.

The protagonists of cyberpunk stories are hustlers and thieves. Neuromancer’s Case is a hacker addicted to speed who nearly died after a job gone wrong. Snow Crash’s Hiroaki Protagonist is a freelance hacker in debt to the Mafia who splits his time delivering pizzas and scrounging up information on up-and-coming rock stars. Jonny Mnemonic’s Jonny is so hard up for cash that he rents out space in his brain to anyone in need of secure storage for their secrets, locking them away so that even he cannot recall them.

Cyberpunk protagonists are one step away from homelessness, crushed by the weight of systemic inequality and corporate power. They’re also renegades, mercenaries who have opted out of traditional employment, choosing to live on the edge instead of bending the knee to some corporate executive.

So how does Cyberpunk 2077’s V stack up?

No matter the background you select at the start of the game, V ends up in the same spot — pulling dangerous jobs and risking their life to make a quick buck. Sometimes that means saving a wealthy client, and sometimes that means not asking too many questions when the trunk of the car you’re driving starts making noises.

You have no long-term goals or aspirations; the best you can hope for is to go out in a blaze of glory, remembered by your fellow mercenaries. Maybe you’ll get a drink named after you if you die well enough.

V’s own perspective on the world is fundamentally cynical. Bad things happen to good people, and everyone’s in it for themselves. Loyalty is a rare commodity and all the more treasured as a result. Violence is an everyday affair, and nightmare fuel always lies just around the next corner.

V fits the archetype better than any cyberpunk game protagonist I’ve seen in a while. That sense of desperation, of living on the edge is there in a way other games lack. As GB ‘Doc’ Burford puts it:

“This game is one of the best depictions of lower-class life I’ve ever seen in a game. I felt recognized in a way I haven’t before; they get poverty, the desire to get out of it, ambition and dreams and no way to realize it.” — GB ‘Doc’ Burford on Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk: Plot

Cyberpunk stories are about using a combination of technology, skills, and a deep reserve of sheer will to fuck over one of the world’s great powers — a corrupt government, a globe-spanning megacorporation, a power-hungry monopolist. It’s about looking at the state of the world and saying “you know, this ain’t changing. But I can at least make my mark by hurting the fuckers who made it this way.” And maybe. Just maybe. Things get slightly better in the process. People get a little more freedom.

These are stories where winning means going on the run for the rest of your short life. Stories where winning means leaving ruin in your wake and bodies on the floor. Stories where your long-term impact might be the slight moment of hesitation a mega-corp exec experiences before doing something heinous, a brief flash of “what if that happens to me?” It’s about going out in a blaze of glory for you… and because others might bask in that glow.

Cyberpunk 2077 nails this feeling.

Conclusion

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best games I’ve played. Like the best works in the genre, it’s all about the feel. Driving past glittering advertisements at night, immersed in the loglo. Planning a daring incursion into corporate territory. Sacrificing more and more humanity in exchange for better and better chrome.

It’s a titanic work and it all hangs together stylistically. It’s worth checking the game out, especially if you like the cyberpunk genre.

Thanks for reading!