Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Project Red, 2021 (PS4/PS5)
I have a conflicted relationship with cyberpunk, the genre. On one hand, the idea of a world ruled by corporate interests grinding down the ineffectual lives of the 99%, set against a backdrop of climate collapse and ubiquitous garish advertising hits a little too close to home for me to really enjoy. Many cyberpunk stories end with a kind of depressing nihilism similar to that of film noir, where our beaten-down outcast heroes are either absorbed into the system they’re trying to fight, or die in the process. There’s a place for these sorts of stories, but I tend to avoid them. And yet, there’s no denying that cyberpunk is cool - a world of glittering lights, robo-arms, stylish fashion and glitchy electronic music. Think of a science fiction story that isn’t set in space, but is set in our future, and it’s likely a cyberpunk story. There are lots of intriguing ideas and premises to explore in that thematic space.
But lots of the most popular cyberpunk stories of late seem too wedded to the early visions of the genre, shaped in the 1980s. They’re often too preoccupied with the aesthetics of cyberpunk while ignoring the punk part of the term, which originally implied active resistance to the prevailing culture and forces of power by the downtrodden and disenfranchised.
The biggest and latest installment in this genre is the video game Cyberpunk 2077, itself inspired by a tabletop RPG game called Cyberpunk 2020. Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Project Red released last year - after nearly a decade of development - as an infamously buggy and broken game. I kept my distance until this year, where a year’s worth of fixes and patches and my recent purchase of the more-powerful PS5 have made the game perfectly playable. It was only $20, and I am a sucker for immersive action RPGs. I had three big questions before sitting down to play this: (1) would it be fun to play?, (2) would I feel like I could reasonably shape the game’s protagonist, V.?, and (3) would it be able to overcome my issues with cyberpunk?
My answers: (mostly) yes, (mostly) yes, and (mostly) no.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person action RPG, and like similar games such as Deus Ex or Dishonored, it lets you build your character in a number of different ways. Do you want to go in guns blazing like a first-person shooter? Try hacking your way through the games obstacles, turning off security cameras and short-circuiting enemies’ cyberware? Or how about the approach I did, ditching guns for swords and stealthily assassinating your foes (at least, trying to do this, and whenever you fail, run up to your enemies and smash the sword in their face). You’ll gain experience from using your different skills, spend them on new abilities, kill lots of people, loot their corpses to sell for money, craft new items and weapons, buy lots of weird fashion, and take on a bunch of side-quests as you travel around the open-world. None of these elements are that unique in contemporary video games, and none are executed drastically better than other instances in the genre. But, at least to me, it’s still pretty fun to knock out guards while creeping slowly around them, driving through the streets of Night City while listening to music, or unlocking another new way to make my swords even more deadly.
In Cyberpunk 2077, you play as V., a customizable character who, regardless of your choice of coming from the corporate world, the mean streets, or the roving bands of desert nomads, ultimately finds themself taking on jobs from shady clients, killing lots of people, and attempting to make their name in the Night City underworld. After a heist job goes wrong, V. ends up with the reconstructed consciousness of a dead musician-turned-anticapitalist terrorist named Johnny Silverhand (voiced by and modeled after a pitch-perfect Keanu Reeves) stuck in their brain, and slowly killing them. V. and Johnny embark on a quest to remove Johnny and save V.’s life, pulling them into conspiracy after conspiracy. This main plot of the game is definitely its strongest point, as the missions are unique and interesting, the characters are well-written and well-acted, and the themes of identity really shine through. What does the marketed freedom of expression in capitalism really matter if your very self is shaped and owned? When confronted with a force as godlike and overwhelming as capitalism, what can any one person do? Sell-out to climb the later? Retreat inward and live a quiet life betraying your values? Or go out swinging in a fruitless but morally pure act of violence?
My V. - a tattooed, smart-talking street kid-turned assassin with a love of motorcycles and vintage swords - grew more and more radicalized as more of Johnny took over her head, but was ultimately pulled back from total annihilating by the friends she made along the way (special shoutouts to my V.’s girlfriend, the virtual “braindance” editor Judy, her best friend and hotshot nomad driver Panam, and River, the soulful ex-cop determined to save his nephew). Her life didn’t end up being a long one, but she got to live it on her terms in the end.
All this aside, does Cyberpunk 2077 manage to escape the thematic problems I had anticipated? Well, no, it doesn’t. While its aforementioned main plot-line raises some interesting questions about maintaining your values and identity in a world that desperate wants to control both, the day to day reality of its gameplay is anything but radical. It plays more like a futuristic Grand Theft Auto, giving you a myriad of ways of inflicting gory violence, driving through the streets in cool cars or motorcycles, becoming the ruler of the criminal underworld, and even doing many side missions on behalf of the Night City Police Department. It isn’t exactly screaming “punk,” at least not in the way of pushing for radical change.
Silverhand’s crew’s terrorism is the closest the game gets to actually opposing the corporate rule of the setting, but even this is portrayed as ultimately fruitless. In the world of Cyberpunk 2077, the only way to be truly punk is to give a middle finger to the powerful and blow up a building. The one side quest that seemed to put V. on the trail for an elusive anti-capitalist hacker collection is ultimately revealed as a troll generating meaningless aphorisms. The only solution to Cyberpunk 2077’s dystopia, according to the game’s world, is to either be at the top yourself, go out swinging in acts of terrorism that ultimately change nothing, or to hop on a motorcycle and drive away from it all.
It seems to me that being “punk” means opposing the hegemony of the world order - yes, often in an ultimately fruitless opposition, but also at least by attempting to build an alternative to the system. V. builds up an alliance of support throughout their many missions of bloodshed and theft, but these allies are all only tied together through V., not with each other in any meaningful way.
I had a lot of fun with Cyberpunk 2077, mostly because of the game’s well-written characters, its sprawling and colorful setting, and the stylish action. I enjoyed it despite my misgivings about the genre. Also, I think that its statement about the ultimate futility of rebellion within capitalism may be exactly the point it was trying to make, that living in a system like this is impossible without being complicit and corrupted yourself. But I can’t help but wish that something that so totally embraced the genre of cyberpunk as to call itself by the genre name actually explored what it means to be punk. I don’t need a cyberpunk story to depict a revolution overthrowing capitalism, nor do I need it to be an optimistic tale. I just want to see how the technological advances alter the social and political worlds and imaginations of its inhabitants. I don’t want the game to give you the option of being a corpo yourself, or helping the police maintain order. That’s not very punk of you. I want future cyberpunk stories to think bigger, to not be chained to what we thought the future would be like in 1980, to explore how those who oppose the domination of the cyberpunk worlds try to build their own worlds in the cracks and along the fault lines. I just want my cyberpunk to be put just as much emphasis on the punk as it does on the cyber. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Still, I’m gonna remember my V. as one of my favorite video game protagonists, and her collection of friends and enemies as people worth returning to in my inevitable replay.
Rating: ****