Cyberpunk 2077 is quite possibly the most hotly anticipated RPG of the year, as CD Projekt Red has been working on its take on the Cyberpunk RPG series for almost a decade. Many fans are extremely excited to see Night City brought to life by the Witcher developer, now that it shouldn't be delayed anymore.
The Cyberpunk games have been around since 1988, however, and helped to establish some tropes that are now overdone, even in video games. Here are 5 sci-fi tropes that Cyberpunk 2077 should avoid if it wants to live up to the hype.
Mind Control
It has already been confirmed that Keanu Reeves’ character, Johnny Silverhand, appears to the player as some sort of digital ghost. By modifying their bodies and brains with cybernetic implants, the people of the Cyberpunk universe have made themselves vulnerable to mental hacking as well as a condition called “cyber-psychosis” where the sheer amount of augmentation done to their brain causes them to lose their mind.
CD Projekt Red needs to avoid the temptation to include elements of mind control or mental hacking in the main plot. While the idea that the player character has been manipulated and that what the player sees in-game does not necessarily represent reality is interesting, it has already been done in very famous games like BioShock and would risk feeling like a cheap twist at this point. With Cyberpunk's main character V’s vulnerability to mental hacking and cyber-psychosis already clear, this will be a tough but necessary trope to resist in Cyberpunk 2077.
Techno-Orientalism
Cyberpunk’s aesthetics as a genre have always drawn heavily on a few key examples of Asian architecture when building dystopian cities. The now demolished Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, for example, served as one of the key inspirations for the dense city design in Blade Runner and some of the aesthetics for the original pen-and-paper Cyberpunk games. Asia is very important in the Cyberpunk lore as well, with Japanese mega-corporations like the Araska Corporation having a heavy presence in Night City.
However, the genre has also used the perceived otherness of Asian languages and architecture as a shorthand for villainy, and the Cyberpunk pen-and-paper games have not been above this, particularly the design of the Pacific Rim Sourcebook. This is not to say that Asian characters in the game should be good guys, only that they should be afforded the same character development without relying on reductive stereotypes. The game will need to make sure that, in depicting the interconnected world of Cyberpunk, it is not employing orientalist tropes in place of creating well-developed characters and a morally grey political landscape.
Do Androids Dream?
With characters like Grime’s character Lizzy Wizzy made almost entirely from cybernetic parts, Cyberpunk’s writing team needs to resist focusing on stories that ask questions about android sentience and humanity. Fallout 4 and Detroit: Become Human both released in the last few years and had a huge focus on the topic. It would be more interesting to explore what happens in a world like Cyberpunk where that humanity isn’t just a given, but is seen as irrelevant in a world where the lines between man and machine are totally permeable. Exploring the world from that insider perspective could be more interesting.
The Hero Topples Society
There is a temptation, especially with the presence of revolutionary characters like Johnny Silverhand, to allow the player in a game like Cyberpunk to bring down some of the villainous megacorporations of Night City and the Cyberpunk world at large. Not only has this been overdone, but the game should try and focus on telling narratives with a more narrow scope, as well as avoiding making V seem like any sort of “Chosen One” figure who can overcome some of the fundamental structural problems of the Cyberpunk world.
The world of Cyberpunk 2077 should be extremely reactive to the player character, but should not bend over backwards to make them the most important character in Night City. The fact that so many Skyrim players enter the open-world RPG with no intention of completing Skyrim's main quest is evidence of the fact that focusing too much on the player's importance can be immersion breaking, as well as limiting the role-playing opportunities in the game.
By avoiding making V some sort of revolutionary leader in Cyberpunk's main story, the game will actually increase the breadth of role-playing opportunities it provides by allowing players to feel like their character simply exists in the world of Cyberpunk, rather than having that world revolve around them.
Evil (Looking) Corporations
The megacorporations in Cyberpunk are evil. They have been responsible for multiple Corporate Wars, they’ve held entire countries like Australia hostage over access to clean water, and their influence has left many in intense poverty while a select few profit from their exploitation.
It is important, however, that Cyberpunk also interrogates the ways these corporations make themselves palatable to the people of Night City, or at least try to, if the game is going to say something about how corporations operate in our world. Even the worst corporations in the world have a PR department, and it would be more interesting to see the disconnect between their outward facing personas and what happens behind the scenes, especially for a corporate V.
The intersection of the corporate and artistic world in Cyberpunk 2077 is a great way to do this, and has already been hinted at with the contrast of musicians like Lizzy Wizzy, who is sponsored by corporations, and Johnny Silverhand and the other rebellious rockerboys who aren't. Exploring the subtle way that the megacorporations of Night City make their power and influence felt through seemingly benevolent means is an interesting way to explore their relationship with the city beyond calling street-level hits.
The scale of a game like Cyberpunk 2077 makes it likely that at least a few of these tropes will show their heads at some point. However, by trying to avoid them CD Projekt Red could explore some particularly interesting and original avenues in a series that began 32 years ago, and provide an open-world experience where fans cannot solely rely on their knowledge of the genre without coming across some surprises along the way.
Cyberpunk 2077 launches November 19 for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One, and later for PS5 and Xbox Series X.