With Cyberpunk 2077 just over a week from release, it seems players are more excited than ever to get their hands on CD Projekt Red's take on the iconic tabletop RPG franchise. Their excitement is for good reason too, with the studio delivering several notable trailers and promotional materials that have hyped up Cyberpunk's world, story, and characters to be some of its best to date.
Although fans could likely debate which early look at the world of Cyberpunk 2077 has been the most enticing, perhaps its most notorious was its first major E3 showcase back in 2018. Debuting in dramatic fashion at the tail-end of the Microsoft press conference, the trailer took the world by storm, spreading over social media and becoming one of the most talked-about showcases at that year's event.
It has been parodied by several major sources, including the upcoming indie game Just Die Already, but its most recent recreation might just trump the lot. Created by a YouTuber by the name of Duren, the Cyberpunk fan has reimagined the trailer in World of Warcraft, practically matching the original footage beat for beat with characters and scenes from the popular MMO. Including the voice-over that featured in the original trailer, "World of Cyberpunk" begins just as Cyberpunk 2077's E3 trailer did, showcasing a human character with cybernetic eyes in a subway train looking out over the skyline of a futuristic metropolis clearly framed to replicate Night City.
Throughout the footage, elves, orcs, and more of World of Warcraft's seminal inhabitants replace many of the characters seen in the original trailer, with Duran taking extra special care to frame each shot almost identically to its counterpart. It even features the now-iconic sequence in which V sits on the hood of his car smoking a cigarette while looking over the city, matching everything from the protagonist's stance to the neon signs featured in the distance.
A number of fellow Cyberpunk and Warcraft fans took to the comments to acknowledge how authentic Duren's work is, with many also joking that the new interpretation of the world unintentionally provides a fun glimpse at what a Shadowrun MMO could look like. For those unaware of Shadowrun, the franchise is also a cyberpunk story, bringing the genre's cyborg characters and advanced technology together with elements of fantasy fiction. It shows what a unique vision Duren's achieved with his reimagining of Cyberpunk 2077's world, presenting a remarkably fun new take on CD Projekt Red's upcoming sci-fi behemoth.
Cyberpunk 2077 will be available on December 10 for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions releasing in 2021.