Cyberpunk 2077 beeps back to life, may yet boop, whirr
It's only a beep
As RPS's token cyberpunk, required by contract to wear at least two leather jackets and sing Billy Idol while jamming with the console cowboys in cyberspace, it falls to me to tell you today's big Cyberpunk 2077 news: it beeped.
Today the game's official Twitter account broke a four-year silence to blast *beep*.
That's all.
But oh, I'm excited to see signs that it might arrive before we find ourselves actually living in the RPG's grim dystopian future. A new big game from CD Projekt Red, the folks who made the cracking Witcher games, is most welcome.
The game itself is still largely a mystery. CD Projekt have muttered about it being a "huge single player, open world, story-driven RPG". It's set in the future of the Cyberpunk pen & paper RPG series designed by Mike Pondsmith, a setting Jody Macgregor had a good look at. While we do know CD Projekt have received tech research grants for things like large living cities and seamless online multiplayer, we don't know if those have Cyberpunk in mind, whether the ideas would be used, and what form they would take - so be cautious about speculating too much.
Our Adam chatted with Mike Pondsmith last year. It's a good read, including bits which make me question why RPS require me to have blue hair styled into a cyber razor cut and quote hackneyed 90s pop culture butcherings of cyberpunk:
"At core, unless you have the meaning behind the black leather and the neon, you lose what cyberpunk is. That's the problem with getting Cyberpunk made as a videogame; people don't get it. They think it's about action heroes quipping as they take down corporations."
But he thinks CD Projekt, as fans of the RPG, totally get it. Also, bits about how Cyberpunk's grim future isn't so far from our own:
"Cyberpunk Red has an entire bunch of sections that say '2020 is closer than you think'. I talk about ramifications of what we are doing now. This is my son's reality and future, and unless we start straightening our shit out, it's not going to be pretty. There is a strong political undercurrent in Cyberpunk, but the biggest message is simple: if you want a future you have to take it into your own hands and realise that nobody else will build it for you. That may involve political action, hacking, or picking up a gun. But the future doesn’t come out how you want it unless you make that change."
Also, he has a katana. Obvs.