Cyberpunk 2077 has politics in it. Luckily, it’s not about today’s politics of left vs. right. Instead, it’s the politics of a futuristic world where corporations experiment with cybernetics, changing the landscape of the human condition and lifestyle.
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Mike Pondsmith says “everything is political” in Cyberpunk 2077
In an interview with Video Games Chronicle on Cyberpunk 2077:
Do you think it’s important that entertainment like this asks those sorts of questions?
Oh yeah. Somebody asked me a while back if Cyberpunk was political and I said inherently it’s always political. It’s not politics in terms of right or left, or even conservative versus liberal… everything is political. Human beings are political. First we got food, then we got prostitution, then we got politics. And we might have gotten politics before prostitution, but I’m not sure.
For a news piece to be about video games and politics, this is a very refreshing post. The content of the game will address a particular political issue (or more) within the scope of Night City, and the futuristic world of cybernetics.
So what’s the game play?
How this translates to game play in Cyberpunk 2077 is the key question. If there are politics, how will that impact interactions with factions, or characters? What are our conversational and dialogue choices? How will we influence the story? We know there are multiple endings, and I can assume such endings have to do with a theme or faction goal, one being a corporation, which implies politics. But what themes or politics exactly are we playing with?
I would imagine a rather robust conversational system, but so far there hasn’t been too much RTwP dialogue options present. By that I mean dialogue with direct stat influence to persuasion (STR, CON or LUCK stats, for example.)
Politics in Romance.
There’re multiple romance options, more than The Witcher 3. This would imply said characters would have their own disposition and attitudes toward cybernetics and the corporate climate, and life in Night City. Which factions or corporation you help or hinder should have believable consequences on the responses others have toward you.
Is it a hellish dystopia?
The cyberpunk genre depicts various kinds of futures, usually in some sort of hard to identify, amalgamated culture. There’s always an Asian influence, rampant technology, exotic and futuristic drug use, and a centralized power struggling against the increasing criminal behavior. Most famously, this is prevalent in Neuromancer, by William Gibson, taken to various settings, even outer space. And to supernatural levels with Shadowrun. But (to my experience), despite all the random technology and alien-like-punk characters, there was never a post-apocalyptic world where politics were reset or in disarray.
Instead, Cyberpunk 2077 seems to be a stalemate between the freedoms of corporations, their ever increasing influence on the people, and the government having ever increasing control over both. A more common theme would be individuals trying to survive in a world of both; trying to keep their illegal activities hidden from the police, while maintaining good business relations with factions who aren’t entirely working above board.
Will this new delivery of a mystery package help or hinder the people, or the corporation you’re doing it for? Is this medical AI going to kill or cure? For Cyberpunk 2077, I imagine a large contingent of plots and sidequests, instead of one central plot of individuals vs. the corporations.
Video games purposesly about politics
There’s a few. Bioshock: Infinite is the big one; but that’s between religion and American jingoism. But Tyranny comes to mind, as does Divinity: Dragon Commander, and it’s “spiritual successor”, Divinity: Fallen Heroes. These games deal directly with political ideas, outside of being a 4x Civilization game, and how you manage to deal with a dictator like character; not only as one and dictating policy, but in challenging, and possibly becoming one.
For V, the main character in Cyberpunk 2077, the best they’ll be doing is going up against a corporation or two, or a potential government agent. I can’t see anything as profound as taking on The Laughing Man character, or Solid State Society from Ghost in the Shell.
Escape current politics to cyberpunk-ish ones.
We play video games as an escape. Too often we hear of nonsensical political discussions by biased idealogues, or how video games are influencing others, or other such fear tactics used by the political left. (No, society is not crumbling because pixels depicting women are getting slaughtered.)
Regardless of the potential choices for the main plot or various endings, Cyberpunk 2077 appears to be an RPG on a massive scale never before seen in video game history. And, using an ambitious setting, hopefully it’ll have some sophisticated stories to tell, political or otherwise.
Here’s my video on the topic: