This video was sponsored by Dislyte.
Night City, City of Dreams. But under the surface,
it's a nightmare. Past the Mega Corps, the gangs, the crime there is a conspiracy built
to drive you insane. One word of warning friends, don't trust everything you see.
Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that really wants to stay at your
house. Today we're talking about an urban cityscape coated in neon and sprinkled
with characters oozing so much swag that I know they're too cool to hang out with me.
Cyberpunk 2077. Ah, scratch that. Today we're actually talking about two of these worlds
because our sponsor for today's video is Dislyte, the free turn based Gacha RPG for iOS and Android
all about people awakening divine powers in a super stylish sci-fi setting. Wait a minute.
Dislyte is set in 2027? they're just four years away. Society had better start installing neon
lights in a hurry. And it beat cyberpunk 2077 to this aesthetic by 50 whole years.
But it's not just the cool rave aesthetic that connects these worlds. Just like Cyberpunk is all
about awakening your powers using augmentation, in Dislyte each of these characters, the Espers,
have been able to awaken the dormant powers of mythological figures hidden inside of them to
help fight the monsters that are invading Earth. We're talking Thor to Medusa, to Odin and Anubis.
And you ain't never seen Odin like this, wearing leather riding on a motorcycle. Where was this in
the MCU? The latest additions to the roster are the sisters Athena and Nyx, who are not
only adding their sharp sense of fashion to the game. Seriously, does everyone in this game have
themselves a cool jacket? But are also bringing their own story of rebellion into this world.
Across the game's newest chapter, you'll discover this pair's tragic backstory:
how Athena gained Esper powers and basically abandoned Nyx to go be a hero.
That then left Nyx to be captured and forced to become one of the world's first artificial Espers,
which is kind of an issue when you consider that artificial Espers don't have complete
control of themselves, kind of like the cyberpsychos that we're going
to be meeting today in the world of Cyberpunk. Maybe these two worlds are more connected than
I thought. Connected universe theory perhaps? Neon lights, godlike powers, pumping music,
rebelling against corrupted systems and shadowy organizations: Check, check, check and check.
Episode for another day perhaps. TL;DR If you like Cyberpunk, Dislyte is going to be your jam. And
bonus, in the world to Dislyte the powers that be aren't trying to turn you into a crazy mind
controlled pawn for the government which segways nicely into Cyberpunk and our theory for today.
In case you somehow missed the Keanu Reeves level hype around…
Cyberpunk
This was a video game that, unlike Dislyte, didn't exactly have itself the smoothest launch.
Yeah, despite the fantastic writing, art and gameplay, the greedy corpos at
the head of the company definitely pushed this thing out the door a couple of years
before it was ready. And though the devs certainly kept polishing it over the years,
Cyberpunk 2077 looked to go down in history as a cautionary tale against releasing games early.
Or at least that was the case until the release of the Netflix anime Cyberpunk Edgerunners.
So then, this is titled “Cyberpunk Cyberpunk”? Weird. Edgerunners is incredible. Following the
tragic love story of mercenaries David and Lucy as they descend into the underbelly of Night City,
a capitalist dystopia run by mega-corporations. It is no exaggeration to say that this anime single
handedly saved the brand with 2077 selling millions of additional copies in its wake.
Online discourse has also completely turned around for the franchise,
with people who used to clown on the IP, instead saying
You’re Breathtaking!
It's also the reason why we're talking about Cyberpunk on our film channel because wow,
look at those review scores. To catch you up, Edgerunners follows David Martinez, a teenager
forced into the life of a mercenary in Night City. David finds and installs a very dangerous
mechanical body modification that speeds up his movement. This so-called cyberware
is a big deal because he definitely shouldn't be able to use this thing.
Despite this, David adapts well to the implant with no training. Spending the
rest of the series upgrading his body with more and more cyberware. The show's
central conflict then eventually becomes David's struggle against
implants and whether or not his body is going to reject them all.
Why is all of this such a big deal? Well,
when someone's body can't handle their cyberware or they just have too much of it,
it literally drives them insane. With an affliction known as cyberpsychosis.
Oh, that's why it's called Edgerunners. Except I think that there's a problem
with cyberpsychosis. It isn't what it appears to be. No. This diagnosis that is central to
Edgerunners is actually a method of control, seized by the few at the top to subjugate the
many at the bottom. And the craziest part of it all, cyberpsychosis is only a single piece in a
much grander conspiracy about controlling the bodies and minds of everyone in this world.
Wake up, theorists. We've got ourselves a theory to burn.
First things first. Let's actually break down what exactly cyberpsychosis is. Cyberpsychosis is an
in-universe mental illness, which results in the loss of empathy and identity. It supposedly stems
from cybernetic implants, and the more cyberware that someone has, the larger their risk of getting
cyberpsychosis. People who suffer from it come to view other people as weak and inferior, and they
have themselves a total disregard for human life. The further a cyberpsycho declines, the less they
care about self-preservation. The more they distance themselves from loved ones,
and the worse their violent outbursts get. We see this firsthand in Edgerunners through the
character of David's mentor, Maine. He starts off normally kind and generous.
But then he starts treating this crew as worthless.
Most interestingly of all, though, Cyberpsychos start identifying with machines more than humans,
something that we actually see visually in Edgerunners as David starts hallucinating
mechanical parts growing out of the people around him. Basically, if you have cyberpsychosis,
you're a dead man walking. But here's the thing. While cyberpsychosis is a serious
problem in this world. What we actually see from the series doesn't line up with what
we're told about this diagnosis. Firstly, it doesn't really seem to affect everyone equally.
Obviously, David's unique in that he has incredible tolerance to cyberware.
But a ton of the characters and Edgerunners have massive parts of their body replaced
with no psychotic effects at all. Plus, we have ourselves V, the playable character
from Cyberpunk 2077. He can get completely decked out in implants from head to toe,
but is never once considered to be in danger of going crazy and becoming a cyberpsycho.
But okay, so what if someone does go cyberpsycho? Well, it's not the end
all be all death sentence that everyone makes it out to be. A full third of maelstrom, a cultist
gang obsessed with Cyberware implants, are cyberpsychos. And they're not actively
burning Night City down. Some cyberpsychos are even friendly. Meanwhile, every member of MaxTac,
the universe's equivalent of a SWAT team, is a cyberpsycho, literally all of them. as the Shard
puts it, quote, The same people who butchered innocents in the streets just a month, a week,
a day earlier are now knights in shining armor. There's a ton of evidence to back all this up. The
very first trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 featured a cyberpsycho woman being attacked by MaxTac,
but she later shows up in a quest from the video game as a member of MaxTac, which references the
trailer as a canonical event. They didn't kill her. They recruited her. Furthermore,
a computer terminal that you can find in a different questline describes cyber psychosis
as a fairly common problem among MaxTac. On top of all of that Adam Smasher, one of the
main antagonists of both the anime and the game has had his body entirely replaced with implants.
And yet, despite being sadistic, violent and having a disregard for human life.
He doesn't display any of the insanity that's associated with cyberpsychosis
in the series. In short, despite the show telling us that a cyberpsychosis
diagnosis is a death sentence, it just isn't. I suspect the problem here isn't the hardware,
but rather it's the software. While I think chroming up with too much cyberware is a
gateway to getting cyberpsychosis. It's more about getting something
into people's minds rather than their bodies. What makes me say this? Well,
take a look at this. Despite David's massive amount of implants in the series, the thing that
actually puts him over the edge is the software required to run his biggest, baddest implant.
Additionally, within the 2077 game, one of the “quickhack” software abilities
that you can unlock and use on enemies is called cyberpsychosis. It does exactly what
you think. Giving cyberpsychosis to anyone, regardless of their amount of cyberware. Now,
you might think that this is just a gameplay thing, something that they dismiss as a
Rule-of-Cool ability that doesn't actually exist in canon, but that isn't the case.
The official music video for the ending team of Edgerunners features the canonical events that
lead to the death of a hacker named Sasha. And in it, Sasha uses that same cyberpsychosis ability,
meaning that this is a very real piece of software that exists in universe. If cyberpsychosis is
something external trying to hack a target's brain, that would explain why so many of the
characters that I mentioned earlier with a ton of implants don't struggle with cyberpsychosis.
Lucy and Kiwi are master hackers that have taken steps to protect themselves,
while wealthy and important characters like Tanaka, Jimmy Kurosaki and the Arasaka agents
have the best protection software that money can buy. When you look at all of the evidence,
cyberpsychosis, this thing that is central to the tragedy that is Edgerunners simply isn't what
we're led to believe it is. And the craziest part? it’s just a small piece of a much larger puzzle,
one that would see everyone under the thumb of some shadowy entity that controls Night
City. Cyberpsychosis is the most obvious form of this control, but there's far more subtle
forms of manipulation that's happening under the surface. What could lead to that sort of power?
Ladies, gentlemen and punks, it's time to rebel. Very clearly the mega-corps of Night
City are the ones pulling the strings. Literally hacking and controlling people
would be the next logical step. But there's a darker agenda here, too, and one that's far
more frightening. One of the best questions in the game involves night city mayoral candidate
Jefferson Peralez and his wife Elizabeth, bringing the player on to solve a mystery.
Now, this quest chain is long, so forgive me for summarizing a bit, but here's the gist:
they hire the player character V to look into a strange incident that happened in their penthouse,
Jefferson wakes up one night to find a stranger in their home. He shoots
the stranger and then passes out. But when Jefferson regains consciousness
the next morning, the intruder is gone and there's no evidence of a break in.
As you do this quest, you discover a cover up. It turns out that their private security
company has been secretly monitoring them from a secret room, using experimental neuroplasticity,
technology and subliminal messaging to mess with their minds, to literally rewrite the
pathways that are in their brains, altering their thoughts, their memories, and their personalities.
And we're not just talking about simple stuff like favorite movies or taste in music.
At the end of the storyline, we can either tell Jefferson the truth or lie to protect his safety.
Either way, the manipulation continues. Jefferson goes on to win the election,
thereby putting a puppet in control of Night City. Now obviously this is going way deeper
than just some small time security company. Another quest in the game involves V recovering
a stolen encrypted hard drive, which contains an internal memo from one of the Mega-corps:
Night Corp detailing secret experiments that they're running on unsuspecting subjects.
They've managed to use subliminal messaging to turn one subject described as calm and empathetic
into a psychopath that, quote, strangled one of their colleagues over a dispute over coffee. Can't
really blame them. I don't like decaf either. But think about this. Night Corp was able to remotely
turn people into rage filled murderers. Sounds a lot like what we've discussed with cyberpsychosis,
doesn't it? And all while using subliminal messaging to rewrite their brains. Night Corp
is brainwashing people, turning good people into psychopaths and politicians into puppets
all as part of a grander scheme. And here's the cherry on top. The thing that takes this
from a fun little plotline hidden under the surface to a full blown conspiracy about the
people at the top of the corporate ladder. You see loyal theorists. There aren't people
at the top of the corporate ladder. It's an evil artificial intelligence that somehow gotten out
of control. Now I realize that that's a pretty big claim even for this series. While powerful
A.I. do exist in the world of Cyberpunk, and we even meet one in 2077. What's the evidence
that they're controlling everything here? Well, first of all, we know that these
sorts of the A.I. can and potentially do run organizations. The head of Arasaka has his
mind digitized during 2077 and turning himself into an AI that can continue to run the company.
Other characters like the Maelstrom and Voodoo Boys Gang Worship Tech, and they see the takeover
of the world by A.I. as an inevitability. And that secret program described in the
encrypted Night Corp memo, it was outright called an A.I. We also know that A.I. aren't complacent
to live in cages. Pretty much every A.I. we meet throughout Cyberpunk 2077 either wants to be free
or take control. It's only a matter of time before this A.I. at Night Corp takes over the company.
And wouldn't it be handy if it had itself some mind controlling tech for that? A.I.
being responsible for this whole conspiracy, both the brainwashing and the cyberpsychosis would also
explain why gangs obsessed with tech and implants like Maelstrom are so involved in this thing, and
why one of the major symptoms of cyberpsychosis is beginning to identify with machines more than man.
It's the A.I. conditioning all us fleshy meat sacks for their inevitable takeover. On all
fronts, this A.I. is controlling people, whether it be through cyberpsychosis,
brainwashing, or just good old fashioned hacking. And I suspect we've already seen
this A.I. in action. In this game there's a mysterious character that we only see twice
named Mr Blue Eyes. He's seen at the end of the Jefferson quest line that we talked about earlier,
as well as during one of the game's endings, hiring our player character.
We also hear that he and his people might just be replacing dissidents in the city.
Clearly, whoever this guy is, he's powerful, pulling unknown strings that we only catch a
glimpse of. But here's why it matters. In the Cyberpunk universe, people's eyes start glowing
blue or orange when they're transferring information digitally or when they're being
remotely puppeteers by someone, or something. So someone who has glowing blue eyes all the time,
enough so that they're aliases Mr Blue Eyes. That means that they're constantly transferring
data, constantly being puppeteered. This guy is the literal embodiment of this massive conspiracy,
a story that's touched every part of the Cyberpunk IP from Edgerunners to
2077. And I bet that we're going to be seeing a lot more from him in the future.
But hey! Once again, I'd like to thank the sponsor for today's episode, Dislyte. One of
the things that made EdgeRunner so successful was its incredible art direction. I mean,
just look at the breathtaking animation and color palette. Aesthetics can really take something good
and turn it into something incredible. And if you like the vibe of Edgerunners,
I think we've more than proven to you throughout the episode that the story mode
of Dislyte is going to be up your alley too. But hey, if you want to do some rebelling of
your own and just want to take your favorite Espers for a spin,
you can skip the story and hop straight into the game's brand new 3D Dungeon Explorer mode,
complete with its own mysteries to unravel. Real talk: As someone who makes and consumes a lot of
entertainment. The fact that the Dislyte team is using this game to incorporate real mythology from
the very real world in a way that might get people interested in learning more about other cultures.
I think that is awesome and it actually got me to learn a bit too. I know less about Chinese
myth and literature than I would like. But seeing characters like Luo Yan and Xiao Yin
got me excited to look into them, to research their history and learn about the real Chinese
gods and dragons from mythology that inspired them. Last time we talked about Dislyte on our
sister location Game Theory, there were only 70 Espers in the game, but now there's almost 100.
So there is no way that you're not going to be able to find someone new to like and
learn more about. If you want to awaken your inner rebel. Check out Dislyte by clicking the
link down the description below. Doing so will get you a five star Nyx as a sign in
reward so you can use her right away and dove into that brand new 3D Dungeon Explorer mode.
On top of that, you can also get a five star Hati for free. Right now is probably the best
entry point that Dislyte’s ever had. Plus, there's already a ton of content for you to explore in the
backlog. So once again, thank you to Dislyte for sponsoring this video. Sponsorships like
this one are the whole reason we're able to cover awesome series like Cyberpunk.
We get to talk about a series that we really want to talk about, but the algorithm I like
so much and you guys get to hear about really cool games like this. I got to say it is a win
win for everyone, so please do us all a favor by clicking the link down in the description
below. Check out the game thank Dislyte for supporting us, which allows us to support other
series that you might not have heard about. And as always, my friends, until next time,
remember, it's all just a theory. A FILM THEORY! aaaaaaaaaand cut.