Keanu Reeves is in Cyberpunk 2077,
but did you know that he’s playing Johnny Silverhand?
And did you know that Johnny Silverhand is from the original tabletop RPG?
And did you know there is an original tabletop RPG?
BECAUSE IF YOU DIDN’T, I’M ABOUT TO TELL YOU 'CAUSE I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS.
I’ve gotta talk to you about something.
I have read the whole manual, and I’m here to tell you everything we can learn about
Cyberpunk… from Cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk 2020 is the main inspiration for Cyberpunk 2077, and the main writer, Mike
Pondsmith, was brought on as a consultant for the game.
“There is a really strong element of cross pollination.”
That cross pollination tells me that we can use this as a pretty solid foundation for
parsing the Cyberpunk world.
We’re gonna split this foundation into three sections: The place, the people, and the things.
And I’m also gonna tell you all the things in this book that I would like to show up
in Cyberpunk 2077.
‘Cause this game is WILD and I LOVE IT.
The year: 2077.
The location: Night City.
It’s a very on the nose name for a dark and gritty cyberpunk future, but its etymology
is pretty mundane: a guy named Richard Night bought up the suburban sprawl between LA and
San Francisco and then he gave tax breaks to corporations to move in there.
He wanted it to be a lovely place to live, but then, four years later, he got killed
by gang bosses.
You can have a cool name, Richard Night, but you can’t have it all.
The most important part of Night City is this circle right here.
It’s the corporate center.
Corporations are the most powerful entities in cyberpunk.
As of Cyberpunk 2020, there have been three Corporate Wars.
But according to Mike Pondsmith, 2077 is going to happen after the fourth Corporate War.
The original manual has a full alternate history from 1990 to 2020, and, can I be real with
you, there are some uncanny connections with our actual world.
“The technical revolution had further torn the economy apart, creating two radically
divergent classes…
The middle class was nearly eradicated.
It was this dismal beginning that led to the current American landscape of the 2000s.”
Haha!
I love escapist fiction!
But beyond this, I can’t be sure of what they’ll keep in Cyberpunk 2077.
I hope they keep The Afterlife, which is a bar in an old mortuary, and Rainbow Nights,
a dance club that, “occasionally will draw big acts like Johnny Silverhand…”
CYBERPUNK!
Quick question: what exactly is a cyberpunk?
“Cyber—from the term cybernetic, or a fusion of flesh and machine technology.
Punk—from an early 1980s rock music style that epitomized violence, rebellion and social
action in a nihilistic way.”
Some of the most influential people in cyberpunk are musicians, rockerboys, like Johnny Silverhand
which I promise I am getting to, I just gotta build up to it organically, trust me on this!
You’re a loner just trying to get by.
But that doesn’t mean cyberpunks are lonely.
They do find social connection in some pretty seedy places.
Gangs are a huge part of this universe, as we’ve already seen with the Maelstrom Gang.
“Now we can talk.”
A few other gangs we might see are the Inquisitors, a neo-luddite group that believes all cyberwear
is blasphemous and they will literally tear it out of people.
Or the Blood Razors, a group of people who all have rippers and claws and are murderous
and terrible.
They’re called the blood razors, what did you expect?
But more than anything, I want them to include a poser gang, which is a group of people who
have all used plastic surgery to look like the same celebrity.
Like the Kennedys, a group of posers that all look exactly like John F. Kennedy.
How fun is that.
How terrifying is that.
Imagine getting beaten up by 10 John F. Kennedys.
Ask not what Night City can do for you.
But gangs are full of nobodies.
And we already know that there are three very important people showing up in Cyberpunk 2077:
Morgan Blackhand, Saburo Arasaka, and of course, Johnny Silverhand.
OKAY, let’s talk about Johnny Silverhand because it’s Keanu, and we’ve seen him
on screen, and that’s why you’re here, I know.
Johnny is a rockerboy, which is both a character class and the term for a super popular rockstar.
He’s also a veteran of the Central American war and he’s charismatic as hell, but you
don’t need me to tell you that, because it’s Keanu Reeves.
Morgan Blackhand is a solo, which is another character class, and he’s the writer of
“The Enforcer’s Handbook.”
He’s got a lot of tips on how to survive in the streets, and I wouldn’t be surprised
if he shows up as a mentor.
And finally, Saburo Arasaka, the head of the Arasaka corporation, which specializes in security.
Like, heavy security.
Arasaka, both the man and the corporation, are incredibly dangerous.
And the fact that Arasaka and Silverhand show up in this game makes me believe that there’s
a high probability that “Never Fade Away” will show up as a quest in this game.
“Never Fade Away” is a one-off adventure all about Johnny Silverhand trying to get
his girlfriend, Alt, back from Arasaka corp after they kidnapped her.
It involves Johnny Silverhand throwing a concert and then convincing the crowd to riot and
attack Arasaka guards.
It’s dope as hell!
Hi!
Hello!
Pause for a second.
It’s me again, just a few days later, you can tell because I haven’t shaved since
we first recorded this video.
We got new information from the Cyberpunk demo!
My coworker Pat went to go see it and he told me that Johnny Silverhand is a cyberghost.
He’s not alive in 2077.
It makes sense because he would have been like, I guess 80 at that point in time?
Jenna: People live to 80 now, Brian!
They do, but he’d look less attractive.
Jenna: He’s not, ‘cause it’s Keanu Reeves.
Yeah, okay, Keanu Reeves can live forever.
But we also know that Alt will be a part of this game, she’s just trapped in the Netspace.
Which is something that happens at the end of Never Fade Away.
So!
We have confirmation!
Never Fade Away is important to this game.
We just won’t be able to live through those experiences in the game itself.
Hopefully they’ll give you a chance to make a bunch of concertgoers riot in a different
part of the game.
Anyway, that’s it.
Let’s talk about the Things.
Cyberpunk 2020 is full of neat mechanics that I hope get translated into the final game.
But judging from the gameplay we’ve seen, I’ve split these into likely and unlikely categories.
First, the stats.
You, as a character, can finally be cool.
I’ve never felt that way.
But it doesn’t mean how charismatic you are or how good you are at riding a skateboard.
It’s a mechanical skill that tells you how well you can handle pressure.
“And you positively reek of Militech.”
In facedowns, you roll plus cool and your reputation to see if you can intimidate your
opponent into backing down, while you maintain composure.
This might be something that affects dialogue options in the game, like the ones you see
in the Maelstrom den.
“Dexter DeShawn sent me.”
Sadly, it looks like we won’t have an Empathy stat, which was an integral part of the original Cyberpunk
(and might I add, an integral part to normal human existence).
It deals with how well you connect with your fellow humans as you become more and more
cybernetically enhanced.
Also on the cutting room floor is Attractiveness, a quantifiable stat in the original TTRPG.
Unfortunately, the cowards at CD Projekt Red have only given us the power to play as hunks.
Cybernetics are an obvious part of the game, where you can enhance your abilities by going
to a ripperdoc and having them slice a bunch of metal into you.
In the original TTRPG, these enhancements cost humanity points and would lower your empathy level.
If you go below 0 on your empathy stat, your character undergoes something called cyberpsychosis,
which means your character has a “maddening hatred of other humans.”
This idea that body modification somehow makes you less human is…
NOT GREAT
but mechanically speaking, it keeps players in check.
If a player gets cyberpsychosis, that character is handed over to whoever is running the game,
and then they get to play them as an NPC, but this time with all of the worst, most
murderous tendencies.
But in a video game, people want to feel powerful, so I don’t believe CDPR is gonna commit
to that idea of cybernetics.
It looks like the game is using them in the same way other games use armor and upgrades.
I still have a little hope that they’ll keep some semblance of this in the game, forcing
you to actually think about what you ABSOLUTELY need as a cybernetic enhancement.
But, much like Deus Ex, where Adam “never asked for this” and then he proceeds to
ask for every enhancement he can possibly get, I imagine they’re just gonna let you
buy as much as you want.
We’ll see!
Drugs!
There are so many substances in the TTRPG.
Things like Boost, which boosts your intelligence until you form a dependency on it.
Or ‘Dorph, which is a painkiller similar to modern day opiates that can cause severe
nervous system damage.
There’s Synthcoke, and Speedheal, and Syncomp 15, all of which have VERY BAD, permanent
consequences to stats in 2020, but I doubt they’re gonna go quite as hard for 2077.
I bet it’s gonna be something more similar to Moonsugar or Skooma.
The net.
It’s the internet, but a bit off.
It’s retrofuturistic, and, like a lot of concepts in this game, was very progressive
for its time, but now it’s retroprogressive.
Which is to say, regressive.
The Net will probably be for hacking.
Will CDPR include a minigame where you get to fight hellhounds and demons in the Netspace?
Probably not.
But do I want that Mega Man Battle Network bullshit to be in there?
Absolutely.
And finally, let’s talk about classes.
In 2020, there are 10 distinct classes you can play as, or you could make your own pretty easily.
CDPR has been clear that there will not be a class system in 2077, but judging by the
gameplay, it looks like you’ll be a Solo.
A Solo is a mercenary, and a very skilled one at that, because all the unskilled ones
are dead.
It’s the standard lone wolf hero type.
Which is exciting.
But I really hope that they pull some things from the other classes.
Like Nomad, which has a special ability called “Family” where they can call in a bunch
of their family members for any situation.
Just imagine playing as V and calling in your Aunts to fuck some shit up.
Honestly, there’s so much great flavor text in this book
that I wish I could just read it verbatim.
I couldn’t even tell you about how there are CD players, still, in 2020.
And how there’s a company called R.E.O. Meatwagon
that harvests corpses and then sells their parts for money.
Hate to break it to you all…
I don’t think R.E.O. Meatwagon is gonna make the final cut for Cyberpunk 2077,
but if you’ve got a hankering for that Cyberpunk fix before April of next year,
you should be playing this game right now.
Or we could play it for you.
If you’d like us to run a one-off of this game to have some more information and to
fill time before April of next year, I’d love to do that.
Honestly, just write a comment, I’m looking for any reason to play this game.
Literally any reason.