Karasu At the same time, I’m constantly amazed that so many fans of the aesthetic just seem to either handwave or completely ignore how at its roots cyberpunk isn’t supposed to be aspirational
This is an interesting claim - as when I was younger and consuming a fair amount of similar media (at least similar regarding cyberpunk-adjacent aesthetics and messages) and I often always internalized Cyberpunk as a bleak warning, sure the stories of criminals and the whole ‘high tech/low life’ archetype is fun to follow along, but so much of seemed to communicate, to me at least, that this is the grim reality of a hyperglobalized and hypercorporatized world - criminality no longer becomes a choice. What guides your interpretation leaning towards aspirational rather than inevitable?
TracyDMcGrath The game’s fans are now sending epilepsy triggers to the reporter who broke the story.
Horrible, isn’t it? Anyone who wants to get on a soapbox that ‘journalism is dead’ must also claim the fabled ‘and we killed it’ follow-up, I believe
Lacquerware I’m not sure I trust any AAA game to do cyberpunk right, although I do think it can still be a fun time with cool things in it.
This is a very good point - as soon as Keanu was involved and I started to hear that many ‘content creators’ were going to be making cameos in the game (like a millennial reflection of Death Sranding’s celebrity fanfest) I started to maybe think that the game itself was the most cyberpunk thing out of the whole experience (overly-corporatised, sold as having your best interest in mind, and, ultimately like the people of Night City, a shell of what it could have been). I think many would agree that Companies and Punk (cyber or otherwise) rarely are able to maintain any artistic integrity by the time profits are sniffed, but I was also hoping this game would be different.
I still think I will pick up my pre-order tomorrow, but I know that as of this moment, I am going to be playing through it more due to obligation than passionate fandom. Which is a shame, I have been hyping the game under the discussion point that there is no better time for a real cyberpunk experience than 2020, but perhaps that is the most cyberpunk reality of all, even the things we know we want, are able to make, and ultimately produce are not enough, not matter how loudly we might yell that it is.