Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - Cyberpunk 2077 - Part 1

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

We have brain worms we need to exorcise, and so we've invited our friend Roberto on to talk about the video game Cyberpunk 2077. Made by CD PROJEKT RED and set in the universe created by Mike Pondsmith, this game is a masterful blend of politics, themes, and storytelling. In part 1 we discuss the political situation of Night City, the implications of all the chrome, and how to write love interests. Sorry for the wait and we hope you love this game as much as we do.Roberto's Pods: @tsarpowerpod & @History_Georgiapatreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

Beautiful. Alrighty. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do Bro Hello everyone and welcome back to Sword, Sorcery, and Socialism, a podcast about politics and themes hiding in our genre fiction as always

I am Aurora and I'm joined by my co-host Katho. How's it going Katho? Ready? We are back and We lied to you. This isn't a book I'm sorry But our brains have been absolutely ruined by it for some time now And so we're gonna talk about it anyway, and the themes are good enough that we can tie it back to cyberpunk month from a year and a half ago.

So we're talking about it anyway. Technically, there are books, but we're not covering them. We are talking about cyberpunk 2077 for the video game. And to talk about it with us, we are joined by a returning guest. It is Roberto from the Zara Power podcast and the history of soccer. Velo, Georgia. Welcome back, Roberto. Howdy. I just saw this.

Not my thing. Both say howdy. We do. I mean, I'm from Texas. It's more I think it's more culturally appropriate. I mean, it makes no sense. That was actually doing cultural appropriation from you. I'm Appalachian. So Roberto, I believe everyone might remember Roberto was on our episodes

about the Wheel of Time, I think. Yes, not long ago. Also in the shared episode we did about we by. You have any some yard on Yardin. Yeah, that one. Yeah. I'd get there. So Roberto is back and we are going to talk

about the video game Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red that released, I don't know, a few years ago, but it essentially re-released recently with like a 2.0 version with an updated story and gameplay and a bunch of other things. and it's completely ruined our brains. And there was no way we're going to continue being able to do books without talking about this, because the three of us have been talking about this almost exclusively for like two months.

So I mean, yes, we are going to talk about morality, the self, survival. I don't know. A bunch of other really important things that we are. A lot of them are will be callbacks from what we talked about when we did Cyberpunk, but then did Neuromancer and Ghost in the Shell and no crash. Cyberpunk, but then did Neuromancer and Ghost in the Shell and. Snow Crash, the early bad one. Sort of. And, you know, Acura, some other stuff, but mostly ghost, mostly Neuromancer

and Snowcraft and Ghost in the Shell, I think are the ones are going to be the most appropriate here. But so as always, spoiler warning, if you haven't finished the game yet, what the hell are you you doing with your life go do that before you listen to this probably two part episode because we are going to spoil a lot of the endings and a lot of the sort of personal choices you can make throughout the campaign and being for myself it is one of the probably top three video games I've ever played so I don't know don't spoil the endings for yourself.

Probably go play it and come back. We'll still be here. Hang on. Wait, we'll give you a second. Hold on. Okay, you beat it. Congratulations. Welcome back.

Well, if you're like me, took me about well, for me, it took me about four hours, four years and 217 hours to beat it. So I didn't do it faster than that. But hey, so you like it? Good. Yeah. I mean, how do you first off as we do with any like work we talk about how did you two feel about this piece of media? Okay, so I've been playing it since 2020. And when it first came out, I thought that it was something completely new

that would be in my field of interest because it's futuristic enough, but not too far. It's in a near distant future. And I thought, okay, this looks good. And CD Projekt Red hasn't let me down before. Played it day one and it ran great. Everyone who was complaining is because you guys were using old consoles that weren't meant to run that shit. So that's your problem and your fault. You know, I use a PC. I built it just for Cyberpunk.

So let's go. But, you know, it ran great. I've gotten so close to being in the game on like six playthroughs and I finally decided to just do it this time. Especially with the DLC. So I made it much fun. Guido? I didn't have anything I could play it on when it first came out. I had a PS4, but I wasn't going to try and run it on PlayStation 4. It was not worth it. That being said, I was a huge fan of CD Projekt Red. I saw the Fallout and

the whatnot that surrounded it, and I didn't touch it again until you started talking about it. Then I was like, I guess I'll play it. I'll play it. I've seen good things. Also, for those of you who know who this is, Josh Sawyer, the develop one of the lead production designers for Fallout New Vegas and a handful of other games for Obsidian Entertainment.

Fallout New Vegas, both Pillar of Eternity games and Pentament. Pentament. And he was on record talking about how much he enjoyed the game after it came out with its updated patch and Phantom Liberty. Because it kind of transformed the game completely in terms of how the gameplay itself functions into something that made a lot more sense to me looking at it from the outside. Especially, especially, and I'm going to bring this up. This is such a pointless thing to bring up.

But the fact that they made armor not tied to your apparel so I could play dress up. Look, all three of us are guilty of playing a lot of dress up. Oh yeah, no, I have six different outfits. Did I use all six outfits slots and change them depending on the mission I was doing and who I was talking to? Yes. What car I was driving?

Yes. Yes, I did You know if I'm gonna go see Judy, am I gonna wear something really nice? Absolutely It's you gotta have an outfit After after Phantom Liberty, did I keep? Aurora's outfit the Aurora's outfit to put on for special occasions. Obviously, yes, it rules. I think it's funny that I don't know. I just look at all the clothing in it and I'm like, wow, can this be like socially acceptable to wear?

Oh, my God, if I could wear some of those outfits in public now. Usually the the the tech jackets with the cool neon. I want those so badly. Like the high collar ones, you know, like the David jacket or whatever. Like the David or like the replica of the samurai jacket would be a really cool one to have. Look, I have, I'll be honest, I kind of have the same problem with the samurai jacket that a lot of people had like about a decade ago with the jacket from Drive where you're like, it's really sick but it would also be really cheesy to actually wear it in public. Oh yeah.

You know what I'm talking about? I don't care. But you know what I mean where you're like, I would wear this but also it's like... Oh, it's like when you see people wearing like the anime clothes in public and you're like, all right, you shouldn't, you know. That's what I mean about it being socially acceptable though. It just needs to become socially acceptable. If we just start doing it, we can be the change you want to see in the world.

We can dress up as Johnny. I know I'm going to start wearing the like, the like, you know, the cutoff, you know, that like Judy wears, you can get with some of the outfits that cuts off like, you know, like midriff with like weird leather pants. Let's go. Some of the some of the boots in this game, I'm just going to I'm going to this is so unimportant for what we're gonna be discussing but but the there's these sets of healed boots that are solid color metal like they look like composite like some sort of plastic composite material boots that come up to like mid thigh

Boots that come up to like mid thigh. Yes. And you're like, how do you wear those? They're like they're like violent. Like I have two outfits in the game and I'm playing as a woman because they have better fashion options. But I think we save for the record that all three of us played female V this time. My my male V is the backup V. The look the one I'm going to play is another playthrough.

Like I played female. I played female V for obvious reasons, but I also know a lot of people end up playing female V because they like her voice acting better, which I agree with. Well, it's for me. It's the same voice actress from persona five for Makoto. So I really like that character and I was like, I can play as her now. This is awesome. Yeah, I think the female voice

sounds like kind of husky and like cool, where the male V sounds like a dude kind of trying to be edgy. But that's just the same. That is the same voice actor from Makoto, isn't it? Yes. That's awesome, because best from Makoto, isn't it? Yes. That's awesome because best girl. Right? Persona 5. And then V, best girl in this game.

So I got us on this hype train because I kicked this off because I heard people, I bought this game on release and I was one of those people that could barely play it because they didn't really load and my car kept flipping into the stratosphere and a bunch of other stuff, right? And I was like, whatever. This is, you know, got burned. But I owned it. So I just sat in my Steam library forever.

And eventually I saw some of the same things online. People being like, oh, no, like there's a 2.0 and this DLC is like phenomenal The game is good now and I was like I'm looking for a new game to play downloaded it So I'm playing it and it blew my fucking mind it's It will talk about it. But the Phantom Liberty DLC, which is one that occurs like within the structure of the game It's not like a after thing is some of the like the tightest, the most compelling writing and mission design I've ever seen, like an RPG.

It is just CD Projekt Red's forte. Like they really hit their stride as as someone who has been a big fan of The Witcher three for a long time. Like it's like blood and wine, right? Or like their DLC, both their DLC for that game are absolutely fantastic. Blood and Wine is better than Hearts of Stone, but but Hearts of Stone still has this really incredibly written villain, but it just he is one of my favorite villains of all time.

It's it's almost like CD Projekt Red, like they make the game. And then by the time they're working on a DLC, they finally really settled into the groove of like how to make the game feel just right. You know what I mean? Like they're usually under less of a time pressure. Yes, they're usually less of a crunch. Yeah. Yes, they're using their less of a crunch. Yeah. Well, they spent how many of all the almost all the assets that they need.

And they spent how many years just what I want to give them for like for this game for 2077 is they essentially spent years overhauling the entire game. So even though it only has one DLC, it sort of has two because they overhauled the entire base game. Well, I'll even say that Cyberpunk started getting really good by the Edgerunners update, which is like 1.5, 1.6. Because when the Edgerunner show came out, we're not going to talk about that today, but when that came out, they updated the game and made it a lot tighter. And then 2.0 came out with the Phantom Liberty stuff, and that just made it like the best thing ever.

So it was already they were getting there and it was very playable by 1.5. And then 2.0 is just like made it perfect. So we're going to talk about a number of things related to like, what can I cover sort of range of topics here, both sort of political and sort of moral questions raised by the game as the game presents them to you. And then I personally want to, because it's something I've gone out of my way to look at for this game specifically, is then look at moral and political and ethical questions and the way that the player base has reacted to them. Because I think that provides us with a lot of interesting data.

Because there's a lot of things that I think the game presents pretty well and lets you make choices. But I've noticed the way a lot of players of the game react to the questions and prompts that the game gives you that I think provides a lot of interesting information. And so I have been spending a lot of time in unsavory places like cyberpunk subreddits and forums to try and get a feel for how the community has reacted to certain aspects of the game. And I want to talk about that because I have some thoughts as I often do.

But I think we can start probably by talking more about the game itself. One thing you were obviously we immediately started talking about outfits. One thing I think this game does really well, which is I think both a good and bad thing that cyberpunk is a genre does, is it makes it look really fucking cool. OK, this is this is the link to something like snow crash as much as I hate it. Yeah, is is that snow Crash put a lot of effort

into making the aesthetic seem like an aesthetic. It's what I call that. Snow Crash does what I call cyberpunk as like set dressing. You're not doing a cyberpunk story the way you and I would probably talk about it on the podcast, but you're using the aesthetics of cyberpunk because they're cool. Yeah, there's like the whole everything like living in a shipping container and stuff like

that. Like there's it's very industrial. It's very the main character in Snow Crash rides around on a bike all the time. Or rides around on a motorcycle with a katana like. Wait, why does it sound like my build? You see, well, but I think but I think what Kethel is getting at here is that like this game sort of rides the line between what I would call like classic sort of cyberpunk like fiction from like a good like thematic and narrative perspective like Neuromancer or Ghost in the Shell or something.

But it's not as it still has a lot more thematic content that is on par with actual like cyberpunk novels, while still doing the aesthetic thing of Snow Crash of making it really, really cool. So what I'm seeing is that as you're saying, it takes a happy medium of still bringing out those points, making it really freaking cool at the same time, because you're trying to appeal to a market base, so you want the cool aesthetics. Yeah, because like if you read Neuromancer, it fucking sucks. I didn't read it. It's true. But like in what I called the more like thematically appropriate cyberpunk fiction,

mostly what it talks about is how much it sucks because that's the whole point is that this hyper capitalist hyper exploitative world sucks to be in and you see those themes throughout the game. Yeah, those those themes are present throughout the game. Yeah, they're present throughout the game and you see every time you see the situation like, you know, the corporals are doing just fine.

If you're top tier, if you're like mid tier, you're, especially if you start off with the corporate life path in in the beginning of the game, you're a second, you know, you're close to getting cyber psychosis and having a mental breakdown from all the drugs you're taking and stimulants. I mean, one of the most popular ads you see across the city is a guy with a gun in his mouth And it's like you feel like killing yourself. Try these instead you can keep your life and your career Yeah, and then you see like the object poverty just around the whole area When you when you're riding around or you're going through several different sectors and it's like, oh people here are suffering a lot it's much more stylish than what you would get in something like

neuromancer or even something like it's it's weird saying it's more stylish than the matrix. But but but it is it's it's flashy. It's like neon punk aesthetic. And if you think back to like Neuromancer and you think back to even something that would be considered more like proto cyberpunk, like something like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Yep. Like those books are borderline post apocalyptic.

Not so much. Let's look at how cool this aesthetic is. This this almost rides closer to. Blade Runner, the movie. Mm hmm. And Blade Runner 24, I would say they do in 2049, where you have a lot more neon, you have a lot more flash. It's still dirty. It's still.

Dystopian, but there's more pizzazz to it. You have a lot more flash. It's still dirty. It's still. Dystopian, but there's more pizzazz to it. Like night is like Night City is all neon, except for the parts that are post-industrial wasteland. Which are all the parts of the city. Yeah. Or the giant infinite pile of trash just outside of the city. Oh, man. Which if you get your car stuck in, you're screwed.

Oh, yeah. You just got to walk out. And no matter where you go, you can always turn around to look back at the city and see the giant, like, sky scrolling advertising boards that are just constantly showing you ads. It's for me, that is actual hell. No, and the worst part is in your own apartment, the base apartment you get, you can never turn off the advertisement board ever. No. The one that's circling above your couch?

Yeah, you can never turn it off. No. What this game gets, I think, aesthetically, if we're talking like from the aesthetic point, what it gets right, I think about this sort of dystopian, like cyberpunk, you know, capitalist hellscape, constant ads, inescapable advertisements for products that even past first glance are awful. It's like the ads are for things, you notice the products available in the world are either hyper violent, hypersexual, hypersexual, or meant to distract you from all the rest of those things. And that's all they provide. It's either like hyper, everything, everything is hypersexualized and a hyper, like,

I don't know, like what? Profitized or whatever. So it's like, Oh, I mean, you're a corpo. You need to take these so you can perform better at work. Oh, is that burning your brain out? Well, then you need to take this so you can like, you know, get your rocks off and you get home after work. So you don't want to blow your brains out. Also take these drugs so you can like, you know, get your rocks off when you get home after work. So you don't want to blow your brains out.

Also take these drugs so you can sleep. It is they do a good job of presenting a capital's world, essentially turned up to 11. You know, like it's awful from an objective perspective. Like it's pure, it's pure ads. It's pure consumption. That is your only freedom as an individual is the freedom of consumption. And the similar way that I think a lot of

capitalist structures are very seductive aesthetically. If you think of the classic 19, 19. Like the nuclear family home, like the the old traditional like, I mean, mostly made to sell houses, the white picket fence and all that the white picket fence sort of thing, where it's very enticing. Like from an aesthetic standpoint, they and I think that reflects pretty well in the actual game being flashy as hell and the aesthetic being cool as fuck. Like it is enticing. You like, Oh, I want to wear these cool clothes and right around on my sick motorcycle with a Katana like looking at like the neon signs and listening to the radio. And you're like, this is cool. What I think this game does, the writing of this game does get that Snow Crash didn't

is that that is a facade. That is an intentional marketing gimmick to make you buy into a world that really fucking sucks. Because you see it when you're looking at it like this. And then the minute you actually try to like do anything, like you go on a mission or do a job, you realize how awful it is for everybody else. Every mission is like, oh, you gotta help this guy.

He went to the wrong bar one time and got kidnapped and they're gonna chop his fingers off to turn him into a road, to turn him into like a BD slave. Can you go rescue him real quick? And you're like, excuse me? He what? He had some of those gigs, like some of the, especially some of like the gangs where you run into like the scabs who are like, um, kidnapping people and then taking their cybernetic implants, um, by force,

uh, and then selling them on the black market. The scabs up, like you live in a world where like having cybernetics, having or the game calls like Chrome is almost necessary for a lot of people to perform their jobs. Right? Like, obviously we see it from the perspective, like a mercenary where it's obviously necessary, but you know a lot of corpos have it. A lot of other people have cybernetics. So you need cybernetics to do your job. But having it also makes you a target of these gangs

who make a living by literally just yanking people off the street and chopping them to pieces to steal their cybernetics to sell on the black market. Like the first mission you play is literally rescuing someone from that exact same thing. Rescuing someone who, by the way, has the highest level of protection you can purchase and still fell victim to scavengers. Sandra Dorsett has Trauma Team Platinum, which is the highest level of personal protection you can buy.

And the Ray, is that kind of like, if you think about it, is that kind of like a commentary on how like my, like our phones, like if you think about it, can we really, is it possible to live your life without a phone? Yes. We know that it's possible. It's been possible for 200,000 years. But at the same time, if you don't have one, how is work going to go? Well, I've seen people argue that we essentially already have Chrome cybernetics now because of our phones.

Yeah, if we can just get those implanted and just. Yeah, like that's the that's the whole thing. Like your character, that cybernetics that you can't remove in game is having your phone literally built into your brain. Having a Jack in your arm. The UI is all cybernetics. Mm hmm. Yeah. Like the fact that you interact with computers by just like yanking like a accord fucking like a look

It looks like it looks like a headphone jack out of my wrist that gives me That gives me the ick so bad so bad every time I see V do that and just put it in something I'm like why just why and having a seat lot to put cables into the back of your head. I'm like Why just why and having a slot to put cables into the back of your head. I'm like, like the idea that you just like, I'm going to interact with a random terminal. I found a public, I'm going to yoink a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack out of my wrist and just plug it into a random data terminal. Or like, yeah,

it feels deeply unsanitary and also like it would feel incredibly gross as that thing is stored in your arm. Yeah, it feels so, can you imagine the feeling of the, of like a retractable cable pulling back into your arm? I mean, my character's arms are, are mechanical at this point. But see, that's the thing. I also, I also have never gotten any of the arm mods because they gave they give me the same like body horror ick factor. It makes me deeply uncomfortable.

The one that makes me like, so I was like trying to figure out which because I filled up the cyberware and everything. And I was trying to figure out which one would go best. And the artistic design of the specifically the like cannon that you can fit in your arm, the projectile launcher. When it's closed, it looks fine. And you're like, whatever, that looks kind of cool. It's like this cybernetic tattoo sort of thing. And then when you activate it, your entire like arm itself like splits open and the thing pops out and aims at people and then fires and it's, it's a little bit

crazy. Same with the Mantis blades. You know, you literally have like these blades coming out of your arms and your arms are spread out and like the gorilla arms when you're pushing things open, it just like breaks open. And I'm like, ah, yeah, see, I didn't install them because it grosses me out so much. Like it's the same reason I liked, I never liked like the saw movies, right? Cause that sort of body horror to me is awful. I can't stand it. So like I never did never did in all my playthroughs,

I never did the arm mods because it gives me such like body horror. Right. And then the idea that like people just give you stuff and you got to just like plug it into a slot in the back of your head, which as is the main plot point is a bad fucking idea. Don't slot in don't start in random chips. Like it imagine just like, I don't know, like walking out like you just meet somebody and they're like hey I got some like interesting information. You might like you know cool No, I care take this USB stick and plug it into the base of your skull. You're like, I mean, there's a whole mission about this Like this is making me have like horrifying images in my head of

At work we get these like cyber security trainings and everything. Yeah. And we get fake phishing emails sent to us that we have to check. And I'm imagining just having to have those lessons but about your own brain. Don't put random data shards that you find on the street. Click on dumb stuff and how many people fall for phishing scams. Imagine if that was just being beamed directly into your skull at all times. Yeah, again, from a world building perspective, what again, what Snow Crash missed, but I think 2077 gets, is that we've talked about before that one of the main things that makes Cyberpunk what it is,

is taking a technology and envisioning the future technology, and then looking at the repercussions of it, right? You know, in Neuromancer, it's the net running that he does, that sort of thing. In 2077, you have like sort of hyper like body mods and you think about the issues it can cause or the ramifications. And that's kind of what we're getting around here is like, because you have cyberware directly implanted into your brain that you can't get rid of, that

almost everybody has, you are literally have to be constantly aware and on the lookout for a cyber attack on your brain. There's a mission you do at one point to try and stop a guy from turning someone's lungs off because they've like gotten access to her system and can like literally just shut off her lungs remotely. Which mission was this? It's one of the ones in Dogtown, I'm pretty sure. like gotten access to her system and can like literally just shut off her lungs remotely. Which mission was this?

It's one of the ones in Dogtown, I'm pretty sure. Or someone's being blackmailed that he's threatening to shut her lungs off. Oh yeah, yeah. I remember that. Yep. Like potentially have to work with the Net and watch guy versus. Yeah. It's the net watch guy versus one of like the voodoo boys, I think or something like that Yeah, what's the voodoo boys? They have it coming Yeah, but no bumps like that Concept that this game presents you as soon as why this is good cyberpunk in one level is because as soon as you think about

It for more than two seconds. That's horrifying Imagine if like yeah being aware of phishing emails is The thing you have to be worried about for your brain. Like anyone you interact with any data terminal you have to plug into, you might just fry your brain completely. Stop your heart. Might stop your heart just because because they've got because they the way that very first mission Sandra Dors again, has the highest level of protection you can buy with money, because she's a pretty high ranking corpo.

The scabs still found a way to jam the signal for her trauma team response. And so no matter what, they can just be like, oh yeah, the signal doesn't work in here. We can just kill you for with no repercussions. That is terrifying. And that sort of, it's the idea that like, our bodies will continue to be like permanently online, that our lives will be permanently connected to this sort of network. This is the thought experiment

about what that means actually. And it means it's really bad. I mean, literally a whole, the world almost fell apart in the history of the cyberpunk world because of Bartmoss and like the first, like destruction of the first net and you're constantly reminded throughout this game that without net watch watching the borders, like literally everyone could just die if the Black Wall fell and the rogue eyes just came in and fucked with everyone's brains. Like, that's just the thing you got to like the rogue eyes

would just jump in and take over your body. And there's nothing you could do about it. If the Black Wall ever came down like this is a thing you legitimately need to be worried about. And like it's a theme you see throughout the game as well, because there's a reoccurring character named Mr. Blue Eyes who shows up and like even who Mr. Blue Eyes is is like we don't know like we're thinking maybe he may show up but they may have more to do in a sequel but like do you know I made it

through the whole my whole first playthrough without ever seeing the name Mr. Blue Eyes. I don't remember. Did you ever see Parala's mission? They never say his name, never say Mr. Blue Eyes. Oh, he's standing off in the corner and just kind of watching you talk with Parala's. Yeah, I didn't see him. It's like I literally never saw him.

Is the, a little off topic, but is the assumption that Mr. Blue Eyes is the one who's doing all that manipulation to the paralysis? Yes. OK. But the assumption it's him. But what you don't you're assuming it's him. And on top of that, you don't know if he's doing it for himself or if he's doing it for the A.I. Illuminati.

Yeah. For like the A.I. Or is he doing it for Night Corp? Like, you don't really know who he's. Doesn't he also play into Somie's ending as well? Yes. Well, I see, I never got that information. I never got that confirmed that he's the one that she's dealing with. So I don't know where that information comes from.

I've seen people say it that he's the one she makes a deal with to get to the moon, but I don't know where that information is because I personally never saw it. Well, and Gary, the prophet always talks about them, you know, blue eyed aliens from Alpha Centauri. Well, Gary says a lot of stuff. Well, it all, but it all makes sense. Because the techno vampires from Alpha Centauri. Yeah, techno vampires from Alpha Centauri.

And it's just like the blue eyes and you see them and say, oh, shoot. Like once you get further in the game and The standard door set mission when you get afterwards Connects us to get Gary the prophet which connects to the paralysis mission So those are all actually kind of connected so you have these rogue eyes who have this mass conspiracy working. Well, you also Blue eyes himself might also just be a rogue AI Yes, or like a AI proxy, if anything. Because he's always connected to the web, which is why his eyes always have the blue

shimmering that is based off of when you're connecting to the internet. This is like a running theme, I think, for CD Projekt Red to contain these little notes and secrets. Whenever you do end up playing The Witcher and you get to Hearts of Stone, they pulled that whole thing with Gaunter O'Dimm too, where you're not really sure who he is and then there's a web of conspiracy around who this person is and what they represent. And I don't think they're ever going to answer the question. So as much as I would love to see Mr. Blue Eyes show up in Orion, I don't I don't think they're ever going to answer it because they're going to they're going to be sitting there

like making these these cool little puzzles for us to solve. Yeah. But so what I was getting here, the my background to the point where like, if we're talking about the sort of the base stakes of the world that we're working with here, is incredibly awful. Like some people like, Oh, it's cool. You can like, you can like scan people with your eyes, you can do like net running and you can do net running and fry people's

brains before they even know you're there. That's one of the play styles. That's my play style. It's a whole way to be a mercenary is to be like essentially a quick hack net runner. So you can just like walk up to a crowd of people, do some little brain magic and they all just die. It's fun. And there's nothing they can do about it.

If you're just a person living in night city, any random merc could just fry your brain system collapse. They can just system collapse your head and there's nothing you can do about it. Aptic overload. Yep. Unless you're one of the people that's rich enough to have installed, Self-ice. Self-ice, which is essentially like virus defense or whatever for your brain, like anti-hacking

for your own brain, which most people aren't rich enough to do, you can just be killed at any moment. And that's just from the cyberware stuff. Obviously the city is also dangerous and you could just be shot at any time too, but like. Well, like they say, the easiest thing to catch in Night City is the bullet in your back. That's literally one of the quotes from the game. Yes, but like, and this goes into a thing,

a problem that I often have with cyberpunk as a genre is it ties into a larger theme. I'm gonna be harping on a lot this year throughout our podcast and on the internet if you follow me is that media literacy is bad. Most people aren't good at it. At like reading media and like understanding what it means. And so many people will like play cyberpunk go, hell yeah, tech, cool. It's not cool.

It's very bad because everyone thinks that they're going to be a solo. Everyone thinks they're going to be the net runner. You're not. You're going to be the random person walking around the city going to a job. You're not that person right now. You are not going to be that person in the future when this type of thing comes real. You're going to be that guy working on a construction site

who gets his head cut off by a cyber psycho. You're going to be the person who is trying to work their way into a better life by working for like Militech or something and they work you and if you look at their like, there's like, books in the game that will describe the benefits packages for some of the care for some of the businesses. It's like if you work for Militech or something, it's something like 100 hour workweek. And a whole slew of other things. And it's like,

wait a second, even the people who are like, unless you are the very tippy top, even the people who are like, well, relatively secure, secure position, are working 100 hour work weeks, and still have to pay for health care. And like, don't get time off or any of that stuff. Like, and you see people who can't afford to buy, you know, trauma team anything. And it's like, they're working every day of their life and they're like, yes, they can't afford this. So

they get screwed over. And like every scav den you go in, there's just dead people that they've just kidnapped for their chrome. It's no wonder that people run off and join gangs like that. That is, I think, one of the messages is that like the reason in Night City that I think that like gangs are so prevalent is because gangs represent an alternative structure, like an alternative societal structure, because the actual, quote unquote, legal structure of society does not work for most people, which you could argue is true to some extent now in the world we live in. But that's why we're

talking about this, because cyberpunk is taking current societal problems and projecting them into the future and to like expand them and to see sort of the repercussions. So if you look at a world where like the official structure of society, you'll be at, you know, the government of Night City or whatever has failed most people, they're like literally walking out of your door. There's like a significant chance that you will die just by leaving your house. Right. Well, what do people turn to in these situations in real life and that this game accurately models this sort of community structure, whether it's whether you view it as positive or negative, gets taken over by other entities.

And in this game, those entities are gangs, mostly. Which if you think about it, they're like the security for these lower classes, because especially in your if your neighborhoods, because they're all set to different locations. So lots of gangs don't like overlap in territory. to different locations. So lots of gangs don't like overlap in territory. And they're meant there to be there as a sort of systematic, because you know, even going back like historically gangs were formed to protect the community around them. And then you know, they become more than that, because you don't mess up a Valentino, you know, you don't mess with, you know, the Moxies, unless you're like another gang member, because if you do, you're going to get screwed over. Well, the moxies are like the most clear example of a gang that formed for a purpose for community

defense. So, like all the gangs sort of have their little territories. You know, the Valentinos have theirs, the Sixth Street have theirs. Like the. Fuck Sixth Street. Yeah, all of them have their territories. But the people within those territories, whether they like them or not do rely on them so I'm like there's one little mission you can do where you're like sitting in a diner and some people come in to rob it and

The guy that owns a diner complains. He's like well where the fuck I pay 6th Street for to stop this shit from happening what the fuck and So like whether you like them or not these gangs do provide structure and a modicum of security for these communities. And again, the mocks are the most clear example of this because they were formed specifically for the protection of sex workers. Mostly by former sex workers, because they were not protected in any other way. Very cool. The mocks are probably the most and ambiguously positive. Yes.

Gang. They're like the only gang that's like, isn't going out of their way to ruin people's lives. Yeah, I think they're the only gang you'd never actually kill. No, you don't. You don't kill anybody. You actually, you actually do some work through some of the fixers for the mocks. Yeah, you've got the one. You get the one where you rescue the guy because one of the mocks

girls went cyber psycho because like a bad BD. A couple of the ones for like Regina or whoever, where you're killing some of the or no, for what? Well, Kaka, we are killing tiger claw bosses. You're doing that for the mocks. Like when you killed Jotaro. Yeah. And then like there is a chance for you to kill some of them, the moxies when you're doing the street races.

Yeah. But that's, I think the street races are like, Oh, that weird gray area, because everyone's like, it's a free rain. We're going to talk about that later. Trust me. Oh, I know. For a whole different reason. But yeah, but yeah. So with the box are predominantly I think the most chaotically good of the groups because scabs and maelstrom on the bottom tier of that fucking list.

I yes scabs and maelstrom are at the bottom because they're the ones actually kidnapped. They kidnapped people and destroy them. The the tiger claws are different for different reasons, too, because the scabs will steal all your chrome and the maelstrom will just add a bunch of chrome to you. The maelstrom will torture you and force chrome on you. Tiger claws are bad because they're like,

they just run all the brothels. They run most of the brothels, and they do a lot of real fucked up stuff. Sixth Street are just racist. They're your Proud Boys, if anything. Yeah, they're sort of weird. I don't, it's weird to be a patriot in a world like this, particularly when you're in a city that's not part of the USA, but whatever.

Sixth Street is I watched a video that went into detail of the cyberpunk red factions. So they were a little bit different than they are inside 2077. But well, because red takes place in like technically a few years before that. In a similar way to how Bargeist started as like a group of NUSA soldiers, militants that that like defected essentially. The Sixth Street gang was I believe formed by a former veteran. Yeah, they're all they're all about Sixth Street. You have to be about to be in Sixth Street. So there's a like it is weird being patriotic, but in a way, the initial goal of Sixth Street was supposed to be like the

unofficial wing of the NUSA in Night City. Yeah. Well, like with every system, such as with Bargass and Sixth Street, they all started doing, you know, hyper legal shit and, you know, screwing over the common men in the area. Well, they again, because they are the sort of parallel society that's grown up where the government has failed. They both do some big air quotes positive things while also doing a lot of bad shit. of things while also doing a lot of bad shit. What you could argue a lot of actual governments do too, but like.

When people are completely failed, that's where these organizations thrive. The only gangs that don't really have a territory or like the animals, cause they just hang out wherever. Uh, they don't really, they, the service they provide is muscle, I guess. Yeah. The animals are just like your muscle. If he needs a big burly person, a big guy, you know, you need your your your mommy to come in and help. Look, Rhino's cool animals lady.

Yeah, Rhino. Rhino's cool. The one you do in the beat, the brat stuff. Yeah. She rules. Oh, I miss all of her. She's I mean, as any of us. Your favorite character, or look, there's a lot of competition in this game. Okay. And the less we say about the voodoo boys, the better talk about. So the voodoo boys, while they do

a lot of the interpersonal violence that you expect from all the other gangs, it's bad, right? The voodoo boys are doing something that's really bad on like the next level because we talked about sort of the danger presented by the black wall and rogue AIs to like humans now that we're entirely online. The voodoo boys are like always trying to pierce the black wall to just like let the rogue AIs in. So they're like pretty actively often presenting an existential threat to humans. Well, funnily enough, flat out, which is real bad. And I would argue is worse than a lot of the other gangs are doing. Yes. But funnily enough, if you've when you're playing Phantom Liberty, you find out that there's several factions of the voodoo boys and the Pacifica faction is the one that's like trying to do that specifically, not the ones in like Dogtown or anything.

The ones in Dogtown are often the ones that ran from the Pacifica faction, but like Slider or whatever his name is. Um, so yeah, as we're talking about these, what, again, we're talking about theme and setting and the setting is you have a government and you have cops, but they don't do anything. They're very much the example of we, we are powerless to help you, but not powerless to punish you, which is the night city cops and are often described directly as being a gang. Yeah, they're just, they're a gang that is indirectly or sometimes directly supported by the corporations that exist.

The corporations also support their own pet other gangs. Yeah, like Arasaka has the tiger claws. You know, also with the stuff. The Valentinos work with Militech sometimes. Well, not well, Podra isn't like that. Well, no, but they still do. Yeah. I'm a sixth street.

I think it's six streets pretty unambiguously like under the pay of Militech. Yeah. And you see, like, this is all within backdrop of a corporation war that's about to start up to Well, you've had corporate wars in the past again one of the things the setting of cyberpunk does again The setting was created by a tabletop game designer named Mike Pondsmith Who's that man? Yes, which is great And I think is reflected in the demographics of the story and I think we can talk that in a minute, that this this work tends to be a lot more racially diverse

than you might expect from a lot of other works. And that's because it was created not by a white guy. But the other thing we haven't touched on is the overweening corporate power, where like the American government is sort of like a direct, just partner with a company called Militech, which is just an arms manufacturer slash paramilitary. Well, it's not even paramilitary, they're just a military. Essentially Raytheon. Yeah, it's just like Raytheon.

And then the opposing main corporation is Arasaka, which just is the government of Japan, I think. I think they just are the government of Japan. And there have been wars in the past that were essentially, they seemed to be war, they were like, it was technically a war of like unification of like the new USA trying to reunify the America as a company or as a country.

But essentially it was a proxy war between Arasaka and Militech, of which Night City emerged as a weird independent state, more or less. It's a neutral ground. That does lead me, though, into one of the things that cyberpunk as a setting does that stems from the very beginning of cyberpunk as a genre, which is sometimes fine. It sometimes seems kind of weird is that the biggest player in the game is always Japanese.

There is a very, very strong orientalism to cyberpunk as a genre. And 2077 does not escape that at all. In fact, it leans into it in many, in a lot of the time. This started all the way back in Neuromancer. I was gonna say, cause it picks it back up on those themes that you mentioned of the time with Japan's, you know, having its golden age post-war.

We're like, you know, they're coming up economically. So the fears are led into that. And because the game came out during that, or, you know, the original tabletop game came out during that time period, it makes sense that this, you know, all the themes can remain, especially, you know, if Neuromancer leading into that.

So you have this like, you know, Neo, you know, Neo Japanese empire, you know, corporate empire kind of overtaking everything. Like all cyberpunk always goes back to the weird like, oh, the big enemy of the Japanese Zybatsus who like secretly rule. And you're like, okay. It's it's just a it's a weird hangover from like the 80s and into the 90s where like the big American paranoia was Japan.

I kind of love the, like it very clearly dates the original creation of this, but I kind of love how this is always a through, I don't love how this is always a through line, but I it's I think it's really interesting to always see that stuff that was created in the 80s and The 70s in the 80s will almost always have Japan as some sort of big Economic power and the Soviet Union will still exist. Yeah, because the Soviet Union still exists in cyberpunk. Duh Union will still exist. Yeah, because the Soviet Union still exists in cyberpunk. Duh!

Like you don't really you don't really interact with them aside from a few specific missions. But they are there. I will say I am very it's just touching on the Soviet Union and Russia because you know, it's our power. Me being from Tsar Power. There is a character who you have in a trunk named Alexander Pushkin, whose rush is like father of literature. And I die every time I see it. I'm like, yes, what should I do with you? This last playthrough, I just thought I just gave him straight to the whoever it was,

because I was like, oh, the tiger claws. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with the truck. And I'm like, never mind. Plus this game. This game is a wash in Easter eggs and references Like everywhere you look there's like a reference to another book or to another video game or to a piece of literature Yeah authors. It's all over the place. I will say in some media I find that tiresome that everything is like a reference. Like I hate Ready Player One.

I think it's awful because it's all just like, hey, remember this, hey, remember that. And it's like pure like nostalgia fan service. Cause it's right in front of your face, you know? It doesn't bother me as much when cyberpunk does it. I feel like cyberpunk is also one of those genres that gets to be self-referential because at least in the way that their world is constructed a

lot of cyberpunk media that we know would have existed in the cyberpunk 2077 universe. Like the fact that there's a motorcycle that looks like Akira's motorcycle that's called the Kusanagi which is a Ghost in the Shell reference. Like those the timelines didn't diverge before those works existed. So they would have existed in the world. So it is somewhat logical that someone later down the line would be like, I'm going to make a motorcycle that looks cool and is named after a Ghost in the Shell character. Speaking of Ghost in the Shell tattoo. Oh, I'm going to get that tattoo don't worry

about it yeah the the Judy Judy that's literally a ghost coming out of a seashell which it took me forever to realize was a ghost in the shell reference in the show it literally is just a ghost in a shell which I didn't realize too long and then when you call her that's her like symbol too yeah we'll call symbols a ghost in a shell, which took me forever to realize. But I think we realized it around the same time, actually. So like, I guess it does. That was just it's a side note, but it doesn't bother me when when this game

is as sort of like referential as other works can be. You know what I mean? Like it feels more appropriate. And for me, because it's based more in like, as you mentioned, reality. Or, you know, in our world, I enjoyed a lot more because if I see some of that stuff, let's say like the Witcher, I'm like, really? But like here, I'm like, yeah, this makes sense. Why wouldn't they have this stuff in here? This kind of follows in a long line of, this kind of follows in a long line of I don't know what it is about futuristic sci fi stuff that is okay with having a crap ton of references in it. It's kind of what you're getting at. It's just because I think of I think of cyberpunk of this game just being absolutely chock full to the

being absolutely chock full to the ninth degree. And then I think about any other franchise that I'm like, where else does it work? And I think of Fallout. Yeah, that's Fallout New Vegas. You have the guy in the fridge of fedora. Yeah, it's like there's there's these weird ludicrous things in it that because of the idiosyncrasies of the setting are fine, like they're perfectly okay. And and they're never put in there in such an obvious way that you it's not like it's not like you're seeing people walk around on the street, like in Ready Player One with an avatar that's link, you know, and you're like, it's

origin is older reference, they're gonna like sneak a Zelda reference. And I bet you there is one in cyberpunk somewhere. Sure. Like they're going to sneak it in and, and have some character who has a bunch of, uh, guitars and one of the guitars is going to have the Triforce on. Yeah, it's not it's not as immersion breaking. It's not as in your face. Well, like, you know, like, nearly every mission in this game is the name of the mission is a song title is a song. Basically, every mission is a song. That's something that immediately made me be like,

is this like Fallout New Vegas? It's just constantly. It's that sort of thing, which I think is it's fun, but it's not as immersion breaking as you are in Ready Player One, where it's like, hey, hey, remember this? It's more like, yeah, again, like you happened, my example is you happen to buy a motorcycle and you're like, oh, it looks like the Akira motorcycle and it's called the Kusanagi.

I also really appreciate the places they're getting the music from for their options. Like, it makes sense. And this also kind of goes back to New Vegas, but it's a similar thing where they're thinking about the aesthetics of the songs they're picking. Like we mentioned beat on the brat. It's like that's a Ramone song. So they're picking punk music for the most part. And classic rock and stuff that makes sense in line with that, just like Fallout New Vegas was making songs like picking songs like Jailhouse Rock for quests.

I appreciate that. I appreciate the little notes. I mean, it makes sense when you have a little rocker boy in your head. So, yeah. Yeah. And cycling back a little bit though, before you get too far away,

like the Orientalism of the game. Like I said, before you get too far away, like the the Orientalism of the game, I guess, and sometimes in the last hyperpunk that can be kind of problematic because it feels a little on the nose. Orientalist, right? Like it's not good. A lot of the time I could it maybe it's just my bias because I did enjoy this game. I feel like cyberpunk doesn't make it as weird. But I think that's partly mediated by the fact that the entire game is a lot more diverse, diverse and multicultural than other cyberpunk media. A lot of their cyberpunk stuff. You've got the white people and the Japanese, and it's a very, it's very like us and them, which is obviously bad.

2077, the entire setting is so multicultural that it doesn't feel as exploitative or exotic to have Japanese people around. Do you know what I mean? Because there's, if, so yeah, it's your cycling through sort of the people you interact with the most between V, the fixers, the main NPCs.

Well, obviously V is whatever, V looks like whatever you want them to look like. My view is Hispanic, so. Yeah. If you look at, like, let's start, if you work from the top down to like fixers, you've got Mr. Hands, who's white Mr. Hands and Dino.

Yeah, Regina. Regina's not white. She's she's like some sort of Asian descent. Oh, I didn't realize. So she's she's of some sort of, you know, East Asian descent., you have Wokako obviously Japanese. You've got the Padre who is Hispanic You have a copy town is also Hispanic. There's a copy time. Who's also Hispanic You have Dakota who like all like a lot of the Nomads has a very like sort of Native American Like extraction you look at like major NPCs, like all of like your love interests

and major NPCs, river is the rivers and rivers. And I think, or like, they're indigenous or indigenous rivers. Family is, um, you have Carrie, who's Carrie, who's Filipino. Yep. Um, Judy, who's, and Panam who is, I think that was a little bit more ambiguous, but she's not white. She's not white, no, because her hair's very curly.

Yeah, and so basically all of the people you interact with on a regular basis aren't white. And the game, yeah, the one white person you interact with, the one white person you would act as the one white person you always interact with is fucking Johnny. And that's a good example of a white person, too, because I want to punch him in the face sometimes. And I don't mean this in like, oh, it's it's it's non-white, so it's better. But like the game is better for it because you have a mix of cultures

and opinions and people, and it feels less exploitative because this is how a real city would be. Like even though it's not even I say even though it's not where it is this is essentially like cyber future LA right it's not in LA LA still exists in the cyberpunk it's a new city but that's pretty a lot of what its setup was kind of modeled on. It is a set. It is a Southern California city. It's more middle California. It's more obey. I've been there.

I took a picture. It's a moral bay, but like it has the feel of a Southern California city. It's why you have such a large Hispanic influence and a large Asian influence because of where it's located. But like the game is better for it because of its diversity. Like- And that's what made it me enjoy this game so much

because as a Hispanic man, I've never been able to play a game where one of the main characters, my best friend being Hispanic. And I'm like, is this why I connected with Jackie so much? The coolest guy in the game. The coolest much in the game the coolest guy the game yet Jackie Yeah, the coolest guy in the game Your literal best friend in the game and I'm like, I love this man so much and he is a treasure

Because I to me it is Hispanic representation that I've never seen in the video game And if you start as a street kid you like from going from my perspective it is Hispanic representation that I've never seen in a video game. Ever. And if you start as a street kid, you like from going from my perspective anyway, being street kid almost felt familiar to me. I, you know, I'm white, but I grew up in a city that has a large Hispanic population. A lot of my friends and neighbors growing up were Hispanic because of the city I lived in. My street kid, V, felt very familiar because you just grew up being the one white kid in the Hispanic neighborhood where everyone's cool with you, but you're just kind of there like, hey!

Yeah, you're like, you pick up some Spanish slang and you're like, yeah, I understand this. Like I used to know like a significant amount of weird like Spanish slang because that was all of my neighbors and like And like half the kids in my elementary school growing up or Hispanic and you feel that way I felt that way doing like the street kid V start You know what I mean and like you said for you you just having Hispanic representation again among like this core central cast of characters You have Jackie and you have Judy.

Mind boggling to me. This game was made by a bunch of white people in Poland. We made by a bunch of Polish people. Well, they never discredited against two for being Eastern European. Yeah, but like also Poland, not that racially diverse. No, but it just shows a commitment that you can still have a group of people who put the time and effort into understanding cultural norms and everything and make it part of the society and not just a, oh, we need to add this just because we have to, but more so

because this is what people find to be comforting and home-like. It's also setting appropriate. If this place were real, this is what the demographics would look like. Because if I thought it was given everybody was white, I'm like, are we in California? Are you sure? You sure this isn't Wisconsin? Like I said, I think also having it be genuinely diverse makes it feel less weird when you're like, oh, we have to hang out with fucking Takamura and do like the parade, you know, it doesn't feel like they're objectifying Japanese culture nearly so much because the game incorporates a lot of different cultures where like if it was

just white Californians and the tiger claws, it would be weird. And even like be able to like go through different districts, you can get the feel of like, oh yeah, this is a very heavily Hispanic district. This is very Asian. This is, you know, such and such. And I'm like, you get to go to Pinche Pollo. Yeah, Pinche Pollo.

It's like, you go to different places, and it feels like you're able to Be a part of everything and not just a oh, we're this is just for show. It's like no you walk in There's people speaking Spanish You know as people speaking in their native languages, which for me was like mind-boggling when I first came into this game I'm like, holy shit. They're speaking Russian. Holy shit. they're speaking Spanish. Holy shit, that's Japanese. That's Chinese. Holy shit, what the fuck? Jackie speaks Spanish all the time in Act One.

Yeah. It's so well integrated into the setting because you have cyberware that- Translates. Automatically translates it for you. So it'll show up in the subtitle and then, and then- No, that's actually really well it turns it'll show up in the subtitle and then and then no, that's actually really well game design because it shows up

in Spanish or whatever the language is and then it translates it for you. So you get to see both. But they do also strategically leave some words untranslated, which is always really funny. Oh, no, I love and hate it when they do that. Yeah, it's almost like the cyberware predicts when when Jackie wants it to not be translated. Yes, it's like almost has intentionality. He's like, no, this is a swiss curse word that I need to be in Spanish, please.

I know what I really enjoy about that is that they don't fall into that trap of someone speaking, you know, foreign language and then immediately translating it afterwards. Yeah, no. Because no, nobody speaks like that. I'm not gonna say, oh, not that one. Oh, you're fucking whore. Like, you know, they don't do that. People don't say it in their own language and then say it in English.

That's not how that works. So the game does that for you by just doing it in the subtitles. It's great, it's fine. And like, you can even make jokes. There's even some missions where V gets to make jokes. Like, can you do this? And V's just like, I don't speak that language.

Like, it's like, of all the languages, like all the languages in Night City, I don't speak Haitian Creole Yeah, I don't like you know like you need to upload that into your data into your data term I'm like, okay cool I can try and auto translate languages now and then sometimes it just doesn't translate half of the freaking thing anyways And you're like what? It's like real life. Yeah

Translate and it's like are you speaking? in Yeah, like I don't whatever but like again also talking about in terms of like acceptability accessibility We talked about sort of race and culture there's also no one thing Night City does have going for it is like, there's complete like gay acceptance in Night City.

No one about no one bothers you for like being gay. And like a lot of people are and not just like it. It's not even like a like a player sexual choice. Like you get in some games where you as the player can choose to be if you want. Like a lot of NPCs are just like diegetically as part of the game. And it's not like, it's never judged at least by the society you're in.

Like when you go, when you have to do the mission where you go see a sex worker at clouds, they just go, well, do you want the guy or the girl? Pick one. And it's not them going like, you know, being like, well, you got the girl, but I mean, you can pick a guy if you want or vice versa. They're just like, yeah, whatever. We cater to everybody.

I love that in that mission that the thing that was most weird about it was, oh, you match of two people. That's interesting. Yeah, there's like, that's interesting. Yeah, there's like, that's interesting. But like, there's no like in, you don't really encounter anyway, any like in universe, like homophobia or bigotry. Yeah, I saw none of that. And I was like, dang, this is what the world should be like. And they like, they present the player with, no matter whether you play the male or female,

like player character, you can pick a romance partner of either one. Well, it does lock some, depending on how you're making your character. Yeah, but that's, but you always, it gives you options. Yeah. Right? So if you play as female V, you can be gay or you can be straight. Or you can be bi. If you play a male V, you can be gay or straight or bi.

That those are options given to you. It's not like the Baldur's gate thing where like you can romance anybody as anybody. The, the NPCs have personal preferences that you have to match, but it's, there's no like in game weirdness where they're like, we got a lesbian like they don't do the game doesn't do that, which I have to give it credit for because a lot of other games, even when they have sort of like homosexual romances can still feel a little exploitative at times, particularly

lesbian romances can feel a bit exploitative in certain games. And they never felt that way to me in Cyberpunk, which is to the game and the writers credit. I will say the lesbian romance in this game is the best romance in this game. I was going to get into that because if it was from that we can transition. We can transition. can transition talk about that topic even though this game does give you a lot of options a criticism is that both of the the male love interests were done kind of dirty by the writers one more than the other so if you played the game you know the love interest

options there's Judy Pan Am there's Carrie and there's River if you've played the game, you know the love interest options, there's Judy, Pan Am, there's Carrie, and there's River. If you're a female V, you can be a lesbian with Judy or you can be straight with River. If you're a male V, you can be straight with Pan Am or gay with Carrie. Both female romances, but I think Judy is even above Pan Am's, are incredibly well written. You build a relationship with this character over series and series of missions. Both Pan Am and Judy are actually integrated

into the main quest line. You need to work with them for the main quests. You can then do a whole set of side quests specifically for them where you build rapport, you establish a relationship. There are reasons why you're interacting and reasons why you have built a relationship. There are reasons why you're interacting and reasons why you have like built a relationship, right?

Neither of the male interests are important to the mains. You can finish the main storyline without ever interacting with either of the male love interests. You don't ever have to talk to Carrie. You definitely don't ever have to talk to River. Um, and you're also introduced to them much later in the game. You have less of a time to build a rapport with them and for that relationship to feel genuine.

And so even though I'm happy because the lesbian romance with Judy is the most well-developed in the entire game and it's great for me personally. I can see why if you were like a straight woman playing this game, you'd feel done kind of dirty because River's not a great character. They're not. And the fact that he's a cop with anger issues who got kicked off the force because of said anger issues is just like, to be an NCP decop who gets kicked off the force he theoretically gets kicked off the force for like questioning the authorities handling of certain cases but but after your character has a chance to say hey do not

do that if you want to keep your job yeah anyways also actually this is my contention Rivers romance arc is bad but it's written a lot like a straight man trying to romance someone. Hey, hey, hey. I'm sorry, but like the weird way too soon intimacy of some of his messages and the like, hey, we've worked together twice, wanna come over and fuck on my water tower after like six text messages and like two

missions how like weird and forwarding how despite even if you pick all the options that are like no he still tries anyway feels close to real life and that's bad it feels bad, it feels really uncomfortable. If you're a woman and then this guy's like, he sent you a bunch of sort of flirty texts and every time you're like, no. Eventually he's like, at least come over and see my family, we'll have dinner.

And you're like, cool, fine, I'll do it. And then at dinner, they try to make you like, raise your hand to say that you would make a good couple. And then he takes you alone to a secluded spot on top of a water tower and then pulls a gun. I mean, he's giving you the gun, but it's terrifying at the same time. You're like, wait, what? Do you know that? The second he pulls it? No.

He takes you to a secluded spot, pulls a gun, offers you a drink and says, Hey, do you want a bang? And you're like... If I had player control at that moment, I would have made him system collapse right then and there. Like, you can see why it feels incredibly awkward. And I will say it does make me laugh because then you have like dudes playing the game, encountering that and they're like, this feels really creepy and pushy. And you're like, yeah, yeah it does.

We put you through the woman dating simulator. Congratulations, it's fucking weird. But I just, I don't know, you two can have other thoughts. I just feel like both male romance options are done kind of dirty by the writers because they're introduced too late and they're not given enough to do

for the relationship to feel natural. Well, I do have some, because originally, reading back on some of the notes, it was supposed to be River who saves you from a landfill, not Takemura. They brought in Takemura afterwards because they wanted you to have some sort of connection with Arasaka to get you to do the Arasaka route. So that's why it feels like it's a bit rushed because you should have been doing

these missions with River or something. But also just kind of, you want to do the two missions with River and each time it's like you're investigating, you know Someone being murdered then you're trying to find his nephew and it's like okay. I helped you with this but This isn't a bonding experience. I've saved people by myself My doing this before so like I could have done this whole thing by myself and not need your help and probably have gotten there faster You know when rivers like oh, you know, we it's like trauma bonding. Cause we save these kids. I'm like, I saved 11 people yesterday and before lunch because of the nature of my job. You know what I mean? Like for V rescuing

the kids from that farm is like what V does for a living. And so it doesn't feel as like, it doesn't feel as like trauma bunny. Cause like, no, I've been through worse trauma. Cause I've literally seen, you know, scabs cutting people up and trying to sell their parts. I've been to maelstrom, you know, places like this is nothing new for me. This is just like, yeah, this kind of sucks for the kids, but, and there's, and you know, the serial killer is fucked up, but this is also another day.

You know, sorry, Catharine, you have something. Sorry. And it's just really disappointing that, um, they don't have any tie into the main quests. It's like, you're, you're at least heavily encouraged to go see Carrie. But River is just totally a side quest without any, like you could completely ignore that for a long time. All you have to do is never do the first Paralaz quest. Yeah.

Which is optional and you'd never encounter River ever. And here's the thing, I forgot I had it and I was like, I haven't done the Paralaz quest yet, where's River? And I'm like, oh shoot, I never called him because guess what? It doesn't show up as a marker on your map. It only shows up in your journal. Whereas like, yeah, because she contacted you to ask you to do work for her. But like you said, Carrie, at least you're strongly encouraged to start the quest chain that leads you to him, because Johnny is like, I need to go see Rogue, please,

which is what starts chipping in, which, you know, gets you the full set of Johnny armor. So yeah, also like you need to do chip in in if you want to get one of the endings. So yeah. So if you want to do the, you know. Yeah, so if you want to do the give body to Johnny. Or, no, if you want to do, also if you want to do, yeah, if you want to do the secret ending, don't fear the reaper ending, you need to do Chippin' In because the check

to get that ending available to you happens while you're in the oil field where Johnny's body got dumped. And you have to say the exact right thing to do it. But like, so if you never do Chippin' In, you're never going to do that. You know what I mean? And also, then if you don't do Chippin' In, you don't get the option to call Rogue after you meet for the ending, right? That's not one of the ending options available to you. So like you're encouraged to do with the quest chain that eventually leads you to Carrie. I do also think the Carrie romance is a

little weirdness to it because to me, it always felt like... A fling? Well, it feels like a fling, and flings are fine, but the fling feels weird because I feel like Carrie is displacing his attraction to Johnny onto you. And I think that's what it is, because if you, because yeah, because he sees you as Johnny,

and he's every time he calls, he's like, Hey, is this Johnny? And it's like, no, it's me. He's not like hooking up with you necessarily because he likes you. He's hooking up with you because to him, it's like a proxy for his feelings about Johnny, which I think is kind of weird. It's weird. Both of the male romance options also get weird responses from Johnny himself. Well, Johnny's at least for River's understandable. He's like, this cop's trying to fuck you and I don't want to do that.

But he legitimately says to you afterwards, I can't believe you made me fuck a cop. Which honestly having doing that the Johnny was a fun bit but The only good bit about that is that he says that and then you do get a t-shirt that says fuck the police Yes, which is great. Not worth it though No And then I don't know I've never done the carry one. What's he say if you hook up with Carrie? I never done that one because I ever got that far with a male be I I was playing it I haven't gotten there with male be so

And if I do have male be why would I not romance pan am yeah? Cuz that's the afternoon to have a male be you're romancing pan am because she's a fucking ride or die Yeah, literally. I need a favor. Sure. OK. What else? Quick. See, the thing with the writing is like Judy is a great partner. If you're like female V, like she's like sensitive and helpful. And like you build a rapport in a relationship with her

and you help her through a lot of shit. And like it makes sense. Pan Am is great, no matter which gender character you're playing, because as a guy, you know, she's a cool romance partner, and she's a lot of fun. And as a girl, she is like an instant bestie. Right? Like, as a girl, you know, you can call her and be like, Hey, I'm having some trouble. And she's like, I'll be there in five minutes. Especially coming from the Badlands. How did she get to Watson that quick?

Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. She was going 125. And even outside of the ending, throughout the game, Pan Am will just text you and just be like, yo, heard some shit was going down. What's up with you? You know what I mean? Like she just hits you up with messages to see how you're doing.

She'll just text you back, know what I mean? Like she just hits you up with messages to see how you're doing. She'll just text you back, how are you doing? Which is not something they do with most of the other characters. On multiple interactions in Phantom Liberty, where you get the option to reach out to some of your past contacts in order to get certain quests done.

There's one for Judy for sure. I've never hit any of those quests. You get to talk to Judy during the... Oh, yeah. The Phantom Nebula mission where the guy gets the beady scrambles his brain. Yes, I did do that. Yes, I talked to Judy. She's like, what kind of stupid gong are you? And I'm like, no, no, it wasn't me.

Then you get the option in one of the quests for one of the Bargast goons like he's kind of dumb and you get to play his what whatever what's his name in the flashbacks. Oh, Kurt Hansen. The leader of Bargast. Yeah, you get to play as Hansen. I almost said Chris Hansen. Cotipeto. Yeah, but no, you get to play as Kurt in his little like drug trips.

Yeah, I think his name is Pablo. In order to get Pablo either out of there or a new set of generators so that he doesn't get killed, Set of generators so that he doesn't get killed You can either call river to get the generators or you can call pan am to get them the hell out of there To smuggle them out of night city. That's right fucked up. I Just said late, let's just blame it on the tenant that is like, oh shit, he's dead Yeah, so you can call pad am like in that and help you even call River. Like you said, you can't call Carrie for anything, but we're talking about writing pan and gets her pan and gets her pan and gets

her own dedicated ending to the game. And it's if you're dating Judy, it's the best ending for Judy too. Yeah, it is. As we all did, if you're dating Judy, it is the best ending for Judy too. Yeah, it is. As we all did, if you're dating Judy, it is the best ending for Judy. It's the best ending for you as V and it's one of the it's the best ending for like Pan Am and her people and it's like those happen with those love interests. If you're dating River and the end of the game and you like either leave the city or do whatever

he his life doesn't go well. First off, he won't come with you if you leave the city. Number one and number two, so he doesn't love you that much. And the other ones were you like if you like disappear for a while and come back pressure if you do the one where you go to the moon for like two years to get cured and come back. He's like dead when you come back because he got into he got into some weird shit like dealing arms or something like his life doesn't go super well. And he basically just like I get by, I guess, when if you leave the city.

And even in the ending where you do go of Judy and Panem, he's like, yeah, I'm getting into arms dealing. And I'm like, you're an idiot. Yeah. He's like, I follow your'm getting into arms dealing. And I'm like, are you an idiot? Yeah. He's like, I follow your example. I'm dealing arms now. And you're like, what? That's not what I did.

That's not like what I did. And also, Cary, at least I understand why he wouldn't leave. He's like a legitimate rock star. And he's going on a tour anyways with the Uskraks. That's like who I love, by the way. Yeah, Uskraks is great. I listen to Ponpon shit unironically you same but like Carrie at least I get why he wouldn't go with you and it's why it's like just a

Fling he's also like 80 years old Carrie is also way talking about some age debt gap discourse V is in their 20s. Kerry is like in his 80s. Is that canon that V is in her 20s? So it depends. I think when the game first came out, V was canonically like 27. But then eventually the way it is now, if you look at the Wiki,

V is supposed to be like 23. Interesting. Which I don't really like. I think 27 sounds way better personally. I think that fits better. 27 club reference. Come on. Yeah, it's also 27 club reference. Yeah, Carrie, like Rogue, is in his 80s. Pan Am is supposed to be like 32. Judy's like 23, I think. River, I think in his 30s, maybe something like that. 30s or 40s. Which is like in my head of canon is like V was in like, you know,

20 late 20s. Yeah, I always felt like 27 felt about right for the life experience your character has. Yeah, I wouldn't feel like any younger than 27 would make that much sense. I could see someone being like, oh, she's 32. And it would make sense. Anywhere in the late 20s to early 30s makes sense to me. Yeah.

Also, I think it depends on your start. Because if you're Corpo V, it makes no sense for Corpo V to be 23. No. Especially if you're that burnt out on the verge of cyber psychosis. You should be in your late 20s early 30s. Nomad V I think should be in her like late 20s because you've already lived a significant portion of your life as a nomad. I think the only one that kind of makes sense to be in your early 20s is street kid V.

Because you go off to Atlanta for a bit and then you come back. Two years. So like that's the only one that makes sense being young. But again, we will do some joke about some internet age gap discourses. Care, you're trying to date Carrie, who is literally like 85 years old or whatever. Now age is a bit more stretched out in cyberpunk because implants and people stay a lot younger because Rogue is also in her 80s. But like, it's weird.

Not very. I think it's like romance and Carrie was like kind of uncomfortable for me. I'm like, you're like 60 years my senior. Well, at least, this is gross. And then whatever, you know, Johnny's trying to like romance rogue, but fails. And I'm like, I don't know if I like this Johnny. Well, you get why Johnny wants to do it, because Johnny is her age. Like, well, not really. Sort of.

Yeah, it's like 40 year old Johnny instead of course. Twenty five. It's like 25 year old Johnny instead of. Yeah. Yeah. Late 20s. Johnny's not age wise. He would have to be early 30s. Yeah. Yeah. When they storm Marisaka Tower. And back in like 2020. Yep. 2023. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's 2077. So like, yeah, like samurai had already had a career as a band by the time Johnny dies. So like Carrie and Denny and them are all like in their eighties. At least at least. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so I think even though the writing for like Pan Am and Judy is really good, and I want to give them credit for writing an incredibly good, like, you know, like lesbian romance, It's incredibly touching.

It's good. It's really well done. They just didn't give any of that energy to any of the male romance options. It's got none of it. So like, if you're a straight woman or a gay man, I'm sorry. Yeah. At least, you know, even just the,

it's about the age thing of Carrie. I thought, you know, I was like, yeah, this is a good, like you have a fling with him and then you're kind of done. But one thing I did enjoy that they added with the new like 2.1 or 2.2 was to bring your partner to your apartments. Really want to stay at your house. The little dates you can go on.

Yeah. You can bet. I'm going on that day. So what I do is I just wait for Judy to send the text saying, hey, I want to hang out. Because then it happens like, cannot agree with in game, it happens like every like three or four days

or something like that, which feels right. But no, those little hangouts are cool. They've got a bunch of little scripted events. You can like dance with your like loved one. Every apartment has a different weird little activity you can do depending on which apartment you're in. It's great. You know, and I really enjoy it because like sometimes you can do depending which apartment you're in. It's great You know, I really enjoy because like sometimes you can say hey meet me at this place Then you come back you have candles everywhere and you're you know, your relationship partners your romance partner

I'm like wow, you're here You go to your apartment and Judy has like sent you like pizza and the pizza She sends is all dependent on the pizza you chose back in one in her mission before you take over clouds. Do you know that? Yeah. When like, when Judy says, well, like what's your favorite pizza when she's ordering it before you go meet everyone at her apartment.

That's what she orders to send to your, like your apartment for like the rest of the game. When you go home and there's like a slice of pizza ready for you. It's, it's whatever you chose. That's so heartwarming. Way better. She's way better at recommending her partner's preferences than I have ever been in my life. Sorry. Partners. I'm like you're eating what I bake today. Sorry.

But that good stuff aside, you guys, you're ready to talk about they talk about some morality, talk about some endings, talk about some some of the more like heavier sort of themes going on that we've talked about the game sort of like its surface level and acceptance and stuff. Yes, but what you should do and make this part one. Yeah, you broke it up wherever I decide to break it up in editing. Alright, sounds good. Cut this out. I'm not going to decide right now because, you know what I mean, it might be natural here, it might not. We'll find out.

Okay, no worries. Be fuckin' real, man. Come on.