It is undoubtedly in keeping with the cynicism of the Cyberpunk genre to have the police outsource its work to freelance vigilantes. The action RPG never questions the ethics of this practice, encouraging you to carry out the Night City Police Department’s dirty work from day one. Throughout the game, V can undertake side missions for the police, bringing in perpetrators for rewards. However, what is disappointing is that, while promising in places, Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t go the whole hog in its embodiment of the genre. Without spoiling too much, the protagonist, David, has a trajectory not dissimilar to Johnny’s his struggle against corporate power brimming with cynical, yet noble, rebelliousness. Alt Cunningham, Johnny’s old flame, does precisely this, transcending her mortal body and becoming a profoundly powerful AI, not unlike the eponymous Neuromancer in Gibson’s book.ĬD Projekt Red’s sci-fi opus follows in the footsteps of Neuromancerįast-forward to the present day, and Cyberpunk 2077’s own anime spin-off series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners does an excellent job of depicting anti-authoritarian struggles against monolithic megacorps. CD Projekt Red’s sci-fi opus also follows in the footsteps of Neuromancer in its analysis of the singularity – the theoretical point where human and artificial intelligence becomes indistinguishable.

In the Delamain side quests, V must deal with the consequences of AI fracturing as he begins to question whether or not it’s worth being more than just a cab driver. In contrast, Neuromancer follows an ex-hacker whose defiance of his employer left him disabled and unable to access virtual reality.īoth materials are explicitly echoed in Cyberpunk 2077, speaking to the title’s genre pedigree. Both use the layer of abstraction offered by their futuristic settings to confront and challenge troubling aspects of our current reality.īlade Runner follows a group of Replicants who escape from their indentured servitude. Many see the birth of the modern cyberpunk genre as concurrent with the release of William Gibson’s seminal sci-fi novel Neuromancer in 1984 and Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner.

Gibson neuromancer