The CD Projekt RED game follows the script of this subgenre of science fiction, whose fundamentals we review in the article.
It is the future, a future in which technology has made unthinkable things possible, although not all progress is progress. Under the neon lights, at street level, people live at the mercy of large corporations, which, using their unique and exclusive resources, have managed to control every aspect of citizens' lives. Night City, the city of Cyberpunk 2077, shares all these characteristics.
Nothing escapes the interests of companies, nothing goes unnoticed to them. He is a Big Brother where power is channeled through technology. The city, whose nights are lit with electric lighting, is just as artificial as the benefits it promises, just as unnatural as the technological implants to which many people have surrendered. The new production of CD Projekt RED, also creators of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, follows the main lines of this subgenre of science fiction, cyberpunk.
Origin and characteristics of the genre
The title of the Poles is based on Cyberpunk 2020, a role-playing game that is set in the second decade of the new millennium, although that date has already arrived in the contemporary world. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the word cyberpunk was coined by writer Bruce Bethke, who wrote a story with that title in 1982. He derived the term from the word cybernetic (the science of replacing human functions with computerized functions) and punk, the style musical popularized during the seventies and eighties. Even so, "editor Gardner Dozois is usually credited" for extending the term. Authors such as William Gibson, Lewis Shiner, Pat Cadigan, Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker or John Shirley helped back these stories in successive years. On the other hand, the influence of the movie Blade Runner and Neuromancer left a bit that has remained until today.
The general image of the subgenus has not changed excessively over the years. "The future has been portrayed the same for at least four decades," publishes The Guardian. "A dense horizon full of skyscrapers, company logos illuminating the night sky that proclaim ownership of the city."
In the alleys, there is a mixture of neon lights and a rain that does not clean, but permeates dirt on the floor and walls. Not all areas are dusty, as the rich have their luxury spaces for personal entertainment. At the same time, criminal gangs, leather and people with colorful hairs draw a world as picturesque as it is dangerous, where the truth can never be taken for granted. In a way, the protagonists always tend to be social rebels within an individualistic culture. They try to uncover the conspiracies and end the unfair situation in which they live, but they are protagonists full of nuances, gray, after all.
The manipulation of the masses
"Cyberpunk offers a post-national and globalized vision of society in which those who know how to manipulate information are at the top, a very recognizable world view today," explains Dr. Anna McFarlane, an academic specializing in that subgenre. .
Scientia potentia est (knowledge is power) is a phrase that has been attributed to Sir Francis Bacon, an English philosopher who lived in the 16th century and was no stranger to power, since he served King James I as a politician. Pronounce or not pronounce the phrase in question (his secretary used it in his writings), the nobleman and father of philosophical empiricism gave way to a truth fully in force today, something that is shared with cyberpunk products.
However, the manipulation of knowledge, truth and lies is not exclusive to contemporary society. In fact, in ancient Rome politics employed these tactics with skill. After all, the panem et circenses (bread and circus) has gone down in history as one of the famous phrases of the empire (which was previously a republic and monarchy in its early years). There is no doubt that cyberpunk embraces manipulation as one of its nuclear issues, but it intertwines them with technology and with an aesthetic with very recognizable elements.
The tone of satire reflects the current world without ambiguity. In the times of social networks, where people's life often turns without a filter, the image is a mirage of reality, when not a completely false image. From the positions of power, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have become powerful tools capable of twisting the messages to transform them into fast appetizing very appetizing for slot machines.
"Cyberpunk is a genre that talks about how new technologies will colonize our bodies and penetrate our lives," says Adam Roberts, science fiction writer and professor at the Royal Holloway. "The reality is that technology has not colonized both our bodies and our social interactions, with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc." All this has “far-reaching consequences,” according to the author.
The case of the United States
Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter have in common their status as large corporations. In the modern world, political campaigns are held during rallies, but they also move in a much more swampy terrain. As the companions of EL PAÍS collect, the team of US President Donald Trump used all the resources necessary to conquer the White House. In fact, all these companies had their own office within the Republican Party: “They were helping us to use the platform in the most efficient way possible. When you are injecting millions and millions of dollars into these social platforms (between 70 and 85 million on Facebook), you receive preferential treatment, with representatives who make sure to meet all our needs. ”
The purchase of proTrump ads from Moscow on the Mark Zuckerberg platform, all created from fake accounts, cornered the top person in charge of Facebook, who ended up recognizing that those ads had reached more than 10 million users. Later, the Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren wanted to demonstrate the ease with which Facebook admitted fake messages, as long as they were paid the corresponding amount of money. “We have intentionally prepared an ad with false proclamations and sent it to the Facebook ad platform to see if it would be approved. They approved it quickly and the ad is running on Facebook, ”criticized the senator.
“Facebook has an incredible power when it comes to affecting the elections and our national debate. They have decided to allow political figures to lie to you, even on Facebook, while their executives and investors become even richer with the ads that contain these lies. ” Warren continued raising the tone in the Twitter thread, to the point that he assured that the platform had introduced his hands in the “disinformation of political discourse”, since “when the benefit collides with the protection of democracy, Facebook chooses the benefit".
The Twitter network, on the other hand, stepped aside and announced the ban on political ads on its platform. According to Jack Dorsey, founder and executive director of the company, "the scope of a political message should be something that is earned, not bought." This position contrary to that of Facebook explains it in his message:
“A political message gains influence when people decide to follow an account or retweet it. Paying for more scope eliminates that decision and forces political messages to be optimized and directed. We believe that this decision should not be limited by money, ”said the manager. Although Dorsey himself acknowledged that Internet advertising "is incredibly powerful" because of its effectiveness, "that power has important political risks", where it is possible to use those tools to influence votes and "the lives of millions of people."
Christopher Bolton, professor of comparative literature and Japanese literature at Williams Collegue, thinks that the worst omens of the cyberpunk genre have been fulfilled. “Ironically, the fate of cyberpunk in our media culture shows us a path in which pessimistic and original predictions of the genre have come true. We are living in a future in which the original, the physical and the political are being eclipsed and replaced by virtual and media realities that are copied again and again in a chain of endless distortion, ”he says.
Controversies in Cyberpunk 2077
The development of Cyberpunk 2077 itself has not been without controversy. A sign featuring a woman with a penis announcing a soda that tastes like “16 flavors that you love to mix” was described as transphobic by the community. However, Kasia Redesiuk, art director of the video game, argued that this decision had been taken to reflect that corporations take advantage of people in the context of the video game. “This person is sexy, I like how he looks. This model has been used, its beautiful body is used, for corporate reasons. They are instrumentalized as objects, and that is something terrible. ”
The artistic responsible reflects and deepens that idea. In the year 2077 in which the title is set, "the offer of body modifications that are available is wide". Everyone can mix those parts and become what one wants. "Even, society is more open to different types of relationships."
CD Projekt RED has wanted to highlight a very common problem in the contemporary world. "All this is to show that as in today's modern world, hypersexualization in advertisements is horrible," says Redesiuk, while asserting that He never wanted to offend with the design. “It has been a conscious decision. I love female bodies. I love male bodies. I like bodies in between. This is what I am. However, I hate when they are used commercially, and this is exactly what I want to convey. ”
The Polish developer was modifying the character editor and in the end decided that the players selected between the different parts of the body without choosing a specific genre. Marthe Jonkers, a conceptual artist, made it clear that they wanted to make a truly inclusive product. “You don't choose 'I want to be a woman or a man'; Now what you do is choose a body type. Because we want to give you the freedom to create the character you want. ”
Cyberpunk 2077 retains all the basic elements of the genre and reflects on some of the issues that touch society closely. "It is deeply fascinating for us to explore the relationship between humanity and technology, as well as the way it shapes life in 2077," says Miles Tost, level designer. "What does this level of technology mean in a world in which 'rich' and 'poor' have taken practically new meanings in terms of their dimensions?" He asks.
"The future is here, only unevenly distributed," as William Wilson, author of Neuromancer. The picture is the same in the CD Projekt RED game. "For us, the cyberpunk genre explores a dystopian world with little life," but dominated by high technology. Tost says he is focused on street stories. "Our protagonist is not the kind of character that comes out to save the world."
