Cyberpunk 2077 Will Be Political, Dev Claims

The cowards over at Ubisoft will make games about shooting unarmed looters, fighting against a religious cult, and overthrowing governments, and pretend that their games aren’t political, or if they are, they don’t stand for anything in particular. It’s easy to understand why they’d say that, given that they don’t want to risk offending anyone on any particular side of the isle, because an offended wallet isn’t an open one and nothing matters to them more than that sweet green. But not all studios are wimps: specifically, CD Projekt Red, who is making the bold-and-proud statement that of course Cyberpunk 2077 will be political.

Speaking with Official Xbox Magazine, quest designer Patrick Mills said this:

"Cyberpunk 2077 is a game about people with power at the top and people at the bottom with none. That power can come from money, hierarchies, technology and violence. The original Cyberpunk 2020 setting, like the setting of The Witcher stories, was a complex critique of the author's world, and we don't shy away from that in our games. On the contrary I think it's one of the things that sets us apart [...] Cyberpunk is an inherently political genre and it's an inherently political franchise."

Damn right. He’s also right about Cyberpunk being innately political - it’s hard to imagine any cyberpunk game being ‘divorced’ from some kind of political commentary, but if you ever found one then chances are it’s not very good. This is probably especially true for the world of Cyberpunk 2077, which depicts a world where the ultra-rich company owners live in luxury while the rest of the world is trapped in a perpetual purgatory of near-slavery and violence. So if you expect this story to be especially pro-capitalist/free market, I think you’ve got another thing coming.

Anyway, good on him for being so forward.