Since when did "Cyberpunk" become a catch-all term for "dystopian setting with neon lights an rain" ? I've been researching the origins of the genre and it's mainly defined by the two words, "Cyber" and "Punk"
The cyber is meant to signify the Cyberspace, a world in which exists alongside the reality and the two are distinguish-ably different, yet most Cyberpunk works in vidya don't echo this whatsoever. It's all reality based. "Punk" is supposed to signify the idea of style as a weapon and rebellion against authority but every protagonist in cyberpunk games just wears a fucking black coat or some shit and walks around smoking like he's sticking it to the man.
The whole idea is that it's a merger of low life with high technology but nearly every story in video games just focuses on some kind of middle class equivalent cyborg running around shooting shit in a Hong Kong esque setting and shaking their fist at the establishment. Is video games such a degenerate genre that everything interesting gets boiled down to its most fundamental basic parts to appeal to the masses?
Will the future be a good means for the genre? It died a long time ago in that the premise didn't allow for much exploration however since the rise of video games many examples have come along with the only real notable one being the original Deus Ex. Regarding the future only one game stands out to me as it's high budget: Cyberpunk 2077. Will it be good?
Charles Rodriguez
Cyberpunk is kinda dead mostly because all that cyberpunk shit is reality now. You have people with robotic arms, VR, internet, smartphones, cybercriminals, stuxnet, iot etc. Thus cyberpunk became a more dystopian and, in some ways, more fantastic version of the modern world.
Outside of a retrofuturistic context the genre has no future.
Samuel Powell
I think it has a future, lots of genres evolve and adapt but strangely this one never did. Feels like it was born and killed with Gibson's work, nothing even comes close to it.
John Russell
if you want to experience cyberpunk life you literally can now I've done it for like 3 years now i'm so schway that people think im homeless and schizophrenic
you can buy anything online and have it delivered to you and you can even live as a delivery boy in the future and have no hope for the future besides what you steal, borrow, or buy to prolong your life like any survival video game
Jason Williams
The problem with cyberpunk is that the reality turned out to be wilder and weirder than anything the genre has spawned. To adapt the genre would have to become futuristic again, without going full techno-magic sci-fi, and that's hard because every futuristic technology you can think of is being developed by somebody out there, right now, in reality. The progress is just so incredibly fast these days.
Ryan Smith
>people think im homeless and schizophrenic sure they only think it, it's not true
Aaron Richardson
My friend lives like that. Works online. Buys shit online. Living the cyberpunk dream, basically.
Daniel Evans
>The cyber is meant to signify the Cyberspace, a world in which exists alongside the reality and the two are distinguish-ably different, yet most Cyberpunk works in vidya don't echo this whatsoever. Nah bullshit, the 'cyberspace' is just often something that is very much integrated in everything, basically internet or something similar with different name.
Grayson Cruz
Cyberpunk is a shit genre invented by marxists go to against da big bad corporations.
The only punk I'm down with is post-apocalypse where every man is for himself.
Sebastian Price
The core principle of cyberpunk is "new technology same old problems"
Ie no matter how advanced we become, we will never truly solve the problems inherent in humanity.
That is what seperates cyberpunk from shit like steampunk, which is just astetics and absolutly nothing more.
Owen Myers
I like you guy's perspectives on this
Honestly all I expected was shitposting when I opened this thread so I'm pleasantly surprised
Jeremiah Phillips
Punk is also supposed to represent the complete and utter disregard for human life.
Noah Thomas
>The cyber is meant to signify the Cyberspace, a world in which exists alongside the reality and the two are distinguish-ably different I agree with this there's not enough "cyberspace" shenanigans in cyberpunk games, they all stick with just hacking and reading emails Dude Sex hacking is legit but it should have more "cyberwarfare" shit both in story and game mechanics.
>Cyberpunk is a shit genre invented by marxists go to against da big bad corporations. nigga, thats a limited perspective, lots of cyberpunk stories are about being a corp or working for one and robo punch the shit out of "punks"
Kevin Harris
>The cyber is meant to signify the Cyberspace wrong. > "Punk" is supposed to signify the idea of style as a weapon... every protagonist in cyberpunk games just wears a fucking black coat or some shit and walks around smoking Wrong again, but the stuff in between is right so, you get a kinda right as well.
Jason Russell
>tfw Cyberpunk 2077 might be held back by consoles like with Witcher 3
Shame we still hardly know anything about the game apart from multiplayer being a core part of the game (not good news for me personally)
Luis Price
No, cyber is about transhumanism and how it makes humans both more and less than humans, and how the PTB use this fact, and the punk is about the resistence against that.
At its core it has nothing to do with cyberspace or style.
John Thomas
>cyber is about transhumanism
Maybe post-cyberpunk is, but not the original Cyberpunk genre.
Jack Bell
>Shame we still hardly know anything about the game apart from multiplayer being a core part of the game (not good news for me personally)
Except we know no such thing.
>MUH GOVERNMENT GRANT Yeah, one of four CDPR got.
Nathaniel Cook
>he doesn't know
Jose Anderson
Cyberpunk in general is weird idea to bring back in a sense that it's a very finite set of ideas and concepts, not to mention we effectively are one step away from living in a cyberpunk world. There's a reason why cyberpunk faded away as a genre early on in the '90s.
Benjamin Powell
>Cyberpunk in general is weird idea to bring back in a sense that it's a very finite set of ideas and concepts, it's just rehashes of those same ideas that were explored primarily in books 20+ years. so of course, it's all fresh to video game players who never read anything that was mandated by their elementary school.
Christian Butler
The problem with Cyberpunk is that it's very specific.
Seen a Cyberpunk setting a few times and you have seen it all.
Tyler Walker
>Except we know of no such thing.
Seamless Multiplayer, on the other hand, is a “complex technology for making unique multiplayer gameplay mechanics, including the ability to search out for opponents, manage game session, replicate objects, as well as support for different game modes along with a unique set of dedicated tools." Animation Excellence and Cinematic Feel are likely more self-explanatory.
We contacted CD Projekt Red to confirm the veracity of the applications, to which the studio's Robert Malinowski replied: "We did apply, I can confirm that, yes. However, we wouldn't like to elaborate beyond what's already there."
That's what I was talking about, CD Project Red were hiring suitable people for multiplayer
Justin Myers
Cyberpunk is/was very much a product of its time: The 80s. Fears of Japanese economic dominance, a loose understanding of how computers work, cities descending into violence, a love of 'punks' as a group, the good ol' Cold War undercurrent of an impending apocalypse. And of course the neon, rainy aesthetic that came to be associated with the things.
That sort of thing.
Plus we're living in the age of 80s/90s nostalgia, because the kids of yesterday are the aging cash cows of today!
Alexander Harris
Well, first of all people normally perceive the world mainly visually. So the lasting impressions from games, films and art are general palette and symbols. Think about it - when you think about the Matrix you remember trench-coats and green numbers, when you think about Blade Runner you remember giant billboards with asian ladies and flying cars. Cyberpunk as a genre is about dark themes, lowlifes of society. Therefore yea, it's generally associated with night, rain, artificial lights and neon signs. I am pissed off by people who think that darkness and neon lights ARE cyberpunk, though. Cyberpunk is a combination of ideas creating a setting, not a visual style.
Now, a different question is how to make a decent cyberpunk game that is true to origins of the genre instead of generic cyborg shooting up stuff. You can go full abstraction and create "hacking" game with no people at all and just visual representation of hacking nodes or whatever. The thing is, the idea of cyberpunk in the books from the 80s is quite different from what actually happened. We have powerful corporations and amazing tech. But actual hacking is not done by people "diving into mainframe and breaking ice". It's a fairly visually boring process with a dude sitting in front of his computer and typing. Unless you abandon realism, noting fancy will happen.