Cyberpunk 2077 Inspired me to be More Human

Meet V: an ultra-customizable individual living in Night City in the year 2077, on the run in one way or another. As a lovergirl, I, of course, created V, both times I played the game, to be attractive by my own standards (at least visually).

Cyberpunk focuses on some of the most deplorable aspects of society and the U.S. today, cranks up the saturation, and gives you the opportunity to go apeshit on a corrupt corporation making mind-altering biochips and AI save states for personhood.

V lives their life, to some extent, based on their upbringing as either a 1- street rat with harem pants, 2- an insider “corpo” working in the swanky city center, or 3- a dune-dwelling nomad from the outskirts. Narratively, the game leads you to rage against the evil megacorp, Arasaka. V has a lot of choices, and the game changes based on those choices.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game and would rather not disclose just how many hours I spent playing it, especially the second time. V in my world was a complete drone physically. I beefed him up and maxed out his cyberware, giving him electric gorilla arms, a hard-drive wired to his brain and eyes, physically impossible jumping mechanics, and more. V romanced as many NPCs as possible and lived my fantasy of being a corporation-smashing bicon baddie.

Despite his ridiculous carbon-fiber face plates and creepy biomechanical eyeballs, V was the most human character I have ever played. The writers of Cyberpunk dedicated many versions and patches of this game to highlight — even in dystopian Night City, surrounded by ads literally screaming “HATE YOUR MEAT?” and gun violence on every corner — humanity can bear a lightness. Amidst loss and absolute despair, there can be sweetness. New beginnings can be found or created. Memories live on and V breathes life into them. In the least subtle way, V is a person, the person-est person. Part of that is good writing, and part of that is how I played and interpreted Cyberpunk.

On my second playthorugh, I spent more than 40 hours exploring the nooks and crannies of Night City. V eavesdropped many discussions and got in many fistfights as a result. One particular mission, no matter how it is approached by the player, ends in pure helplessness. The game doesn’t have a checkpoint or start over option for this mission, nor do V’s actions change the outcome. How breathtakingly simple: even a caked-up superhuman with boundless empathy, resources, and mercenary fighters can’t save the world from the greed of the powerful few. So instead of doing that, this V went home, changed into his most expensive outfit, and rang his collaborator to eat gross corporate-slop tempura outside the megabuilding he lives in.

The heavy-handed metaphors in Cyberpunk embody the prescient and growing urgency of our own agency as individuals. Each time I have started this game, V’s neighbor has died by suicide, and I thought he was unsavable according to the plot. I refuse to use a game guide to figure out how to save him, because I want to organically discover the singular solution through gameplay. The creators and developers intend for me to save this friend, but I/V don’t/doesn’t know how to. That despair is definitely part of the point this game makes often: you get one chance to live and you can’t save everyone, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

This narrative style is extremely effective and powerful for me personally. When the high-contrast neon colors and ficitonal supercars are stripped away, I see a hazy reflection of my own life. If I were to stay a miserly “corpo” and fail to even meet my neighbors in the real life equivalent of a megabuilding, am I any better than an unacting V? If I literally never set aside my own pride, the Arasakas of the world would win. Maybe I can’t do it alone, but I wonder what would happen if more of us tried.

V often looks in the mirror, and the first few frames of Cyberpunk show V standing in front of their own reflection. When choosing the “corpo” background, the player sees V stepping away from the mirror, looking fly as hell in their white collar outfit, grappling with the emptiness of working for a billionaire’s empire. That is long before V becomes a mercenary-for-hire on a warpath to save themselves and the rest of Night City from said billionaries.

When I look in the mirror, I sometimes wonder what I’d do if I could march myself around like a highly customizable avatar armed with, at the very least, reckless abandon and a heart full of empathy.