Cyberpunk 2077 and loving a world that hates you.

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The strange thing about cyberpunk as a genre is the fact that so many people yearn for it. I think it says something about the world we live in. It's like we have all of the dystopia, but none of the flashiness.

I clocked in over a hundred hours and 2 playthroughs before discovering that Arasaka had built a memorial for the tower Johnny blew up. I wandered into it completely by accident, and was just like "woah."

This game may have the most accurate depiction of humans struggling with mental health and suicide I have ever seen depicted anywhere. I remember the horrible situations and the consequences, the tolls it took on their psyches. It just seemed so real. The the way the characters process survivors guilt. If you choose the secret ending with V committing suicide, My god the phone calls are scary realistic. I rememeber actually tearing up when I saw Judy’s face stained with mascara that had been cried away who knows how long ago and the way the sadness hung off every word she said. And just going back to V. That ending, it seems so… real. A person who has been fighting tooth and nail to stay alive, and fight to go on maybe get revenge. And in the end, they’re just tired and want it to be over. No sadness, no fear, they want their own terms, under their control. It sent chills down my body. Like I said. It felt real. Same with Ev, you didn everything to help her and did your best and in the end you save her. Only for her to end it. Trauma is very real and this game handles it masterfully. Okay rant over

One thing I love about Night City is to compare it during the day. During the night it looks beautiful, flashy, colorful, cool. But during the day when the hot sun shines on the city in the afternoon it looks dirty, you see the smoke, and the pollution. It’s like a drug that looks flashy and beautiful at night, but during the day when you come down from your high, you see how shitty the city really is.

On my second playthrough I unlocked the cool ending with the big house on the rooftop and when I was looking through the glass in the living room I felt sad. I thought, "Man, Jackie would have loved this." and decided to pull out my phone to say goodbye to him again. Imagine my surprise when I hit the call button and V actually talks to Jackie's voicemail, with the same emotion in his voice that I was currently feeling in that moment. That moment stayed with me for a really long time.

Never before has someone so succinctly described what I love about Cyberpunk settings - I know it's a terrible place; I know it's a depiction of despair and hopelessness; I know it's a warning of sorts; but the way it looks, the way it feels is unmatched. You hit the nail on the head and beyond. This video gets me.

Cyberpunk's World is the definition of "If it hits, it hits". Its the japanese influence, the Tech, design in all aspects - from people to places. Whether a district is supposed to look run down or futuristic & polished, there is always a cohesive aesthetic to it, which is often missing from the real world, it all looks intentional. Its a Video Game so you are not in any real danger, so the vibrant, overly stimulating, action-filled, buzzing city of diverse characters is just exciting. It taps into your desires of exploring a foreign area and freedom of doing whatever you want in that area - its honestly has a similar feeling to going on vacation to a place with an entirely different culture. A part of us lowkey wants that experience of being lost in a vivid, urban, colorful, overwhelming place with that kick of slight energizing volatility and mystery for once - as long as we are not in ACTUAL danger, the immersive world of a video game is perfect for this. Our current futuristic mega cities are sad, bland, being stuck at office jobs, libertarian ideology, everyone looks boring and the same, filled with crime and artifical networking bs, but we dont have the vibrance, the aesthetic...Its like our version of Cyberpunk is worse than the actual genre. Our real life Cyberpunk has the same issues, but without the style, excitment and stimulation.

Jackie's death really hit for me too. I knew it was coming but he was such a likeable character and they didn't just snuff the lights from nowhere. We saw him shit, bleeding out and 5 minutes later he finally succumbed to the wounds right as we made it. I feel like it's hard to build a connection with a virtual character but after Jackie's death I swore to myself I'd use his bike for everything to keep Jackie close.

This feels like a love letter to night city

I'm nearly 150 hours playing and I think I've used Fast Travel maybe 3 or 4 times. I'm always enthralled by the atmosphere and vision of Night City that we're given, and I have been a fan of Night City since I played the TTRPG of Cyberpunk 2020 back in the 80's. I just love everything they have done to make the city feel alive.

I truly appreciate that you didn’t put any music in the background. I’ve gotten subconsciously tired of video essays with snarky, half-backed jokes and lo-fi tracks, or whatever playing behind the VO. No music gave my brain a rest and it’s easier to concentrate and actually remember what you’re saying. And for that reason alone, I now subbed to your channel. Thank you.

I think, inevitably, the overall story of Cyberpunk 2077 is more about finding your community, your family, and realizing that you can always find the people who will love and support you where you're at. Jackie and his mom didn't have to open up their home to you. You don't have to befriend Judy, or Panam, or River, or any of the other questlines in that vein, you chose to seek out community in those moments. It's looking at the environment and going "This sucks, but at least I found what matters." At the beginning, you're chasing glory and wanting to leave a mark on the world. In the end, you realize you make your mark on the world in the community you end up forging. The ending that makes this the most clear to me is if you take the easy way out. How many people call your voicemail to grieve? And even if the world sucks, there's always something to look forward to, and that you inevitably do matter, whether or not the game makes you believe otherwise.

I'm a 50 year old dude, so I didn't think much about it the first bunch of times I jumped into a car in Cyberpunk, or there was a radio on close by, heard a song I liked, and just stayed in the car or close to the radio, until the song was over. Just today it occurred to me that there may be a couple of generations of kids that have all their music downloaded, have never listened to the radio, and have never experienced the little joy of hearing a good song on the radio, and being excited that they happened to be listening at the moment that song was playing. Cyberpunk may be the first or only time for a whole lot of people to have that experience.

Your commentary on Night City and the duality of the love and hate for it is spot-on, and it perfectly captures the feeling that I have with the environment in particular. I am currently ~100 hours into the game and I am obsessed with the noir that the game encapsulates, but it also feels like how Night City is advertised to be; a place of opportunity, money, success, connections, and hope. And maybe it feels like that's how I want Night City to be, but then I see the gang wars, the XBD's, the rampant crime, the corrupt NCPD, the Megacorps, the twisted Ripperdocs, and the individual fixers that pull me out of the idea of what it is and pull me into the reality of Night City; it's just another place that chews you up and spits you out.

"Maybe they named it Night City as a lampshade about how dark the world can be, but sitting out here on this bluff somehow this places looks like every star in the sky to me." You sir, are a goddamn poet.

So many people I've watched complained or commented on the different life plan,, saying something along the lines of "A Cheap Trick, Lazy planning/game design etc" But your the first person I've heard actually make it sound like a positive and not a negative,, and it makes perfect sense.. .no matter how different these individual characters past lives are,, in Night City it'll all end the same And wow,, thanks for that

I can't form words that describe how much I love this game and this video perfectly captures what makes Cyberpunk and Night City so fucking impactful and amazing.

I consider myself a "completionist". I feel compelled to get every achievement, explore every quest and get every item in games. During my first Cyberpunk playthrough, when the floor collapses under V and Johnny pushes you to get the F out of the building after meeting Arasaka Hanako, I did just that. Never even thought about the possibility of going back and saving Takemura. After finishing my first playthrough I realized that the death of Takemura can be avoided. That I was so into the story, so invested in what was happening at that moment that it activated my "fight or fly" response... and I fled. I'm still a completionist. I'm still playing the game trying to get everything the game has to offer me. But with every playthrough, I realize I'm more and more involved with Night City and its inhabitants. That I honestly could care less about my own (V's) destiny as long as I at least try to help the characters in my life. And I realize that the moments that I enjoy the most are the moments that involve Panam, Judy, River, Kerry or any other character. I just love the way the game values human connection in a world that is designed to chew you and spit you out without a second thought. Anyway... I clearly loved your video. Thank you for posting it.

man the phone system and the text messages in this game REALLY hit. On a first playthrough especially it's just SO close to feeling real, really well done and adds a lot of humanity and life to the side characters