The whole notion of actual billboards in a wired-to-fuck cyberland seems highly quaint in the first place, and I suspect is only one of many writing fudges this thing will serve up
Ruh-roh
3 Likes
Man, remember when someone said an early version of this game had you shooting old poor people in scooters, and people were like ânah, it canât be that.â?
Iâm pretty sure it was that.
"As for The Animals, if you play through the game youâll see that theyâre not mostly black people, itâs mixed.â
Actual quote from a person doing PR for this game holy shit.
2 Likes
yeah this is starting to look like the open world version of bioshock infinite. it canât be that bad, mind, but if this is the framework weâre working with 10 months out Iâm not very hopeful.
also it turns out keeanu is the talking head in the corner of the screen. which, you know, great, but Iâd rather not have the talking head in the corner of the screen.
âThis action video game is racist,â and âthis action video game has shitty actionâ are serious issues, but âthis action video game doesnât offer a meaningful exploration of the nature of identityâ sounds like barking up the wrong tree. Did anyone honestly expect it to be more than future GTA?
itâs not like itâs doom, though. this is an RPG, and it went out of its way to license an RPG name. it should be able to scrounge up something to say as an RPG set in a giant city in the capitalist cyberpunk apocalypse. it just seems like a pointless waste to turn that into gunman busts up drug deals for the mob and the mob 2 for 70 hours. they can play it safe, though, because this game is already untouchable from The Gamerâs perspective. remember when that guy said he was disappointed that the game just looked like future GTA last year, and the entire internet tried to hang him for it? yeah, thatâs not going to get any better.
5 Likes
i mean, honestly, yeah? for years, all i have ever heard from every wrpg fan is an endless torrent of praise for The Witcher 3 being the pinnacle of the genre, etc. etc. (having played The Witcher 3, finally, this past year, uhâŠitâs fine?), so i guess i had the impression that this game would be striving for that level of nuance, because that was CDPRâs âthing,â so to speak.
however, i also know that one of their previous âthingsâ was collectible trading cards of ladies you fucked, soâŠthis scenario wasnât totally implausible, either!
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I totally agree that itâs a waste of the name, thatâd be fantastic if it did tackle those themes, and I definitely donât want to sound like Iâm standing up for this game because Iâve got zero interest in it (and I donât even deal with GOG anymore this company put me off so hard), but amid all the E3 hype Iâm reminded of No Manâs Sky. These drawn out development times allow for fansâ imaginations to run completely wild based on very little, and when they donât live up theyâre fodder for all that creepy misappropriated âconsumer rightsâ talk.
That said it takes like negative development time to not to make your game transphobic or racist.
people breathlessly defend the witcherâs ânuanceâ despite it being a lily white misogyny theme park & iâm beginning to think those folks are full of shit??
at least if this game is bad i wonât have to deal with years of people excusing blatant transphobia because the game is their kind of power fantasy
7 Likes
It is definitely starting to feel like their social media guy being a shithead and the women-you-fucked card game were not the aberations they were made out to be.
6 Likes
itâs nuanced, because depending on Player Agency and Choices every woman in the game can either get burned alive or fuck you
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not a lot of countries out there that were more diverse 100 years ago but see
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The real cyberpunk is hacking CD Project and making their game better 
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donât you know that if you casually namedrop a bunch of extremely heavy, sensitive subject matter in a grim sagely voice with mood lighting it automatically qualifies your media as Art
you donât have to, like, actually confront those issues, or acknowledge their scope, or offer any helpful insight
2 Likes
Ugh that fucken billboard really seals it, huh. I hope they get verbally flayed by a reporter. (Austin Walker, your country needs you.)
With Eidos Montreal on Avengers I guess Iâm hoping System Shock 3 is alright
Cyberpunk hasnât meant anything for like 30 years. It feels like we just embraced the hell slide now. Showing me whats at the bottom is not a shock or a new worry anymore.
An anti corp, pro humanity message in a novel is one thing but you try to deliver that to me in a AAA game with full marketing push, merchandise and so on and I can do naught but laugh. Like no matter how good it is, its a multi million dollar piece of immersive software in a genre that talks about the dangers of same. Can you use that obvious irony? Maybe, but probably not without being differently hamfisted.
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People would still rather drive a truck
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i remember walking downstairs in some castle pretty early in the witcher 3, hearing two NPCs quote pulp fiction and thinking to myself âso this is the MATURE ADULT VIDEOGAME everybody has been praising!!â
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Witcher 3 is ânuancedâ insofar as the consequences of every choice you make have some kind of downside. Thereâs a broad overarching Boilerplate High Fantasy Plot about Magical Girl Daughter being pursued by an Extra-Dimensional Death Metal Album Cover but you spend most of your time in the mud with fucked up people trying to resolve petty problems. The writing isnât Great, but it reads as Interesting in a vidcon context because thereâs rarely a One Right Thing and I think this withholding of easy satisfaction still feels kinda unusual if the primary source of Storytelling in your life is videogames.
Itâs easier to be less-gross in fantasy. The conventions of a pseudo-European medieval setting lean toward problematic but I think fans are so used to them that they donât always think through the implications, and you get points for whatever progressive updates you throw onto The Formula. Look at all these Lady Wizards who are strong and wise and know Geralt is an idiot also play your cards right to do a CINEMAX sshhhhhh, etc.
Near-future science fiction extrapolates more heavily and directly from the modern world. Youâre not dealing with fictional fantasy races but actual human ethnicities! Social problems are more likely to 1:1 our own! The filters are almost gone; weâre much closer to the creators with far less mediation and we get their takes on the world we live in and their takes on the world we live in turn out to be fucked.
Canât believe CDProjekt Red have something so in common with Gene Wolfe. 
8 Likes