No matter where we come from we’re all headed to the same place.
The eternal oblivion is an inevitability every human must grapple with, the concept of death is terrifying and for much of our lives we will spend many years pondering the idea and coming to terms with the inevitability of such a fate. It’s our choice whether or not we will waste those moments or if we will face down death and live our lives to the fullest despite our eventual fate. Cyberpunk is a game about life and death, how we grapple with our mortality and what will use our remaining time on this planet doing. Will we push away the ones we love to avoid hurting them or will we spend our final weeks making the most of that time with our loved ones?
The dilemma of the ticking death clock on V is what truly makes this game special, we’re faced with the inevitability of death and it forces the player and V to make the most of their time, there is no guarantee that V will survive and find a way out so we work under the assumption that we must make the most of our time on this Earth before we die. That limited time is what makes this game special to me, we’re forced to live life to the fullest and in spite of all of that V keeps fighting, not only for themself, but for their friends, the ones they lost, and for a better future, even if it’s a future that they won’t live to see.
Cyberpunk for all of its flaws is still a beautiful game and one I will never forget, it’s a powerful experience that will sit with me for many years to come. The bonds I formed in this game, the time I spent in Night City and the Badlands, the story I experienced, it’s all truly unforgettable.
Arguably the greatest open-world RPG I have played, it sits among greats like Morrowind, New Vegas, and Daggerfall.
“V, never stop fighting.”
-Johnny Silverhand
The eternal oblivion is an inevitability every human must grapple with, the concept of death is terrifying and for much of our lives we will spend many years pondering the idea and coming to terms with the inevitability of such a fate. It’s our choice whether or not we will waste those moments or if we will face down death and live our lives to the fullest despite our eventual fate. Cyberpunk is a game about life and death, how we grapple with our mortality and what will use our remaining time on this planet doing. Will we push away the ones we love to avoid hurting them or will we spend our final weeks making the most of that time with our loved ones?
The dilemma of the ticking death clock on V is what truly makes this game special, we’re faced with the inevitability of death and it forces the player and V to make the most of their time, there is no guarantee that V will survive and find a way out so we work under the assumption that we must make the most of our time on this Earth before we die. That limited time is what makes this game special to me, we’re forced to live life to the fullest and in spite of all of that V keeps fighting, not only for themself, but for their friends, the ones they lost, and for a better future, even if it’s a future that they won’t live to see.
Cyberpunk for all of its flaws is still a beautiful game and one I will never forget, it’s a powerful experience that will sit with me for many years to come. The bonds I formed in this game, the time I spent in Night City and the Badlands, the story I experienced, it’s all truly unforgettable.
Arguably the greatest open-world RPG I have played, it sits among greats like Morrowind, New Vegas, and Daggerfall.
“V, never stop fighting.”
-Johnny Silverhand
3 Comments
Dangerously Based
Sure, the narrative design is such that there's an ever-encroaching desperation, a finality that bears down on us, but the empty plane that we are projected into is one that fundamentally ignores - cannot bear the weight of - such a question. What does the grand timer for a decaying sense of self mean when I can spend a million-million minutes on meaningless menialities? The narrative of the game and the "open-world"-ness feel pretty contradictory, and therefore this desperation is narratively implied but never actualised for the player. Idk. I wish I played the game you did, but all I found was something over-engorged, something that could never decide what it wanted to be, and thus was too much too poorly.
Vaudevillain
10 months ago