Cyberpunk 2077: Is It Deep or Dumb?

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Cyberpunk 2077 loves to reference philosophers … but does it actually have a philosophy of its own?

Cyberpunk 2077 has had a lot of people talking – mostly about its fiasco of a rollout. But once you’re able to get the game to work, you’ll find that it’s exploding with sly references to everyone from author Ernest Hemingway to philosopher Descartes. So is the game actually as smart as it thinks it is? Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition on Cyberpunk 2077: Deep or Dumb?

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42 thoughts on “Cyberpunk 2077: Is It Deep or Dumb?”

  2. I love this video it's reminding me of this role playing game I'm playing with a couple of friends we started with waking up in a cave with no memories like you do then proceeded to find out that we was chosen by the gods as vessels for old Heroes and got the choice of be taken over by the heroes or stay our self with the spirit of the hero rattling around them there somewhere.

    and the rest of my party is like "we have to try to find out who we were before" and I'm snickering in a corner because I know I'm already a amalgamation of both of them and there is nothing left of who there was before and also because she's mad as a Hatter.

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  4. Obviously DUMB. The whole plot is about evil corporations, and yet the game turned out shitty because of evil corporations. They fail to ever explain why Johnny hates them so much.

    Bad bad bad

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  5. LOL 16:14 once again proven how lacking the research on this game for the video. EVERY missions (main & sides) titles are alll based on IRL song titles, not just select few. We even have actual playlist on spotify!

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  9. I dunno. I'd call it deepish. The first mission has you rescuing a woman who got kidnapped for her cybernetics. When you find her, she's in a tub of ice with another victim. What does V do? Tosses his ass out the way so he can save the woman with insurance. Cyberpunk feels like its broader message is about the consequences of excessive capitalism. How it can lead to many wonderous technologies that improve human life at the cost of commodifying the human experience and exploring what that means. There's a heavy smattering of philosophy and class consciousness that is definitely deliberate and pretty well executed so I'm reluctant to call it dumb, but a unique and philosophical message was definitely not the goal which makes me reluctant to call it deep. At least like most things in the game, they tried. B+ for effort?

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  12. skipped a big side quest about identity. there was a side quest where a politician and his wife are slowly having their identity and personality hijacked by some clandestine organization. the game is all about the fragility of what makes you who you. in the world of CyberPunk as technology advances so to do threats to your raison detre. also the implications of the soulkiller program and how like in Westworld everything that makes a person an individual can be reduced and summarized into 1s and 0s.

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  14. Eh, I think this is your first misfire for me A(of the ones I've watched), I usually agree with you.

    1) Love the new presenter.

    2) I found you were hung up on the bugs, like a lot of people, and didn't actually look at the game critically outside of that…you just shrug it off as "rushed" when, in all reality, the story is the least rushed aspect and written and completed well before the game finished the systems that are all bugged to hell. The only thing "rushed" was their inability to get to things outside the story to finish them. So "A bit more time in the oven" is just handwaving. If you want to then ignore nearly the entire game outside the main story, seems personal…and I think the Dumb label and the handwaving is just you guys avoiding the backlash on the game that's so toxic.

    3) You seem to keep looking for things that the game directly tells you but don't seem to want to engage with the things that happen to characters. Boiling down the game's themes into references to other media and not actually engaging with the plot. Nor do you even acknowledge, like any other game like this, it's a series of short stories with a core narrative. The MAIN narrative is an exploration of identity. The game has more going on. Just because it doesn't explicitly drop it into a paragraph that can be recreated into a soundbite doesn't mean it's not saying something.

    Let's take ONE concept you completely ignored, the Braindance (BD). Which is new in the context of its exploration in this game.

    4) So yes, the game is about the soul, and therefor placing that into this hyper-capitalist framework it has something to say about the soul and identity in capitalism. BD's are one concept you didn't even bring up. It's a perfect recreation of human experience, and you connected one dot where you said the game addressed that experience is what creates identity…but what if you can copy experience, cut it into bits and then place it into the market as a commodity? It's garden variety dehumanization in the face of obtaining experiences for the market. Literally, gangs kidnapping and murdering people in gruesome ways so they can sell the BD on the market for cash. This isn't just garden variety smut, it detaches people from their own experiences and events, boils experience down to a price tag, and puts it up for sale. People no longer live their own personal experience, but go to clubs to buy perfect copies of other people's lived experiences. And if the experience makes a soul, it's about the base concept of dehumanization that occurs or at least a delineation of what constitutes a single soul, across the populace. This cuts away the multiplicity of lived experience and inserts exact copies.

    It's like everything we hate about Instagram only times ten because it's no longer selling the artifice of a constructed experience or persona…it's selling literal parts of your lived experience for cash.

    So you addressed the central theme which they grounded as the core concept and conundrum without branching off into any of the other areas they explore the idea outside the main story. The monks, the crime, etc.

    So I certainly think it's deep, just not revolutionary. And if ya'll can give Pixar a pass, I'm not sure why this didn't get one for clearly taking on larger topics. Just because Cyberpunk as a genre has explored these themes doesn't mean it's no longer deep, nor do they default to any one piece of media.

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  22. I haven't played the game yet. But just judging from this video. I think as a totally average nerd interested in philosophy, I would call it deep. I'm not playing the game to get answers, more like just give me food for thought. The beauty in philosophy that it can be interpreted in so many different ways and its so individualistic. If it gives me a little brain fizz, I'm already happy with it. And to be honest, I like it that you have to go deeper of you want answers on your own. I think the game just wanted you to mediate on a lot of complex issues with some interesting references. But I didn't play yet, so I don't know. I got strong heavy rain vibes. That sometimes you are just angry that you don't get the outcome what you imagined. But who knows. I really love the concept to bring philosophy and thought experiments in games. Not to mention that the graphics are so nice. I really hate when they are hyping games and then trash them. As nothing is going to be ever perfect. Not to mention gaming is a pretty new way of entertainment, it just only started recently to get mainstream and get more funding. So I'm not defending the game as I haven't played yet. But I'm not persuaded by the content of this video. All I heard of, it has a lot of deep stuff, but it didn't deliver as perfectly. I mean. Come on! There could be later new missions and stories where other parts are explored perfectly. I have this cringy feeling of the crushing high expectations and perfectionism in the world. But maybe it's me. For my regular dudette brain was already a great buzz of philosophy just to listen too this video 🙂

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  23. 4:37 NO, the game does NOT imply that the digital Johnny is the real Johnny. The digital Johnny changes during the game as he interacts with V – and there are facets of the real Johnny that the original digital Johnny does not remember exactly (they are recreated with the help of the player, i.e. V)

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  24. I'm not sure I agree. I think you didn't consider the impact of the medium on the story. If I recall correctly sailing to Byzantium is only in one of the three ends. In a different ending there is a poem I didn't know, and in the third Alt is silent as you enter. There is a difficulty in telling a story that has so many moving parts to it that I would have liked to hear about in your analysis.

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  26. I was hoping for a deep and complex dive into transhumanist themes and the relationship between man, tech, and greed. I hardly got that except for that second mission by the Peralez couple. I’m confident it’ll be explored in DLC, but I was shocked and disappointed by how many “Cyberpunk slice-of-life” missions there were. I get it fleshes out the world, but it doesn’t mean it was memorable

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  35. The most obvious part to me is how it's suppose to be a futuristic dystopia where people are reduced to objects for capitalism but they used those sexist ads as actual ads for the actual game. By then it just comes across as if they just wanted an excuse to be sexually provocative to gain traction from a dominantly male audience and to be shocking so they could sell more. it lacks the self awarness and reflection to pull off such a topic

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  37. Ehhh, Im not sure I agree. The final choice references absurdism: suicide (considered the worst ending), religion (The Devil, also not a great one), and embracing the absurd and living to the fullest (the Sun, the star, dont fear the reaper).
    Id say that another big part of this game is legacy, especially in Johnnys questline.
    Also, Johnny doesnt see himself as "the real" Johnny. You can undermine his personhood in multiple dialogues, untill in the end he admits that he was a program ment to inspire V to rebel against arasaka. Hes not treated as "the og johnny", his status and personhood is somewhat up to the player.

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