this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 years ago (23 children)

The thing is that Cyberpunk 2077 exaggerates the evils of capitalism so far into absurdity that it stops being a critique of capitalism. Instead of the true mundane horrors of capitalism we have today, where companies basically knowingly stuff everything with microplastics and get away with it by greenwashing, and where single billionaires can inspired coups in foreign nations, Cyberpunk 2077 is a world where corporations feed you literal slop made of 100% artificial substances using the most crude and disgusting advertisements.

What CDPR does is basically make the most over the top faux capitalism where people do obviously evil shit and then gesture at it to go "haha wow glad we don't live like that, huh gamers?" There's absolutely zero meat to their critique, it's a capitalist strawman.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

It's also basically a post-apocalyptic setting. The rest of the world except for Canada, Sweden, and Japan is Fallout. Like despite all the evil capitalism, the main reason the world is a disaster is because there was a nuclear war, which for me really distracts from any sort of capitalist critique because I'd imagine any system dealing with those material conditions is gonna end up having horrors.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I didn't remember anything about widespread nuclear war. The Arasaka-Militech Corporate war ended with both sides getting nationalized, not widespread nuclear devastation. The USSR still exists (though subsumed by Sov Oi), as does China (as evidenced by Kang Tao and you do a quest for someone implied to be a Chinese spy). Theres also lots of references to Europe being a haven for advanced Biotech (especially in the expansion) and there's advertising for holiday packages in Somalia.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The Arasaka-Militech Corporate war ended with both sides getting nationalized

I thought it was supposed to be a dystopia sicko-wistful

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

It is still a dystopia because Militech and Arasaka then ate the US and Japanese governments from the inside out. The president of the New USA is a former Militech exec.

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