…or how they have no clue what they are talking about, and I have to correct them, again.
Well, they’ve gone and done it. I have seen and responded to many on Twitter about this issue, but it seems people calling themselves “game journalists” have decided to complain about Cyberpunk 2077, beyond digging up past tweets and trying to cancel an entire gaming company.
This time they are completely dismissing the lore if they even read it in the first place.
Yup, you’re reading that right. I am going to take this apart, bit by bit.
For those that are not familiar with the history of Cyperpunk in general, the game started as a tabletop game in 1988. This game took place in a dystopian future where you can be anything from a normal human to a genetically or cybernetically augmented individual. This means you can even make your character any gender and portray it in any manner you chose.
In this future scenario, everything is normalized and treated on an equal footing. You then choose whether you want to be a netrunner or a street fighter so augmented you are in danger of becoming a mindless killing machine, among other professions. You are hired to do jobs ranging from stealing data to helping someone escape their corporations in order to work for another one. You are a nameless individual for your own safety.
Now, for the breakdown and response.
The article starts out by tearing into one of the core parts of the game’s lore. Trans people in the Cyberpunk genre are treated like everyone else, from advertisements to prostitution. They are no different from a straight human, male or female. There are no gender norms in this game. If I wanted to be a trans-male street samurai, then I can create a character that is just that. Nothing is taboo. To think that this is not progressive is ridiculous.
Is there a chance you can walk into a brothel in the game and find a transperson you can spend time with for a fee? Yes, the same holds true for any gender or sexual orientation and they are treated no different from anyone else. How much more progressive can you get?
Much of these assertions are due to the fact that those of us who understand the lore and have played the tabletop do not agree with the current narrative they are posting online about the game.
We don’t subscribe to treating them as a protected class in regards to the game. We don’t put them on a pedestal.
The developers are not poking fun at trans people. They are being true to the lore of the game, and there are progressives that hate it. That’s the issue.
I will not skip over the fact that when they were first posting about the game, they did use the worn-out joke “Did you just assume their gender?”. This, predictably, outraged many activists who called the developers “transphobes” and demanded an apology. Eventually, they caved, deleting the tweet and posting this:
The activists, who have long memories, keep bringing it up. They will never accept the apology.
They begin to contradict themselves here. They do go into the details of the character generation of the game, which is consistent with the lore.
And there it is, the dreaded “gender determination”. It’s not by genitals. They are upset that voices determine the gender, voices. They go further into the criticism by complaining about a scientifically proven fact: genders are identified by certain traits. Shocking, isn’t it? To think that someone with a high-pitched voice and an hourglass figure would be assumed to be female. THE HORROR! THE SHOCK! THE DISMAY!
The mere fact that biological traits offend these people makes my head hurt.
It’s ALMOST as if science does not see gender and sex as different things but intertwined. Activists, as they call themselves, that have injected themselves into the gaming world don’t care that transsexual people don’t want to stand out and see nothing wrong with the game’s character creation. No, they want to highlight the transperson, point to them, and say, “They are trans. Respect them and accept them.”
We do. We always have. We have treated them as equals, but that is not enough for the activists. They want trans people to be treated with kid gloves and pampered.
The main sticking point? An advertisement…
Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. Never you mind that everyone in this game’s lore dresses like the ad. Everything is sexualized to some degree in the game. No, don’t take that into consideration. It’s the fact there is a trans person in a BILLBOARD in a GAME that is dressed like that to sell a drink that makes it wrong. Never mind the drink can be tailored to taste the way you want it to taste, hence the slogan. It’s the fact the slogan is on a billboard with a trans person in a GAME that’s the problem.
How is that any different from the following ads we see today?
To the rational thinking person, there is nothing wrong with it. To the activist, it’s sexualizing and fetishizing a transperson. When they get representation, they don’t like it. The game developers at CD Projekt Red are treating trans people like everyone else, and that’s not good enough for them.
How do they know they haven’t encountered a trans NPC? As I stated earlier, most trans people want to blend into society, the ones I have spoken to at any rate. So, they could have spoken or seen quite a few by that time. As for a trans NPC? Again, when an NPC is mainly there to progress the story, there really isn’t room for much character development. You interact with them, either converse, pick up a quest, or turn one into the NPC. Not being in the mainstream of the gaming scene, I can’t comment as to the gameplay. I am your average gamer, after all, waiting like most.
All I have to say is this…
You got what you asked for, and still don’t like it. You’re like a spoiled brat, never satisfied.
-Anissa “Maddy” Walker
Now, if you will excuse me, I will poke my head back into my own lore-filled space and continue fleshing out my own world for my novels.
Until next time, stay geeky.
Anissa “Maddy” Walker
Link to article:
CBRdotcom
House of Geek 