8 Controversies That Have ALREADY Hurt Cyberpunk 2077
3. The Billboard Is Supposed To Be Part Of A Wider World... But We’ve Not Seen It
CD Projekt Red’s response to the billboard was actually pretty measured, and has given some people confidence that Cyberpunk 2077 will be able to pull off such boundary pushing social commentary.
CDPR’s artist Kasia Redesiuk claimed ‘hypersexualisation is everywhere’ in the game, and the billboard model is deliberately ‘displayed there as a thing’; an apparent symbol for corporations abusing people’s desires and dressing up their practices in rainbow capitalism.
Transwomen, and to an extent queer people in general, have frequently been fetishised in media, so if this focus is actually the game making a self-aware commentary, that’s great.
However, this is a hard message to sell. There needs to be some NPCs to balance things out.
If we see real gender non-conforming characters displayed as more than their body parts, or can even ‘mix it up’ with V ourselves, Cyberpunk will be pushing the boundaries in the best possible way.
Remember, this isn’t about documenting what Cyberpunk has done wrong or reasons not to buy. While some won’t have cared at all, the clunky focus on gender nonconformity has gotten people heated on both sides of the debate.
With that in mind, it’s been one of the biggest powder kegs of the marketing so far.