Hello! Once again Eurogamer is marking Pride Month – on this, its 50th anniversary year – with a week of features celebrating the intersection of queer culture and gaming. This morning, Dr Lloyd (Meadhbh) Houston issues a battlecry, of sorts, to make cyberpunk queer (again).
I’d like to begin this piece with a coming out of sorts. “What better time to come out than Pride Month?” I hear you say. “There’s no judgement here.” “This is a place of love and support!”. But, I fear there is no pride to be taken in this admission. For you see, dear reader, I am someone who unironically quite enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077. I certainly didn’t think it was the Second Coming / pizza-that’s-also-ice-cream-that-gives-you-orgasms-while-doing-your-taxes epochal experience it was hyped to be, but, nor did I think it was absolutely execrable. It was schlocky and fun and a surprisingly accurate reflection of the tone (and jank) of its table-top RPG source material.
But, when I compare my experience of playing Cyberpunk 2077 to my experiences of playing Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk Red (the TTRPGs that provide the world-building and mechanical underpinnings for CD Projekt Red’s adaptation) it did miss the mark in one area rather significant area: queerness. Notwithstanding the rather gorgeous Judy – ‘feminine’ V underwater romance sequence, and the nuanced characterization given to Claire, a trans woman with a complicated past who serves as the Afterlife’s charismatic bar-tender and oversees the game’s street racing circuit, queerness felt like something of an afterthought.
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