A developer on Cyberpunk 2077 made earnest remarks about some of the sci-fi RPG's shortcomings, including the shortage of homeless characters on its streets.
Honestly its aspirational at this point, there’s no way we’d get cybernetics IRL without them being directly remote controlable by police, companies or just rich people who pay a small fee to watch poor people hit themselves.
Isn’t that part of most cyberpunk lore? That they have to hack those attachments or get them at shady backyard shops, because they would originally be under control of the big company that controls everything and also provides security?
I’m not much into cyberpunk though, so my impression might be off.
Most cyberpunk tends to handwave it, consider the sheer amount of crime in such settings but generally no one every has their implants shuttdown unless its by hacking. In many settings it doesn’t even need a wireless connection (shadowrun) but IRL we’re almost certainly going to end up with always online implants for the soel purpose of control.
TLDR:
The dystopian hellscape set in the future isn’t as dystopian as current reality…
The video game is fairly tame when it comes to themes like this, when compared to the source material and genre as a whole.
“Cyberpunk was a warning, not an aspiration.” – Mike Pondsmith
Honestly its aspirational at this point, there’s no way we’d get cybernetics IRL without them being directly remote controlable by police, companies or just rich people who pay a small fee to watch poor people hit themselves.
Isn’t that part of most cyberpunk lore? That they have to hack those attachments or get them at shady backyard shops, because they would originally be under control of the big company that controls everything and also provides security?
I’m not much into cyberpunk though, so my impression might be off.
Most cyberpunk tends to handwave it, consider the sheer amount of crime in such settings but generally no one every has their implants shuttdown unless its by hacking. In many settings it doesn’t even need a wireless connection (shadowrun) but IRL we’re almost certainly going to end up with always online implants for the soel purpose of control.