History of Cyberpunk on PC (Topic)

For over 30 years, cyberpunk has been making its way into the gaming industry. While there are earlier examples, nothing brings together the mood and aesthetics of cyberpunk more well than the phrase from William Gibson's 1984 novel The Neuromancer: "The sky above the port was the color of TV on a dead channel." This genre of science fiction plays with contrasts; as the writer Bruce Sterling said, a low standard of living and high technology, as well as a vision of the near future through the obsession and pessimism of the 1980s. It was then, according to PC Gamer, that the history of cyberpunk on PC began.

Cyberpunk is instantly recognizable with all its elements of noir, satire, fetishism, paranoia. All these things are usually mixed, and the result is a world of the near future, where all people try to live the way they want, in eternal darkness and in the rainy cities of the future, where megacorporations rule everything and everyone. This is the “anti-starry way,” usually based on a sense of nihilism and criminality. Corruption is widespread, violence is ubiquitous, and the law is a thing to buy.

However, all of these elements are just the backdrop against which deep stories unfold. On their basis, a gloomy view of the future of its creators is formed. For example, the strong Asian vibe that made it appear as an iconic billboard with a geisha in Los Angeles from Blade Runner, or the archetype of street samurai.

Yet, at its core, cyberpunk is a genre that is less interested in fashion toys and bright lights, and raises questions about humanity: identity, sexuality, ethics, memory, freedom, and more. For example, the aforementioned Blade Runner is about a cop chasing robots, but in practice it turns out to be a deeper philosophical story that explores the nature of humanity by contrasting Deckard's cold protagonist with the emotional replicants he preys.

This type of research has formed part of most of the major cyberpunk works of the past few decades, regardless of their origin. Be it "Ghost in the Shell", which tells about the soul in a robotic body, or "The Matrix", with its questions about the nature of reality and many other metaphors.

Get to the point

But let's finally talk about games. Cyberpunk has been a part of them since its inception, even if it has never been as popular as you might expect. The game adaptation of Neuromancer appeared in 1988, and many of its elements are still present in cyberpunk games today, such as the story of a hacker who breaks into ICE [Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics] with various upgrades. While not a great game, it certainly was forward-thinking, offering a cyberpunk adventure RPG a decade before Deus Ex, where you could go to sell your organs, or wander down the street to stumble upon the local religious cult of the game Pong.

The game launched several waves, and other projects appeared that are remembered primarily because of their weirdness. This is where the original Blade Runner project stands out - an 8-bit game not technically based on the film, but rather "inspired by the original Vangelis soundtrack." Needless to say, this inspiration led you to play as a cop in a long coat chasing Repidroids in a futuristic city. It was 1985. The official game from Westwood Studio was released in 1997.

These games were not as successful commercially, but that did not mean that people were not interested in them. One of the more ambitious is Westwood's Circuit's Edge. It was a text quest with simple graphic elements, based on the novel When Gravity Falls, with Islamic elements instead of the more familiar Asian ones. Although the game is largely forgotten, it is an interesting piece of the game's story, both from a technical point of view, with elements like NPCs and having gay or transgender characters on the PC.

Ideas were a strong point of the genre, even if games relied more on Blade Runner aesthetics than cyberpunk philosophy. For example, Hideo Kojima has created Snatcher, a completely original story about a detective with a mysterious past hunting humanoid robots in the futuristic city of Neo Kobe. An even more egregious project was Sierra's Rise Of The Dragon, which tells the story of a hero nicknamed "Blade Hunter" and his adventures in Los Angeles, a future saturated with Asian influences. However, nothing parasitized the cult film as much as Access Software's Mean Streets. It did not just copy the style of Blade Runner, but shamelessly stole his poster.

Future Shock

When games moved away from this concept, truly unique projects began to appear. DreamWeb was one of the first projects to make a new boom in the genre. And not only because your character was a potentially insane serial killer, but because of the penis-shaped pixelated sex scenes. It was an interesting game, although at least its first few quests before it deviated from the original concept.

Other notable games from the 90s include Origin's Cybermage: Darklight Awakening, arguably the most popular title of the 90s - the original System Shock and, of course, the first Final Fantasy VII disc to ditch traditional fantasy, in benefit of the dark streets and the evil Shinra Corporation.

CDE Liberation: Captive II game, while not on PC, is also worth mentioning. It was an RPG about freeing prisoners in a huge, fully explorable city. At that time it was amazing volumes, which were impressive.

Three more interesting but failed experiments: Bloodnet, Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller and Ripper. These are not the best quality games, but they represent serious attempts to make great cyberpunk. Bloodnet mixed traditional elements with vampires in an open-world action RPG in which you regularly had to drink blood to maintain your sanity and attack any NPC. Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller talked about the government working with demons. And finally, the Ripper, which took Jack the Ripper into the future. The game had a huge cast of actors like Christopher Walken and Paul Giamatti.

Alas, there were no more major projects until Westwood returned to the genre with the official Blade Runner game and Ion Storm released Deus Ex.

[It is also worth mentioning the second project from Kojima, the visual novel Policenauts, an original story that did not appear in the West for a long time due to the lack of translation - WorldOfTopics].

Before CD Projekt, we had never seen an official Cyberpunk 2020 game, despite the board being released back in 1988. Although there have been some pretty good console RPGs based on its arch rival Shadowrun [cyberpunk, but with elves, trolls and magic], it wasn't until a decade later that Microsoft finally released it to PC in 2007. Sadly, it wasn't an RPG, but a mediocre team FPS that fans hated. Shadowrun Returns saved the series' reputation a few years ago with a trilogy of great games. The second, Dragonfall, is especially good.

The Metaverse and Beyond

Despite this fate, cyberpunk has always been a part of computer games. Its elements were borrowed, drew as inspiration. It made some pretty good stuff, like the rather simple Oni Bungie, the hack approach in Uplink Introversion, or the classic lone cyberpunk storyline against an evil syndicate.

Along with Blade Runner, Neil Stevenson's Avalanche is repeatedly recalled. The book satirically crafted the cyberpunk tropes where the protagonist was a pizza delivery guy. Its central concept, a virtual world called the Metaverse, became the inspiration for what the Internet might be, where people moved in virtual avatars to travel the web. This, alas, did not happen in reality.

However, this idea has definitely become an idealized future, both for the Internet and for games in general. For example, Microsoft Xbox Live was inspired by this novel when the creators received copies of their homework assignments from the manual as must-read.

There's definitely something startling about this: cyberpunk as a genre has often been marginalized in games alongside newer, brighter visions of the future, helping to shape the future long before the likes of Deus Ex made the nihilistic future mainstream.

Now, in an era where indie creators face huge publishers and platform owners who just want your money, they are art-making rebels, and the internet is being used as the last battleground where David can fight Goliath. It may not be dark streets and rainy cities, but this is the kind of cyberpunk we can afford. Unless, of course, David finally switches to katana.

The Topic of Article: History of Cyberpunk on PC.
Author: Jake Pinkman