Cyberpunk 2077 – “Violence Has Been Taken to Extreme Measures” in Night City

Cyberpunk 2077’s, uh, cyberpunk setting is looking like one of the game’s most intriguing aspects. CD Projekt RED have proven themselves to be masters of storytelling and world-building over the years, but their upcoming RPG’s Night City is looking set to be their greatest achievement to date in terms of how rich and immersive it seems.

Clearly, this is going to be a place of violence and brutality, where body modification and weaponization has become rampant, and recently, concept art coordinator Ben Andrews talked about that in some detail. Speaking with the Official PlayStation Magazine in its October 2020 issue, Andrews said that in Night City, “violence has been taken to the extremes”, and so pretty much everybody has a gun to protect themselves. Andrews describes it as “American gun culture just gone crazy.”

“One of the things we thought about with the weapons is that in Cyberpunk, we have a very overt weapon culture,” he said. “It’s very different to the way weapons work in our world. This is like American gun culture just gone crazy, you know?

“Everybody has a gun because violence has been taken to the extremes. The idea that you may be mugged on your way home from work is extremely common, or your apartment might be broken into at the weekend. So, everybody’s carrying a gun.”

“The idea that you can pick up a gun for like five euro,” he added, highlighting how prevalent gun culture is in Night City. “And you pick it up when you’re shopping in the 24/7, you use it to defend your home at the weekend, and then you just throw it away and you buy a new one.”

Cyberpunk 2077 releases on November 19 for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and will be coming to Stadia later in the year. It will also see dedicated next-gen releases on PS5 and Xbox Series X some time in 2021. Check out this screenshots comparison of footage released for the game over the past couple of years to see how far it has come visually.