Dragancaor

Released in 2020 after several delays & a lot of hype, hope, & expectation, Cyberpunk 2077 is a first person action RPG based on the Cyberpunk tabletop role playing game.

You play as “V,” with your choice of male or female gender, & while you can choose both V’s voice & genitalia, their pronouns are set based on the voice you set. The world is as dystopian as the genre has brought us to expect, as though the counterbalance for technological & biomedical advancement is lessened rights & safety.

The game released to a storm of criticism. Despite promising in 2019 that they would not require the dev team to work overtime & “crunch” it did indeed occur. A feature of the game recreated the tests that doctors use to diagnose epilepsy, but at the time of release they did not have any warnings for it & several players (& a game reviewer) have suffered seizures. This has been rectified since. During marketing they reposted a transwoman’s incredible cyberpunk cosplay, which had many of us thrilled for the inclusive representation. The following day they posted something entirely transphobic, which made many of us cancel our pre-orders.

So with that said, & acknowledging there are still many things on an ethical or moral standing that are not as good as they could (should) be, it is worth noting that the devs have done a lot since then to correct, fix, & find a little bit of balance in the way representation occurs in game, especially for LGBTQIA+ & BIPOC folks. My trans non-binary butt (& brain) has put a lot of thought into whether or not I want to help market the game by sharing my imagery of it. I think the studio have put in a lot of effort to correct & learn from their mistakes, & I’ve had several discussions with other stakeholders on the topic to make sure I was making an educated & considered decision, & not just here to share pretty pictures.

Unlike other games that I avoid for ethical/moral reasons, this one doesn’t use the money from its sales to harm others. In fact, CD Project Red have publicly supported Ukraine & have donated money to humanitarian efforts.

Patch 2.3 brought with it a seriously intense amount of changes & additions to photomode. Calling it robust is the understatement of the century. You can control posing not just with preset poses, but also with sliders that control waist, head, location, & angle of V (& certain NPCs). You can add & control settings & positions for up to 3 studio lights. You have V’s perspective or a drone, & the camera drone has an enormous range of movement.

To date this is my favourite photomode to use. We have a running joke in The Lair discord server about how many hours vs how many images, & where i’m up to with the story. As I write this I have 154.1 hours in game, with 4,521 screenshots. I only have 2 achievements & have not yet reached the title splash screen. It’s a great, & heavily distracting photomode.

Each time you load into your save, the NPCs wandering around & using the space are different. I may or may not have a couple of hard saves at certain locations because I enjoy just wandering around doing street photography instead of gameplay.