Originally published at: Cyberpunk 2077's new expansion features Idris Elba | Boing Boing
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I have been playing my way through the game, it’s a lot of fun.
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Me too. I never understood what all the fuss was about. It’s normal for new games to come out half cooked these days. Don’t like that? Maybe wait for a patch or two. As a matter of fact, I may even play through it again if I can pick up the DLC on sale or something.
Cyberpunk is fun as hell and it looks great.
Well, the needless sexual objectification of trans bodies was a major issue, IIRC.
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Some more background on that…
I was not aware of this, so thanks for bringing it up!
[ETA: removed thread that @Melizmatic already linked to]
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The issues with this game went a little beyond that, just from a technical perspective. The game was nearly unplayable on last-gen systems and CDPR settled in a class-action lawsuit over it.
Thanks for posting, I had read about the issues with character creation and gendering being tied to the voice actor selection, but hadn’t heard of (or noticed) the issue with that product/advertisement in the game. I just went back to see if it’s still there or if it had been modified in a patch, but the ad is unchanged. Most of the in-world advertising is designed to be shocking, either through violence or sexualization. Seems pretty clear that the shock element in this ad is exploitative of the trans community. I wish they would change this ad, rather than defend its existence in their game.
The articles linked both question if there are any trans NPCs in the game. There was one that I encountered in the game, Claire, bartender at Afterlife, a central story location. When I was playing the game and she mentions her transition, I felt like it was a positive effort towards inclusion. It’s disappointing that the game’s one positive attempt at trans inclusiveness is overshadowed by the failures and that CDPR won’t take any steps to do better.
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Honestly, they probably threw the NPC in to deflect from the transphobia in the rest of the game… “we can’t be transphobic, we had a NPC who is trans”… I’m curious how her transition to brought up too? Like, does she just like blurt it out? Why does it matter to the game (if you see what I’m trying to get at)?
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Spoilers ahead:
In the game, you play as a mercenary, and Claire asks for your help as a driver for these illegal street races where she provides the vehicle and acts as the gunner. As the races go by and you become closer friends, she gives you the backstory about her motivation in the races. She and her husband raced together, and the previous year’s champion killed her husband during a race. Her transition comes up briefly when she’s talking about how much her husband meant to her, in that he was there for her during that important time in her life, among other things.
I get what you are saying and CDPR’s motivations are suspect in light of how they responded to criticism. As far as this particular moment in the game goes, it felt natural to me at the time, though. So I felt like it was a good thing. But I’m not the best judge of trans issues because of my background. And I feel like the same can be said about most people at CDPR. Maybe they should do more listening and reflecting and less defending.
I confess I hadn’t noticed the transphobic ad, mostly because I ignore the ads and other fluff. I also hadn’t noticed the gender identity of the bartender, mostly because I haven’t interacted with them much. It is supposed to be a horrible dystopia and is quite convincing on that front.
There are a few GLBT options for gameplay (by ‘ew’ I mean ‘some’, though I haven’t followed any of the threads to see how deep they are). I generally don’t bother with romance/sex storylines in games because I find them all a bit cringey.
I don’t know… seems a little ham-fisted to me, just sort of shoved in there, but as I said, I’ve never played it…
Indeed!
What does that have to do with LGBQT+ people existing as just part of the world, in this case in a game…?
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That’s pretty consistent for the writing in the game. Even the central sort of “theme” of the evils of capitalism doesn’t really get elevated beyond “fuck corpos.” Unfortunately, the same can be said for most video games. With all the time and space available for storytelling, you’d hope that we’d get some more nuanced writing.
It has to do with it in the sense that the main character has some romantic opportunities, some of them are potentially LGBT. As a player I don’t tend to bother, but they do exist. There are also some NPCs with same sex spouses/partners, as would make sense in any future or present storyline.
I’m not here to defend the game on those fronts, it would be far from appropriate for me to do that. I was unaware there were issues with representation in the game, but I’m not necessarily attuned to those things, and I don’t read ‘game journalism’ as a rule so didn’t hear about it. I’m going to watch for those things as I play going forward.
LGBQT+ aren’t just defined by their sexuality or gender… just like… you know… other people.
Sure, so it’s been said… but there is some serious transphobic content in this game too…
Others have pointed it out though, so I suspect you can believe them, since they are attuned to such things. I’m guessing they’d know a bit better than those of us who do not have those experiences, and we should pay them some mind when they speak out on this stuff…
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Hrrm interesting. Thank you for bring this to my attention.
I was looking forward to Cyberpunk 2077 when it was announced, then I read about the transphobia and my excitement level went from I have to pre-order to wait and see, then the game was released.
I have a ps4, so I should really be thanking CD Projekt Red for their transphobia.
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