That cyberpunk thread

[Sload Soap]

Well, you are right in that Cyberpunk as defined by Gibson and Blade Runner is discredited in the same way that Verne voyage or Asimov's tales of huge vacummn powered computers are. The themes are outdated, what was "punk" in 1985 is no longer punk now, and many of the technologies described didn't work out as planned but the ideas have gone on on newer works.

It's like Noir. Is Noir limited to the decades of the 40s and the 50s? Or did it go on?

It's interesting you bring up noir because a lot of noir iconography and cliches found their way into Blade Runner: down on their luck cops, long coats, big guns, police sirens and lights, heavy rain, heavy use of shadowing in the cinematography, things like that.

The game that is probably most cyberpunk noir is Deus Ex and its sequels. So does the style still exist? Yes, but it is a bit out of favor. The preference at the moment is for sleeker shinier future environments that make everything look like it was filmed in an Apple store.

The biggest Cyberpunk videogames (Shadowrun, Deus Ex, Syndicate, System Shock, Final Fantasy VII) occurred in the 90s or early 2000s.

To me, Final Fantasy VII is closer to dieselpunk than cyberpunk.

[emwearz]

Shadowrun Returns will be $3.74 on Steam as one of the community choice winners, if you wanted to get into it, now is the time / price!

[grittykitty]

i think if google glass somehow catches on (even if it's obsolete models from the clearance bin) then a lot of the original defining elements of cyberpunk from the 80's and 90's will still stand. but maybe if roombas become equally prevalent, the dirty dystopian image will become dated.

i can see the connection with cyberpunk and noir, but in my mind i think noir was a product of its time and not really something that was meant to evolve with the times... maybe since technology wasn't a big part of it? but both "cyber" and "punk" are evolving independent of each other, and definitely in combination with one another.

to bring shadowrun games back into the mix, i feel like the SNES version was rooted more in noir than the genesis version. i felt like the genesis version had more of the cyberpunk feel, and was frankly a better game

[BoringSupreez]

I don't know how I've been missing this thread until today, but cyberpunk is certainly a favorite of mine. I'm not sure if it's my favorite movie ever, but Blade Runner's been in my top three ever since I first watched it.

You can put me down as another person looking forward to Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk may be an almost dead genre but that just makes the few revivals that much better. Deus Ex HR and Dredd 3D wouldn't have seemed so special if they weren't, well, special.

[J T]

i think if google glass somehow catches on (even if it's obsolete models from the clearance bin) then a lot of the original defining elements of cyberpunk from the 80's and 90's will still stand. but maybe if roombas become equally prevalent, the dirty dystopian image will become dated.

Here's a related screenshot I took from Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[J T]

Shadowrun Returns will be $3.74 on Steam as one of the community choice winners, if you wanted to get into it, now is the time / price!

You can also get Project: Snowblind for $1.49. During its development, this game was originally intended to be Deus Ex 3, but the game changed its name after Deus Ex: Invisible War didn’t sell as well as expected. While it’s more linear and combat focused than Deus Ex, it still provides a few different methods for achieving the same goals and it is a fun first-person shooter in a cyberpunk setting.

[grittykitty]

Here's a related screenshot I took from Deus Ex: Human Revolution

the future may be run by megalomaniac scumbags, but it will at least be clean!

[J T]

[marurun]

The old, now out-of-print role-playing book Ex Machina by the late Guardians of Order has a fantastic introduction that is several pages long and is a fascinating exploration or the origins and later developments of the cyberpunk genre. If you find that book around, it has some great setting material in it.

The intro of the book touches on the idea that cyberpunk as original presented has become someone out-dated, but many of the ideas still hold up. What started as cyberpunk has now moved into trans-humanism. Cyberpunk wasn't actually about the tech. It was about the blurring lines of human and machine, quite frankly, that is still very much a hot topic in fiction. I would argue that Ghost in the Shell is excellent cyberpunk, and it copes just fine with the idea of wireless technologies and more modern tech.

[Forlorn Drifter]

The hard part, in my mind, is that Cyberpunk is defined so differently by so many people, at least from what I've seen. I've seen and heard many things referencing it as being either anti-religious or areligious, yet I often find a lot of religious references or ideas inside of things held as highly cyberpunk, so I get confused there, for one. I've also heard the dingy, dark side of it being a main point, but a lot of stuff that would fit in my mind might not be that way.

Honestly though, other than some of the idealized technologies not being realistic, I think cyberpunk is a realistic look in the future- technology will evolve, but its not for everyone's benefit. Although stereotypical and easily figured out, I think of Elysium on this point.