If you are looking forward to the release of Cyberpunk 2077 this year, you should thank the creators of Cyberpunk 2020, the iconic role-playing game it’s based on. Cyberpunk 2020 was a truly classic RPG with major impacts beyond the gaming world. Its rulebook helped codify the cyberpunk genre and served as inspiration for movies like The Matrix. While it didn’t get raided the way that Gurps Cyberpunk creator Steve Jackson Games did, the game represented a huge leap forward in its perspective on a high-tech future.
But perhaps the best thing about Cyberpunk 2020 is its wonderfully written rulebook. Mike Pondsmith and the other writers took great pains to capture what it should feel like playing Cyberpunk 2020, and many of the style tips from the classic rulebook can help players of the new game get into the right headspace for truly becoming cyberpunk.
10 “Fashion Is Action . . .”
“And style is everything.” One big element in cyberpunk games is that it’s just as important to look the part as it is to play the part. A leather jacket doesn’t just protect you from road rash when you get thrown from a bike, it projects your attitude to those around you.
People will respond to your appearance just as much as they will respond to your words. Cyberpunk 2077 has incorporated this aspect into the game, giving the clothes and other equipment you wear a street cred factor. This will modify the way people respond to you, and make it important that you always dress for success.
9 “All the Money Ain’t Worth Frack.”
“You play this game for power.” The Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook puts this quote in the mouth of a corporate suit, and it’s important to remember that corporations rule the world of Cyberpunk. We tend to focus on the punks and the role of the street, but the real movers and shakers in this world often rule from the boardroom. You should keep that in mind when you deal with them. Piss off a street gang, and you might have to look over your shoulder. Piss off a corporate, and no amount of checking your back can protect you from the hurt they can bring.
8 “Maybe I Even a Few Scores Here and There . . .”
“But that’s good for business.” Coming out of the mouth of a fixer, this piece of street wisdom will serve you well. The Cyberpunk world is a hard one, and you’re often going to find yourself having to screw somebody over. But if you don’t have to hurt someone to get what you want, maybe you shouldn’t.
And doing a good deed here and there can give you some markers you might be able to call in when it all hits the fan. It’s hard to know how much this mechanism will be built into the Cyberpunk 2077 game, but with its reportedly weblike structure, this could matter.
7 “A Lot of Battles Get Won Before the First Shot Is Fired.”
“When your eyes meet his, and he knows that you’re willing to pay the price in blood. His blood, your blood—it doesn’t matter to you.” In addition to being just cool, this quote tells one of the vital truths about a dangerous world. In many cases, just entering a battle is losing it, and if you can avoid dangerous combat, you should. It remains to be seen how much of a role this type of nonverbal communication will play in Cyberpunk 2077, but we know that at least some of it will relate to the street cred mechanism.
6 “Do Unto Others . . .”
“But cover your butt.” This piece of advice reminds players that cover only provides limited protection. In movies, people often flip a restaurant table and then hide safely behind it, but bullets from high-powered guns can penetrate tables, doors, walls, and more with ease. The gameplay demo for Cyberpunk 2077 demonstrates this concept as it shows a close-quarters gunfight where stray bullets are flying through the cheap walls of the flat where combat takes place. If you want to really be safe, you need to find sturdy cover.
5 “Never Tackle Something Head on . . .”
“If you can do it quieter and neater another way.” In the world of Cyberpunk, you’ll often be coming up against people who are jacked to the max with cybernetic enhancements that will make them a truly formidable enemy. Taking them on face-to-face will likely end badly for you.
Plus, messes attract unwanted attention, and that’s always bad for business. If you want to get a reputation as a reliable hire, you will do things quietly. As a side benefit, you’ll get fewer holes in that awesome t-shirt you spent so much on.
4 “You Don’t Need to Know a Lot about the Medical Technology . . .”
“You need to know what to do when you’re bleeding to death in a dark alley somewhere.” The world of Cyberpunk is armed to the teeth with advanced lethal weaponry. Every time you get into a scrape, your life is going to be at risk. There aren’t going to be any clerics in your party who can cast Cure Light Wounds like in Dungeons & Dragons. But there will be trauma teams that are prepared to swoop in and save your life with high-tech medicine. For a price. And if you can’t pay, maybe they will just take the difference out in a few organs you weren’t using anyway. Like who needs two kidneys, right?
3 “What’s a Cyberpunk Game without Drugs?”
“A lot healthier.” In the classic world of Cyberpunk 2020, many people are drug users. While there are definitely benefits to drug use in the game, the game also tries to take into account the negative health and other effects of drug use. We don’t know how much this will play into Cyberpunk 2077, which shows the use of a reflex booster consumable. While this seems like a drug, it shares a name with a piece of cyberware from the classic game. We don’t know how much the game will integrate the negative consequences of drug use.
2 “Imagine a World Where . . .”
“the U.S. solved its problems of crime, inflation, and drugs.” Cyberpunk 2020 represents its setting as an alternate universe in part because its historical events start taking place the year the book was published. The goal was to make the game feel both alien and familiar, a near-future dystopia that was horrifically possible.
There are many aspects of Cyberpunk 2020 that didn’t come to pass, but some things seem prescient, like the return of totalitarian rule in Russia, the weakening of gun control laws, and widespread fires raging across the country.
1 “Nobody Ever Leaves Night City.”
“Except in a body bag.” We don’t know what types of endings we’re likely to see in Cyberpunk 2077. However, there’s one ending we are unlikely to see: the happily-ever-after retirement to the country at the end of the original Blade Runner. Characters live fast, and even if they don’t die young, they are unlikely to be able to escape the hard streets of Night City. The Cyberpunk world just doesn’t allow for that kind of social mobility. Living to fight another day is the best victory we can hope for.
NEXT: 10 Amazing Games You Should Play While You’re Waiting For Cyberpunk 2077
