High Tech and Low Life

So, as every year, we saw the gamer heads from across the world assemble for the world’s biggest gaming convention, E3. With leaves taking center stage in every game this year, from Ubisoft to Activision everyone followed the footsteps of Fortnite and Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) for their new games, this year saw a large variety of ideas presented.

Amidst all this, the highlight of the Convention was Cyberpunk 2077, a game that stole the limelight from almost every other release. After its original announcement in 2012, This year enthusiasts were finally able to see the 45-minute gameplay, leaving the Black Ops 4 and Battlefield demo counters desolate (maybe their versions of battle royale did not satisfy the game freaks).From the makers of the Witcher series, Cyberpunk 2077 is a narrative-driven, open world RPG set in the most vibrant and dangerous metropolis of the future. After the Fallout series, Cyberpunk brings back the RPG-FPS genre with a fresh proposition. Although the game is not coming out for the next few years, showing a developing game’s concept was a shock to all. But for Adam Badowski, the developer, he feels that to make the perfect game, it should be made according to the interest of its audience. So, what is Cyberpunk? Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction set in a lawless subculture of an oppressive society dominated by computer technology. A statement perfectly encapsulating the world and the game. Imagine an environment, some 50 years from now where cities are ruled by the underworld. It would almost be comparable to The Purge (minus the reasonless killing). A world where crime is the new currency. Consider the holocaust a (rather ironic) pinnacle. Is this world truly possible? Maybe, but there are a lot of things we need to keep in mind. Firstly, Is the human body feasible enough to use the kind of technology proposed? For example, the game depicted few NPC’s known as RipperDocs. They specialized in body modification. Rather than the blood vessels, the body was made of wires with the main controller board fitted somewhere in the brain. A RipperDoc used to connect its body to a computer from where he can add new functions like face recognition through the lens of its eyes or maybe finding out the possible outcomes of a situation. Cyberpunk, as a game, focuses on characters, who are social outcasts feeling confinement by the norms and expectations of the society. Although people do get pieces of technology in their body like a pacemaker or different kinds of implants. So… does that make us like the characters of the game? My opinion is no. There is a huge difference in modifying your body and using parts so that your body can function efficiently. By modifying your body, you will completely change how your body works. In simpler words, according to a myth, we only really use 10%of our brain, so by modifying our body we are, in fact, technologically increasing that capacity.

In terms of predicting what the final product may be, I have a rather clear view. Let’s visualize a world like Cyberpunk, there is a lot of crime. The underworld is the new government. People are modifying their bodies like mad cyborgs, but amidst all this how is the world still able to run? How are people getting the medical and police services they need? This is strange but I feel that the people themselves are the laws of the nation. They are the ones who are cleansing the nation. Removing the weak. It’s the greed of the people that is keeping the world in balance. They are living the extreme kind of survival of the fittest. Also, I feel that world is a lot better than the actual world. It’s true that the people have to always live in fear but if I take the example of animals, they live far better when they are always in the fear of being hunted. Similarly, we humans can also live far better in a world of constant fear. We can say that the real world represents 2% of the actual Cyberpunk. We humans are a perfect representation the characters of the game.

As said, you cannot prevent the inevitable, you can merely delay it. So, in the next few years, I would say that you should not be shocked when you see people with robotic arms and “Darth Vader” like powers.