The World Of Cyberpunk 2077
£28.30£36.10 (-22%)
An insightful, captivatingly designed, full-color hardcover that transports readers to the futuristic megalopolis of Night City–the epicenter of the vibrant new action-RPG from CD Projekt Red.
Step into the year 2077, a world dotted with dystopian metropoles where violence, oppression, and cyberware implants aren’t just common–they’re necessary tools to get ahead. Delve into incisive lore to discover how the economic decline of the United States created a crippling dependence on devious corporations and birthed the Free State of California. Explore the various districts, gangs, and history of Night City. Learn all there is to know about the technology of tomorrow and research the cybernetics, weapons, and vehicles of Cyberpunk 2077.
Dark Horse Books and CD Projekt Red present The World of Cyberpunk 2077–an extensive examination of the rich lore of Cyberpunk 2077. This intricately assembled tome contains everything you need to know about the history, characters, and world of the long-awaited follow-up from the creators of The Witcher video game series.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Dark Horse Comics,U.S., 1st edition (28 July 2020) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 200 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1506713580 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1506713588 |
| Dimensions | 23.62 x 2.16 x 31.24 cm |
by DenaliDelinquent
“Affiliations between politicians and corporations ceased to be regarded as conflicts of interests. Rather, they were treated as advantageous in the worlds of big business and politics. As the companies gained unfettered access to the worlds natural resources, environmental collapse and climate change were inevitable. Acid rain and dust storms caused by extreme deforestation soon became the Americas biggest problems.” Call me a conspiracy nut but I seriously believe that paragraph could of come off the BBC homepage.
“Those natural disasters were accompanied by political ones. Thermonuclear war in the Middle East turned that part of the world into a radioactive wasteland, causing a global oil crisis.”
“Makeshift barricades at the Night City limits during one of the many riots in 2021” bear striking resemblances to modern day lawless Portland. I absolutely didn’t expect Cyberpunk 2077 (release date 19th Nov 2020 developed and published by Polish studio CD Project Red) to be a social commentary but the parallels between its Lore and modern day society are too striking to ignore.
If this segment “Weapon manufacturers often use modern society’s ubiquitous sense of insecurity as leverage to increase their sales” doesn’t sound like an NRA mission statement then you are enchantingly childlike naïve and trapped in Never-land or still plugged into the Matrix. Deus Ex Human Revolution touched upon these themes regarding cutting edge technological cyber ware and the description in this book about artificial implants being seen as status symbols and being utilized in modern culture like tattoos and mobile phones did in the beginning of the 21st Century no longer seems like a distant Sci-Fi pipedream but a serious realisation and I believe that people with money would adopt this technology as soon as it became available, like the latest IPhone, IPad, Apple Watch etc.
In the beginning of the Smartphone Era an IPhone seemed out of reach for most us. Is it an outlandish statement to suggest a significant portion of the population now own one? Prosthetics were initially invented for the medical market to help war veterans accept their prostheses, as they became more popular and affordable in the following years they became adopted and utilised by the general masses, this seems to myself a non too distant realisation. And as with Drink, Drugs and Tattoo’s is it beyond the realm of human consciousness that certain individuals would become addicted to cybernetic prosthetics and blur the line between being human and becoming an android?
I am not even half way through this “tome” but it has heightened my anticipation for this games release exponentially. The level of detail and depth to this world may surpass what Rock-star has achieved in the medium. Consuming the fictional “Braindance” by wearing a “Brain-Dance Wreath” a VR Headset to experience a trancelike state of euphoria reminiscent of Shrooms or Ayahuasca that monitors you’re vitals so you don’t forget to eat or drink during its duration is a staggering detail for what I imagine will be an incredibly minor part of the game.
Similar to Bars, there are Brain-Dance Arcades that cater to customers of every budget with locations ranging from ultra exclusive to more modest parlour’s. “Brain-Dance Type: Type Black” referencing psychotically violent and sexual or both seems to directly correlate to the Dark Web. I haven’t even touched upon dedicated Net-Runners that incorporate personal ports directly into their cerebral cortex (think the Matrix) for improved performance and data transfer. The twelve different weapons manufacturers and twelve different automobile producers.
I haven’t even alluded to Night-City itself, which with each district containing sectors with there own unique distinct identity, Little China, Japan-Town, Wellsprings, Vista Del Ray, North Oaks, Charter Hill Etc, Etc. This book is incredible and surpasses the recently released God Of War Atreus’s Diary and book released with The Division. Absolutely incredible, Highly recommended and I am now going over to Game to Pre-Order the Collectors Edition.
by A. Whitehead
Night City, California, 2077. A city of netrunners, megacorps, edgerunners, gangs and outcasts. Nearly destroyed in the Fourth Corporate War of 2023 (when a tactical nuke went off deep inside the Arasaka Towers), the city has survived flood, famine and war to emerge stronger and more influential than ever before. Now an independent city-state free of outside governmental control, Night City is attracting more people than ever before.
The World of Cyberpunk 2077 is, as the title implies, a background setting book for CD Projekt Red’s forthcoming roleplaying video game, Cyberpunk 2077 (due for release in November). It’s also set in the same world as Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk pen-and-paper roleplaying game (best-known for its Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2020 editions), which makes this book doubly worthwhile, not just as scene-setting for the video game but also as a lorebook for those interested in trying out the pen-and-paper game. Semi-coincidentally, the latest edition of that roleplaying game, Cyberpunk Red, should be hitting shelves in the next couple of months.
The book is 192 pages long, full colour, with every page combining text exploring the world of Night City with art from the video game. Some of this is concept art, some are video game screenshots and some are fake (and often RoboCop levels of subversive) adverts for in-universe products. How about some Real Water®? Only 99E$ per gallon!
The book is presented as a series of articles from the Night City Inquirer, an anarchic news and press organisation determined to get the real truth out there (with the implication that maybe you shouldn’t take everything in the book as being 100% reliable).
The first section focuses on history, mostly alternate history since the Cyberpunk universe deviated from our own in the 1980s. The devastating impact of climate change, resource conflicts, declining nation-states, growing international digital supercorps, a new Dustbowl and three corporate wars fought in the 1990s and 2000s are detailed, along with the founding of Night City on Morro Bay. The devastation of the Fourth Corporate War gets a spotlight, followed by the lengthy rebuilding process for both Night City and the Free State of Northern California.
Once that is covered, there’s a lengthy section on the technology of the setting: cyberware, weapons, vehicles, braindance (a potent VR experience where people can go for rides in other people’s lives, experiences and hallucinations) and netrunning. The implications of cybernetic technology are covered and the dangers, such as cyberpsychosis, whilst the moral question of how much of yourself you can replace whilst still being considered human is briefly pondered (although not in too much detail).
The longest section details Night City itself, its districts and neighbourhoods. This is fairly bare bones – which given its length is a surprise – since a lot of the detail of the setting will be found in the game itself. It does provide an overview of what districts to avoid after dark (unless you want to get jumped by gangs), where the most exclusive bars are and where might be the best place to procure some shady items. Further chapters look at the the society of Night City, from the rich megacorp regional directors down to the homeless, and at the city’s forces of both law and disorder: the police, the gangs and the Nomad tribes who live beyond the city limits. The book ends with an interview with Rogue, an infamous operative of the 2020s who’s now in semi-retirement but unofficially still working as a “fixer.”
As these kind of companion books go, The World of Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty good. The artwork is excellent, as you might expect given that the book is able to draw on seven years’ worth of concept art, finalised design work and renders. The production value of the book is very high and the writing is surprisingly engaging. Lore fluff for video games can be hit or miss, but the immense amount of background material developed previously for the pen-and-paper game means there’s a ton of information available on the factions, politics and tech of the setting that goes far beyond what you’d normally expect from this kind of tie-in. There’s enough meat here to help run a pen-and-paper game in 2077 Night City as well as prepping for the video game.
In terms of flaws, there’s not too many. The book seems to assume knowledge on the reader’s part about certain characters like Johnny Silverhand and Morgan Blackhand which the overwhelming majority won’t have. There’s also a distinct lack of deep context on some things, like the gangs. Some of the gangs are based on fairly obvious cliches (the Haitian gang is called the Voodoo Boys, because obviously that’s the only thing anyone knows about Haiti; both the Japanese Arasaka Corporation and the Tyger Claws yakuza gang are about honour and face in public, whilst being corrupt behind the scenes), but without the context of the video game it’s hard to know if they get more development than that. The book’s maps of Night City are also a bit odd, omitting the shoreline, so it’s hard to tell at a glance which is an inland district of the city and which is a coastal one.
Beyond that, The World of Cyberpunk 2077 (****) is a readable and solid worldbuilding guidebook, and it does several jobs of providing background for the game, acting as an advertisement for it and providing context for the new Cyberpunk Red pen-and-paper game.
by MR. G MIDDLETON
The game Cyberpunk 2077 is set in a place called Night City. This book is a guide to that city. It gives you a “history” of how Night City developed into the city that appears in the game. It includes descriptions of the various distinct districts, their inhabitants, technologies, corporations, lifestyles, attitudes and aspirations. The artwork accompanying the text is varied. City views are like detailed artists impressions, characters are more photo realistic looking or artists final versions.
Some of the narrative in the book, especially concerning the effect of some futuristic leisure pursuits on a person’s well-being actually ring true today.
I highly recommend this book to anyone playing Cyberpunk 2077 and want to get an even deeper feeling of immersion when they are in Night City.
by vincent gideon warrican
A good read providing the flavour of the game’s setting. Well illustrated. Only lacking more concept & character art development.
by Peter
I was looking around to find a good entry point for the lore of Cyberpunk 2077. The game is great, the tabletop RPG core rulebook is not available now anywhere so I picked this one.
What an awesome book!
It touches all the thematics of the C2077 universe with immersive editing and speaker positions embedded into carefully chosen, beautiful artwork.
Turning these pages is an experience, especially while listening to appropriate ambient music.
A must have for Cyberpunk fans!