Hello everyone, boys! There is a lot of text ahead, but for dear to the heart, there are also a video version with a suitable video sector. So get into someone more convenient and let’s find out for cyberpunk! At the end of all we are waiting in the comments! They drove!
On the forums and in the comments on YouTube, people often scold the future game from CD-Project. Like Cyberpank 2077 is not a cyberpunk: there is no neon, night, noir, which means that it is just fantastic and you can not call this game cyberpancom. It became interesting if there is a cyberpunk in Cyberpanka, and I decided to figure out the issue.
When I read that Cyberpunk 2077 is not cyberpunk
The technological revolution of the 20th century brought many opportunities, and rolled up the lives of millions of people. Production automation increased, the pace of life has accelerated, the amount of information has increased. Cars, rockets, robots, artificial materials, algorithms and nets began to rapidly penetrate the everyday life. Art reacted to changes in science fiction, anti -utopia and cyberpanm.
And although Cyberpunk does not have a clear genre definition, let’s figure out where the legs grow from. Cyberpank appeared from science fiction. All science fiction can be roughly divided into two currents: Hard Science-Fiction and Soft Science-Fiction.
The fantastic basis for “solid” science fiction is scientific and technical discoveries, for example, in astronautics or atomic energy. Soft science fiction is expressed on the topic of humanities, for example, history, as is done in books about fellow. The degree of softness and stiffness of the work is sometimes quite difficult to determine. For example, back to the future: an alternative story and discoveries in physics and a bunch of anything else and therefore to attribute to some kind of movie is mixed there.
Soft science fiction
So the classic cyberpunk is Hard Sins-Fixh, based on discoveries in cybernetics. The essence of the creative method of writers-kyberpankers is the fusion of technology with the living world and a demonstration of radical changes in the society of the future. Hence implants, augmentation, a hybrid of living and inanimate.
So, back in 1920, the word robot appeared, thanks to Karel Chapeku and his slightly cyberpunk play – the Ruura. She about the operation of mechanized people. And in the fiftieth Isaac Azimov published a collection of stories “I, the robot” in which artificial intelligence issues are addressed. Not quite running along the blade, of course, but already close!
And here is the first "robot"
Closer than the rest to the Cyberpanka standards of literary experts from the extension of the novel “Star – My goal” by the American writer Alfred Nester. Published in 1956. It had everything that was needed for Cyberpan: the marginal main character, a technologically developed society, implants and greedy insidious corporations. Unless the Complexes, Neon, hackers and nets were not brought.
In 1968, the book of Philip Dick was published – whether the Androids dream of electricians. But later, on the wake of the popularity of the film, it was renamed the razor running along the blade. This is a post -apocalyptic anti -utopia about a hunter for androids. And although the book cannot be attributed to pure representatives of the genre, you probably know about its cyberpanic film adaptation.
And here is the original cover of this cult work
For the first time, the word "cyberpunk" appeared in the story of Bruce Betke 1983. The story was called – Cyberpank. The work itself to the genre of Cyberpan does not apply, oddly enough. Cyberpunk – it was just a nickname of the protagonist, because he wore an Iroquois and hung in cyberspace.
Fantasy writers William Gibson and Bruce Sterling were the former guessed to solder the Luddist mood of society, the experience of traveling in technologically developed countries, like Japan, and literary finds of predecessors. So Gibson had a neuromant, and Sterling had a cheapmotor. Writers were friends, by the way.
In fact, these two invented your favorite squeal of science fiction. Thanks to Gibson and Sterling, Cyberpank is associated with humanity, which necessarily lives in decline, sticks out on the Internet, is plowed with synthetic drugs and fucks with robes and the authorities necessarily seized greedy corporations. The alignment in classical cyberpunk literature is this: now everything is bad and in the future it will be even more bad.
Gibson and Sterling – in fact, the first who formulated one of the key laws of the High Tech Low Life genre. By the way, guess? This is a render or a real photo from China?
As a rule, the protagonist of the classic cyberpan is a character who mimifies under the environment and does not fight it. An entrepreneurial smart and cynical guy who is not trying to break the system, but simply seeks loopholes, solves his problems and survives an aggressive environment. In fact, the classic cyberpunk, which neon lovers adore, are stupid horror stories about the dangers of computers, originally from those times when the technology was something unknown and frightening. This does not make books bad in any case, but reading them in the modern world can be quite strange, which we will talk about below.
If you want to read something from the classics, we advise you the trilogy of the “cyberspace” of Gibson, the “shittymid” sterling, the “bare nerve” of Walter Williams and the “music sounding in the blood” Greg Bira.
Yes. As you can see, to work with a cyberpankovo at the philological faculty, you will have to spend not so much time. This is because Cyberpank has outlived himself in some ten years, but not because the authors are so stupid. Just Cyberpunk himself became part of everyday reality too fast.
In 1981, IBM-PC appeared-the first personal computers from IBM. They cost one and a half pieces of bucks. You can multiply this amount by three to figure out how much it is today. Few the writer could afford such a printing machine. And in the nineteen, Windows already appeared, relatively affordable electronics and cyberpunk, actually came. Especially for those who, due to automation of production, have lost their jobs.
The first very relatively affordable pitch, only for true boyars
Therefore, in the nineties of the Jackpotjoy Casino fantasies of the authors of the eighties about networks and hackers, they already began to look quite naive. Gibson and Sterling knew about computers about nothing, the other authors knew even less and rely on their knowledge only on other cyberpunk romans.
For example, in a neuromant, one of the best works in the genre, the hero cannot connect to the Internet because he was broken by neurons. This is described in the book as follows: they damaged his nervous system with Russian combat mikotoxin (Russian hackers before it became mainstream). And all in that spirit. Therefore, today it is quite difficult to read the classic cyberpunk. We know about Cyberpanka much more sterling, we understand the cybepassions much better than the neuromant and got bogged down in the matrix much deeper than neo.
Therefore, from hopelessness Bruce Betke, the author of the word "cyberpunk", in the nineties began to give dull lectures on the dangers of computers. The rest of the authors either laid a bolt on cyber, or concentrated on a panka and Bytovuh. Thus began the era of the post-Kiberpanka with the heroes of the chosen, who should save the world. But if you are interested, we will talk about the post-kyberpanka somehow another time.
Keanu was chosen long before he became exciting
And since we understood everything about cyberpunk literature, let’s move on to an equally important topic: Cyberpank-Kino!
Many say that the first in the history of cinema in the genre of cyberpunk was the "metropolis" Fritz Lang. He appeared on the screens of silent cinemas in 1926. The events of the metropolis unfold in the futuristic city, people there became appendages of cars and suffer, and rich reap the fruits of someone else’s labor and live in paradise.
But it seems to us that the metropolis is still software. Although the film has robots and the motive for the alive fusion with inanimate, the authors do not affect the problems of cybernetics and rather reflect on social justice and class struggle. We can say that Marxism was the scientific basis for science fiction in the metropolis, but not a cybernetic, about which no one has heard, and the first triberpunk film appeared much later.
And here is one of the first robots in cinema. And what special effects!
Namely – June 25, 1982. On this day, a film adaptation of the novel by Philip Dick “Running Blade of Razor” was released on this day, we recall: the book was written in 1968. It was Ridley Scott’s film that became a guideline and visual standard of what we call cyberpunk, and did this a year before the invention of the word cyberpunk and two before the appearance of the first literary works in this genre. The picture turned out so juicy that the film immediately became the standard of how we imagine Cyberpunk. And quite deserved, in our opinion.
I saw what you, people, never dreamed of.
By the way, many cyberpunk blockbusters became a milestone in the development of special effects. For example, Tron of the same 1982 was the first film in which three -dimensional graphics were first used to create special effects. Fasting Kibernkovsky Terminator 2 and Matrix-received Oscars for the best visual effects.
There are even fewer good films in the genre of classic cyberpunk than good books. In addition to Blaidranner, except the film adaptation of Johnny Mnemonik Gibson and the “New Rose”, also Gibson, come to mind. But the latter is not enough neon and technology – therefore, Fans of Cyberpanus threw it with kakhami. But hackers and corporations are on the spot, so someone might like.
Keanu was a Mnemonik Zadooooolgo before he became exciting
Japanese cyberpunk is a topic for endless Internet grunts. The gloomy aesthetics of Cyberpan has overlapped the gloomy depressive Japanese culture and something completely unlike neither on neuromant nor on the runway appeared on the blade. The fact is that for the Japanese already in the eighties problems and setting of the romance of Gibson and Sterling seem irrelevant. Japan, the country of the winning Cyberpan, in the 80s was the most futuristic and technically advanced country on the planet. As a rule, in the Japanese cyberpunk there are no these boring Japanese computers and hackers. The problems of the Japanese cyberpunk are loneliness in an industrial society, the fusion of a person and a machine, the search for your self. The canonical Ghost in a Shell and non -canonical Akira tells about this.
Remind you who is non -canonical here?
Unlike a large-scale throne and Blaidranner, a Japanese film-playerpank is something underground and low-budget. For example, a textbook Japanese cyberpunk-“Tetsuo-Iron Man” of 1989 talks about a kid who wanted to increase his leg with an implant, but something went wrong: everyone became mutants.
As a rule, the heroes of the Japanese cyberpunk pass through terrible and obscure metamorphoses, mutations and sexual deviations. A striking example-anime series Ergo Proxy 2006. Yes, unlike classic cyberpunk-faces and films, Cyberpank made in Japan does not become obsolete over the years and does not look stupid. Perhaps because he does not look at the external manifestations of the technological revolution and does not suffer from Luddism, but speaks of a person’s place in a changing world. In Japan, Cyberpank never lost relevance and from the eighties to the tenth years of the new century, a decent cyberpan manga and anime did not cease to come out.
And this is a render or real Tokyo?
If cinema and literature gave a classic cyberpan woman life, then the video games did not allow the genre from the horizon to disappear. The aesthetics and ideology of Cyberpanus is perfectly soldered with game mechanics of the shooters, Imersiv Sims and RPG. There are more good games in the cyberpunk genre than all films and books taken together and they came out until the end of the nineties. We cannot tell about everyone in this vidos, and we do not want. If this topic is interesting to you – write, we will make vidos about cyberpanic Igor in more detail, but for now – a few words about the key works of this genre.
One of the first games in the classic cyberpunk was the role tactics of the Bullfrog studio – Syndicate, 1993. The perspective of the plot in syndicate is chosen rather unusual for cyberpanic St. It was necessary not to play for the hero who survives in the world divided by corporations, but for one of the syndical corporations and fight with other syndicates. That is, it was a game for bad. It was necessary to bend the townspeople, competitors, steal and kill, build their empire and conquer the world to syndicate.
Grafen of course is not impressive today, but the game is still quite suitable
In the same 1993, Shadowrun entered SNES, in which a bunch of everything was mixed: both hackers and corporations and magic and quest puzzles and dialogs. Someone may not like that there is magic in the game, someone will say that this is not a cyberpunk, but perhaps Shadowrun is one of the few games where magic and technology are woven so harmoniously. If you played old followers, you liked it and you like cyberpunk – try Shadowrun.
And in 1994, Looking Glass Studios released the first System Shock. According to the plot, the player is left locked on an alien scientific base in private with the enraged artificial intelligence. A digital bitch with an annoying voice turned all the inhabitants of the station into mechanized mutants and you had to deal with this cruelly. The player was waiting for dark corridors, clogged with crypts of freaks, a bunch of weapons, excellent at that time of graphics and sound. In 1999, Irrational Games released the second part of the shock systems in which RPG elements were screwed to the joker part. It turned out no worse than the first part, but the publisher remained unhappy with sales and the series died. But she promised to return to the remake of the first part and a full -fledged tricue. It seems to be … the future is foggy ..
Well, I missed it?
The most famous representative of the Games in Cyberpunk is our favorite Deus Ex. It was created by immigrants from Looking Glass and the same people who made systems of shocks. Deus Eex brought the gameplay form of shock systems to the ideal. In the new setting of a gloomy future with an emphasis on ominous corporations, conspiracies and augmentation, the same High Tech – Low Life showed us. Dirty poor people, dying from the plague of the future in contrast with a high living standards of corporation owners.
The game was an RPG and Immersive SIM alloy with enough freedom: you could sneak up for someone, hack a turret or robot, or, for example, take a rocket launcher and show who is the main plot solutions, led to different endings, deaths or salvation of some key characters and other joys of a non-linear narrative.
Laputan Machine Mutafucks
After Megauspeha, the second was released – Invisible War. In it, the authors wanted to simplify everything as much as possible, make it more affordable for new players. As a result, the game lost many key elements of the predecessor.
After Invisible War, the series successfully froze until 2011 and the release of Human Revolution. The game was returned a deep and free gameplay, emphasized the social component and how people accept changes in society or in themselves.
Meet if someone does not know yet-Adam (I Never Asked for this) Jensen
The game was extremely successful. In 2016, a rather strange continuation followed – Mankind Divined, which seemed rather DLC to the previous part. This did not make the game automatically bad, but the people of such a turn of things did not understand.
Plus, of course, microtransactions in a single game, which is quite funny: greedy corporations introduce a symbol of their greed about the game about greedy corporations. Cyberpank as it is. Sales were not magnificent that posed a fat question of the future of the entire series.
We sincerely hope that everything will be fine with them, the games are quite suitable and even the Mankind Divved is completely delivered, especially while you are waiting for cyberpunk from CD Projek Red … by the way about it.
The most famous representative of role -playing dimensions in the genre of cyberpan is a game, under the sudden name of Cyberpunk 2013, was released in 1988. Most players are familiar with her second edition – Kiberbank 2020. Setting of the game is classic, cyberpunker: greedy corporations rule neon cities. Outside of cities – devastation, bandits, looters of violence and dirt. And players in this world survive: get involved in shootings with futuristic guns, die from pain shock, amputated damaged limbs and master new skills and professions. Today, the game is almost forgotten and fans hope that the series will revive the CD-jacket with its cyberpunk 2077.
Samurai, I was waiting for you in April, but I will wait and yet – the main thing is to come
The third wave of Cyberpanus covered the world in 2010-x: almost thirty years after the run-down on the blade. Films such as drive and games such as Hotline Miami made the aesthetics of the eighties again popular. And with her the fashion returned to Cyberpunk. The sequels and the throne and the running blade and the continuation of Deus-Ex came out. The revived post-Post-Kibertpank is difficult to call Cyberpanm to the fullest. Now this is rather an ironic comment on how we saw the future in the past. The symptomatic representative of the post-Post-Kiberpanka is a kung Fury made for the money of Kikstarter. By the way, if for any reason it was missed, then we strongly advise you to see. A rather entertaining thing.
Who else is so cool that can hack a spatio-temporal continuum?
Technologies are developing rapidly. In many houses in the United States there are smart assistants, which will soon become full-fledged home-made home-made home-made. International corporations like Google, Facebook* or Apple actively affect the life of the entire planet. Augmented reality technologies allow you to turn literally any phone or Google Glass into a full-fledged interface as in a video game, fitness braces, cars on autopilots, smart advertisements and their overeating in our lives and, in the end, the famous “loneliness on the network”. So Cyberpank finally became “commonplace”.
“There should have been another picture from the category (guess the Render or not), but the third time to do this monoton”
Therefore, unlike the existential Japanese cyberpunk, the Western cyberpan woman has nothing to propose modernity, except for the visual shell, neon and augmentation. We do not represent life without networks and luminous screens and we can only ironize on how we were afraid of the offensive of these times in the past.
Returning to Cyberpank 2077, I would like to say: we are glad that the CD-projection rejected the archaic and inappropriate genre cliches of the classic cyberpunk and decided to do something of their own. If we want to play the postmodern irony that will stem itself – we will play Saints Row. And from the game CDPR we are waiting for an interesting plot, bright characters and an interesting statement. And all this is incompatible with ideas on which a classic cyberpunk was built.
And now, so many years, after such a trip to the Cyberpankovsky worlds, Keanu finally became Exciting
Thanks for reading to the end. Yes, I know very, very, very many things are affected extremely superficially, believe me, it was warmer when I had to write about my beloved deus ex just a couple of paragraphs. But we are ready to do something deeper and cool, go through any works that are mentioned here. Leave your comments here or under the video on YouTube. Subscribe, clatter the bell, throw licorice and express your opinion about what you would like to hear more and what to see.
* The activities of the parent organization META are recognized as extremist and prohibited in the Russian Federation
