I hope you all enjoyed! Let me know all your thoughts, experience, and feedback down below. I always enjoy reading through your comments. I have some more interesting video essays on the way. So be on the lookout! Have a great week chooms.
No one ever talks about this one but R. Talsorian Games had another TTRPG back in the day called Mekton. One of it’s adventure/campaign guides called Star Blade Battalion was a followup to Cyberpunk 2020 taking place in 2100. They made lots of references to cyberpunk mega corporations, night city, and even old cyberware calling it dead metal.
I know of a couple groups still playing Mekton and his other work, Castle Falkenstein (I was not a fan of the latter)....old school gamers like myself will stick to something if its fun enough :D).
My absolute favourite part of reading any Cyberpunk booklets for the TTRPG is just how absolutely out-to-lunch Mike Pondsmith is in regards to numerical scales. "Four thermonuclear weapons went off at once. The entire tri-state area was levelled. The groundwater became contaminated for decades and every plane fell out of the sky at once. A staggering FIVE HUNDRED people died that day!" Like god damn Mike, there's seven and a half billion people on the planet right now.
100% on the Cyberpunk v3.0 reaction. I remember looking through it at the game shop back in the day and being stunned that it was the next edition. It was confusing, the "art" was terrible, and it just hit wrong all over the place.
I actually have known about v3.0 for years now thanks to the RU-vidr Spoony on his old alt channel Counter Monkey where he talked about dnd and other ttrpgs. My jaw hit the floor when he showed the action figure/doll art.
Great video. You present the ties into the TTRPG nicely. Cybergeneration had somethings from it folded into cannon, but not all of it according to some of the RTG staff. V3 also the had problems with the rules. They were a hodge-podge, cut-and-paste of 2020 rule set and Fuzion (RTG proposed universal/generic game ruleset), which lead to very confusing and contradictory rules that didn't make 2020 fans, like myself, buy into as a successor. Another issue was that it was announced to be released in the early 2000s. It took RTG 4-5 years after their initial release date. To wait in anticipation for a game you love only to see what appear to be lacking in any type of editing or refinement was to say the least a disappointment. Granted by that time Mike had started working for Microsoft, so RTG was on the backburner for many years. Two other divergents to the timeline that you didn't mention was When Gravity Fails sourcebook and the horror theme books from Ianus/Dreampod 9. When Gravity Fails was similar to Hardwired in that the authors of the novels worked with RTG to add them to the Cyberpunk universe. I don't know if Effinger was a gamer, but Walt Jon Williams was and played Cyberpunk. Fun fact, Williams also gamed with George R.R. Martin back in the day. Ianus Games now Dreampod 9 introduce horror themes to Cyberpunk 2020 including a Vampire/werewolf supplement called Night's Edge. They have 2 books which were great for regaulr 2020, Dark Metropolis and Grim's Dark Cybertales. Both introduced game mechanics that dived into psychological of the dark future. They had great cyberpyschosis rules, very crunchy, but good. Thanks for all these videos. It nice to see people tying Cyberpunk 2077 back into the origins of the TTRPG and someone who does the research as well..
Great video. I found it very interesting and noticed a couple of things: 1. In Cybergenerations, Silverhand had the code name: The Mystic. This ties in nicely to what you said that both Misty and V consider Silverhand to be connected to The Magician card in the Tarot. 2. I found it funny that Desnai (Disney) is considered an Altcult in 3.0 and that it would've aged badly considering the stuff that's been happening to the corporation IRL lately. Can't wait for your next video.
I love Mike Pondsmith and Warhammer 40K, but they both give me the same vibes when it comes to lore and continuity: Everything is canon, nothing is canon. And it's that way because they're not really trying to tell a continuous story, they're trying to give you a really cool, dark setting to tell *your* stories in, so they leave it intentionally ambiguous what the "real truth" of things is, so your group can make it whatever they want (and so Mike can retcon it as many times as he likes without invalidating your stories--just call it an 'unreliable narrator' or a 'myth that became legend', maybe blame it on corrupted records from the DataKrash, and keep on edgerunning)
I like to believe Angel in Black Dog is Alt clone while she managed to come back in thjs new body, and the Alt we see in 2077 in the net is a copy or part of her engram. And I wanna believe she is working on cloning Johnny and recover his engram in some way. I know, it's just my personal headcanon but that's what I'd like to see.
This is what I like to think too. Her plot to get Johnny’s body to get an engram though, thats like what Arasaka did to Jackie and that didn’t work out. Corpse engrams are too damaged to be proper “people”, just souls trapped in damaged minds. Maybe letting Johnny go with the Alt AI is the best choice because it could lead to the AI implanting Johnny into a new body. Assuming Alt already tried putting the corpse engram into a clone which could have failed, this could technically be the new and canon Johnny^3. I also think this is why AI Alt wanted V to merge with her and Johnny to keep the body, that was her end goal the whole time. Also explains why she wasn’t intent on helping V to begin with, as far as she was concerned she had already won.
The first one you mention is my favorite thing to ever come from R Talsorian. I miss Cyber Generation. If we ever play Cyberpunk Red on my tabletop I fully intend to try to talk the GM into letting me play my boardpunk tinman all grown up .
About Johnny's engram, in 2077 he specifically mentions he was stuck inside Mikoshi for the whole duration between his nuking and the current time; Alt and everybody else confirms that. Don't think the story about his and her clone can be considered canon...
Yeah, just because 2077 is in the same timeline as 2020 doesn't mean there aren't any changes, retcons, things cut out etc, as tends to happen in any long running franchise.
@@MalzraAirwynn yup, people keep saying that Johny is a liar or delusional or that Arasaka tampered with his engram from the stuff we see from his memories but they never stop a second to think that maybe things were retconned?
@@gustavosanches3454 I think there is some truth to Johnny's memories not being 100% accurate, even without sci fi stuff going on human memory is flawed. But yeah, I think part of it is also likely just retcons, tweaking the history in order to tell the story they wanted to tell in 2077.
@@gustavosanches3454This isn’t a retcon. Pondsmith himself stated that Johnny is an unreliable narrator at best. Hell it’s even said in the game that what we see in Johnny’s memories isn’t what actually happened
I used to play in a Cyberpunk 2020 game when it came out, loved that game. I picked up V3 when it was released hoping to run it and yeeted it across the room. Mike Pondsmith is a really nice guy, I met him during a convention. played in four of his games, was not a fan of Castle Falkenstein but really liked the Cyberpunk stories he ran. He really gets immersed, made me lean hard into my latino roots lol. Red looks much better, I might run it someday
I liked V3, just not as much as all the stuff before it. It was a neat kinda almost Dark Sun meets Cyberpunk in some ways. The systems were fine. The setting was dumb, but it wasn't offensively bad. Just odd and destined to die on the vine.
This is a neat thing to learn about, I knew about cybergenerations, but not much about it. It was cool to learn that some of the lore we know today comes from it, and I never even heard of 3.0 before this video.
Great Vid bud, can I ask please, I don't have much to do with the table top outside of your YT channel but can the source books be read in story format? Or is the story parts to "disjointed" between game rules to make much sense .. much like what game workshops used to do .. I say used as I haven't played Warhammer in 20+ years.
It’s kind of the latter. Have you ever read the DnD Player’s Handbook? It’s a lot like that. It explains roles, core gameplay, character generation etc but towards the end of the book there is some lore and it’s formatted a little like an in-universe magazine. In fact, that’s how many of the supplements behave, like in-universe mags, while being interspersed with playable modules. The 2020 book does have the Never Fade Away story and you can play that as a module, and there are some other quick-and-dirty scenarios.
yeah..... i kinda used the 'Angel revives Johnny' plot point in my own RED campaign. One of the players is a clone of someone from Arasaka's roster in the 2020s (created by a Corpo scientist who released multiple clones into the world to see how they develop), and had a guy called John Lindt as a mentor in her desire to become a Rocker. His wife is named Angel. I had the players indirectly interact with her once in a gig that ended with Smasher beating down Angel and John's gate. I even let the players believe that Smasher was after their client 🤣🤣
Awesome video. Definitely learned a bit more. Always thought that v3 was using action figures in game, surprised to learn it was controversial due to the art style (amongst other things). Surprised you didn't mention Johnny's memories being different at all, though I suppose that's in another vid
I read hardwired, incredible! There was a lot of cyberpunk in a book that revolved around a hover tank. But I'd love for you to explain the influences of the book away❤
Been thinking about something from my most recent playthrough. I notice that lots of PT and even bits of the third act have lots of “loop” symbolism. There are tons of circular shapes and buildings in dog town. (e.g. stadium, slider’s spa hideout) Dog town itself is like a giant loop. You’re constantly going around in circles literally and thematically with yourself, Johnny, songbird, reed. There’s the rolla coaster song idris Elba made talking about loops. Ofc in the base game you have Kerry’s song when you’re on the boat. “Loops but not the kind you eat for breakfast” or whatever. And then there’s the Orion stuff. The blue eyes of mr blue eyes are circular ofc. Crystal palace appears to be shaped like a loop. The moon which has tons of lore and symbolism is of course a circle. “Orion” is a word with two “o”s. There’s even an “Orion” building in dog town where the second O is missing from its sign. Of course no theory would be complete without an ff05b6 connection. The whole Easter egg has you going around in circles. The area around the Arasaka 3d game is surrounded by tires everywhere. And there’s the snake symbol from cp and Witcher which is a loop eating itself. I could go on. Just seems like more than a coincidence if you ask me. Either that or all the fentanyl I’m doing
There's that, and also all the mirror imagery. Every prologue begins with looking into a mirror. The letter "V" mirrors itself. Even your Konpeki Heist alias "Hannah" is a palindrome and the initial H mirrors itself. Could be a reference to the dual life you lead with Johnny in your head, but it could also hint at parallel timelines. And the neat thing about a circle is that any way you slice it down the middle, it mirrors itself perfectly all the way around.
@@akasuki61xyungslumma85 I wanted to add the reason I was thinking Billy Idol is he fits the OG blonde rocker boy look, and he did a lot to contribute to getting cyberpunk mainstream. I know his album was viewed as a failure but I think him having interest in the genre alone helped it grow.
My favorite thing about this is the fact that it really just goes to show how little V actually means to the overall story of cyberpunk, how he's really just another merc, that happens to have an engram in his head, just barely above average
Speak for yourself! I didn’t know they made action figures for cyberpunk back then (even if they weren’t intended for sale) I’d love to get my hands on one!
17:31 - It's kinda crazy to say this in the year 2024 where we are watching a similar thing play out in real time. Spurious information is so prevalent and easily-attainable that we're seeing long-managed diseases popping back up despite having the means to treat and prevent them. I can't be the only one to feel like that was uncomfortablu prescient.
I don't know if you are aware of it but there is a damn good fan movie about the clone Johnny Silverhand saving V after the Sun Ending called "Cyberpunk 2077 Phoenix Program" here in RU-vid you'd probably like. Although it doesn't explain the whole clone things, old school fans will probably put two and two together to figure out where he came from. There's a lot of tongue in cheek references but also a bit of good drama to it and love of the source material. You should check it out.
It's really hard to compare this to other "cyberpunk" games. I don't think there's any other game that's made me feel like a part of the world. It's really hard to make me immersed, but hot damn did cyberpunk do it so good that it even got me drawn in and obsessed. I can't help but give praise to CDPR and the writers for the original source books for their amazing storytelling and progress designs.
Interesting video. A nust watch for anyone interested in the CP lore(s). There's also Deep Space timeline. Most people assume it is a just a part of CP2020, but as CP2020 timeline ends up i 2023 with the Fourth Corp War and the fall of the Net, Deep Space is set in 2025, in a timeline where the war and second collapse never happened. Also Mekton is a distsnt sequel to CP2020. However as DS, Mekton and Cybergeneration are either their own games or interesting, alternative setting, they are not on the level of abandonment as CPv3.
I remember when Cyber Generation came out. Our Go To Cyber Punk GM marketed it to us as "Cyber Punk version of the X-Men" which it was in many ways and we had a lot of fun with that game. Those were very good times. On the other hand, when Cyberpunk V3 came out many years later said GM wouldn't even play it. I've read through the core rulebook and WoW, that game was weird. V3 just went waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to far out in left field for my taste.
Hey choom! Sorry for the late reply, RU-vid's notification system is...lacking. I definitely think they could! I mean, cloning and engrams are the best way for the Rogue AI to place themselves into the physical world. Especially of course, those already soulkilled. We likely already are seeing it with Mr. Blue Eyes. As for our main character, I guess it depends if they go a named character again or more of a customizable one!
@LayedBackGamers thanks for the response. It is a channel that is big is yours. Now I know all the things you can't respond to the fans, but it's still cool to see you out your way to do so. It's really appreciated
Just got into Cyberpunk with the game about 2 years ago. Would love to play the TTRPG, but can't find a table. So I'm making due with lore. Thanks for that!
I remember when they first talked about 2077. When they dropped detes that Johnny Silverhand, Alt and immortality were going to be a big thread in the game's story. My first thought was "Hm....Keanu would make a fantastic Johnny. He's already done it in mnemonic" (And I screamed like a little girl, yes, when they announced it XD) But my second thought was. 'Wonder if Mr BigBad is trying to live forever.... He's not going to like how that works' I even said as much on RU-vid videos where we talked about our speculations. But Cybergeneration was considered gonk here in the UK. (They loved cyberpunk, but cybergeneration was ignored in favour of Vampire the Masquerade and Magic the Gathering cards here, where I live) When the detes about the Relic were first dropped (that it was an immortality chip, but that was all the info we had) I speculated it was going to be the cyberpunk version of Bioshock's 'Vita-Chamber'. A way for the player to come back to life, as a game mechanic. (Kinda right, just not the way I thought lmao.) I even had a whole storyline in my head, with the player helping their choom Johnny Silverhand find his lost love Alt. Being a game, I reasoned bad, normal, good endings for them. Even a secret ending that was 'best' lol. (Tho, I'm speaking of Johnny and Alt here) Mainly because they said Johnny would be the players 'guide' to NightCity, that he was a 'ghost in the machine' So, my bored little brain cobbled together ideas based from 2013, 2020 and cybergeneration. That Alt was still the same as the 2027 Alt, still loved Johnny. That maybe this Johnny was a stolen copy of the clone backup maybe. (That an Old Johnny and old Alt clone pair were out there someplace too lol) That Mr BigBad wanted immortality (we didn't know who was the bad guy back then) and the only way to get it was some connection between the player (and Johnny) and Alt, still trapped in the Net. Back then, there was no mention of the Relic killing the player ether. I figured Johnny was like the Blackhand engram copy's, that helped the cyberevolved kids get away from the agencies. Only, he was helping us, the player. All that went up in smoke when December 2020 hit, and we all watched or played the game. I didn't have it, so I watched a no commentary walk thru. Was impressed by the fact they actually included 'never fade away' (the game module) in the game. Fell in love with this version of Johnny, more than I had with the original tabletop one. (I have 2013 box, the 2020 2nd print, cybergeneration and a good chunk of the sourcebooks lol. That's how I knew about stuff. Why my brain started frantically spewing theories out XD) Cried my eyes out over the endings. Like many did. Then, April 2021, I got first the Cyberpunk RED quick start box, then the RED sourcebook. The quick start box blew my mind. Because so much of what I had been thinking was right. The sourcebook later concerned it, while also melting my poor, overworked brain XD. But it uncovered a memory. Standing in my local gaming store, reading a new 2nd hand cyberpunk book. Reading the story of the fall of Arasaka towers. Thinking 'look at what they done to my boy' and putting it back because 'if that's how they treated Johnny, how are they going to treat the rest of us?' Now, I think it must have been the Firestorm book. Because I've read 203X as a PDF (once, lol) and there was no mention of that in there, at least that I can remember. I'm still collecting the tabletop. And I wish, really REALLY hard that they would release the figures from the boardgame as tabletop figures....so we can have them to collect without the boardgame (or with....hell, I'd buy both, and paint up the 2nd set of figures while leaving the boardgames ones unpainted lol) Can't wait to get the new Edgerunners sourcebook. Got 2077 as a gift in 2022. Got phantom liberty as my gift for 2023. Have got close to 1000hrs on it, and I've never 'visit Hanako at Embers' lol. Coldest I've come to an ending was sending Songbird to Luna. Got 9 different V's each with different play styles and names (a V based names, of course) and I'm STILL playing, roleplaying them, walking around NC. Night City is my home.
how does one meet up with a cyberpunk red group? Never played ttrpg's but cyberpunks world is too cool to not try, everyone here is d&d and magic the gathering... Its not like i dont wanna try em, but i wanna "cut my teeth" on RED. Like... SOOO BAD! lol
So arisaka did not make an engram of Johnny they just stole one this is why Alt say that his memories are lying on the other hand maybe she is lying about the 6 months or more to DON´T TRUST ANYONE IN NIGHT CITY . I love the lore to bad we don´t have more in the game
I heard a theory that the engram Arasaka has is the one Spider Murphy created. Militech then took it and edited it to remove any involvement of Morgan Blackhand, and paint the bombing as Johnny’s idea.
Im sorry but using action figures for artwork instead of drawing is wayy cooler and such an awesome concept, especially cause they have all the tools and literally toys necessary to make it look awesome
I truly hope they dont try to make the sequel without V and Johnny and the rest of the cast i feel like there's more story to tell with them ! It would be awesome to bring Edgerunners and 2077 cast 2gether by the way of lucy and her finding out they actually did make David an engram like Johnny. So they send V after her and she frees V and they with Johnny Sliverhand help and others bring the wrath of all hell down!!
Imagine what the game could have been if half the budget wasnt spent on keanu playing johnny, and imagine how much better it would have been without V’s voice actor sounding like he’s about to burst out crying in every scene. We need better protagonists in the next game
IMO the sequel should not bring back V and Johnny. Make a new protagonist, with a new story. V and Johnny's arcs come to an end one way or another and there's no need to pull them back or dredge up David and Lucy whose story already came to a great end in Edgerunners.
@MalzraAirwynn I mean understand what you are saying but I still think because there are so many plot hole that they had left from the original game like Judy's arc was supposed to be bigger to help to cure V, or even theres unfinished lvls on the game the Tunnels system, etc.... But they could have in the sequel the Aldacaldos story line wear V goes with them to hopefully get healed but things could go down cuz people are still after the relic in V. Then there's also the mission of V on the Crystal palace and dealing with Mr. Blue Eyes and then it taking V in a direction where they are promised to being cured! Or incorporating the book stories where a group is hired to get a container that is containing the remains of Johnny Sliverhand its held by someone described as Spyder Murphy and was hired by someone that looks like Alt Cunningham that would be a great story 4 the sequel. They would be great to get V mixed up into that story finding out Johnny's body out there somewhere I think V would act on that 4 Johnny!
@@travismcintyer1033 Sure there are things that end up on the cutting room floor. Some quest lines maybe were meant to be longer at one point, that happens all the time in game development. But I think Cyberpunk Orion or whatever it ends up being called should go for a new protagonist, not be trying to patch holes in 2077. The endings are also intentionally open to interpretation. I don't want a game exploring what happens when you leave town with the nomads or how that space heist goes. Furthermore, I don't want a game that has to finangle all of Cyberpunk's endings (where V is still alive and able to use cyberware) and having to cram all of them into the same status quo for the new game's story. The endings are not unfinished, but rather left intentionally open to interpretation. (Well, except for the suicide ending I guess.) A new protagonist starting out and having their own story would be much better iMO. V and Johny had their story, and it's a good one. I'd rather move on to a new protagonist than drag them back into the limelight. Cyberpunk as a setting shouldn't get tied down too much to one singular character. V and David had their stories, and I don't want V back as the protagonist for the next game just as I don't want any cheap tricks pulled to get David and Lucy back for an Edgerunners season 2, if they do another CP show I'd likewise rather get a new cast.
As someone who was playing the tabletop cyberpunk 2020 at the time, I'll say that the 'green barbie book' (V3) was so awful it made people depressed. As for cybergen, the kids rules where really cool and it had some new gear & weapons that where nice but the nanovirus 'magic abilities' was garbage. It was a bit to 'you're a hero born to save the world' for my taste too. So its worth the buy, but only to cherry pick stuff from for your 2020 games.
I feel like the game did miss some little details itself that makes me question whether it is Johnny's unreliable memory of the past, or a small mess up by the devs. During the date with Rogue at the movie plex, she says "let's say it's 2015, we just met and I got no idea what a bastard you are." But everything that happened with Alt including saving her with Rogue, occurred in 2013, based on Johnny's flashback. I know you've done quite a bit of videos on the topic of Johnny's mind and memories being wrong, so it wouldn't surprise me to know if it really is his misinterpretation, or those involved in altering or implanting memories into the construct didn't realize.
some fans think its wasnt fully a johnny engram but a mix of a partial engram like jackie and a full engram. one being johnny silverhand, the other morgan blackhand. since theres many things not making sense in johnnys memory, like his fight on the rooftop with smasher and him being on an arasaka space station.
Mike pondsmith is that cool older nerd we all wanna be friends with!🤣 Hoping him and team monster smash out another cyberpunk red actual play soon too. Those were so bloody fun!
@@RagingRobotz Surviving choom lol yourself? And hey did you know after killing the moon you can find a shard from songbird telling V that they're right and she's okay?...
Yeah I'm used to Cyberpunk shortening to Corp so while narrating I didn't notice what I had said. Thank you for leaving a comment about it for everyone choom
@@idontcareaboutyouropinion8494 lol u wouldn't think but yea lol I moved around a lot growing up mostly into government housing that or moving into a cheap ass bando lookin house shit trust me I know ghetto and being broke I grew up down the street from 2 crack houses mfs would be ten deep on the front porch at 5-6 am waiting for the dope man to wake up while I'm getting off work from a paper route cause I was the only one working to keep the lights on at 10 years old 4 years later I got shot twice in a drive-by one im my neck and one im my shoulder I was in the hospital for a month so please don't think I ain't street or ghetto or hood trust me I've been in the hood since I can remember
@@LayedBackGamersthis honestly is the best vid I've seen Im obsessed with blade runner and cyberpunk so seeing original art is awesome and seeing the Mike's post makes it feel more factual and more informative I'm seriously impressed by you and how fast u adapt and make ur vids just that much better keep up the stellar work Choom
I totally believe people would believe things did / didt happen only 10yrs after the datakrash. In the last few years, we have seen people do just that. Ive literally had conversations with coworkers, in real life, that were arguing with timelines of the last decade. People will believe anything.