But V is not a real person. They’re just a video game character, and I, as a player, choose their fate, not the game’s script and code, and certainly not Keanu Reeves. Since my cancer diagnosis, my male V (you can choose the gender of the protagonist) has wandered the streets of Night City in “Cyberpunk 2077”, carefree and blissful, willfully ignorant, by my choice, of his death sentence.
It wasn’t always so easy to be carefree in Night City. The game’s infamous December 2020 release redefined the term “cyberpunk” to mean “unfinished, buggy, and unplayable video game.” as i wrote in my final review of the game in 2021, “Cyberpunk 2077” used to bombard the player with phone calls and notifications about new activities, with the resulting information overload destroying any sense of spatial immersion and strangling the pace of the game’s compelling narrative arc.
This older, nastier version of “Cyberpunk 2077” reminds me of my current situation. My phone is constantly buzzing with worried texts and phone calls from friends, family, ex-girlfriends, ex-coworkers, and long-lost acquaintances. Everyone talks about the myriad challenges of cancer, but one of the least discussed is the emotional toll placed on the patient as they navigate, calm, and bow to the overwhelming pain projected by their loved ones. I value and often need the support and concern of my family and friends, but I still feel that none of this would have to be said if it weren’t for my cancer. Words meant to calm me often just remind me that I am fighting for my life.
Five months ago, developer CD Projekt Red released their 1.5 update, which brought a host of stabilization fixes, new features, and most importantly to me, the ability to ignore in-game text messages and phone calls. . The promise of a streamlined experience after patch 1.5, coupled with my excitement for Netflix’s “Cyberpunk Edgerunners” anime series in September, invited me back into the experience. In the days leading up to my first chemotherapy session, my mind was filled with anxiety. But now I’ve learned to accept putting my phone on silent and keeping the screen down while playing “Cyberpunk 2077” for hours a day, a kind of patch 1.5 on my own life.
Today, I face the relentlessly exhausting reality of fighting cancer, a fight that consumes every hour, if not every minute of my day. As a cancer patient, I feel pulled in so many directions that I barely have control of my life: doctors constantly fill my schedule with appointments, check-ups, and follow-ups; a home care nurse who visits me twice a week; my family asking for updates and dealing with their own trauma since my diagnosis; and hundreds of friends offering to help while feeling and (let’s face it) powerless.
But in “Cyberpunk 2077”, I can ignore my character’s death sentence. As in other open world games, there is no “Game Over” screen to skip the main campaign. I can play however I want, ignoring the corruption trying to kill my character from within, while remaining immune to any consequences of that decision.
Narrative critics rightly criticize “Cyberpunk 2077” for failing to establish a strong motivation for its protagonist to pursue something other than saving his own life. Why is V helping the police stop gang activity when they need to save themselves? What is the point of all this money being raised? Why buy a new car when any day could be your last?
Why put off responding to a loved one’s desperate and pleading text as if you promised yourself tomorrow?
It was when I asked myself this question that I came to appreciate V’s indifference to saving his life. With nothing but existence at stake, my V lives every day stubbornly refusing to commit to the fact that he can be the last one: a daydream of chasing more and more dreams. It is this context that helps me, possibly a dying man, to appreciate “Cyberpunk 2077” more than any other open world game when it comes to achieving my specific power fantasy.
In real life, ignoring my diagnosis is not a luxury I can afford. My cancer is aggressive and I will be fighting aggressively for the next several months. I pray that I can get rid of him by the end of 2022. I am only at the beginning of the nightmare; It will be some time before he can wake up to anything resembling a normal life.
Even after dozens of hours of playing “Cyberpunk 2077” since my diagnosis and several drafts of this essay, I’m not much closer to understanding my sudden fascination with this title given my current situation. It should be triggered by this game. It is an aggressive reminder of a terminal illness.
Yet this game compels me in a way that it never has before, and in a way that no other game has in 2022. This compulsion extends beyond my playing time: I bought the “Cyberpunk 2077” gamer chair Secret Lab, the “Cyberpunk 2077” soundtrack on Apple Music, the “Cyberpunk 2077” artbook and comics, and two “Cyberpunk 2077” Dark Horse action figures. I never felt trapped in the nine-year marketing cycle for this game. Yet here I am, a few years from launch, spending money on the brand like an uncritical fan.
Even my text alert sounds and ringtones are pulled directly from “Cyberpunk 2077.” Creating them for iPhone was a first for me: it meant learning how to use GarageBand just to satisfy this weird, global desire to live in the world of “Cyberpunk 2077.”
Maybe it really is all the little improvements that CD Projekt Red made to the game for its 1.5 update, including: cars that react to events in real time and have suspension, giving them a sense of real weight in this virtual world ; side quests that offer so many rewarding short stories, allowing me to experience an electronic cyberpunk version of “The Arabian Nights”; a reworked skill system that makes character evolution more meaningful; and deeper interactions through friendships, which can be ignored but are there if I need them.
Perhaps it’s the way “Cyberpunk 2077,” whether intentionally or not, leans into genre tropes, effortlessly echoing famous childhood artworks from the ’80s and ’90s like the groundbreaking anime ” Akira” or “Fight Club” by David Fincher. After all, V is essentially the protagonist of “Fight Club” who meets his Tyler Durden (however, now played by Keanu Reeves instead of Brad Pitt).
Here’s a confession: I often fall asleep to old Steve Jobs presentations, when he announces industry-changing products like the iPod, iPhone, iPad, or iCloud. He is a marketing expert, in the sense that many people believed in his conviction that these technologies would change the world. It’s easy to see in retrospect how much that change has helped and hurt me, but the innocence of that early faith comforts and lulls me to sleep.
“Cyberpunk 2077” is often criticized for not offering a real vision of the future, but I now understand that it was never intended to represent any kind of future. “Cyberpunk 2077” is the future seen from our past. It’s when we still believed that flying cars were a possibility.
Perhaps I, as a 40-year-old man, take solace in how modern technology is repackaging a catalog of old and outdated counterculture, all from my youth, a time in my life when I truly felt immortal and ageless, when the tomorrow felt guaranteed. —even if that too was just a dream.
None of this is to say that I’m giving CD Projekt Red a belated pass on how the company mishandled the release of this game. Most egregious are the attempts to mislead consumers and journalists, by holding the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game nearly unplayable until after release. i’m still waiting what i wrote last year: CD Projekt Red’s marketing of the game, and final release, turned them from industry favorites to their most renowned liars. The studio promised a “dream game,” an experience that would fulfill so many fantasies for so many people. That’s not what they released.
But in 2022, I’d be lying if I said I’m not enjoying wrapping myself in CD Projekt Red’s messy, youthful electric dream. , all without serious consequences. “Cyberpunk 2077” is helping me create the most precious memories I can of this terrible time in my life.
“Cyberpunk 2077” is not a dream game, but it is an experience that still feels like a kind of dream, even if I can’t fully understand or explain it. To me, that’s all a video game needs to be.