This is going to be a little break from my usual gushing about tokusatsu, anime, and Supernatural. I've been thinking about CyberPunk 2077 and playing it a lot. So I figured its time to talk about one of my favorite fictional settings: Night City. Lets roll chooms!
Life isn't easy here. You either work for a Corp or try to get by day to day. Even then the Corpos still have to worry about being stabbed in the back, either leading to them losing their job or ending up with a bullet in their skull. Some folks make a meager living managing to scrape by and some basically just grab a pistol, chip some chrome, and start taking on jobs as mercs. It ain't just the Corpos fckin' with you that you gotta worry about on these streets either. You got gangs shaking down folks and throwing their weight around and thats if you're lucky. If you're REALLY unlucky you might just run into some borged out freak who wants to take your head off.
And thats really all I'll say about life in the city because its pretty much what you'd expect for a place like this. I just love the atmosphere and vibe of the city. When I'm not hacking up street gangs with a katana, making a new outfit with some gear I found, or stalking the streets like I'm goddamn Batman, I'm just taking a stroll around the city. I absolutely love ducking between alleyways, prowling the backstreets, cruising down the street on a sweet ass bike while listening to the radio, and just chillin' while exploring just to see what I might find. Hell, sometimes I will just stand in one spot listening to the ads or npc conversations. I practically know this city like the back of my hand. Well I know Japantown and Watson anyway. I know my way around Northside a bit and I tend to get ganked in Heywood cuz I keep walking into gangs aggro zones when I round a corner.
At night, I'm just soaking in the lights and sounds of the city. Some of my most chill moments in the game have been just finding a beautiful spot on top of a roof and watching the skyline. All the neon and blaring ads are oddly soothing at night and the city just hits different. It feels like everything just melts away. All the streets and back-alleys feel like they've changed. Places I've been plenty of times during they seems to have little extra corners and hiding spots even though its the exact same map.
And thats what I love about Night City. Its just a really cool place and 2077 is usually the game I pop in when I don't know what I want to play. I've spent countless hours just wandering the streets after the first act. I've barely done the main story or even the side missions because its just so much fun to farm random gang members for loot and test their loot tables while seeing all the sights the city has to offer. There are very few fictional places I wish I could go to and Night City is one of them even though I know I probably wouldn't even last a day. I am legitimately a bit sad that I don't live in this particular dystopia and I can't figure out why.
