Post Script
Cyberpunk’s tale is a triumph of tone over consequence
Corporate stooge. Plucky urchin. Desert wanderer. No, not the descriptor on our Edge business cards, but the three life paths you choose between when building your V at Cyberpunk’s outset. This is followed by a bespoke prologue for each background that establishes your relationship with Night City. The Badlands Nomad has to break into it, the Street Kid banters their way through it and the Arasaka Corpo loses their place at the top of it. That last one is understandably necessary for any of the following story to work, but a brief penthouse reign does raise a tantalising ‘what if’ vision of Cyberpunk where you get to tackle the story from a position of power. If only for the better photo mode opportunities you find on the 97th floor.
In truth, these prologues are little more than movement tutorials and a quick blast of world building, though the Nomad does get to squeal a rumbustious jalopy around the desert outlands that aren’t available until much later in the others’ tales. It’s certainly not the first game to use biography as a hero building block. 2020 alone has seen the early access release of Baldur’s Gate 3, where tens of tags – racial, social and geographical – influence what can and can’t be said. It’s similar, if simplified, here, with some short throwaway missions that reference your roots and dialogue befitting your upbringing. The Nomad has a natural in with that community when encountered in the main storyline, for example.