If you follow even a little bit of gaming nowadays, chances are you've heard of Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red's upcoming RPG action-adventure game has been in the works since 2012, and with all the amazing features that it's said to contain, everyone is already buzzing.
Recently, CDPR announced information about the gangs that players will have to face up against when the game drops later this year. Despite the excitement this news generated, many would rather the tide die down quickly – because all of these gangs have a major problem.
What problem would that be? Well, a lot of them appear to be racist or heavily stereotyped. For example, there's a gang named "Animals" which entirely consists of African-American members.
On the other side of the spectrum you have gangs like Tyger Claws. I won't say anything; instead, I'll let the official explanation from CDPR (as seen on the official CP2077 Instagram page) do the talking.
Tyger Claws is a gang of Japanese origin and stylistic influence, located in Japantown. They're ruthless and violent in practice, and intimidating in appearance. Katanas, street bikes and luminous tattoos are their trademarks. #Cyberpunk2077
Katanas? Street bikes? Luminous tattoos? I don't know about you, but that screams Japanese thug/Yakuza stereotype to me.
Then there's the Valentinos, a gang that seems to be stereotyping Latino people.
What's interesting about all of this, is that it seems to be going relatively unnoticed. Fans and future players appear to be oddly unconcerned within the Twitter replies of the game's official account.
Can you imagine what it would be like for people of these cultures to see what CDPR is doing? As far as I've seen, no one has publicly called out the Polish studio for these concerning decisions, but there could be a (justified) storm brewing.
And anyways, I thought we left stereotyping of this caliber back in the early-mid 2000s? Doing it nowadays just seems petty, pointless, and overdone. Media projects that go against previously-placed negative stereotypes, even outside the scope of video games, truly stand out from the crowd. Really, I just don't know what caused CDPR to create such obvious stereotypes for the gangs of Cyberpunk 2077.
However, there is one little glimmer of hope left in this situation. As of May 2020, the biggest thing we know about these gangs is what their logos look like. Sure, some of them have maybe a screenshot or two here and there, but we still haven't seen the big picture or how they will behave in-game; we have yet to see how gangs' interactions with each other and the player will play out – and there could be some refreshing surprises in store. So maybe, just maybe, they won't turn out to be blatant stereotypes after all.
Cyberpunk 2077 releases on Xbox One and Series X, PS4 and PS5, PC and Stadia on September 17, 2020.