Cyberpunk

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A place for discussion of all things cyberpunk (not primarily Cyberpunk 2077)

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Is Overwatch cyberpunk? (lemmy.villa-straylight.social)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Does Overwatch, the Blizzard game, count as cyberpunk, or does cyberpunk require a darker aesthetic?

I only know cyberpunk through CDPR’s Cyberpunk 2077 game, and I guess also through the Blade Runner movies. So, I don’t really know much about it from literature or tabletop games.

That said, Overwatch has a lot of the same themes, but with a brighter “Sunday morning cartoon/anime” aesthetic.

So yeah, thoughts?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Overwatch has a lot of the same sci-fi elements, but I don't think cyberpunk would be an accurate way to describe it. In a way, it's a patchwork of a bunch of different stuff; for example, you might say Sombra is cyberpunk. But I don't think it generalizes well.

One of the main things in cyberpunk (and in a lot of punk genres) is economic inequality and the flaws of capitalism. In Overwatch, large corporations are part of the setting (and so is poverty, I would guess), but that's all they are — background set pieces.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I would say no, none of the themes of cyberpunk are really there and aesthetic is also very far off

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's the lijiang tower map that has some really cool aesthetics, I'd say kinda cyberpunkysh:

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think it mostly looks futuristic, and not cyberpunk, what I consider cyberpunk look is more dirty, less utopistic and polished look. I tried to post image from Deus Ex Mankind Divided Golem City, but it didn't work for some reason.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Just post an external URL to it like i did, similar to old reddit

It's also more lightweight to the instances, I strictly only upload images I don't want to rot on here

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I would say... sort of? It's much more comic book superhero shit with some very loose nods to cyberpunk (a la the robot stuff). What I think it lacks is anything more than a surface level social commentary or any real analysis of how technological advancement intersects with capital accumulation to create a dystopia. It's more about capeshit with a thin premise of "DAE robot rights?" without really even exploring that subject on a meaningful or philosophical level.

Contrast that with, for example, the recently revitalized Armored Core franchise. That is Cyberpunk.