Spoilers forward for Cyberpunk 2077.
When you’ve ever wished to expertise throwing Elon Musk down a rubbish chute, there may be, to my data, not less than one possibility: a facet quest in Cyberpunk 2077.
For a online game about dystopian wealth disparity, AI-driven vehicles, and downloading your consciousness into different our bodies, Cyberpunk 2077 is oddly brief on Musk references. The one it does comprise comes from the “Violence” facet quest. In it, you meet chrome-skinned pop famous person Lizzy Wizzy, voiced by real-life singer-songwriter Grimes, who was nonetheless in a relationship with Musk on the time of the online game’s launch in 2020.
Right here, Lizzy Wizzy hires the protagonist, V, to surveil her boyfriend, whom she suspects of dishonest. It’s a fairly cold job — heck, downright lawful in comparison with the opposite hijinks you’re getting as much as — and V appears shocked by how low the stakes are. Why not simply ask him?
“Think about this — we’re by no means alone, not likely. At all times surrounded by assistants, PR reps, make-up artists,” she says. “I cease smiling at him for one millisecond, it’ll be throughout each screamsheet on this city … Hundreds of thousands of eyes, educated on you, always.”
The suspected cheater is Liam Northom, who Grimes / Lizzy describes as “Forty-ish. Delicate. Man who by no means wished for something.” Then, in a twist that doesn’t fairly match with the remainder of the dialogue, she explains that Liam is her supervisor.
Why would a pop star have hassle securing a non-public dialog along with her supervisor when she apparently has no hassle sneaking off to a seedy motel as a way to rent a mercenary? Why would tabloids even care about whether or not she’s smiling at her supervisor? And what does “man who by no means wished for something” imply, precisely? Are emerald mines implicated?
However inconsistent character constructing and weak dialogue are fairly par for the course in Cyberpunk 2077, so let’s transfer on.
The gameplay aspect within the quest is easy. You sneak right into a nightclub, hack their cameras, and file a dialog between Liam and a mysterious girl. It seems that he’s not dishonest — he’s surreptitiously backed up a digital model of her consciousness as insurance coverage simply in case her profession ends prematurely. “Are you able to tweak [her digitized personality] to take away undesirable traits?” he asks the not-Neuralink company rep that he’s assembly secretly within the membership. “Ever since her conversion, she hasn’t been herself.”
At this level, V logs off from the surveillance system. His fixed companion Johnny, voiced by Keanu Reeves, is horrified and encourages him to inform Lizzy the complete reality. When you “do the best factor” and provides her the recording of Liam’s dialog, she hangs up in shock and dismay. A while later, she calls you once more, asking you to fulfill her on the identical motel. You will discover her there having a full meltdown with Liam’s corpse mendacity on the bottom subsequent to her. When you select to assist her once more, you decide up Elon / Liam, stroll down a corridor, and discard him in a rubbish chute.
And that’s kind of it! You get some unhinged texts from Lizzy Wizzy in a while about how impressed she is to make a brand new album. Presumably, it’ll be Lemonade however full-sensory — and as a substitute of forgiving her dishonest associate, she murders him and pays some man to toss him within the trash.
“Forty-ish. Delicate. Man who by no means wished for something.”
It’s potential that the “Violence” facet quest was meant to be for much longer however needed to be truncated because of Cyberpunk’s infamous manufacturing points. It actually feels truncated. However the true sin is that it’s not even all that humorous. The console-breakingly unhealthy bugs that plagued its launch have since been addressed, and all in all, Cyberpunk 2077 is a genuinely entertaining online game that I’ve performed for a very embarrassing variety of hours. Nevertheless, it’s a lot tougher to repair the weak writing in subsequent patches — and this sport’s writing is so weak that a quest the place you throw Musk down a rubbish chute is generally unmemorable.
Musk was in a fairly completely different place within the cultural consciousness on the time of the sport’s launch. For many players then, he was the man who makes Cybertrucks, which appear to be they’re straight out of Cyberpunk 2077; now, he’s the man who thinks iPhone technique video games are superior to chess and has the worst Elden Ring construct you’ve ever seen. Additionally, he and Grimes are damaged up.
Between the varied rumors of infidelity to Grimes and his general flagging recognition because the acquisition of Twitter, perhaps the “Violence” facet quest was simply too forward of its time. If it had been written at present, Liam Northom may have develop into a way more specific nod to the billionaire and the entire arc would have been a lot funnier. Perhaps Liam’s physique can be unbelievably heavy because of carrying two shields. Perhaps you’d get rewarded with a Cybertruck that’s supposed to indicate up in your stock later and by no means does.
However underwhelming or not, so far as I do know, it’s nonetheless the one online game the place you can throw Musk down a rubbish chute. Put it within the subsequent anime, cowards.
