Got my hands on a copy of Cy-borg (Cy-Borg, with a capital B?). It's got neon, it's got cybertech, it's got that neo-synth thing going on. It is completely empty.
The book has all the trappings of a cyberpunk book, but it offers us nothing new. At this point, the 80s and 90s cyberpunk ideas are just dated, and regurgitating their style and messages (old already in the 90s) gives us nothing new. As a tribute to the 80s/90s? I guess it's fine? Like, my issue is largely the fact that Cy- only reduces cyberpunk to a collection of objects, colors and moods, and it gives us nothing but a "Corporations bad" statement; it is, stylistically and linguistically, stuck in an exaggeration of the pointers of older titles. Someone much smarter than me once wrote (paraphrased) that Pacific Rim gladly steals from a bunch of things (games, comics etc), but the idea is that if you steal you're supposed to give something back. Here we are, with Cy- doing the same thing.
We should ask ourselves how a cyberpunk game should look in the year 2022, not "what if 80s but exaggerated?" This is where Cy- falls short -- its author asks no questions. What about necro- and psychopolitics, or exploring state vs/and individual, isolation/enclosure, intellectual rights/private properties has evolved (WB shuttering thousands of shows just for a tax write-off is adjacent, for sure) and its connected ideologies. Hustle mentality, grindset etc. How does actual control look today?
An RPG written today shouldn't be schooled by an anime that's 20 years older, yet here we are. Lain and adjacents (Paranoia Agent, Pulse) are all asking more pertinent questions about the state of today than Cy- is. Goddamn.
For a more cyberpunk game, take a look at iHunt. Yes. A game that's not even framing itself as a cyberpunk game is more cyberpunk than Cy- (by virtue of being a game set in the now, not the 80s). Good fucking job.
At least the art is pretty. But it becomes shallow when there's nothing underneath.
