Is Cyberpunk 2077 inspired by Robo cop?

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cl656

Forum regular
I haven't seen the Robocop movies since i was a little kid, but I recently bought the trilogy on blu ray and watched them. I couldn't help but see Cyberpunk 2077 everywhere. Delta City is basically Night City, OCP is basically Arasaka, and its even controlled by a ruthless Japanese dude, the police are owned by OCP, gangs essentially rule part of the city, Robo cop is like a what if Adam Smasher was a good guy, and the commercials in the movie are just as over the top as they are in Cyberpunk 2077.
 
It might have been inspired slightly, yes. Adam Badowski (head of the CP2077 team) in one of the polish interviews admitted that he liked the vision and some artistic direction in Paul Voerhoven's movie and he initially imagined Cyberpunk to be in a similar area, so to speak. To some extent, of course.
 
There are so many 80s dystopian films and books that would have been an influence and Robocop would without doubt have been one of them.
Akira, Escape from New York, obviously Blade runner, William Gibson, Walter Williams and Philip K Dick. They're all present in the game, I would bet even the designers themselves aren't concious of all the influences they've pulled style and inspiration from.
 
Untill I see a dude melting in acid in CP 2077, I won't agree with you! :giveup:
Damn can't imagine cool looking melting like this in video game, maybe in future...Also gore quality is still not there to challange basics...like for example way Robocop killed Clarence B...
 
The game is greatly inspired by Neuromancer by William Gibson.

The main character in that story is Henry Dorsett (co-incidentally you rescue Sandra Dorsett from first mission). He is a character who due to his own stupidity gets thrown off the employment after stealing from his employer. He gets punished by being separated from computers by limiting his abilities basically and is forced to take mercenary duties in order to try to get back to the top. So basically the corpo path without the stealing reference.

There's a ton of influence of course from other cyberpunk / scifi like Matrix and Ghost in the Shell (for example Judy Alvarez has Ghost in the Shell tattoo). There's also terminator reference even the original Bladerunner scene in the top of the building.

To say that this game has been inspired by other fiction is like saying Sky is blue. These are of course very complex topics and every new author of movie/book/game always tries to bring their own spin into the them.

For example Johnny being an engram that is planted into your head seems like pretty original idea to my knowledge, but of course isn't that uncommon in fantasy, where there can easily be spirits or other unworldly beings that communicate only to you. Death Note for example you got Light Yagami who is able to communicate to Shinigami, a death god, who is only being able to be seen by those who touch the death note.

For example Alt Cunningham becoming a sort of AI God could be inspired by Terminator Salvation where in the end the Terminator has human emotions and goes back to the source AI which reveals its motivations and... well it was pretty messy plot.



But Robocop? I don't really know what exactly got mimicked from there? Maybe the scanning of people... but I'm not really convinced.

Sometimes it's of course hard to know exactly what came first, chicken or the egg. Often times something else brings out these topics up, like political debates or some warnings about AI from scientific communities, that later triggers people to write stories around them, I doubt it's books or movies which appear very close proximity from each other.
 
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The game is greatly inspired by Neuromancer by William Gibson.

The main character in that story is Henry Dorsett (co-incidentally you rescue Sandra Dorsett from first mission). He is a character who due to his own stupidity gets thrown off the employment after stealing from his employer. He gets punished by being separated from computers by limiting his abilities basically and is forced to take mercenary duties in order to try to get back to the top. So basically the corpo path without the stealing reference.

There's a ton of influence of course from other cyberpunk / scifi like Matrix and Ghost in the Shell (for example Judy Alvarez has Ghost in the Shell tattoo). There's also terminator reference even the original Bladerunner scene in the top of the building.

To say that this game has been inspired by other fiction is like saying Sky is blue. These are of course very complex topics and every new author of movie/book/game always tries to bring their own spin into the topics.

For example Johnny being an engram that is planted into your head seems like pretty original idea to my knowledge, but of course isn't that uncommon in fantasy, where there can easily be spirits or other unworldly beings that communicate only to you. Death Note for example you got Light Yagami who is able to communicate to Shinigami, a death god, who is only being able to be seen by those who touch the death note.

For example Alt Cunningham becoming a sort of AI God could be inspired by Terminator Salvation where in the end the Terminator has human emotions and goes back to the source AI which reveals its motivations and... well it was pretty messy plot.



But Robocop? I don't really know what exactly got mimicked from there? Maybe the visual UI and scanning people... but those existed in the Ghost in the Shell way before Robocop even was a movie.

Sometimes it's of course hard to know exactly what came first, chicken or the egg. Often times something else brings out these topics up, like political debates or some warnings about AI from scientific communities, that later triggers people to write stories around them.
Tone of both worlds is really similar: ruthless corpos (assasinations of competition), corrupted police, dystopian future, crime going wild, etc.
 
Tone of both worlds is really similar: ruthless corpos (assasinations of competition), corrupted police, dystopian future, crime going wild, etc.
Yet there are differences.

For example in Ghost in the Shell, unless you talk about the real life film adaptation, the police isn't really that wide spread corrupt. But there certainly are agencies going after corruption... and even the real world adaptation the reasoning for the police hiding true identity could be explained by non-corrupt means.

In Ghost in the Shell there's not really this idea of corporations being evil systems that brainwash people to accept their godly powers, and where average humans are just left to rot and barely making by. I think this is generally something that seems to however appear in a lot of american cyberpunk themed movies and books. Not saying t his is good or bad thing, just an observation.


In Robocop/Terminator for example there's not really a dystopian future going on, in new or old ones, there's certainly a giant military corporations pushing the boundaries and trying to get their agenda through by any means necessary, but most of the powers are still run by politicians and their decisions. The world in robocop isn't all large mountains of trash everywhere surrounded by people wearing broken gadgets. It's a typical American life being attempted to live in middle class families, while there certainly are (especially in the old movies) a large criminal world which needs to get solved. Outside of course the bleak future of Terminator that we get shown this post apocalyptic world of robots taking over the earth and wiping out humanity.

So I don't think there can be any large similarity to be drawn from any particular characteristic. It's entirely normal to assume in future there are big corporations that do business, and there is some level of attempting to gain advantage by lobbying with politicians and trying to gain contracts etc. In Ghost in the Shell however (looking at the movies alone) there's more focus on the AI and humanity than what corporations are doing.

Cyberpunk is just like a fantasy. You can write a book about a ring of power that is destined to rule all of middle earth, or you can write about a boy who is destined to beat a great evil Wizard. Or you can write a story about Dark Elf trying to adapt into the outside world after being raised in the underworld to be fierce and ruthless fighter and serve the will of the dark elf Goddess. Or a fantasy book series about King Arthus and his wizard friend Merlin, who try to rule over the land of Camelot.

There's not really 1 specific quality that would unify all the fantasy books, other than that there's generally some type of magic and there's character learning to deal with his/her powers.
 
When the first 1-hour demo arrived in 2018, people complained how it's not permanent night and constant rain Blade-Runner-style. And I thought it looked very much like Robocop. Industrial suburbs, dusty pipes, everything is militarized with metal gray and bulletproof vests... Again, visually and aesthetics-wise CP77 looks so freaking good.
 
I will disagree: Robocop is about dystopian future at least it was when it was created, because Detroit is not far from what you can see in this movie, right now, minus robots.:D Corporation rules city, police is private company etc.
Corpos from Robocop are really similar to corpos from Cyberpunk universe:
 
I will disagree: Robocop is about dystopian future at least it was when it was created, because Detroit is not far from what you can see in this movie, right now, minus robots.:D Corporation rules city, police is private company etc.
Corpos from Robocop are really similar to corpos from Cyberpunk universe:
And in Robo 3, corps evict citizens from home with a private militia
 
You should know "inspired" is not "copied" ;)
As an author for example, you take what you like in the universe that you like and make your own "book".

Yeah of course I meant nothing is directly copied.

There certainly are themes that are very common in cyberpunk movies and like I said it's not likely movies and books are directly copying a single work of art. It's more often an entire genre that is taken into consideration when crafting your own story.

If I want to create a game myself, for lets say for a mobile, I could just come up an idea by myself (very unlikely) or try to adapt some ideas from games what I like into a mobile game format and mixing up some of the elements found in other games (much more likely).

It'd be impossible to create a work of fiction without using existing material... I mean it could in theory... but I doubt people would find it entertaining to read because there's no reference point.

It would be like finding early Matrix draft from a book created in 1500, where everything is running by a horse and electricity hasn't yet been discovered. Technically it could be possible, but like many people are saying about certain ideas, it might have just been too ahead of it's time.


The game definitely pays some pays homage to the other titles, even if they're not cyberpunk themed at all. I don't think there's anything to be ashamed about the fact.
 
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If you look at the digital goodie of the sourcebook, there is a section about directing the tabletop game and setting the mood with recommendations of books and movies (including Robo 1 & 2) :
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Now I need a Max Headroom fix... in CPRED the filmography is expanded including Ghost in the Shell,Matrix trilogy,Akira,Altered Carbon,Blade Runner Sequel,Appleseed.
There are many "cyberpunk" universes and the tabletop as it is said here draws a little bit from all.
 
Now I need a Max Headroom fix... in CPRED the filmography is expanded including Ghost in the Shell,Matrix trilogy,Akira,Altered Carbon,Blade Runner Sequel,Appleseed.
There are many "cyberpunk" universes and the tabletop as it is said here draws a little bit from all.
They forgot about Alien 3 :mad: I know it's hated, but for some people, like me , is favourite part of franchise, so dark...so beautiful.. plus that strong anti-megacorpo vibe...
 
They forgot about Alien 3 :mad: I know it's hated, but for some people, like me , is favourite part of franchise, so dark...so beautiful.. plus that strong anti-megacorpo vibe...

Any movie where Weyland-Yutani appears has my support to be included in a cyberpunk filmography (well maybe Aliens vs Predator no).

PS: I'm also dissapointed that Class of 1999 is not included with its "free firefight zones" not patrolled by the police
 
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