When it came to most of the antagonists, they were variations of generic, simplistic or very heavy handed. Many other characters, the sympathetic ones in particular were fantastic. For some reason it was the villains that were poorly written.
Avarice: extreme greed for wealth or material gain.
EXTREME EXTREMELY EXTREME A LOT.
And I disagree that being killed for adultery is more interesting than being killed because someone decided it looked better on the bottom line for 4th Quarter earnings.
The latter is much more....alien? Evil?
EXTREME EXTREMELY EXTREME A LOT.
And I disagree that being killed for adultery is more interesting than being killed because someone decided it looked better on the bottom line for 4th Quarter earnings.
The latter is much more....alien? Evil?
Avarice is probably the most prime motivator in Cyberpunk 2020. Hell, any cyberpunk setting. Some of the best villains in Cyberpunk 2020 were motivated entirely on avarice.
Avarice as a motivator does not preclude nuance in any way.
Granted, but alien is also unrelatable, and the best villains—including the ones listed in the OP—are the ones who kind of have a point and win the player over with their reasoning. Benny from Fallout: New Vegas isn't going to land on any "best villain ever" lists for a reason. Any idiot can want something. Most idiots do.
My ideal 2077 villain would be someone who starts out as a friend, working toward the same goals, and slowly becomes more reckless in their methods until they put V and a whole bunch of other characters in jeopardy. Then you have to choose whether to risk sacrificing a bunch of people you've spent the game growing attached to in the pursuit of your goals or put a bullet in just the one friend, arguably making you the villain for wanting to keep some cool people alive. It takes a special baddie to make you stop and think about where the ends stop justifying the means, and that's way more interesting to me than "yay money."