Although earlier examples do exist, nothing sums up the mood and aesthetic of cyberpunk quite like the opening of William Gibsons 1984 novel Neuromancer: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Its a genre of science fiction often marked by its contrasts; low life and high tech, to quote author Bruce Sterling, and a vision of the near future with its feet heavily planted in both the obsessions and pessimism of the 1980s.

Its instantly recognisable, and yet defies neat categorisation, with elements of noir, satire, fetishism and paranoia all typically mixed together. In its stock form, its the near future as seen from the gutterindividualists struggling to live as they choose in the perpetual darkness and driving rain of oppressive future cities where megacorporations rule everything and everyone. Its the antithesis of utopian sci-fi such as the Star Trek series, typically rooted in a sense of nihilism and criminality. Corruption is rife, violence is omnipresent, and law belongs to the highest bidder.

However, like most genres, theres far more to the setting than that. For starters, its a dark view of the future thats also shaped by its creators passions; a strong Asian vibe to the worlds, for instance, from the iconic geisha billboard that introduces us to Blade Runners near-future Los Angeles, to the existence of archetypes like Shadowruns 'street samurai'. The result tends to be worlds that are very cool to visit, but would be hellish to actually live in.

Deeper down though, cyberpunk is a genre thats less interested in the fancy toys and bright lights as the questions that they raise about humanityidentity, sexuality, ethics, memory, freedom, and more. Blade Runner, for example, is nominally a movie about a cop chasing down robots, but in practice is a deeper philosophical work that explores the nature of humanity by contrasting cold protagonist Deckard with the emotional Replicants he hunts.

This type of exploration is part of most major cyberpunk works of the last few decades, regardless of their origins. Be it the title of Ghost In The Shell referring to a spark of soul even when all organic elements have been replaced with machinery, to The Matrix, widely discussed for both its overt themes, such as the nature of reality, and for the many metaphors that can have read into it, most notably its potential to be seen as a transgender coming out story, andrather less positivelythe rise of philosophies such as 'redpilling' within certain online communities.

But lets turn our attention to games. Cyberpunk has been a part of them since the beginning, even if never as popular a setting as you might expect. Neuromancer saw a game conversion as far back as 1988, and many of its elements are still present in cyberspace futures todayhacking as a whole virtual world where the hacker must literally fight against ICE (Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics), upgrades in the form of skill chips, and so on. While not a great game, it was certainly a forward-thinking one, offering adventure/RPG cyberpunk action over a decade before Deus Ex; one where you could go from selling your organs for pocket money, to wandering down the street and finding a religion based on Pong.

As a game though, it made few waves, and this is honestly true for most attempts until the new millennium. Where theyre remembered, its primarily for their oddities. The original Blade Runner game particularly stands out here: an 8-bit outing not technically based on the moviethat would have been expensivebut rather 'inspired by the Vangelis soundtrack'. Needless to say, that inspiration somehow led to you being a cop in a big coat chasing down 'replidroids' in a futuristic city. That was 1985. Westwoods official game wouldnt arrive until 1997.

Not being huge commercial successes didnt mean that these games werent interesting. One of the more ambitious ones was Westwoods Circuits Edgethats Westwood as in the future creator of Command & Conquer. This was a text adventure with very simple graphical elements, based on the novel When Gravity Falls, with Islamic elements instead of the usual Asian ones. While almost entirely forgotten today, its an interesting piece of gaming history both for its technical side, with elements such as NPC scheduling, and for featuring some of the earliest gay/trans characters on PC.

Ideas in general were the genres strength, even if the games they were in drew more overall from Blade Runners aesthetics than cyberpunk philosophy. Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, for example, created Snatcher, a totally original story about a detective with a mysterious past hunting humanoid robots in the futuristic Neo Kobe City. Even more blatant was Sierras Rise Of The Dragon, a Chinese-themed adventure set in Los Angeles that named its hero Blade Hunter. Nothing, however, was ever quite as shameless as Access Softwares Mean Streets, which didnt just lift Blade Runners style, but shamelessly pinched one of its advertising posters.

When games broke free of that, the results could be fascinating. DreamWeb was one of the earliest to make waves, though not so much for the fact that your character was a potentially insane serial killer being guided by his dreams, as for the inclusion of a sex scene showing a few scandalous pixels of penis. It was an interesting game though, at least for the first few missions, before everyone involved unfortunately seemed to get somewhat bored with the concept.

Other prominent games of the '90s included Origins Cybermage: Darklight Awakening, arguably the most '90s name ever, the original System Shock, interactive movies with names like Angel Devoid and BurnCycle, and of course, the opening disc of Final Fantasy VII, which eschewed traditional fantasy for dark alleyways and the evil Shinra corporation. While it wasnt on PC, CD32 game Liberation: Captive II also deserves a mention. It was an RPG about freeing prisoners in a huge, fully explorable city. Almost impossible in scope then, its still impressive to consider today.

Three of the more interesting failed experiments came from creators John Antinori and Laura Kampo: Bloodnet, Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller, and (minus Kampo) Ripper. Theyre not great games, but they represent some of the most earnest attempts to Make Cyberpunk Work. Bloodnet mixed the traditional elements with vampires, in an open-world adventure/RPG in which you regularly had to feed to maintain your sanity, and any NPC was a potential target. Hell was about a future government working with demons to damn their enemies (though it was really a virtual reality scam). Finally, Ripper brought Jack the Ripper into the future, with some hilariously campy FMV, and a huge cast of actors such as Christopher Walken and a pre-fame Paul Giamatti.

Alas, it wouldnt really be until Westwood returned to the genre with its official Blade Runner game, and Ion Storm released Deus Ex, that the genre would truly get its dues on PC.

Even then, its been a bumpy ride. Until CD Projekt, wed never seen an official Cyberpunk game, despite the P&P having been written back in the very Web 1.0 era of 1988. And while there had been pretty good console RPGs based on its main competitor, Shadowrun (cyberpunk, but with elves and trolls and magic), it wouldnt be until over a decade later that Microsoft finally released a PC one. Unfortunately, this one wasnt an RPG, but a mediocre team-based FPS that fans mostly loathed. It wouldnt be for several more years that Shadowrun Returns would save the series reputation with a trilogy of excellent games. The second one, Dragonfall, is especially good.

Despite the struggles, cyberpunk has always been a part of PC gamingelements borrowed, inspiration drawn, cool things cherry-picked, whether something simple, like the anime stylings of Bungies Oni, the cool approach of hacking in Introversions Uplink, or the sprawling dystopia of Syndicate and Syndicate Wars, in which youre the evil corporation instead of the oppressed antihero.

Along with Blade Runner, one particular work has repeatedly cropped up in gaming cultureNeal Stephensons Snow Crash. While part of the genre, it largely satirised cyberpunk tropes, as best summed up by the main character being a hacker pizza delivery boy called Hiro Protagonist. Its central concept, a virtual world called the Metaverse, became an inspiration for what the internet could bepopularising, for instance, the word avatar as a name for a character, and the dream of a user-created space in which code and imagination could craft any landscape. This, alas, never happened, with the best attempt, Second Life, quickly descending from utopian dreams of virtual universities and truly world-wide rock concerts into a virtual universe of porn shops.

Still, the dream defined both an idealised future for the internet and gaming in general, that weve seen explored in everything from MMORPGs to VR. Microsofts Xbox Live was heavily inspired by the novel, for example, with its creators given copies to read as homework.

Theres definitely something endearing about that: while cyberpunk as a genre may have often been marginalised in gaming next to newer, shinier visions of the future, it was helping define the future long before the likes of Deus Ex brought its nihilistic visions mainstream.

Now, in an era of indie creators facing off against huge publishers and platform holders, it has new meaningthe establishment that wants more than just your money, rebels creating art, and the internet as the last battlefield where David can fight Goliath. It may not be dark alleyways and rainy cities, but gaming doesnt really get much more cyberpunk than that. Unless, of course, David finally upgrades to a katana.

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The history of cyberpunk on PC - PC Gamer