CHAPTER 2.8: CHARACTER VS. PLAYER EXPRESSION
The portrayal of marginalized people grows more complicated once the Voodoo Boys introduce one of their main enemies. This is actually who Placide was trying to warn V about while walking through Pacifica. A gang called the Animals fight for the Voodoo Boys’ territory. They are described by in the 2019 Deep Dive Video as "[valuing] might above all else" and being hooked on a fictional drug called Juice (CD Projekt Red). What isn’t said explicitly—but can be clearly seen in the shots representing the gang—is that the Animals are primarily BIPOC.
Within a few minutes of their introduction, the demo portrays multiple colorful options with which to kill them. V’s augmented vision, the player’s eyes into Night City, are quick to tag the gang members that pop up on-screen with ANIMAL flaring bright above their heads. The rest of the demo is devoted to murdering all of the Animals taking refuge in a concrete hideout.
One of the tenets of Afrofuturism is that works from the subgenre are engaging with aspects of the Black condition—typically written as a self-reflection from a Black author. The element of retrospection, of creating a nuanced take on the lives of the non-White characters of the game, is nonexistent here. As I mentioned earlier, the writing team for Cyberpunk 2077 is primarily Polish. Though it would be simple to rationalize the stilted representation of urban life in America as a result of Cyberpunk 2077’s writing team not being as familiar with American life in general, the creative head of the game does not make this conclusion so easy.
Mike Pondsmith is the African-American creator of the original Cyberpunk tabletop RPG series, the set of games which Cyberpunk 2077 is being adapted from. He also serves as the creative director for Cyberpunk 2077. When asked about the controversy of how Animals and Voodoo Boys were being portrayed in the 2019 gameplay demo, he responded with this comment on Reddit:
The last bullet-point leads me to believe that Pondsmith might be trying to deflect criticism of how his creations have been reinterpreted by the CD Projekt Red team. The first bullet-point reads as if he is also trying to maintain distance between himself and the game. Regardless, Pondsmith’s presence on the team rejects the argument that the decisions around the portrayal of race in Cyberpunk 2077 arises solely from ignorance around socio-political dynamics in America.1. I wasn't heavily involved, I would be able to get more done. As it is, I barely have a life.
2. As for the Animals--the WHOLE FREAKING POINT is that they think of themselves as POWERFUL, DANGEROUS, WILD ANIMALS. You'd have thought the Lady named "Sasquatch" would have given them a clue.
3. The original Voodoo Boys were a scathing commentary on cultural appropriation. I LOVE the idea that real practicioners [sic] of Voudon moved in and took back their turf. And they even got the Creole right!
4. Who the (bleep) do YOU think you are to tell ME whether or not MY creation was done right or not? (Pondsmith)
If the Voodoo Boys and the Animals are Afrofuturist, then they are Afrofuturist fragments filtered through a kaleidoscope of differing ideologies and worldviews. The meta-narrative between the game creators, their identities, and their creations are the forces that shape Night City. To see the interplay between the external, real life situations and the game’s narrative clearly, cyberpunk has to be understood for the literary toolkit that it is. The retrofuture that cyberpunk creates is primarily an extended literary metaphor, applying the spectacle of digital technology and making it larger-than-life to highlight the dynamic and contradictory disruptions of the contemporary era. In effect, the Voodoo Boys cannot just be hackers—they are also representative of rebel groups from a historical context. They are how we filter and approach technological disruptions in fiction.