Spoilers forward for Cyberpunk 2077.
If you happen to’ve ever wished to expertise throwing Elon Musk down a rubbish chute, there’s, to my data, at the very least one choice: a facet quest in Cyberpunk 2077.
For a online game about dystopian wealth disparity, AI-driven automobiles, and downloading your consciousness into different our bodies, Cyberpunk 2077 is oddly quick on Musk references. The one it does comprise comes from the “Violence” facet quest. In it, you meet chrome-skinned pop celebrity Lizzy Wizzy, voiced by real-life singer-songwriter Grimes, who was nonetheless in a relationship with Musk on the time of the online game’s launch in 2020.
Right here, Lizzy Wizzy hires the protagonist, V, to surveil her boyfriend, whom she suspects of dishonest. It’s a reasonably cold job — heck, downright lawful in comparison with the opposite hijinks you’re getting as much as — and V appears bowled over by how low the stakes are. Why not simply ask him?
“Think about this — we’re by no means alone, not likely. All the time surrounded by assistants, PR reps, make-up artists,” she says. “I cease smiling at him for one millisecond, it’ll be throughout each screamsheet on this city … Hundreds of thousands of eyes, educated on you, always.”
The suspected cheater is Liam Northom, who Grimes / Lizzy describes as “Forty-ish. Delicate. Man who by no means wished for something.” Then, in a twist that doesn’t fairly match with the remainder of the dialogue, she explains that Liam is her supervisor.
Why would a pop star have bother securing a non-public dialog together with her supervisor when she apparently has no bother sneaking off to a seedy motel as a way to rent a mercenary? Why would tabloids even care about whether or not she’s smiling at her supervisor? And what does “man who by no means wished for something” imply, precisely? Are emerald mines implicated?
However inconsistent character constructing and weak dialogue are fairly par for the course in Cyberpunk 2077, so let’s transfer on.
The gameplay component within the quest is simple. You sneak right into a nightclub, hack their cameras, and document a dialog between Liam and a mysterious lady. It seems that he’s not dishonest — he’s surreptitiously backed up a digital model of her consciousness as insurance coverage simply in case her profession ends prematurely. “Are you able to tweak [her digitized personality] to take away undesirable traits?” he asks the not-Neuralink company rep that he’s assembly secretly within the membership. “Ever since her conversion, she hasn’t been herself.”
At this level, V logs off from the surveillance system. His fixed companion Johnny, voiced by Keanu Reeves, is horrified and encourages him to inform Lizzy the complete fact. If you happen to “do the precise factor” and provides her the recording of Liam’s dialog, she hangs up in shock and dismay. A while later, she calls you once more, asking you to satisfy her on the identical motel. You will discover her there having a full meltdown with Liam’s corpse mendacity on the bottom subsequent to her. If you happen to select to assist her once more, you decide up Elon / Liam, stroll down a corridor, and discard him in a rubbish chute.
And that’s kind of it! You get some unhinged texts from Lizzy Wizzy in a while about how impressed she is to make a brand new album. Presumably, it’ll be Lemonade however full-sensory — and as an alternative of forgiving her dishonest associate, she murders him and pays some man to toss him within the trash.
“Forty-ish. Delicate. Man who by no means wished for something.”
It’s attainable that the “Violence” facet quest was meant to be for much longer however needed to be truncated as a result of Cyberpunk’s infamous manufacturing points. It definitely feels truncated. However the actual sin is that it’s not even all that humorous. The console-breakingly unhealthy bugs that plagued its launch have since been addressed, and all in all, Cyberpunk 2077 is a genuinely entertaining online game that I’ve performed for a very embarrassing variety of hours. Nevertheless, it’s a lot tougher to repair the weak writing in subsequent patches — and this recreation’s writing is so weak that a quest the place you throw Musk down a rubbish chute is generally unmemorable.
Musk was in a reasonably completely different place within the cultural consciousness on the time of the sport’s launch. For many players then, he was the man who makes Cybertrucks, which seem like they’re straight out of Cyberpunk 2077; now, he’s the man who thinks iPhone technique video games are superior to chess and has the worst Elden Ring construct you’ve ever seen. Additionally, he and Grimes are damaged up.
Between the varied rumors of infidelity to Grimes and his total flagging reputation for the reason that acquisition of Twitter, possibly the “Violence” facet quest was simply too forward of its time. If it had been written at present, Liam Northom might have turn into a way more express nod to the billionaire and the entire arc would have been a lot funnier. Perhaps Liam’s physique could be unbelievably heavy as a result of carrying two shields. Perhaps you’d get rewarded with a Cybertruck that’s supposed to point out up in your stock later and by no means does.
However underwhelming or not, so far as I do know, it’s nonetheless the one online game the place you possibly can throw Musk down a rubbish chute. Put it within the subsequent anime, cowards.
