Cyberpunk 2077 - How Gender Customisation Works

VideoGamesChronicles reports how the gender customisation options will work for Cyberpunk 2077.

Pears also revealed that one way the game is attempting to be inclusive for all players is by having NPCs refer to the player character, V, by name instead of gender.

He said: "We really want to make sure players get the representation that they want. In the genre of Cyberpunk as well, it asks such deep questions about what it means to be human, let alone what it means to define your gender.

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That avoids the pronoun pitfall nicely while also exploring the issue of transhumanism. Well done CD Projekt RED.

That's hardly something new, an ancient game ME had no he or she or whatever, but ingame chatty always addressed MC with "Shepard this", "Shepard that".
I mean, okay, there are plenty of mmoers out there who never touched any of ME games, it's news to them.

I still prefer unvoiced protagonists myself. At least, I'd rather their dialogue options not be similar to Bioware's dialogue wheel but I suppose that is too much to hope for.

Imho handling gender like this only benefits a quite small subset of players. However I think for those it matters a lot. I'm happy for them.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
Imho handling gender like this only benefits a quite small subset of players. However I think for those it matters a lot. I'm happy for them.

Small but very vocal subset of players. But like you, I am also happy for them as it does not affect me as I am not sure I will even be playing the game

Absurd. The vast majority of people identify with one specific gender, usually their birth gender. They’ve completely eliminated gender pronouns for a very tiny minority. ADDING things for minorities is fine. Taking things away and making dialogue less natural? Not so much.

Yep this will be great because we’ll get to hear stuff like this,

Npc- I yelled to V yesterday. V was getting in V’s car and V must not have heard me because V got right in V’s car and V drove away and didn’t acknowledge me.”

Yes, I’m exaggerating. Hopefully.

Originally Posted by TheSnarkyShaman
Absurd. The vast majority of people identify with one specific gender, usually their birth gender. They’ve completely eliminated gender pronouns for a very tiny minority. ADDING things for minorities is fine. Taking things away and making dialogue less natural? Not so much.

What does it take away though? I'm guessing people normally address you by your name, unless they're polite strangers who might call you sir or madam. But in a cyberpunk world I kinda doubt that would come up often, and there's plenty of gender neutral monikers, like "asshole", for instance.

Now sure, when you're not in the room people are going to refer to you as him / her, she / he, but you wouldn't be likely to hear that anyway. I honestly doubt you'd even have noticed if not for this article mentioning it. No need to get triggered over nothing.

What about references to an npcs? Will we hear he/she then?

I suppose they will have gender-neutral bathrooms as well. Meh, whatever.

Originally Posted by Philistine
What about references to an npcs? Will we hear he/she then?

Of course. It's about giving the players the chance to create the main character however they like.
The NPC's having a predefined gender is another thing.

Originally Posted by TheSnarkyShaman
Absurd. The vast majority of people identify with one specific gender, usually their birth gender. They’ve completely eliminated gender pronouns for a very tiny minority. ADDING things for minorities is fine. Taking things away and making dialogue less natural? Not so much.

It worked out in Mass Effect and Dragon Age, didn't it?
Or did they really have different dialogues depending on Shepard being male or female?

Originally Posted by sakichop
Yep this will be great because we’ll get to hear stuff like this,

Npc- I yelled to V yesterday. V was getting in V’s car and V must not have heard me because V got right in V’s car and V drove away and didn’t acknowledge me.”

Yes, I’m exaggerating. Hopefully.

LOL, that would just be bad writing.

"Yesterday, V was getting in the car and I yelled. Probably did not hear me because V got right into the car and simply drove away". That's much better.

Originally Posted by GabrielMP_19
LOL, that would just be bad writing.

"Yesterday, V was getting in the car and I yelled. Probably did not hear me because V got right into the car and simply drove away". That's much better.

Of course it is, but I had to maximize the number of V’s.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Of course it is, but I had to maximize the number of V’s.

Try this one

Originally Posted by Morrandir
Of course. It's about giving the players the chance to create the main character however they like.
The NPC's having a predefined gender is another thing.

I am sure that will offend some people too. People don't want to make choices for themselves, they want validation and acknowledgement from other people as well so they would want to see "gender less" NPC as well.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against all this stuff and I think game like Cyberpunk is a good place to explore this kind of stuff. In fact I would go even further and all for trans human so some people can full fill their other fantasy etc.

Originally Posted by lostforever
I am sure that will offend some people too.

I'm quite sure this is true for pretty much everything.
But I think it's clear that in an RPG having control of the gender of the main character (=role to be played) is by far more important than the gender of NPCs.

However I'd implement it in a way that the NPCs adress the main character as he or she (randomly) despite the main character perhaps being non-binary or "genderless". After all you play the role of and have control over the main character only and you should not have control over NPCs in general.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
However I'd implement it in a way that the NPCs adress the main character as he or she (randomly) despite the main character perhaps being non-binary or "genderless".

VO actors need some more $ in such case.
If the question where to put the money was between high quality hair or more audio, I'd never take mp3.

Yes, of course.

However it could also work with advanced AI methods.