I hope you all enjoyed! Let me know all your thoughts, experience, and feedback down below. I always enjoy reading through your comments. I have some more interesting video essays on the way. So be on the lookout! Have a great week chooms.

No one ever talks about this one but R. Talsorian Games had another TTRPG back in the day called Mekton. One of it’s adventure/campaign guides called Star Blade Battalion was a followup to Cyberpunk 2020 taking place in 2100. They made lots of references to cyberpunk mega corporations, night city, and even old cyberware calling it dead metal.

My absolute favourite part of reading any Cyberpunk booklets for the TTRPG is just how absolutely out-to-lunch Mike Pondsmith is in regards to numerical scales. "Four thermonuclear weapons went off at once. The entire tri-state area was levelled. The groundwater became contaminated for decades and every plane fell out of the sky at once. A staggering FIVE HUNDRED people died that day!" Like god damn Mike, there's seven and a half billion people on the planet right now.

100% on the Cyberpunk v3.0 reaction. I remember looking through it at the game shop back in the day and being stunned that it was the next edition. It was confusing, the "art" was terrible, and it just hit wrong all over the place.

I actually have known about v3.0 for years now thanks to the KZfaqr Spoony on his old alt channel Counter Monkey where he talked about dnd and other ttrpgs. My jaw hit the floor when he showed the action figure/doll art.

Great video. You present the ties into the TTRPG nicely. Cybergeneration had somethings from it folded into cannon, but not all of it according to some of the RTG staff. V3 also the had problems with the rules. They were a hodge-podge, cut-and-paste of 2020 rule set and Fuzion (RTG proposed universal/generic game ruleset), which lead to very confusing and contradictory rules that didn't make 2020 fans, like myself, buy into as a successor. Another issue was that it was announced to be released in the early 2000s. It took RTG 4-5 years after their initial release date. To wait in anticipation for a game you love only to see what appear to be lacking in any type of editing or refinement was to say the least a disappointment. Granted by that time Mike had started working for Microsoft, so RTG was on the backburner for many years. Two other divergents to the timeline that you didn't mention was When Gravity Fails sourcebook and the horror theme books from Ianus/Dreampod 9. When Gravity Fails was similar to Hardwired in that the authors of the novels worked with RTG to add them to the Cyberpunk universe. I don't know if Effinger was a gamer, but Walt Jon Williams was and played Cyberpunk. Fun fact, Williams also gamed with George R.R. Martin back in the day. Ianus Games now Dreampod 9 introduce horror themes to Cyberpunk 2020 including a Vampire/werewolf supplement called Night's Edge. They have 2 books which were great for regaulr 2020, Dark Metropolis and Grim's Dark Cybertales. Both introduced game mechanics that dived into psychological of the dark future. They had great cyberpyschosis rules, very crunchy, but good. Thanks for all these videos. It nice to see people tying Cyberpunk 2077 back into the origins of the TTRPG and someone who does the research as well..

Great video. I found it very interesting and noticed a couple of things: 1. In Cybergenerations, Silverhand had the code name: The Mystic. This ties in nicely to what you said that both Misty and V consider Silverhand to be connected to The Magician card in the Tarot. 2. I found it funny that Desnai (Disney) is considered an Altcult in 3.0 and that it would've aged badly considering the stuff that's been happening to the corporation IRL lately. Can't wait for your next video.

I like to believe Angel in Black Dog is Alt clone while she managed to come back in thjs new body, and the Alt we see in 2077 in the net is a copy or part of her engram. And I wanna believe she is working on cloning Johnny and recover his engram in some way. I know, it's just my personal headcanon but that's what I'd like to see.

About Johnny's engram, in 2077 he specifically mentions he was stuck inside Mikoshi for the whole duration between his nuking and the current time; Alt and everybody else confirms that. Don't think the story about his and her clone can be considered canon...

The first one you mention is my favorite thing to ever come from R Talsorian. I miss Cyber Generation. If we ever play Cyberpunk Red on my tabletop I fully intend to try to talk the GM into letting me play my boardpunk tinman all grown up .

I used to play in a Cyberpunk 2020 game when it came out, loved that game. I picked up V3 when it was released hoping to run it and yeeted it across the room. Mike Pondsmith is a really nice guy, I met him during a convention. played in four of his games, was not a fan of Castle Falkenstein but really liked the Cyberpunk stories he ran. He really gets immersed, made me lean hard into my latino roots lol. Red looks much better, I might run it someday

This is a neat thing to learn about, I knew about cybergenerations, but not much about it. It was cool to learn that some of the lore we know today comes from it, and I never even heard of 3.0 before this video.

I love the cinematography so much!

I liked V3, just not as much as all the stuff before it. It was a neat kinda almost Dark Sun meets Cyberpunk in some ways. The systems were fine. The setting was dumb, but it wasn't offensively bad. Just odd and destined to die on the vine.

yeah..... i kinda used the 'Angel revives Johnny' plot point in my own RED campaign. One of the players is a clone of someone from Arasaka's roster in the 2020s (created by a Corpo scientist who released multiple clones into the world to see how they develop), and had a guy called John Lindt as a mentor in her desire to become a Rocker. His wife is named Angel. I had the players indirectly interact with her once in a gig that ended with Smasher beating down Angel and John's gate. I even let the players believe that Smasher was after their client 🤣🤣

I read hardwired, incredible! There was a lot of cyberpunk in a book that revolved around a hover tank. But I'd love for you to explain the influences of the book away❤

Awesome video. Definitely learned a bit more. Always thought that v3 was using action figures in game, surprised to learn it was controversial due to the art style (amongst other things). Surprised you didn't mention Johnny's memories being different at all, though I suppose that's in another vid

Great Vid bud, can I ask please, I don't have much to do with the table top outside of your YT channel but can the source books be read in story format? Or is the story parts to "disjointed" between game rules to make much sense .. much like what game workshops used to do .. I say used as I haven't played Warhammer in 20+ years.

It’s a global atrocity that your channel doesn’t get more views your are *THE* best Cyberpunk lore channel I’ve ever seen

17:31 - It's kinda crazy to say this in the year 2024 where we are watching a similar thing play out in real time. Spurious information is so prevalent and easily-attainable that we're seeing long-managed diseases popping back up despite having the means to treat and prevent them. I can't be the only one to feel like that was uncomfortablu prescient.

I think while I love the casting for 2077. I think Billy Idol would’ve made a good Silverhand while Keanu would’ve made a good V or Blackhand.

I didn't expect Ghosts and Glass as an intro background track, got me torn between grieving for Reach and listening to the video lmao

Love this!

Speak for yourself! I didn’t know they made action figures for cyberpunk back then (even if they weren’t intended for sale) I’d love to get my hands on one!

My favorite thing about this is the fact that it really just goes to show how little V actually means to the overall story of cyberpunk, how he's really just another merc, that happens to have an engram in his head, just barely above average

Interesting video. A nust watch for anyone interested in the CP lore(s). There's also Deep Space timeline. Most people assume it is a just a part of CP2020, but as CP2020 timeline ends up i 2023 with the Fourth Corp War and the fall of the Net, Deep Space is set in 2025, in a timeline where the war and second collapse never happened. Also Mekton is a distsnt sequel to CP2020. However as DS, Mekton and Cybergeneration are either their own games or interesting, alternative setting, they are not on the level of abandonment as CPv3.

Been thinking about something from my most recent playthrough. I notice that lots of PT and even bits of the third act have lots of “loop” symbolism. There are tons of circular shapes and buildings in dog town. (e.g. stadium, slider’s spa hideout) Dog town itself is like a giant loop. You’re constantly going around in circles literally and thematically with yourself, Johnny, songbird, reed. There’s the rolla coaster song idris Elba made talking about loops. Ofc in the base game you have Kerry’s song when you’re on the boat. “Loops but not the kind you eat for breakfast” or whatever. And then there’s the Orion stuff. The blue eyes of mr blue eyes are circular ofc. Crystal palace appears to be shaped like a loop. The moon which has tons of lore and symbolism is of course a circle. “Orion” is a word with two “o”s. There’s even an “Orion” building in dog town where the second O is missing from its sign. Of course no theory would be complete without an ff05b6 connection. The whole Easter egg has you going around in circles. The area around the Arasaka 3d game is surrounded by tires everywhere. And there’s the snake symbol from cp and Witcher which is a loop eating itself. I could go on. Just seems like more than a coincidence if you ask me. Either that or all the fentanyl I’m doing

Love your work!

Remember: *You* are the Legend, my choom.

more videos LIKE this super interesting great video !

I remember when Cyber Generation came out. Our Go To Cyber Punk GM marketed it to us as "Cyber Punk version of the X-Men" which it was in many ways and we had a lot of fun with that game. Those were very good times. On the other hand, when Cyberpunk V3 came out many years later said GM wouldn't even play it. I've read through the core rulebook and WoW, that game was weird. V3 just went waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to far out in left field for my taste.

I don't know if you are aware of it but there is a damn good fan movie about the clone Johnny Silverhand saving V after the Sun Ending called "Cyberpunk 2077 Phoenix Program" here in KZfaq you'd probably like. Although it doesn't explain the whole clone things, old school fans will probably put two and two together to figure out where he came from. There's a lot of tongue in cheek references but also a bit of good drama to it and love of the source material. You should check it out.

Mike pondsmith is that cool older nerd we all wanna be friends with!🤣 Hoping him and team monster smash out another cyberpunk red actual play soon too. Those were so bloody fun!

0:16 what I would do for a AAA Shadowrun game like Cyberpunk 2077...

I love Mike Pondsmith and Warhammer 40K, but they both give me the same vibes when it comes to lore and continuity: Everything is canon, nothing is canon. And it's that way because they're not really trying to tell a continuous story, they're trying to give you a really cool, dark setting to tell *your* stories in, so they leave it intentionally ambiguous what the "real truth" of things is, so your group can make it whatever they want (and so Mike can retcon it as many times as he likes without invalidating your stories--just call it an 'unreliable narrator' or a 'myth that became legend', maybe blame it on corrupted records from the DataKrash, and keep on edgerunning)

Just got into Cyberpunk with the game about 2 years ago. Would love to play the TTRPG, but can't find a table. So I'm making due with lore. Thanks for that!

re-reading (25 years later) Home of The Brave ... gooooooddd

It's really hard to compare this to other "cyberpunk" games. I don't think there's any other game that's made me feel like a part of the world. It's really hard to make me immersed, but hot damn did cyberpunk do it so good that it even got me drawn in and obsessed. I can't help but give praise to CDPR and the writers for the original source books for their amazing storytelling and progress designs.

do you think the engram and clones play a significant part of the second game.cos I think your main character in the second game could be a clone ?

so dope! liked and subbed!

I remember when they first talked about 2077. When they dropped detes that Johnny Silverhand, Alt and immortality were going to be a big thread in the game's story. My first thought was "Hm....Keanu would make a fantastic Johnny. He's already done it in mnemonic" (And I screamed like a little girl, yes, when they announced it XD) But my second thought was. 'Wonder if Mr BigBad is trying to live forever.... He's not going to like how that works' I even said as much on KZfaq videos where we talked about our speculations. But Cybergeneration was considered gonk here in the UK. (They loved cyberpunk, but cybergeneration was ignored in favour of Vampire the Masquerade and Magic the Gathering cards here, where I live) When the detes about the Relic were first dropped (that it was an immortality chip, but that was all the info we had) I speculated it was going to be the cyberpunk version of Bioshock's 'Vita-Chamber'. A way for the player to come back to life, as a game mechanic. (Kinda right, just not the way I thought lmao.) I even had a whole storyline in my head, with the player helping their choom Johnny Silverhand find his lost love Alt. Being a game, I reasoned bad, normal, good endings for them. Even a secret ending that was 'best' lol. (Tho, I'm speaking of Johnny and Alt here) Mainly because they said Johnny would be the players 'guide' to NightCity, that he was a 'ghost in the machine' So, my bored little brain cobbled together ideas based from 2013, 2020 and cybergeneration. That Alt was still the same as the 2027 Alt, still loved Johnny. That maybe this Johnny was a stolen copy of the clone backup maybe. (That an Old Johnny and old Alt clone pair were out there someplace too lol) That Mr BigBad wanted immortality (we didn't know who was the bad guy back then) and the only way to get it was some connection between the player (and Johnny) and Alt, still trapped in the Net. Back then, there was no mention of the Relic killing the player ether. I figured Johnny was like the Blackhand engram copy's, that helped the cyberevolved kids get away from the agencies. Only, he was helping us, the player. All that went up in smoke when December 2020 hit, and we all watched or played the game. I didn't have it, so I watched a no commentary walk thru. Was impressed by the fact they actually included 'never fade away' (the game module) in the game. Fell in love with this version of Johnny, more than I had with the original tabletop one. (I have 2013 box, the 2020 2nd print, cybergeneration and a good chunk of the sourcebooks lol. That's how I knew about stuff. Why my brain started frantically spewing theories out XD) Cried my eyes out over the endings. Like many did. Then, April 2021, I got first the Cyberpunk RED quick start box, then the RED sourcebook. The quick start box blew my mind. Because so much of what I had been thinking was right. The sourcebook later concerned it, while also melting my poor, overworked brain XD. But it uncovered a memory. Standing in my local gaming store, reading a new 2nd hand cyberpunk book. Reading the story of the fall of Arasaka towers. Thinking 'look at what they done to my boy' and putting it back because 'if that's how they treated Johnny, how are they going to treat the rest of us?' Now, I think it must have been the Firestorm book. Because I've read 203X as a PDF (once, lol) and there was no mention of that in there, at least that I can remember. I'm still collecting the tabletop. And I wish, really REALLY hard that they would release the figures from the boardgame as tabletop figures....so we can have them to collect without the boardgame (or with....hell, I'd buy both, and paint up the 2nd set of figures while leaving the boardgames ones unpainted lol) Can't wait to get the new Edgerunners sourcebook. Got 2077 as a gift in 2022. Got phantom liberty as my gift for 2023. Have got close to 1000hrs on it, and I've never 'visit Hanako at Embers' lol. Coldest I've come to an ending was sending Songbird to Luna. Got 9 different V's each with different play styles and names (a V based names, of course) and I'm STILL playing, roleplaying them, walking around NC. Night City is my home.

I truly hope they dont try to make the sequel without V and Johnny and the rest of the cast i feel like there's more story to tell with them ! It would be awesome to bring Edgerunners and 2077 cast 2gether by the way of lucy and her finding out they actually did make David an engram like Johnny. So they send V after her and she frees V and they with Johnny Sliverhand help and others bring the wrath of all hell down!!

Im sorry but using action figures for artwork instead of drawing is wayy cooler and such an awesome concept, especially cause they have all the tools and literally toys necessary to make it look awesome

Bro thanks so much for the fucking reach flashbacks

If we could just get a Shadowrun Game of that scale...

So arisaka did not make an engram of Johnny they just stole one this is why Alt say that his memories are lying on the other hand maybe she is lying about the 6 months or more to DON´T TRUST ANYONE IN NIGHT CITY . I love the lore to bad we don´t have more in the game

The ideas of alt-cults in V3 are interesting but I fully understand the criticism. It would be interesting if the cults were retconned someway tho

The first one was so sick

That snake eater music at the end got me hard choom

Blackhand gives me old man punisher vibes.

Great video as always but the *bleeps* were a bit too loud, they startled me.

Where does the Hardwired timeline, sourcebook and book fit into this?

Why does cyberpunk e3 seems to fit in better bettter in the blade runner universe tyen cyberpunk main universe?

I feel like the game did miss some little details itself that makes me question whether it is Johnny's unreliable memory of the past, or a small mess up by the devs. During the date with Rogue at the movie plex, she says "let's say it's 2015, we just met and I got no idea what a bastard you are." But everything that happened with Alt including saving her with Rogue, occurred in 2013, based on Johnny's flashback. I know you've done quite a bit of videos on the topic of Johnny's mind and memories being wrong, so it wouldn't surprise me to know if it really is his misinterpretation, or those involved in altering or implanting memories into the construct didn't realize.

Yooooooooooooooo

As someone who was playing the tabletop cyberpunk 2020 at the time, I'll say that the 'green barbie book' (V3) was so awful it made people depressed. As for cybergen, the kids rules where really cool and it had some new gear & weapons that where nice but the nanovirus 'magic abilities' was garbage. It was a bit to 'you're a hero born to save the world' for my taste too. So its worth the buy, but only to cherry pick stuff from for your 2020 games.

What's "roll-playing?"

Corps isn't pronounced as "corpse", its "kor". Like the Marine Corps.

Cyber punk is about surviving humanity

Fucking aye choom great video!!! This was excellent work!

Ii don't know man, the conspiracy theory and meme stuff is pretty prescient.

Think 203x could work if it was far far far more in the future

First time finding out Cyberpunk wasn't just created by CDPR

I thought V3 was a cool attempt to include younger audiences. But why?

Still want akimbo

I totally believe people would believe things did / didt happen only 10yrs after the datakrash. In the last few years, we have seen people do just that. Ive literally had conversations with coworkers, in real life, that were arguing with timelines of the last decade. People will believe anything.

So I can confirm You are not alone but who knows, maybe we are both a little slow.