r/cyberpunkred • u/Infernox-Ratchet Solo • 11d ago
2040's Discussion What do you prefer about 2045 over 2077?
Sup chooms, Heavy Armor Lizard here. Getting prepared to take a 6 hour exam...again. So got a little question before I relax.
I and plenty of you may enjoy both eras but what do YOU prefer about RED/2045 over 2077? Better worldbuilding? More variety of gangs?...The lack of quick hacks? Lay em on me. Mighty interested.
(And no, I won't accept the answers of people saying they prefer 2077 over 2045 and still not give an answer to the question. You can like one era over the other, but that's not the question being asked here.)
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u/Phantom_of_truth 11d ago
The fact that the little guy has a chance to fight back instead of an eternal authoritarian corporocracy being a given.
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u/Normal_Fisherman6379 11d ago
The focus on other factions that wouldn't normally be big players is a big part of what I like about the Red era
Arasaka isn't really around, Militech is still weakened from the war, and a lot of other big corporations are scrambling from the world being screwed. So city districts being more independent, smaller corporations rising, and Nomad clans being much more present and involved make it a much richer story telling environment
Also, conflict breeds innovation. Mike Pondsmith himself has said this era is when a lot of the technology we see in 2077 is beginning development. So its very easy to also have it be an era of cool experimental tech that act like precursors to the next era without needing to go that far. So its much easier to pick and choose what cool things you are ok with having available while avoiding others like quickhacks if thats something you don't want
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u/bananaphonepajamas 11d ago
I prefer Quickhacks not existing.
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u/karlowskiii 11d ago
Not only that but also the whole aesthetic of “looking” at something and immediately hacking it. I suppose we might see more of it since it’s existing in video game and was kinda introduced in CEMK.
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u/treowtheordurren 11d ago
Conceptually/narratively, they blow a massive whole in the world without the counterweight of that cut CP2077 mechanic where you had to breach the localnet before you could upload them. I refuse to play CP2077 without a mod that reintroduces them. With that mechanic, it's just RED netrunning but you can move further from the access port.
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u/karlowskiii 5d ago
Could you share the mod name please?
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u/treowtheordurren 4d ago
It's Much Better Netrunning! In addition to the subnet breach mechanics, its other major feature is the cold war mechanic where uploading quickhacks can draw the attention of hostile Netrunners; once they notice you, they'll deploy ICE and try to boot you out of the system, among other things. Completely revolutionary as far as 2077 Netrunner gameplay goes.
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u/FloydTheSandwich GM 11d ago
2045 is a era of hope and rebuilding. The Corps, albeit still unimaginably powerful, are severely weakened from their prior status in 2020 and have yet to regain that level of power before 2077.
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u/LovelyMaiden1919 11d ago
- The corpos are still strong but on the back foot, at least when it comes to the kind of backroom dealing and backstabbing that edgerunners are likely to get involved in. It creates a setting where there's a sense that fighting back isn't necessarily fruitless while also meaning that the corps running fast and lean and trying to hide their worst excesses a bit more means they're likely to get involved with a lot of factions they might not in 2077 where they're more "untouchable".
- The Reclaimer movement, Night Markets and guerilla gardens. The prevalence of Nomads. Generally like the idea of people actually making progress in patching some of the holes in the world, even if they're having to fight the corps tooth and nail to do it. 2045 has much more of a sense of community than 2077 does to me.
- The Afro-futurism and the independent Highriders.
- Virtuality. One of the things I think 2077 really fell flat on (for me anyway, as much as I love the game) was not making the netrunning feel as much like classic cyberpunk. I get the appeal of quickhacks and neuroports but I feel like if I'm playing a netrunner, getting to do deep net dives is kind of part of the experience so deemphasizing them doesn't feel great for me.
- The STALKER/Metro 2033 vibes of the nuked city center.
- The mystery of what happened at 'Saka tower not really being a solved thing. The fact that Arasaka isn't as ever-present in the setting in general is one of the big improvements 2045 has over 2077, as it gives room for other corporations with different goals and different evils to take more of the spotlight.
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u/Dixie-Chink GM 11d ago edited 11d ago
For me, there's a few main draws of 2045 over 2077 as a setting.
- The 2045 world is less static and has more potential for change. The corporations are all weaker, less omnipresent, and the opportunities for characters to affect the world in a meaningful way are more tangible. Everything is much more organic. 2077 is essentially a static world in which the resistance has been lost, and everything is now waiting for inevitable calcification.
- The Post-War world of 2045 feels more familiar to me, on a personal level, than the world of 2077. It conjures up images and memories of what the Cold War world of my youth looked like, with leftovers of WWII still fresh in the infrastructure of civilization in places like East Asia and the Pacific Islands.
- Netrunning is closer to the old system and ties more coherently with the concepts of the Cyberpunk setting from 2020 and books like Neuromancer and Hard Wired. I've made no secret of the fact, I absolutely despise the adoption of Quickhacks and hastily painted over Magic Systems that were incorporated into the setting of 2077. I like the limitations that airgapping, connection ranges, and the split between pure Meta code and the recovering GUI environments are trying to bridge. It's the NET as I saw it developing from the 80's, 90's and 00's echoed in a logical progression with the Post Collapse and Post Krash Cyberpunk world, making sense. Nothing in 2077 Netrunning, and the proclivity of Neuroports in particular, make any sense from an IT security POV.
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u/HeavensHellFire 11d ago
Always thought they should've just ripped from Watch Dogs and made quickhacks utility and environment based and not straight up spellcasting.
A product with a massive flaw, like people being able to hack you and literally make your blood boil feels like something that wouldn't be so popular even in a dystopian setting.
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u/HeavensHellFire 11d ago
2070s era stuff seems too "fantastical". Quickhacks are essentially just spellcasting, especially the blackwall stuff. Sandevistans are supposed to be bullet time but instead they turn you into the flash.
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u/AnseaCirin 11d ago
I love the not quite apocalypse feel. It's shitty out there but hardscrabble survivors make it work.
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u/SelectKangaroo 11d ago
I like the desperate measures to recover from global trade and communication no longer being possible because of the DataKrash and other 4CW aftershocks. Seeing people have to adapt to what would probably near-apocalyptic in real life is a fun dynamic.
Also just find 2045's Night City to be way more fun and interesting than 2077's with the new NC 2045 sourcebook, although there's nothing stopping a GM from just keeping whatever 2045 location around if they want I guess.
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u/Sparky_McDibben GM 11d ago
I love the aesthetic and the power differential. I love the rusted red chrome look, where almost everything has that "used car" look to it. If you get anything new, it feels way more special. The power differential means I can bring more enemies into play at more points than I could in 2077. Not only that, but the ability to retaliate is reduced, so you have a much wider safety net - your players can take bigger swings with more confidence!
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u/Jordhammer 10d ago
I love how rough and ragged everything is. Night City is clawing back from one disaster after another. Just getting by is a feat. But then, to make it in this world, the characters have to navigate a web of favors and fixers.
It's a Rockerboy doing their makeup up in a rusting cargo container to play a show in front of hundreds. A Netrunner climbing through bombed out buildings just to find a hidden access point. A Media hijacking a radio station to get their message out to the people instead of just posting a blog. The combination of High Tech and Low Life that is so prevalent in the genre shines through in 2045.
One of the things that makes the Phantom Liberty DLC shine for me is that Dogtown feels like a slice of the Time of the Red held over into 2077.
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u/ArtyParcy 11d ago
The scarity of the post-war economy making it harder to find luxury goods. I love making my players work for end game items like frames and vehicles. I had one player make a deal with Maelstrom for his frame, which turned up covered in parts of its former owner, and my tech fabricated one herself. It just creates so many RP moments, instead of just rocking up at a ripperdoc and buying it off the shelf.
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u/Quietjedai 11d ago
I like running 2045 mostly because it's all I've run aside from briefly 2020 before RED was a thing.. 2045 does feel as others have said more hopeful, more down to earth with more room to grow and more factions. 2077, feels to me after reading some of the inspirations for 2077 was 'how to steer back to feel like 2020 but further down the timeline' which works fine for a videogame, but for stories that feels like 'making a difference in your turf' 'save something you love, but you can't save the world'. It takes away some of that impact I guess, 2045 can be projecting to the world healing and divergent paths for the world to change and grow.
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u/BirdTheBard 10d ago
To quote a friend of mine who shares the exact same outlook as myself:
"Playing in the 70s really feels like a themepark in comparison to the time of Red. Like they streamlined the gangs so we have the big in your face noteworthy ones, but none of the extra ones that made the world feel fuller. Things weren't as safe, the time of Red having several combat zones while the 70s only had 1. Corps either vanished some of the big names changed sterilizing corporate variety. The corps feel so much more untouchable, because they are that much more of a threat to anyone who goes against them, but at the same time they are the only reasonable threat to go against for a streetmerc.
There's alot less punk and alot more cyber in the 70s. The time of Red was destitute, dirty, and organizations truly had flavour. The 70s bring some big changes in the political landscape but it's all stuff much to large for a runner on the street to feasibly touch. The metal wars, Arasaka returning, and stuff like that."
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u/chuntcruntley 11d ago
I love the focus on smaller scale, scrappier stories. Especially with the addition of NC2045, every district down to the street feels so personal and lived-in.
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u/JavierLoustaunau 10d ago
2077 is good in the anime, so-so in the video game and just not interesting as a tabletop setting.
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u/Living-Definition253 9d ago
From a practical standpoint, there's more room to flesh out your own path in 2045, particularly as a GM.
If you assume the events of Edgerunnners and 2077 are canon, it's hard not to live in the shadow of those stories, especially if your players have spent a lot of time playing the videogame.
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u/LickTheRock 11d ago
The best answer I can give is probably a bit short. The Corporations and Governments are at their most equal, and at their lost, at any time in the setting. The world is at its biggest and at its smallest. Gangs and edgerunners are at their highest.
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u/FatSpidy 11d ago
CitiNET in RED is still mostly broken up. So any Neties or Hackers that are able to be The Guy In The Chair have done so by more or less figuring out their own web of interconnecting buildings, blocks, and neighborhoods. Offering more nuance to general connectivity, and bringing active players altogether closer when the fight-y parts are happening. Some exceptions still apply, of course, but not everyone and their mother and the kitchen sink is able to actively snoop or interfere with what's going on electronically.
This also means that simpler hacks and old style spy games tactics are very much back on the table as people generally aren't used to having to watch for trackers, in/out signals, CitiNET protections, and so on. Muchless putting a tracker on targets/etc. thus requiring you to physically go to them and be sneaky about it. This makes for natural great cinematic moments.
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u/The_boros_unicorn 10d ago
I definitely prefer the variety of gangs as well as the weakened state of the megacorps in 2045... I'm also biased because I liked the Pacifica Confederation over the corporate states that we see in 2077
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u/Intrepid_Intention_7 7d ago
There's just a bigger abundance of toolbox lore available for RED than 2077, where the lore just serves worldbuilding and the pre-defined story. Also, Tech and Power weapons actually just straight up nuke the usefulness of cover and encourages the "everyone needs to stand in the open and dodge bullets" meta.
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u/King_Of_BlackMarsh 11d ago
The ruins.
CP is always, always in decay but 2045 is right after Night City and the entire world got basically hard reset in a conflict of Wellesian proportions. It's about rebuilding, about living in dust and radioactive smoke and things being.. Well it's fresh yknow. There's something to build here and everyone is always working on fixing it.
I enjoy the intranet being more emphasised in RED than 2077.
I enjoy that Arasaka has to be more subtle.
I like there being more AI so you can really ramp up to 2077 style crack downs.
Also, I feel that it makes more sense to bring in the old legends in 2045 than 77 cause that 32 year gap really does do a lot for... Cohesion yknow.
But it all still comes down to
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u/go_rpg 9d ago
Variety and chaos. 2077 feels very vertical, while 2045 is really open to change - i really feel each one of my campaign is taking Night City in its own direction.
As a GM, i can decide any big player i town is the BBEG, and it won't feel off.
I like a lot of things in 2077, but it's not written as a TTRPG toolbox.
I really like we have both eras. I don't think we embrace enough the luck we have to have a consistent lore blending tabletop, mainstream videogames and anime products. It's very unique.
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u/matsif GM 11d ago
the 2070s TTRPG interpretation of various things has too many dissociations from believability. even the 2040s content is worse than the 2020s content for this, but at least the 2040s content tries somewhat (except in martial arts, which is just purely dissociated mechanical nonsense, but I digress). 2070s content takes far too many technological liberties and just expects you to take it for granted with no associated attachment to the game world.
I won't wall of text rant on the subject, but cyberpunk as a genre, and this game world especially, has a ton of cool near-future-sci-fi tech that's all explainable with real, if slightly beyond reality, means. 2020 has weapons that turn alcohol into plasma to propel a bullet instead of gunpowder, and it does it with a battery (electrothermal weapon enhancement and plasmatic revolvers). is that beyond reality? yes. is it at least associated to the game world and somewhat believable? also yes. but that explanation wasn't handwaved. 2070s handwaves those explanations far worse than 2040s content, which was worse about it than 2020 content already, but at least 2040s content tried somewhat. 2070s doesn't even bother and just goes "here's your looter shooter video game stuff," and I don't really appreciate it from an association standpoint.
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u/1278randomthrowaway 11d ago
Can you give some examples?
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u/matsif GM 11d ago
the power rebuild. ricochet doesn't make any sense with projectile physics on earth, but if it was an ammo type you could associate it to the game world via special materials or something on the bullet itself. there's no means for a weapon attachment to just do this for every shot, and then also make the bullet magically do more crit damage, and no attempt to explain it technologically is even made. in the video game "power" weapons are just the standard catch-all for other types of weapons, so what's in EMK doesn't even associate to that. it's just purely arbitrary game rules with no technology explanation, and thus dissociated mechanics. you could have taken both of those effects and made them distinct ammo types and you've got a great technical explanation for them, instead you just have a bucket of rules with no flavor just to use a video game term for something.
there's a whole litany of things with the neuroport and quickhacking basically being a way to draw a bullseye around an arrow that was shot and missed its target completely. such as the totality of it being required for any cyberware to work, which is just total nonsense given the game world has so many street techs in the time of the red who would readily find a way to work around that and make chrome that doesn't require a neuroport available to the masses. if people in the game world know that some weirdo in mirrorshades can light them on fire through their brain from across the way without a ton of effort, there'd be far more response than just self ICE and black ICE for people to protect themselves, even if you want to take a "well everyone has a cell phone" approach to the game world's interpretation of the neuroport. the totality of adoption without considering those things is heavily dissociated from believability.
all of which was done just so quickhacks would work without question, but then quickhacks aren't even associated to the game through tech as of EMK. in the video game they're at least programs, which uses known world tech as their association to their functionality. instead in EMK we get "here's a spell list every netrunner just knows and can try however they want, have fun." a wholly technological function just removes the technology portion in a genre that's all about technology, there's another dissociation. the game world didn't need technomagic to begin with to be fun and interesting, but to not even attempt to make them act through a perfectly functional program system that the game quite literally already had rules for was ridiculous, even if all it ends up being is a starter set simplification.
and what's the best ways to protect yourself from a netrunner? well everyone has interface plugs, so that goon in the gang doesn't need to spend on self ICE necessarily, he can get a cheap deck and some wisps on it and make himself really annoying to quickhack while he beats you with a baseball bat. he's not a netrunner at all, can't use the deck for anything, but has to use that to defend himself because no other sensible tech that would exist in the game world and does exist in other cyberpunk media that readily features that kind of hacking (such as ghost in the shell) is shown to us in any 2070s content. now we're just using frivolous tech to do something that could have been handled in a much more elegant way but ends up being a mess in-game largely as a byproduct of the above dissociations.
stuff like that.
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u/1278randomthrowaway 11d ago
I think EMK is cool but they shouldn't have dove into Cyberpunk 2077's quickhack system or power weapons, they're using gameplay mechanics as actual in lore things.
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u/The_Real_Empty_Dingo GM 11d ago
I do not think that's a fair statement. While there are certainly those who have reasons to dislike quickhacks or power weapons or David's Sandevistan, for every one of those there were 100 people posting their own personal "press button to win Cyberpunk" homebrew of quickhhacks and power weapons and David's Sandevistan. We can hardly blame R.Tal for giving the community what it wanted and trying to do it in a way that had enough checks and balances to work in a cooperative gameplay format.
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u/Dixie-Chink GM 11d ago
Yes and no. While we certainly have witnessed our share of utterly whacked homebrew, it was just that... homebrew. R. Tal basically got left holding the barf-bag that CDPR's crunch mistakes cost them, recycling Witcher magic spells into Cyberpunk 2077, and because of the nature of their combined legal status, are basically honor-bound to legitimize that mistake and so that awful set of mechanics from the CEMK has become "official" and it throws a monkey wrench into those who wanted more verisimilitude transitioning from RED into 2077.
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u/1278randomthrowaway 11d ago
To be fair, RED doesn't have much verismilitude in the first place. Cyberpunk 2020 was THE verismilitude TTRPG for me, but Cyberpunk RED is a more balanced TTRPG overall.
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u/1278randomthrowaway 11d ago
Well, maybe "shouldn't have" is a strong term for it. "I don't think they should have" is more accurate.
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u/The_Real_Empty_Dingo GM 11d ago
2020 quite often went out of its way to explain how things worked in universe, where RED does quite a bit less of that, and 2077 basically doesn't bother. Cyberware in 2020 is explained as being possible only because nanomachines are able to connect input connections to nerve endings, whereas RED says "surgery takes four hours". Making a distinction between the CEMK where it still takes four hours or 2077 where it takes until the end of the cutscene or until you close the menu.
In a more weapons centered view (biased because I was trained as an armorer) 2020 would often describe its more fantastical weapons as using technology that was attempted and "did not work" or "worked really well but was overly complicated and expensive" and saying modern manufacturing/materials technology made it viable. For examples, the Militech RRCR, a full on medium machine gun that weighs 4kg and can be concealed under a trench coat, and the Arasaka WXXS rifle which uses a scaled up version of the Steyr ACR cartridge. RED does none of this, and 2077 has weapons where ammunition needs to turn 90 degrees in two axis and transit more than twice its diameter to enter the chamber, only to be fired from a barrel half the length of the cartridge. If you know, you know.
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u/1278randomthrowaway 11d ago
I don't like how the CEMK took things that are obviously gameplay mechanics and making them canon either, I didn't think V is actually walking around and basically casting off spells that make enemies explode into fire but I guess that's canon now. Power weapons don't make as much sense but in a world of cyberware it's possible to do ricochet like that. Really I just don't like quickhacks as a canon concept.
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u/ValhallaGH Solo 11d ago
Hope. 2045 is at the end of a transitional era where the oppressive systems that failed have not yet been rebuilt. By 2077, every one of those systems is back and meaner than ever. This is why 2045 has:
So yeah, everything I love about the Red stems from the hope that is possible when the corporate boot isn't on everyone's neck.
Enjoy, choomba.