Welcome back, dear reader. After a long hiatus, it is my intention to come back to Cyberpunk Matrix. Today I’m explaining why I’ve been gone, why I’m coming back, and what I plan for the future of this Cyberpunk blog.
Expectations for 2021
2021 felt like the year that Cyberpunk was going to become truly mainstream. I had been following all the updates for Cyberpunk 2077, and months before its release, I found out that Matrix Resurrections was about to come out too. The Matrix is one of my favorite Cyberpunk universes of all time, so to say I was excited was an understatement. I started finding like-minded cyberpunk fans, following all the news, and getting ready for an end of 2021 and a 2022 like no other.
Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.
The Reality of 2022
Cyberpunk 2077 released with too many bugs and problems, unfortunately. Although they eventually were fixed, it put a serious dampener on the momentum of the cyberpunk genre and the videogame itself. This was important because now when anyone googles Cyberpunk, all they’ll find is the videogame. As a result, the game because synonymous with the genre itself, for better or for worse. Sony even had to pull it from its store due to the issues it had upon release.
I loved Matrix Resurrections upon release, but many people were underwhelmed by its story and action sequences. They felt it was too meta for its own good. Looking back, although I still love the cast and movie, I admit a lot of that criticism was warranted.
Why I Left
It was around this time that I started losing interest in the genre, and gaining interest in my immediate surroundings instead, which was France. I am currently teaching English as a second language here, at different universities across France, and the francophile in me wanted to focus on more practical, tangible things at the time.
A passion waning, but not forgotten
Still, my love for cyberpunk never died, and although I stopped posting about it, I continued keeping an eye on cyberpunk releases. Space Sweepers, a Korean Cyberpunk story about junk-collecting space cowboys, came out in February 2021 and I still had to write my thoughts on it. Far Cry‘s cyberpunk mini-game Blood Dragon got the Netflix treatment with a 6-episode anime series called Captain Lazerhawkin 2023 that was truly fun to watch.
But finally, what brought me back wasn’t a fictional story, but rather a real-life event that sounded so cyberpunk I wondered if it hadn’t been already written.
A Cyberpunk Reality
I’m referring, of course, to the murder of United Health CEO Brian Thompson in front of his Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan on 54th street. A murder by a youth who apparently was fed up with a broken healthcare system that allowed too many to die. A sentiment that apparently many shared, considering how many praised the killer and had difficulty feeling sympathy for the CEO of such an uncompassionate corporate company. Even the New York Times mused on why so many seemed to consider the killer a folk hero.
Had this story really never been told before? Turns out it had, in fact, by cyberpunk author Cory Doctorow. Radicalized is a short story about a man who gets caught up in a dark web community who encourage violent acts against health insurance companies.
2025’s word of the year: CYBERPUNK
And so as we approach the new year of 2025, some people think the word of the year is CYBERPUNK, but not as we in the genre know it. 2025 marks the beginning of a second Trump presidency, where millionaire Elon Musk has his hand on the government levers. AI and deepfakes are becoming increasingly hard to recognize, wars are being battled with drones, and there is a true feeling on instability as more and more democratic governments turn more populist. Elon Musk loves Cyberpunk, it’s clear from his Cybertruck and his love of cryptocurrency with his DOGE coin. So what will it be like with a Cyberpunk billionaire influencing legislation at the upper echelons of government? Will government cars all have Tesla self-driving cars, cybertrucks, get paid in crypto, and have air taxis and space trips to Mars? I guess we’ll find out! So strap in, chooms, because 2025 is going to be a crazy year of change and Cyberpunk reality.