For Cyberpunk 2077 Fans, Dunking Has Become A Sport

The Cyberpunk 2077 saga has been a long one but it’s still far from over. The latest development? Fans co-opting the game’s social media marketing campaign to dunk on things missing from the sci-fi RPG’s open world.

As first spotted by Forbes’ Paul Tassi, a number of posts have been blowing up on the Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit taking shots at CD Projekt Red’s current “Cyberpunk In Numbers” social media campaign on Twitter. In lieu of any updates on the games in the last couple weeks, the Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account has been sharing statistics about the playerbase.

Since Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, Viktor has earned 147 billion eurodollars thanks to the generosity of players who decided to settle V’s debt. With that many eddies, Viktor could afford 12,250,000,000 Burrito XXLs (that's a lot). 🌯🌯🌯#CyberpunkInNumbers pic.twitter.com/d17DfbMa0l

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) May 21, 2021

“Since players were first unleashed on Night City’s streets, 13 billion people have been defeated by V. By comparison, the megalopolis has a population of 6.9 million,” reads one of the tweets. “Wellsprings is officially the most dangerous neighborhood in Night City with an average of 57 player deaths per day (real time),” reads another

Now players are responding with memes of their own highlighting all the things you still can’t do in the game. The most popular on the subreddit so far with over 20,000 upvotes is “Cyberpunk By Numbers: V has modified its appearance 0 times!” Another one that’s blown up is “Cyberpunk By Numbers: 0 MILLION SPENT on car and truck customization!” My personal favorite is, “Cyberpunk By Numbers: Police officers have teleported 7,300,000 times behind the players’ backs.”

These and many more each highlight a feature players have requested be added to the game since it launched over six months ago, or something they thought would be present in the game based on the years and years of trailers, interviews, and other marketing. A big one has been that despite the emphasis on character modding and customization, players can’t fundamentally alter their appearance after the game begins, not even by getting a haircut. While cars play a huge role in the world you can’t swap out paint jobs, shoot while driving, or buy a garage to house them in. And then there are Cyberpunk 2077’s cops, which despite subsequent patches can still act pretty wonky.

None of this is to say that CDPR developers were lazy, or that they should continue to crunch to try and expedite the game’s possible redemption arc. But it does speak to where some of the game’s most ardent players’ heads are at as they wait for DLC and PS5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades.

Cyberpunk 2077 finally returned to the PlayStation Store last month, and has subsequently shot up to the top of the sales charts on PS4 as a result. At the same time, the roadmap for upcoming patches and content has gotten even more vague. The game may have finally reached a “satisfying level” of performance for CDPR executives, but players are still clearly desperate to see the game grow and evolve into the genre defining immersive sim they once thought it would be. And until it gets there, more memes.