Your tone of voice determines the pronouns assigned to you in Cyberpunk 2077

[TheLastOne]

I can understand not wanting to fully voice multiple different options, but where the options already exist and the voice lines already exist, why not just let people choose their pronoun independently? There is literally no reason why doing it via voice should be any easier than an extra selection in the character creator.

Hopefully they make this extremely straightforward fix.

 

[Spork4000]

No I mean like the bad guys in this game are supposed to be inherent assholes and i feel if they stay in character, they would purposely not respect one's gender pronoun. I'm not saying it's right.

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Being an asshole or a villain doesn't mean you have to be a bigot.

 

[ekka4shiki]

No I mean like the bad guys in this game are supposed to be inherent assholes and i feel if they stay in character, they would purposely not respect one's gender pronoun. I'm not saying it's right.

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But it's not all bad guys though, the player character will be interacting with friends as well.

 

[Tovarisc]

They should have separated it further, yes. Have player select voice and then pronoun, latter determining gender as which world perceives V.

At this point of development it most likely wont happen sadly as everything is designed for the choice as it's now.

Avoiding this would have been as simple as consulting five trans people and asking them "Is this okay for you?".

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And how do you know they didn't?

Ok but without the voice acting seeminhg like they cut in a "he" or a "she" and without them re-recording all the lines and programming all that, I really don't see what's the most effective way they could do all this without breaking player immersion.

It's like speaking in French and then saying an English proper name in the middle of the sentence. Accent switches and sounds jarring.

Has any game effectively tackled this?

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I don't think any game with voiced protag has even attempted doing CC like this, at least not at AAA level.

 

[Rai_11]

You can display "thuggishness" without resorting to transphobia.

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I agree. But I'm just

But it's not all bad guys though, the player character will be interacting with friends as well.

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Ok then it goes back to what I asked before. Any other game manage to tackle this properly? I'm just thinking if the programming/recording involved.

 

[JuniperAndSage]

the bad guys in this game are supposed to be inherent assholes

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You really don't understand who the bad guys in cyberpunk are, huh? It's not the "thugs".

 

[Glio]

They should have separated it further, yes. Have player select voice and then pronoun, latter determining gender as which world perceives V.

At this point of development it most likely wont happen sadly as everything is designed for the choice as it's now.



And how do you know they didn't?



I don't think any game with voiced protag has even attempted doing CC like this, at least not at AAA level.

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If they asked trans people and still decided to do this, it's even worse.

 

[Razmos]

This is a really weird situation, this kind of backlash against cyberpunk.. same with people speaking down about The Witcher 3~ it's a really surprising phenomenon... Guys, hold your tongue on the game until you've actually played it, no?

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There is backlash for a reason, this isn't their first time with trans/gender related issues. They keep fumbling the ball

 

[Tovarisc]

If they asked trans people and still decided to do this, it's even worse.

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Now you assume they asked X trans people, got told it sucks and went forward anyways.

What are you basing this is on?

They didn't go far enough with implementation as they kept pronoun and voice tied as it does limit options and ways to express ones identity, but do we really have to make up shit that they didn't consult anyone or did and ignored it? Or are we just assuming that e.g. every trans person views this in same way?

 

[Razmos]

Yeah, I'm gonna guess they intended the game to adhere to a gender binary early on and did this as a quick fix when they were called out.

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Precisely the way I see it. They are giving lip service to avoid backlash

 

[Lamptramp]

People need to stop using budget and script as an excuse for this. Diversity and representation do not cost money. A developer who actually cared about gender diversity would have considered implementing it back when the script was being written. CDPR did not and when they were called out for it they went with a quick fix.

I don't buy that they don't have the budget to go back and do it right either - they're one of the biggest success stories of this gen. The cost of fixing this is nothing compared to how much bank this game is going to make.

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Totally, its a matter of priority versus budget. If they had given it any serious thought beforehand or it was an important enough aspect of the lore/story then it would not be so, or cetainly it may have been addressed in a less tone deaf manner. These kind of fumbles give the impression of not caring rather than not being able to "afford".

 

[Exede]

Wouldn´t it be nice for NPCs to refer you by looks but your Crew calls you by your chosen gender?

 

[Patsy]

God it's so obvious how cis they are it hurts. The fact that you can only have a (from cis people's view) feminine voice + she/her pronouns or masculine voice + he/him pronouns shows that they don't understand shit about trans people. They still think gender is fucking binary with not even letting people use voices, pronouns & bodies freely. Only bodies & voices that are attached to pronouns. Fuck, we're not getting they/them pronouns either (which I at least understand, because the game gets localized in a lot of other languages & not all of them have an singular they/them equivalent. Hell, fucking German doesn't which is why I'm most likely never gonna be able to be openly non-binary where I live. So I get it, it's still disappointing of course). All it does is help manifest transphobes' talking point that trans people are only trans if they go on HRT & hate EVERYTHING about themselves. A lot of fucking trans & non-binary people have voices that don't match their pronouns in cis people's eyes. A lot of them are very comfortable with their voices the way they are. Not every trans person gets bottom surgery either, not every trans person gets on HRT. A lot of (mostly butch) lesbians go by he/him pronouns, they're still not fucking men. Their understanding of binary & non-binary trans people is very much what cishet people think we are & want & is quite frankly really fucking ignorant. This is in their character creator so you can't tell us "it's only some transphobic PR guy on Twitter, it's not in the game" when it literally is. There was also the cis designer of that one poster that fetishized a trans woman who pretty much sounded like she's, well, fetishizing trans bodies. So, yeah, I don't think they'll have anything useful to say about transhumanism & LGBT people in Cyberpunk and it fucking sucks.

So does this game have monosexual romances? Will a lesbian character be attracted to a PC with the male body, a penis but a high, feminine voice?

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Unless she's transphobic, she better fucking be. Lesbians love ALL women, no matter if cis or trans. With bottom surgery or without. On HRT or not. All trans women are equally women and if the game features gay & lesbian romances it'd be another HUGE misstep if they'd somehow say they'd only work if you're a cis man or woman.

This is a really weird situation, this kind of backlash against cyberpunk.. same with people speaking down about The Witcher 3~ it's a really surprising phenomenon... Guys, hold your tongue in the game until you've actually played it, no?

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You want people to not call out the transphobic way they did this without playing it first? When it's confirmed that this is the way it works? lmao people are calling this shit out because it's just one thing in a series of transphobic shit they pulled & in hopes that they'll maybe be able to change it before release. Also can guarantee you that a lot of LGBT people hurt by their shit won't buy the game in the first place. Does that mean we're never allowed to criticize it? grow up

 

[Grimm Fandango]

I hope CDPR comments on this soon. Maybe a simple fix? Not a good look at all.

 

[Fredrik]

So they make a thing about side stepping genders completely in character creation but then they essentially add them back through the sound of the voice instead.
And you only have two voice types? It's going to be full on stereotypic voices, isn't it?

 

[Glio]

Totally, its a matter of priority versus budget. If they had given it any serious thought beforehand or it was an important enough aspect of the lore/story then it would not be so, or cetainly it may have been addressed in a less tone deaf manner. These kind of fumbles give the impression of not caring rather than not being able to "afford".

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People never talk about budget or workers when a texture is ugly or animation is not smooth.

They only talk about budget and the poor programmers when there is a boycott or something bigoted has to be justified.

 

[Ketkat]

Now you assume they asked X trans people, got told it sucks and went forward anyways.

What are you basing this is on?

They didn't go far enough with implementation as they kept pronoun and voice tied as it does limit options and ways to express ones identity, but do we really have to make up shit that they didn't consult anyone or did and ignored it? Or are we just assuming that e.g. every trans person views this in same way?

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Have you asked any trans people how they feel about this before using us as a way to bludgeon down criticism?

 

[denseWorm]

Oh yes wait until after you've already spent your hard earned cash to complain I'm sure they'll be listening most intentively as they take that cash to the bank.

I know I might sound sarcastic but I'm tired of that narrative also it's not the companies first trans/gender issue they've had

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Look... What you just said, trying to make it sound the done thing to pre-judge a game... That's just alien to me... You're turning things inside out and there are guts everywhere i dunno what to say

EDIT: I misread what you said. I'm busy at the mo', sorry~

If you haven't spent your hard earned cash, i don't think you have much right to judge the game?

You're being very headstrong... and cocksure (movie reference) ... I don't track their transgressions. I think cd project red has made the greatest game ever (in my mind) and are devoting their energies to topping that, so I'm just going to wait and see what they come up with. If it sucks, I'll say as much.

FOR THE RECORD, if there's any danger of me coming across as anti trans, or anything like that, if this system turns out to be as clumsy and offensive as some of us are concluding here, i will cringe hugely at their fuck up. I'll still play the game (which i have on pre order from gog) but i will entirely understand what undermines it . I'm for the rights of everyone.

 

[Lamptramp]

People never talk about budget or workers when a texture is ugly or animation is not smooth.

They only talk about budget and the poor programmers when there is a boycott or something bigoted has to be justified.

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Yeah, sadly true.

 

[Tovarisc]

Have you asked any trans people how they feel about this before using us as a way to bludgeon down criticism?

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100% fine with criticism of this choice, I also do think it's odd way of going about it as it does limit ones way to express themselves and their identity.

My issue is with just making up shit from thin air, that doesn't serve anyones interests.

 

[Mivey]

I assume they will fix this after enough of an outcry to allow people to at least chose between the existing pronouns, so you can have a "deeper" voice and still referred to as she.

Overall it's not a good look, but at this point I'm not surprised that CD Projekt Red isn't exactly super progressive on these issues. Mind you, I assume a lot of devs in the industry share that attitude, but that's neither here nor there when talking about them.

 

[Rotobit]

What annoys me is that the game doesn't really seem to be taking advantage of the fact it's set in 2077 when it comes to gender

It doesn't take a prophet to realize that definitions of gender are gonna change a lot in the next 50 years. They could do something genuinely interesting with that - cyberpunk is all about identity - but this + other things we've seen so far are going with the very out-dated science fiction variant of "everything and everyone is binary except for a couple of people who are treated as anomalies/fetish objects".

 

[Servbot24]

They can't possibly be this tone deaf can they?

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This is CDPR you're talking about. Of course they can.

 

[denseWorm]

There is backlash for a reason, this isn't their first time with trans/gender related issues. They keep fumbling the ball

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Could you educate me? What did they do before?

 

[The Turbanator]

I mean, how many instances are there in the game where the PC refers to themself by gender? Probably like 20 or less? It can't be that hard to bring the VAs back in to have them say the opposite line for those few situations, and they'd have to bring them back to voice the DLC anyway. This shouldn't be that hard to fix by adding a pronoun toggle and have the female VA say "boys will be boys" to replace the one or two times ever she says "girls just wanna have fun", plus whatever the neutral equivalent would be.

 

[boy power]

Unless she's transphobic, she better fucking be. Lesbians love ALL women, no matter if cis or trans. With bottom surgery or without. On HRT or not. All trans women are equally women and if the game features gay & lesbian romances it'd be another HUGE misstep if they'd somehow say they'd only work if you're a cis man or woman.

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This is so homophobic I can't believe I'm reading this, holy shit. Lesbians need to love the male body as long as it has a '' she '' pronoun attached to it... so predatory, so homophobic!

 

[Zelas]

This is a really weird situation, this kind of backlash against cyberpunk.. same with people speaking down about The Witcher 3~ it's a really surprising phenomenon... Guys, hold your tongue on the game until you've actually played it, no?

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Where do you think this info is coming from?? Read the OP before spouting this nonsense.

 

[Mandalorian]

I hope CDPR comments on this soon. Maybe a simple fix? Not a good look at all.

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Not a good look in a long series of bad looks. I'm tired of giving them the benefit of the doubt. I think I'm gonna follow the lead of Claven and just buy an used copy eventually. Besides the fact that I like games with a third person perspective, some things about this game just feels off to me right now. I'd love to be wrong and see CDPR fixing this, but I don't think it's happening.

 

[Persephone]

This is so homophobic I can't believe I'm reading this, holy shit. Lesbians need to love the male body as long as it has a '' she '' pronoun attached to it... so predatory, so homophobic!

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that's literally terf rhetoric. shut up.

 

[boy power]

that's literally terf rhetoric. shut up.

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And you are homophobic, predatory and approve of conversion therapy. I am sick to my stomach.

 

[Persephone]

And you are homophobic, predatory and approve of conversion therapy. I am sick to my stomach.

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I'm a lesbian you transphobic asswipe

 

[boy power]

I'm a lesbian you transphobic asswipe

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You can still be homophobic even if you are a lesbian.

 

[Glio]

This is so homophobic I can't believe I'm reading this, holy shit. Lesbians need to love the male body as long as it has a '' she '' pronoun attached to it... so predatory, so homophobic!

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I'm sure you love JK Rowling.

 

[Mossiah]

What annoys me is that the game doesn't really seem to be taking advantage of the fact it's set in 2077 when it comes to gender

It doesn't take a prophet to realize that definitions of gender are gonna change a lot in the next 50 years. They could do something genuinely interesting with that - cyberpunk is all about identity - but this + other things we've seen so far are going with the very out-dated science fiction variant of "everything and everyone is binary except for a couple of people who are treated as anomalies/fetish objects".

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Very much agree here. I know 'all is subject to change' but from what we've seen there has been little to suggest that CDPR is taking advantage of the futuristic setting in regards to how its game systems address gender. I hope that these posts on the internet press the studio to take a hard look into these issues and make the necessary changes for release.

Bring the VA's back and have additional dialogue recorded from home and push it through, these options are worth being fully-realized and if they can't offer them in detail then they shouldn't have even put their toes in the water. Can't half-ass this and expect folks to just accept it.

 

[Deleted member 46948]

What annoys me is that the game doesn't really seem to be taking advantage of the fact it's set in 2077 when it comes to gender

It doesn't take a prophet to realize that definitions of gender are gonna change a lot in the next 50 years. They could do something genuinely interesting with that - cyberpunk is all about identity - but this + other things we've seen so far are going with the very out-dated science fiction variant of "everything and everyone is binary except for a couple of people who are treated as anomalies/fetish objects".

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This is a really good point.
Almost 60 years is a long time for society and roles to change in a way that would be barely recognizable to people today, but they somehow went with "basically the same society we have today but with cool tech".
Disappointing.

 

[Jedi2016]

Seems like it wouldn't be hard to just add a "pronoun" option in character creation.

 

[Kinsei]

Of course.

I'm not sure why anyone had any hope when it came to actual trans and non binary options considering the track record of this trash ass company.

 

[Charlotte Lucas]

What annoys me is that the game doesn't really seem to be taking advantage of the fact it's set in 2077 when it comes to gender

It doesn't take a prophet to realize that definitions of gender are gonna change a lot in the next 50 years. They could do something genuinely interesting with that - cyberpunk is all about identity - but this + other things we've seen so far are going with the very out-dated science fiction variant of "everything and everyone is binary except for a couple of people who are treated as anomalies/fetish objects".

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this is where i'm at. it's the future, society is going to change drastically

you could look at where we are now compared to where we were just 15 years ago to see how much society's view of trans people, race, gender, and sexuality has changed.

 

[bye]

A futuristic game is more prehistoric when it comes to gender, heh

A massive rich company has people defending or excusing this away because of 'money'

yeah idk how people can support this game in good conscious. it's been bigoted from moment one.

 

[Lowrys]

Way to miss the entire point, CDPR.

 

[Lamptramp]

What annoys me is that the game doesn't really seem to be taking advantage of the fact it's set in 2077 when it comes to gender

It doesn't take a prophet to realize that definitions of gender are gonna change a lot in the next 50 years. They could do something genuinely interesting with that - cyberpunk is all about identity - but this + other things we've seen so far are going with the very out-dated science fiction variant of "everything and everyone is binary except for a couple of people who are treated as anomalies/fetish objects".

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100% this, the game isnt set now with the same issues we have now, its a generation hence where people have grown up with more fluidty around gender and sexuality than any other time. The genre is perfect to explore such themes, and had CDPR the desire to embrace that opportunity it would have sent a positive message and hopefully helped raise the bar for the medium as a whole. Unfortunately it seems it was less important than "hacking, neon, shooting and blade arms".

 

[Kyuuji]

One has to wonder at some point how many instances of handling trans topics poorly - to put it lightly - a company needs to blunder through before the excuses from fans stop.

They've been unwilling to show off any depth to gender topics in the game outside of a "haha chick with a giant dick" mentality. We've been saying it from the moment they slapped a poster illustrating as much all over their game and promotional venue, and their response was large corporations exploit trans imagery in their fictional world while doing just that in the real one.

All they needed to do and was requested was to do a deep dive or insight into how they're handling these topics, especially considering their past with the community, and give some reassurance if they want us to believe it's being handled with nuance and care.

 

[Gots]

Disappointed but not surprised, unfortunately. I think a lot of people were being too optimistic in their belief that CDPR would handle this well.

 

[The Turbanator]

Seems like it wouldn't be hard to just add a "pronoun" option in character creation.

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The issues come with the VAs probably not recording lines referring to themselves in the opposite gender, but that's not that hard to re-record and CDPR isn't exactly an indie dev.

 

[Kthulhu]

If that's true then it's understandable as it could potentially be an issue with recording so many voice lines. I am a bit skeptical though as the writer never mentioned they played the game. It seems like they're making assumptions from the trailer.

The only game I'm aware of that lets you go into detail with pronouns is 2064 Read Only Memories, and that's an indie game where your character has no voice acting.

 

[Glio]

If that's true then it's understandable as it could potentially be an issue with recording so many voice lines. I am a bit skeptical though as the writer never mentioned they played the game. It seems like they're making assumptions from the trailer.

The only game I'm aware of that lets you go into detail with pronouns is 2064 Read Only Memories, and that's an indie game where your character has no voice acting.

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If that was going to be a problem (which I really doubt) they could have chosen a setting where the problem didn't exist.

If you want points for representation, do it or don't do it, but don't stay in the middle and do something even worse than doing nothing.

If you want to make a cyberpunk story you have to take everything about cyberpunk, you cannot just take cyber and not do anything punk.

 

[ImaPlayThis]

Look... What you just said, trying to make it sound the done thing to pre-judge a game... That's just alien to me... You're turning things inside out and there are guts everywhere i dunno what to say

EDIT: I misread what you said. I'm busy at the mo', sorry~

If you haven't spent your hard earned cash, i don't think you have much right to judge the game?

You're being very headstrong... and cocksure (movie reference) ... I don't track their transgressions. I think cd project red has made the greatest game ever (in my mind) and are devoting their energies to topping that, so I'm just going to wait and see what they come up with. If it sucks, I'll say as much.

FOR THE RECORD, if there's any danger of me coming across as anti trans, or anything like that, if this system turns out to be as clumsy and offensive as some of us are concluding here, i will cringe hugely at their fuck up. I'll still play the game (which i have on pre order from gog) but i will entirely understand what undermines it . I'm for the rights of everyone.

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If a game does something transphobic, racist etc etc then I don't think you should have to give them money inorder to call them out on it and if still in production I don't think it's wrong to call them out on it. For instance my little devil had racist chararicatures in it, the dev team didn't know it was so apologised and said they'll alter it, or remove it if they can't alter it enough. For this case I hope the devs just say something like "that was just an early build, pronoun choice will be in at release"

Just based off your posts here I don't think you're anti trans, I just don't like the narrative of waiting for it to be released with the problem when us talking about it now will, hopefully, mean that it'll release without the problem

 

[Strittles]

This sucks so much. If they can't get something as simple as giving players their choice on pronouns, then I am not optimistic at all on how this game will portray gender identity if they even bother at all.

 

[Tovarisc]

If you want to make a cyberpunk story you have to take everything about cyberpunk, you cannot just take cyber and not do anything punk.

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Mostly this game is being dragged for being too punk instead of cyber.

Edit: Granted that criticism doesn't deal with gender identity and representation issues game has.

 

[Kthulhu]

If that was going to be a problem (which I really doubt) they could have chosen a setting where the problem didn't exist.

If you want points for representation, do it or don't do it, but don't stay in the middle and do something even worse than doing nothing.

If you want to make a cyberpunk story you have to take everything about cyberpunk, you cannot just take cyber and not do anything punk.

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I respectfully disagree. A game that does it's best to represent someone is far better than a game that doesn't or one that creates a caricature of a group.

Edit: also keep in mind the writer has no source so they could be pulling this out of their ass.