CD Projekt Reds Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most anticipated games on the horizon right now, and it seems the Polish studio are gearing up for a big reveal at E3 this year. But why wait that long to learn more?

As you may already know, the Cyberpunk videogame is closely based on a tabletop RPG written by Mike Pondsmith, and first published in 1988. The game has been through three iterations, with the first two known as Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2020. Since the 2020s feel a little close, its no surprise that CD Projekt Red have thrown the universe forward to the year 2077 for their interpretation.

There are plenty of other tabletop games that made the jump to PC on our list of the best RPGs.

With the tabletop game providing the backdrop for the videogame, theres much we can learn about the world, weapons, and characters of the Cyberpunk 2077 universe. So we thought wed take a look a close look at it to let you know what to expect from CDPRs first triple-A release since The Witcher 3.

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Cyberpunk is set in a dystopian near-future, amid a fictional Californian city named Night City after its founder, Richard Night. Between then and now, the USA has suffered a vast socioeconomic collapse that has sent ripples around the world, throwing the entire planet - but especially the West - into chaos. The enfeebled US government has only maintained order with the aid of a number of megacorporations, some of which may seem familiar (see below).

It all starts to go wrong in 1990, when the US intervenes disastrously in a Central American war. This, together with the release of US-developed plagues targeting drug plants, stokes anti-American sentiment among powerful Central American cartels. With the backing of the European Union, who are much more competitive in this alternative universe, these cartels prosecute a savage drug war all over the Americas. In 1993, they are even able to detonate a small nuclear device in New York, killing tens of thousands.

Matters worsen in 1994 with a massive global stock market crash that hits the USA hardest, causing widespread unemployment and homelessness. A nuclear accident in Pittsburgh drives internal migration, as does a drought across the midwest, which leads to a food crisis. The family farm is essentially wiped out, so corporations come to control all US agriculture. Food exports to the rest of the world cease, which obviously causes its own problems.

In 1996, the president and vice president are assassinated, and the US government fragments - the NSA, CIA, FBI, and DEA form the Gang of Four and collude to further their own interests. Criminal gangs are established or emboldened all over the country - one of them, the Bloods, take almost total control of Miami. Executive authority is passed down the ranks to the defence secretary, who suspends the constitution and declares martial law. By now, one in four Americans are homeless, leading to huge Mad Max-style gangs of violent Nomads.

Over the next few years, toxic spills off the coast of Seattle ravage its economy. A 10.5 earthquake shatters Los Angeles. Tensions in the Middle East escalate to nuclear exchange, reducing much of the region to radioactive slag and halving the worlds oil supply. Several states secede from the United States, including California. You get the idea: everyone has a jolly bad time.

Corporate power has been waxing across the globe as businesses exploit the opportunities created by this chaos. Corporations have been training their own armies as early as 1997, and ultimately the enfeebled US government has no choice but to turn to them for help containing the nomads, gangs, and cartels running rampant across the country. The corporations take most of what they liberate for themselves, and only grow stronger. Governments across the world - and especially in the US - are then powerless to prevent a series of corporate wars.

Thats pretty much all you need to know. Cyberpunks fictional timeline continues for many more years, but from here on out its an esoteric account of escalating inter-corporate wars that probably wont mean a lot to you. Basically: nukes, natural disasters, everyones screwed. Also bear in mind that, since the last edition (v3) of the board game is set in the 2030s, CD Projekt Red will have come up with another few decades of history which no-one outside the project will currently know about. Somehow we doubt things have improved much.

Cyberpunks megacorporations were spawned in the unregulated industrial cesspool they demanded in return for helping the faltering US government contain a series of domestic crises. They are presented as a vision of what might happen - and to some extent did, in the era of the robber barons - if market forces were let entirely off the leash. In the main, they are self-serving, amoral, and profit-driven, and we can expect many of them to be major antagonists in the videogame.

That said, given CDPRs fondness for moral ambiguity - firmly established in the Witcher series - we doubt all corporations will be unalloyed evil. As you can see below, many have different and conflicting agendas. There are more shades of grey here than in an Escher sketch, and theres no way CDPR will squander that to tell a boring, easy story about goodies and baddies.

Imagine picking the lesser of two evils as megacorps compete for your services. There is also plenty of role-playing potential as your characters class, background, or other tendencies might shape your loyalties. Perhaps some corps might not even be so bad? Many of the so-called robber barons were noted philanthropists, after all.

But now were speculating. Heres a list of some of the megacorps that have been established in the Cyberpunk universe:

In the finest traditions of tabletop RPGs, Cyberpunk lets you create your own character, but it also has NPCs. However, unless they have artificially extended their lives - which, to be fair, is entirely possible, given the worlds tech - many of those characters may have died in the decades between the board game and 2077. We note a few of the most important ones below, and those that are most likely to have survived - they may be your quest-givers, class mentors, faction leaders, and so on.

Richard NightRichard Night is the man behind Cyberpunks major setting, Coronado City - later renamed Night City in his honour. In 1990, he left the construction firm in which he was a partner to plan Coronado City. He secured corporate funding from Arasaka, EBM, and Petrochem in exchange for handing over large slices of the city for their development.

Coronado City was incorporated in May 1994. It rests on the central California coast, a little ways south of San Francisco. The megacorporations are heavily involved in its development from the beginning, and their influence upon it is greater than any other city in the USA. Night himself is killed in his penthouse in 1998, after which Coronado City takes his name. His killer is never caught.

Saburo ArasakaThe devious and megalomaniacal head of the Arasaka megacorporation, which dominates much of Japan and the third world (a label now commonly assigned to America). He brought elements of the Japanese government, military, lesser corporations, and even crime groups under his control, and is/was determined to establish Japan as the new global superpower.

Alt Cunningham

A netrunner and ex-girlfriend of famous rockstar Johnny Silverhand. She invented a program that could digitally copy a netrunners mind. For this, she was kidnapped and interrogated by the Arasaka corporation. They used the information to make a deadlier version that would torch the netrunners mind after copying it - and Alt was its first victim. The copy of her mind managed to escape into the net, however, so she continued to live as a digital ghost - and may indeed still be alive in 2077.

On that note, we should mention that a poster made from her artwork in the tabletop game appears in the Cyberpunk 2077 teaser trailer - this could just be an easter egg, or a hint that she is indeed still around.

Commissioner J. HammermanHammerman is referenced in a newscast in the Cyberpunk 2077 teaser trailer, commenting on the massacre committed by the augmented woman. Presumably, hell be commissioner of one of the emergency services, the police being the obvious guess.

Cyberpunk calls its character classes roles, of which there are nine in the main rulebook. Later supplements added many more but well list the core nine here. Some map approximately onto familiar RPG archetypes (cops sound a bit like paladins to us), but one of the coolest things about Cyberpunk is how much it rewrites the traditional rulebook - some of these could play like nothing else weve seen.

While we expect the Cyberpunk videogame to adhere closely to the board game in general, this fidelity has been all but confirmed with respect to classes specifically. Last year, Pondsmith said that the tabletop games Cyberpunk classes are all going to be there, but youre going to find some surprises about how weve done it, and I think youre really going to like it. Theres a lot of subtlety going on there.

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Cyberpunk 2077 - the lore, story, setting, characters, and ...