"Whole game is going to be a meme." While it is undeniable on how much controversy Cyberpunk 2077 has garnered, it was also used to spawn quite funny memes in the gaming community.
Please add entries in the following format:
- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ExplanationLike this.
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
- The contention concerning the game's look resulted in many people jokingly editing screenshots to look "more cyberpunk." More mockingly, the defenders of the new aesthetic have called out those dissatisfied with it on literally hating the sun.
- It's common for fans to jokingly put the Cyberpunk 2077 logo in pictures of vaguely high-tech objects, usually in developing countries. An example.
When done in video form, this is usually accompanied by the song "Spoiler" by DJ Hyper used in the 2018 trailer. - In line with the "Keanu Reeves is a vampire" meme, people joke that it's the actual Keanu in the game who managed to survive up to 2077.
- You're breathtaking! Explanation.When Keanu Reeves made a surprise appearance to promote the game during Microsoft's E3 2019 conference, immediately after he described the game as "breathtaking", a member of the audience shouted, "You're breathtaking!" Reeves responded by saying that everyone in the audience was breathtaking. The phrase has been used frequently to praise the preview build of the game.
- Immortalized as the achievement given when V comes to possess all of Johnny's old things.
- The Photo Mode includes a pose labeled "You're Breathtaking!" in which V adopts the same pose as Keanu Reeves from the meme.
- During the "Off the Leash" quest, the same back and forth conversation from E3 happens between a fan and Kerry.
- The gig "Olive Branch" has the client remark that a certain member of the Tyger Claws wasn't very "breathtaking".
- Who fucked up his cyber-dog? Explanation.A reference to Keanu's John Wick character who famously went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after his dog was senselessly killed.
- Adding onto this, making references to John Wick's feats but in context with the game (like killing three men with a mechanical pencil).
- Customize Your Genitals Explanation refers to exploitable IGN's Youtube thumbnail about modifying player's genitals, with an image below provides a rather crude examples such as this.
- Day 91. Explanation Both of the game's delays were announced when there was 91 days to go until release. Fans quickly took notice and many memes and jokes were made about it. An example of which being the feeling of anxiety whenever the game's official twitter makes another tweet.
- No, more delays are happening!Explanation An edit of the Cyberpunk 2077 twitter account saying "No more delays are happening." caused the meme to reach new heights, as CDPR has announced yet another delay moving the release date from November 19th to December 10th, due to polishing the game for multiple platforms. Many were especially baffled as the company was essentially delaying a game that was previously announced to have already gone gold and billboards advertising the original November date were already made.
- The dreaded yellow screen.Explanation Whenever a delay for the game was announced, it was always done through a wall of text with a yellow background. After the third delay, parodies of these messages have spread, using the same yellow background.
- Keanu Reeves is Extremely Horny ExplanationA series of memes where someone says a line, with Manipulative Editing to create a Mondegreen Gag by having music from the game cut out anything past a certain word/syllable (usually "come"). This blew up immediately due to its absurd nature, spawning millions of memes of similar nature from different franchises and sources. (It should be noted that the original video uses Infraction and Aim To Head's collab song "Falling", which sounds like it's from the game but actually isn't.)
- Many Shoes ExplanationChinese meme based on "Main issues" in the trailer.
- Cybercrunch 2077 Explanation Many fans took shots at the company after news got out that CD Projekt Red employees had been working 100-hour weeks, despite having promised to not crunch a year ago. More fuel was added to the fire when co-CEO Adam Kicinski attempted to downplay the crunch to investors as "not that bad".
- "Something feels off here" "You don't say?" ExplanationAn exchange between V and Johnny in one scene that became memetic due to the scene in question being extremely prone to hilarious glitches.
- V sleeping. Explanation For some reason, V goes to sleep without getting into bed, lays down on the bed perpendicularly, lays their hands in front of them and far below the pillow. People have responded with images trying to make sense of it, from odd contortions◊ to laying like the "FUTURE" meme from SpongeBob.◊ The 1.2 patch amended this animation to be more conventional.
- Cyberbug 2077 Explanation Because of its disastrous and buggy launch, people began to make fun of CD Projekt Red by showing compilations of all the bugs and glitches that occur during the gameplay section. And oh boy, all of them are quite hilarious and downright ridiculous.
- Angel's a guy's name? Explanation During one mission, the player is given a choice between two prostitutes: Angel and Skye, one male, one female. Because the pictures of the two have only been shown in the background for about five seconds before the prompt appears, many people picked Angel expecting him to be the female prostitute, only to come into his booth and find a guy. The internet quickly caught on to how absurd it is that so many people have made the same mistake.
- Cyberpunk 2076 ExplanationThe game's disastrous launch brought many comparisons to Fallout 76 and its like-wise troubled launch, especially due to the coincidental similarities in numbering.
- Dear gamers, ExplanationCDPR's first update/apology on the state of the console releases began with these words, which were lampooned due to CDPR's (former) reputation among "gamers" as well as the apology itself implying that they simply neglected to show footage from the earlier consoles despite CDPR denying console versions to reviewers and removing leaked footage from the web.
- Whole game is going to be a meme. ExplanationOne Tweet from the game's official Twitter from back in 2018 itself became memetic, after the game became a meme for all the wrong reasons.
- "After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store." ExplanationGOG, owned by CD Projekt, delisted the Taiwanese horror game Devotion due to an Easter Egg that insulted the Chinese president Xi Jinping, alleging that "gamers" had pressured them into doing so. A day later, Sony announced that they would delist Cyberpunk 2077 from the Playstation Store, and removed it soon after, a move that many viewed as Laser-Guided Karma.
- Cyberpunk: A Realm RebornExplanationDue to Sony pulling the game from the Playstation Network and offering refunds, people have joked that the game is following in FF14's footsteps of disastrous initial launch followed by glorious rebirth. Something which actually ended up happening with the 2.0 overhaul that coincided with the story expansion Phantom Liberty.
- "These Shrimp Fresh?"ExplanationVinny of Vinesauce fame screwing around with the game, finding glitches, runs into this feedback loop where he keeps dropping corpses next to the seafood seller, never noticing anything amiss.
- In the future, (insert random bug) is going to be like this. Explanation Numerous bugs, like police rapidly spawning on your location determined to crush you, cars randomly jumping to the sky, as well as random citizens T-posing is jokingly stated to be the future norm in 2077.
- Takemura is waiting. Explanation Many players held off Takemura's quests to concentrate on sidejobs (especially Judy's and Panam's questlines), leading to jokes about him waiting months for V to come
- Meet Hanako at Embers Explanation This is the description of the last main mission in the game, after which the player will have to choose their ending and epilogue. Many players don't want to finish the game without completing all the side content, so this quest hangs above them like an uncomfortable reminder.
- Closeted bisexual Panam. Explanation Panam's interactions with V, male or female, can come off as pretty flirty, despite the fact that Panam can only be romanced by a male V. Some players' Alternative Character Interpretation is that Panam is bisexual and just in denial about it.
- V is emotionless. Explanation The voice actor behind the English male voice for V, Gavin Drea, best known for his roles in British and Irish drama series such as Love/Hate, Resistance and My Mother and Other Strangers, before working on Cyberpunk 2077, did a rather poor performance that to many players sounded dull and uninteresting, even in intense or painful situations. Since many said players played through the game as a male V, they came to the conclusion that V doesn't feel anything. The female voice for V, however, voiced by Cherami Leigh, a well-rounded voice actress in the anime and video game dubbing industry (with voice roles including Makoto Niijima, Asuna Yuuki, Lucy Heartfilia, Komaru Naegi, and A2), is given a much more vibrant performance and emphasizes moments of pain and hardship.
- You're going back to the garage Explanation Paweł Sasko, the game's lead quest designer, did a series of streams where he plays the game and talks about its development. He spend almost the entire first stream (about two hours) in the garage where the Nomad prologue starts (the mission can be beaten in about twenty minutes or less), mostly reading the chat and talking with the viewers. In the subsequent streams, viewers started to tease him about finding a new garage to hang out in for a few hours, or about him going back to the starting garage whenever his V died.
- "Wake the fuck up, samurai. We have a city to burn." ExplanationFrom the end of the CGI trailer, where Johnny Silverhand says this to you when you come to while you're in the trash heap. Expect a variation of this to appear in other situations when someone wakes up, either other characters replacing Johnny or the words being changed to fit the context.. Also, some other uses variations regarding the insanely high PC specs ("We got a PC to burn") or, more sadly, about how people turned their back on CD Projekt Red for releasing a disappointing game despite all the hype ("We got a reputation to burn").
- I WANT YOU I WANT YOU I WANT YOU I WANT. I FUCK YOU I FUCK YOU I FUCK YOU I FUCK.ExplanationThe first lines of the chorus of "Hole in the Sun" by Point Break Candy.
- Everyone's favorite mission objective: Follow PanamExplanationPanam has a rather callipygian figure, which is front and center while carrying out a frequently recurring objective in her quest lines: following her while she walks to some destination nearby
- While not directly related to the game, the "i ain't reading all that" meme is linked to the game via the Johnny Silverhand character avatar. ExplanationA direct message says "I ain't reading all that", "i'm happy for u tho", "or sorry that happened", used in response to overly long or dramatic statements from people who really don't have that much to complain about, it's essentially a modernised "too long;didn't read".
- Buying 2077 just to kill Adam Smasher Explanation The huge player bump following the release of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has been joked to be due to the players wanting to avenge Rebecca, and to a lesser degree David, at the hands of the murderous cyborg. Bonus points for doing so with their gear, or the dildo club.
- Thanks to Edgerunners, the song "I Really Want to Stay at Your House" went from just another piece of background music to one that will cause emotional breakdowns due to how that song was utilized in the anime series.
- "You look like a cut of fuckable meat, are you?" ExplainationThis is the first line from Adam Smasher that he said to Evelyn Parker and it was seen as his Establishing Character Moment as this Hate Sink character. After Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was aired, this line was use as Black Comedy material regarding Rebecca's death.
- Just like real lifeExplanationImmediately following the release of the 2.0 update, it was not uncommon for patrolling NCPD officers to completely ignore any violent gang activity happening just feet away, but become hostile towards players for doing anything mildly out of the ordinary, such as walking past them too closely, or even trying to help them during scripted events. While the latter half of the issue was fixed relatively quickly, it didn't stop many from joking it made the game more realistic.
- Quiet life, or blaze of glory?ExplanationDexter DeShawn's question to V early in the game has become a lot more poignant since the release of Phantom Liberty and its associated "Tower" ending, with V taking the NUSA's cure being portrayed as them forsaking their career as an Edgerunner in exchange for a long life. This sharply contrasts with the base game endings, where V doesn't get a new lease on life, but can still choose to go out on their own terms, particularly in "The Sun" ending where they gamble everything on a space casino heist to immortalize their legend. Which approach is better than the other and why is a widespread debate among the fandom.
