The game's a total love letter to classic Cyberpunk franchises. Elements of Blade Runner, Terminator, Bubblegum Crisis, Snatcher, Armitage III, Ghost in the Shell and many others are clearly present.
Here are the specific shoutouts as seen in the game.
- When players complete purchases at the kiosks, the tune that plays when you hit the jackpot is the Final Fantasy victory theme.
- In the scene when you meet the British and Chinese members of the Rust Crew the side with the pool looks like E. Honda's stage in Street Fighter II.
- A number of Resistance soldiers are wearing armor that's clearly inspired by Imperial Guardsmen.
- Cain uses a machine-pistol and has the same combat stance as Robocop.
- Amada hacks into the US millcom and orders nuclear strikes against the rest of the world - Skynet's opening gambit.
- Terminator influences are strongly felt with the skeleton structures of most robots, but most definitely with the car and giant motorcycle robots in the last highway chase.
- The mobile gun howitzer behaves very much like a non-nuclear Metal Gear.
- However, they more closely resemble Mugendramon/Machinedramon.
- Putting Hollow Children in the place of certain persons has the same feeling of Snatcher all right.
- Also, female Hollow Children being capable of giving birth is definitely a shoutout to Armitage III.
- The design of the Mini-Mecha used by Philiips' spec ops team strongly evokes Front Mission.
- Some Security robots in Upper Tokyo use machine pistols, having a habit of spinning their pistols with their trigger fingers when drawing/holstering - which was Alex Murphy's habit.
- The Ace Custom that Philips uses is painted red, ala Char's Zaku II.
- The Tsar Runner is essentially Demolishor from Revenge of the Fallen.
- Whether it's intentional or not (if it's ever cited specifically, I sure didn't see it), the Hollow Children's name is highly reminiscent of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men."
- The Hollow Children (at least those who believe that they're human) living in normal society is taken from the original Ghost in the Shell and partially from Blade Runner.
- Kiryu's guerrilla skin in multiplayer is a shoutout to the Rambo franchise.
- The Rust Crew's mandate to hunt down Hollow Children under IRTA mandate is a shoutout to Blade Runner.
- Shindo refers to Dan most of the time as "Daniel-san".
