The sixth episode of The Boys: Season 2 is an important one, with X2: X-Men United’s Shawn Ashmore making his full debut as Lamplighter. This mysterious superhero has been at the heart of one of the show’s bigger mysteries, and now fans finally know why Lamplighter vanished from the public eye, what he’s been up to and what exactly went down that fateful night he first clashed with Butcher’s team.
IGN was able to chat with Ashmore over the phone to find out more about what drew him to the character and the fun of playing a hero who couldn’t be more different from the X-Men franchise’s Iceman. Read on to learn more about how the TV series changes Lamplighter and the challenges of playing the character, but beware of spoilers for The Boys: Season 2, Episode 6!
As faithful as the TV series is to the comic book version of The Boys in terms of the basic plot, it tends to introduce some pretty significant changes when it comes to the individual characters and their respective back-stories. That’s certainly been the case with Season 2’s biggest new addition, Stormfront, and it remains true with Lamplighter as well.
In the comics, Lamplighter is depicted as more or less an analogue to Green Lantern. He’s a hero who can control and shape fire in the same way Hal Jordan forms constructs out of his ring’s energy. That Green Lantern influence isn’t quite as obvious in the show, in part because we mostly see Lamplighter as a retired hero who carries his trusty lighter rather than his flaming staff. In general, The Seven are a pretty direct riff on the Justice League in the comics, and slightly less so in the TV series.
One of the darkest reveals in the comic (and one of the biggest changes between the comic and TV series) comes as readers learn The Seven tried and failed to stop the 9/11 terrorist attacks due to their own selfishness and incompetence. Even though the US government covers up the truth, Lamplighter retires shortly after. Butcher and his original team decide to blackmail The Seven with the threat of revealing the truth to the public. In response, Lamplighter takes it upon himself to kill Gregory Mallory’s grandchildren as a way of intimidating The Boys into silence.
In either version of the story, The Boys have a special reason for hating Lamplighter.
That merely escalates the feud between the two teams. To keep the peace and prevent The Seven’s public image from being soiled, Homelander turns over Lamplighter to Butcher and his team, who proceed to savagely beat the hero before shooting him and throwing his body out of a plane. However, Vought recovers the body and restores Lamplighter to life, albeit as a glorified zombie with no higher brain functions.
While the TV series retains some of these elements, the execution is much different. A series of flashbacks show Mallory and her team attempted to blackmail Lamplighter into becoming their mole within the Seven. Instead, Vought dispatches their creation to assassinate Mallory. Or so he thinks. He instead winds up murdering Mallory’s grandchildren. The guilt of that act compels him to retire, and he takes up a new role in overseeing Vought’s test subjects in a psychiatric institute. In the end, Lamplighter helps his enemies survive the superhuman jailbreak, and Mallory reluctantly agrees to spare his life. It’s a far more noble end to his story compared to the comic.
From Iceman to Lamplighter
Ashmore told us that as a longtime superhero and comic book fan, he was eager to be involved with The Boys after watching Season 1. In fact, he tested for several different Season 2 roles before keying in on the idea of playing Lamplighter, a character about as different from Iceman as possible.
“I actually auditioned for several characters on the show, but when Lamplighter came up, I thought, ‘Man, this would be cool to sort of come back to do something in the superhero space that’s completely the opposite of what people think of me as Bobby Drake Iceman and in that area.’ So I just thought it’d be fun. I thought it’d be different. And it’s exciting to be on the show, but also to come back to the superhero genre and do something totally different.”
Ashmore suspects that appealing role-reversal is what helped him land the part in the first place, with showrunner Eric Kripke and his team exploring a very different side of an actor made famous by the X-Men movies.
Ashmore’s latest superhero role is certainly an ironic shift from his X-Men days.
“I haven’t really talked to Eric about it directly, but I’m pretty sure that knowing The Boys and knowing the tone and the attitude that they take, that was definitely a big part of potentially them casting me or thinking about me for the role is that it’s just unexpected,” said Ashmore. “And sort of in the face of what the normal thing would be for a superhero show. And I love that. So yeah, it was fun to be a completely different type of character in the same genre.”
That all being said, while there’s a definite irony in the idea of Ashmore playing a character with the exact same powers as Iceman’s nemesis Pyro, Lamplighter wasn’t specifically intended to be a spoof of the X-Men movies. As Ashmore explains, the show’s interpretation of the character had already been established before he auditioned for the role.
“I mean, it seems to me that that kind of makes sense,” said Ashmore. “But again, Lamplighter was Lamplighter before I was cast, so it wasn’t as if they were like, ‘Oh, we’ll cast Shawn, who people know as Iceman, and then make Lamplighter a fire character,’ or more of that. So I think it was just the direction that they took. And then again, I think my casting sort of poked fun a little bit at the whole situation.”
As we’ve explored, Lamplighter’s story takes a very different turn in the TV series versus the comics. Where’s he’s mostly a figure of ridicule in the source material, Episode 6 works to give Lamplighter depth and explore how his shared rivalry with Frenchie is one built mostly on a misunderstanding. This episode humanizes Lamplighter in a way the comic doesn’t.
“To me, it was very clear when I read even the sides for the character and then when I read the script, what their intention with Lamplighter was,” said Ashmore. “To stir up the pot with The Boys, to bring back this character that had such an effect on all of them, from Mallory on down, and Frenchie obviously, and everybody that was involved at the time. So that made sense to me… This was a great way into where Vought was taking this experimentation and how they’re using V and how they were going about that.
Ashmore continued, “To me, it made really good sense in the second season to have this character pop in, stir up the pot with the boys, threaten Vought, and sort of go from there.”
But humanized or not, Lamplighter is clearly a very dark and flawed person in any version of this story. We were curious if Ashmore had trouble getting into the mindset of the character and inhabiting a world where “superheroes” are often little more than sociopathic mass-murders. How tough is that process?
“Surprisingly easy, mostly because the material is so good,” said Ashmore. “And again, I think what works with The Boys is that our supes, they’re the villains, I guess you could say, quote-unquote, but they’re really not. They’re just people, flawed people, and Lamplighter’s no different. He’s done horrible things. He is a murderer. He’s done some very, very bad things. But what was interesting to me is that I don’t think that Lamplighter’s played as a villain and I certainly didn’t look at him like that. He was just a human being who has this ability who got caught up with Vought and with this fame and success, and just got caught up in these trappings and in this machine. And then everything else that happens sort of happened. I don’t think that he was an evil person. He’s just done some very evil things.”
Ashmore continued, “And so I think we see both sides of Lamplighter. It’s not straightforward, like, ‘Well, he’s the bad guy and now the boys are coming after him.’ He’s had to sort of atone and look at the things that he’s done now that he’s not in The Seven. Now that the machine that protected him and built him up is gone, now he’s left to look at what he did and who he is. I thought that was interesting. And that’s how I approached the character. And that’s how I tried to play the character. Not that he’s just this evil sup and that he’s a sociopath and a murderer. He is all those things, but there’s a lot more to him.”
This encounter with Lamplighter also promises to have a lingering effect on The Boys and Frenchie in particular. Frenchie’s decision to save Lamplighter’s life is a reminder of the true enemy he and his friends are trying to destroy.
“I always looked at it that The Boys are fighting Vought more than they’re fighting the supes,” said Ashmore. “And obviously Butcher has it out for Homelander for a very specific, personal reason, but the rest of the team is fighting the system more than they’re fighting the supes. And I think as we’re seeing this season so far, aside from characters like Stormfront and Homelander, the other supes are flawed and trying to make amends and in a free-fall, everybody from A-Train to The Deep and Queen Maeve. We’re all seeing the other sides to these characters.”
Ashmore continued, “And so I think that this will open the door a little more, potentially, for The Boys to see the other side of their enemy. Whether that means they’re going to stop fighting them or not, I don’t think that that’s true, but I think it will give a bit of insight into what these people – the supes – were put through to become who they are and what they’ve become.”
(Note: This post contains spoilers for Playdead’s Inside.)
When publisher Limited Run Games first revealed the $150 “Chex Warrior” edition of the infamous 1996 shooter Chex Quest–a free total conversion of Doom originally distributed in boxes of the eponymous cereal–reaction ran the gamut from strained confusion to outright enthusiasm. While it might seem like a bizarre tribute to an advertising relic of the ’90s, Limited Run’s founder Josh Fairhurst offered a simple explanation for the move: He just really liked Chex Quest as a kid.
“There are definitely times where I take a gamble on something that I think is really cool with the knowledge that it may not make money,” he says. “Chex Quest is a great example of that.”
Limited Run’s core business of providing physical releases for traditionally digitally-minded indie games grew out of such a gamble. When Fairhurst’s game studio Mighty Rabbit was in financial trouble, he leveraged the last of the studio’s funds and took out a loan to create a small run of physical copies for their Vita game Breach & Clear. Though Fairhurst hoped that the studio would make at least enough money to continue operating off the production, he also had a personal reason for the decision. “It felt right for me to take a game that I had made and make it physical, because if my company went out of business, at least having that physical game would be a reminder that hey, we actually did things,” he explains. “Our hard work wouldn’t be lost to the march of time, or services getting shut down.”
When that production run sold out in a scant two hours, however, Fairhurst realized he had stumbled across a lucrative new business model, and Limited Run has grown from there to over 500 releases in under five years. The majority of the company’s output remains physical releases of hit indie games like Streets of Rage 4 or reissues of classics like Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, and Fairhurst is absolutely clear that the success of these less-risky projects allows the company to indulge its more offbeat impulses from time to time. These dalliances sometimes only break even–in particular, Fairhurst says Limited Run’s PC releases have a tendency to do less well than their console counterparts–but they can also prove to be unexpected successes.
Over the past five years, there’s been a significant shift in the way that many people buy and consume games. The statistics tell the story: In the first half of 2019, Sony reported that digital sales of retail games had finally eclipsed physical purchases 53% to 47%, around the same time that GamesIndustry.biz reported that several regions in Europe now purchase a majority of their games digitally. While these numbers seem to suggest a gradual move away from physical copies of games, the reality is that there exists a market of die-hard collectors who covet limited editions and gewgaws that serve as tokens of their undying fandom.
Lately, however, some of the small companies that put out these expansive physical editions have been greenlighting unconventional or unusual projects in an attempt to stand out in the market. The results are a fascinating reflection of what sort of games get to be regarded as “classics,” as well as what kinds of goodies fans are hoping for when they plonk down hundreds of dollars for a special edition of a beloved game. However, the very nature of these limited editions can sometimes cause unruly fans to react with vitriol when they fail to snap up the package they want–and the results can be quite unpleasant.
When Electronic Arts approached Limited Run about doing a limited edition of Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, as a longtime fan of the franchise, Fairhurst was enthusiastic about tackling it. However, given that the series hasn’t had a major entry since 2012, he was concerned that the production run might only break even. Instead, fans flocked to it in droves, and it ended up becoming Limited Run’s top-selling item of all time. To Fairhurst, the whole episode demonstrated an important lesson: It’s impossible to know how fans will react to these sorts of announcements, so it’s best to go with what you personally enjoy.
“I would say there’s a strong gut component to what we’re doing,” he says. “Most of the time, an opportunity will come our way, and we’ll be able to look at the name and just think, well, it’ll likely at least break even, and if it ends up being profitable, that’s great.”
Jon Gibson of fellow boutique publisher iam8bit prefers a different metaphor: He calls their decision-making process “a sort of alchemy.” Born out of a 2005 art show that served as a gallery space for artists obsessed with the intersection of ’80s pop culture and old-school gaming, Gibson says that iam8bit focuses on creating merch that is interpretive and respectful rather than simply “regurgitating” an existing brand.
Last year, iam8bit partnered with RealDolls–yes, the California-based company that makes so-called “love dolls,” which are lauded by enthusiasts for their human-like verisimilitude–to produce one of the most bizarre pieces of video game merch ever devised: A silicone model of the monstrous, amorphous “Huddle” from the end of the 2014 horror game Inside.
According to iam8bit’s co-owner, Amanda White, the idea of putting together a rubber or silicone model for one of their collector’s editions actually predates Inside entirely. For years now, she’s been trying to collaborate with friends who work at Sinvention, a Canadian company that specializes in high-end bondage gear and other sex toys. Her associate suggested Realdolls as the ultimate in “silicone artisans,” and the partnership ended up producing the model that fans could buy for $375.
“I definitely still think there’s a market for a video game-related sex toy,” Gibson says, laughing. “We’re going to find the right project for that someday.” (Whether Rez‘s infamous “trance vibrator” counts as a pioneer in the field depends on who you ask.)
Not every one of iam8bit’s releases can be as outlandish as that, but Gibson says they do try to push the boundaries as much as they can, if only quietly. He says that fans often question their inclusion of Genesis games Aladdin and The Lion King in their Legacy Cartridge Collection, since movie tie-in games are largely considered subpar at best among enthusiasts. In Gibson’s opinion, however, these two games are historically important, because they represent the first time that game developers were able to collaborate with filmmakers before the movies being adapted even came out, rather than slapping a game together based on secondhand knowledge and assets.
“Lion King was a technical marvel in its day,” Gibson says. “Just look at the parallaxing in the Simba’s stampede sequence. That’s an amazing feat of gameplay engineering. Achieving that in the crunched time-frame of a movie game is very impressive… It doesn’t matter if these games are rare, they are seminal pieces of gaming history, they were important to the evolution of the industry, just in a way that isn’t as appreciated as Street Fighter 2 or Mega Man 2.”
Both Gibson and Fairhurst say they often get complaints about the price of their reproduction cartridges, which sometimes come in at more than $100. Though Fairhurst says he doesn’t necessarily blame younger fans for balking at the price, he points out that small batches of high-quality cartridges are expensive to produce, often coming in at up to $25 per cart, and that doesn’t include packaging or any extras. (As many retro gamers will tell you, that’s why some cartridge games would retail for $70 or $80 back in the day.)
Fairhurst personally feels that some customers have a tendency to hold grudges against the company based on experiences with it they had years ago. For example, when Limited Run partnered with a developer to create a limited edition for the infamous FMV slasher Night Trap, it made a very limited quantity, assured that the demand for a game that regularly shows up on “worst of all time” lists would be mild at best. Instead, Night Trap sold out in less than a minute.
“I definitely still think there’s a market for a video game-related sex toy. We’re going to find the right project for that someday.”
“People still hold that against us,” he says. “We get hate messages about it to this day. They hate us with a burning passion. People don’t understand that we’ve changed our model, that our runs aren’t as limited anymore, that most of our games are sold on a pre-order model, but they still hate us because they missed out on Night Trap.”
Both companies say the ire of collectors can gather on the most surprising of shores. Gibson and White were caught up in the toxic firestorm that surrounded the original release of No Man’s Sky, and a mob of aggrieved gamers sent them negative messages, as well as death threats.
“The product resonated with fans; we sold a ton of those statues and collector’s editions,” Gibson says. “But we got really nasty phone calls. They thought that we were a proxy for the developer. It really turned Amanda and me off humanity for a bit, I’ll say that.”
Meanwhile, Fairhurst says he received quite a bit of hate mail from customers seeking the fake NES game Galf that the company included with the Switch version of the sports RPG Golf Story. Based on a mini-game from Golf Story itself, Fairhurst describes it as “essentially a joke version of NES Golf.” “You can get a copy of that on eBay for $5,” he says, laughing. “To be so upset about what is essentially a clone of that game with some weird humor in it, that to me is next-level. It’s unfortunately not that unusual, though.”
Though Fairhurst says he’s never quite sure what will be the next offbeat collector’s edition his company comes out, he has one in mind that will eclipse them all: the abysmal 3DO game Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties, a semi-pornographic visual novel that you might describe as the video game equivalent of a slightly-smutty PowerPoint presentation.
“I’ve been trying to get the rights to that game for like three to four years now,” he says. “I’d like to bring it to Switch and PS4, and do an elaborate collector’s edition, because it’s such a morbid curiosity. People need to see how awful it is.”
Nintendo has revealed that anyone with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild save data on their Nintendo Switch will receive a free bonus when playing Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. If you want to take Link into battle with weapon that will might break after a few swings, leaving you completely defenseless, then you’ll want to keep your save data.
The free bonus weapon is a Training Sword, the rough wooden blade we’ve seen a few different times over the course of the series. Link can equip similar armor and a shield like he had in Breath of the Wild, as well, and the game takes place 100 years before it. It’s technically a prequel, which means its story could be more interesting than the standard Warriors game.
Much like in the first Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity has famous Zelda characters fighting through huge numbers of enemies, and you’ll be able to play as everyone from Zelda herself to Impa. The sound effects and visuals seem like they’ve been plucked directly from Breath of the Wild, and there are plenty of cutscenes to help expand the universe. It even supports local cooperative play with both players using one Joy-Con.
Those who preorder the digital version of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity will be able to use the Lucky Ladle weapon, which can be paired with a pot lid for an even more ridiculous loadout. The game releases exclusively for Nintendo Switch on November 20.
Old-school G.I. Joe fans are getting treated to a new wave of G.I. Joe Retro Collection figures and vehicles, including Destro, Roadblock, Scarlett, and Cobra F.A.N.G. helicopter.
The line is based on the 3 3/4″ G.I. Joe action figure line of the 1980s, and includes period-perfect packaging and accessories. They compliment, but are quite different from, the premium 6″ G.I. Joe Classified line of figures, which are more akin to the Star Wars Black Series and Hasbro’s other premium figure lines.
Anyone who grew up in the 1980s should instantly recognize everything about these figures. Check them out in the gallery below.
The G.I. Joe Retro Collection uses the same playbook as the Vintage G1 Transformers line, which routinely releases classic 1980s Transformers designs in accurate packaging, with that line being made using the same dies and molds as the originals.
Revealed during Hasbro PulseCon, happening now on YouTube, Roadblock, Scarlett and Destro should be available to preorder starting now, with the Walmart-exclusive F.A.N.G. vehicle going up soon.
The figures cost $12.99 each and have a December 1, 2020 release date. The Cobra F.A.N.G. is $24.99, with a “January 2021″ availability.
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Seth Macy is Executive Editor, IGN Commerce, and just wants to be your friend. Find him on Instagram at sethgmacy.
Capcom showed off an extended gameplay demo for Monster Hunter Rise at Tokyo Game Show, expanding on the Switch game’s new abilities, combat, dog companions and more.
Gameplay showed a Dual Blade-using player taking on a two-star quest to slay a Tetranadon, the platypus-like new beast introduced in the game’s announcement. After fighting it for some time, we also saw an Arzuros enter the fray, showing how the game’s open areas allow for unexpected extra monsters to interrupt your quest, and perhaps even cause fights between monsters.
We also saw a non-boss creature based on Japanese tanuki, described as something like a mascot character. Like Monster Hunter World, the open areas also include endemic insect life, which can offer health boosts and buffs along the way to your prey.
We got a good look at the game’s new free-form movement, using a combination of jumps and the new Wirebug ability to climb buildings and even mountains. The Wirebug can be used twice in succession before needing a cooldown, although wild Wirebugs can be collected to extend the number of uses you have in the current quest. The new potential for exploration means Capcom has hidden gathering points and other areas of interest among the maps.
In combat, the Wirebug can be used as a means of adding mobility, but it can also be used specifically as a counter-attack ability. It’s designed as a way to simultaneously offer new attacks and evasion opportunities.
We also saw the player riding the new Palamute companion – you can either jump onto its back, or hold the A button to climb on. They can also be asked to sit or shake hands. Like the player character, Palamutes can jump and climb, increasing your potential for exploration. They come with a health bar, but can never die in combat, similarly to the previous games’ Palicoes. While riding a Palamute, players can use items without stopping or having to use stamina.
Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto explained that these new features are additions to the existing Monster Hunter formula, rather than a new structure for the game – and made clear that experienced players will be able to approach combat exactly as they’d expect to in previous games and still be able to succeed. The additions are designed to accentuate classic Monster Hunter play, not replace it.
Monster Hunter Rise will be released for Nintendo Switch on March 26, 2021.
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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
Following Rayman creator Michel Ancel’s abrupt resignation from Ubisoft earlier this month, the company has confirmed that he is under investigation regarding allegations of a toxic and hostile work environment.
“[Ubisoft CEO] Yves Guillemot committed back in July that any allegation will be investigated and no one will be outside of that process — and this would include Michel Ancel,” Ubisoft told GameSpot. “And as Michel confirmed to the journalist at Liberation, he is under investigation. The investigation is still ongoing and we have nothing further to share as we respect the confidentiality of this investigation.”
Ancel was informed of the investigation in August and has not been in contact with Guillemot since then.
The French publication Liberation’s article alleges that Ancel was abusive toward staff and could make them feel unappreciated during meetings. He also is alleged to have not listened to his team and seemed to be making certain decisions arbitrarily.
Ancel largely denied the article’s allegations on his own Instagram page, saying he wasn’t responsible for managing the team and was not changing his mind on design decisions regularly.
“I worked hard on every [one] of my projects and always had respect for teams. The accusations are wrong,” he said.
When Ancel announced he was retiring from the game industry, he clarified that his project Beyond Good & Evil 2 would continue, as would the game Wild being developed at his independent studio. He said this decision was made in order to focus on work at a wildlife preserve, and Ubisoft’s statement at the time didn’t suggest otherwise.
“We would like to thank Michel for the incredible creative vision he has brought to Ubisoft over the course of his career, and wish him all the best for this new venture,” the company said.
The allegations are just the latest in a growing list at Ubisoft that has included reported sexual assaults, harassment, and physical violence. Thus far, several high-profile Ubisoft employees have resigned or been fired, including VP Maxime Beland and former Assassin’s Creed Valhalla director Ashraf Ismail.
Newegg has the cheapest price we’ve seen so far for an RTX 3090 prebuilt gaming desktop PC. The RTX 3090 alone costs $1500 and it was sold out seconds after it became available. Dell is offering RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 configs as well. The RTX 3080 video card is the one to get for high-powered gamers and the RTX 3090 hits the sweet spot for creative professionals. In other deal news, you can save nearly 50% off Alienware’s flagship Area-51m desktop replacement laptop, the Nintendo Switch Animal Crossing Edition is back in stock, and the new Apple iPad that came out just last week is already discounted.
______________________________ Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out his latest Daily Deals Article and subscribe to his IGN Deals Newsletter.
During a Cyberpunk 2077 livestream at Tokyo Game Show 2020, Hiroshi Sakakibara, Environment City Coordinator at CD Projekt Red, shed some light on the design behind the game’s principal location, Night City.
Sakakibara is responsible for the visual appearance of Night City as part of the Environment Art team at CDPR, which he said is a somewhat large team of dozens of people that builds the game equivalent of what would be sets and props in a movie. The team is subdivided into three smaller groups – the quest location team which is in charge of creating locations for quests together with the game designers, a team that creates smaller scale items, like furniture and garbage cans, that dot the environments, and the city team led by Sakakibara, which brings Night City to life by designing the streets, buildings and more that you will see in this vibrant city.
When asked for his favorite spot in Night City, Sakakibara said that while just picking one location is difficult, his favorite area would have to be Japantown, an area that can be reached by crossing the canal from Retro China, the area in which protagonist V resides. “Japantown is a vibrant downtown area with many towering buildings, and while walking through the narrow alleys in the area these skyscrapers make it feel like you are walking through a futuristic valley,” he said.
According to Sakakibara, entering one of the skyscrapers in the area and then randomly getting off the elevator halfway, and walking the stairs from there is a truly dynamic experience. “You will see details like terrace seating, kiosks and other shops, people hanging out their clothes, somebody sitting at a balcony, a drone carrying goods and more.” Sakakibara said that looking down at the streets or up at the little bit of sky you can see between the skyscrapers is an enthralling experience which will make players realize that they have truly come to a cyberpunk mega city.
But what is it that makes cyberpunk such a unique genre? Sakakibara said that Cyberpunk 2077’s director Adam Badowski repeatedly reminded the team that “an environment filled with things that look futuristic is not cyberpunk, but simply science fiction”. What makes the cyberpunk style special is how it combines retro and futuristic aspects.
“For example, you could have a run down building with an old wooden door, but an LED light might be attached to that door, which could be a part of a high-tech security system,” he said. “Or maybe an old-fashioned diner could have a modern device that allows its customers to make orders.” According to Sakakibara, the team has mixed futuristic elements together with more familiar aspects in order to create an atmosphere that could only be described as cyberpunk.
As for inspiration sources, Sakakibara mentioned that since Night City is located in California, the team looked at cities in California, especially their suburbs. Blade Runner, which Sakakibara called “the bible of all cyberpunk”, has been another obvious source of inspiration, while he mentioned the team has also learned from Japanese anime and manga in the genre, such as Akira and the Ghost in the Shell series. Regarding Night City’s buildings, Brutalist architecture, an architectural style that uses bricks and concrete which emerged in the 1950s, has played an important role in creating Night City as well. The rough and violent style of Brutalist architecture was something that the team saw as a good match with Night City’s suppressed nature, since the city is ruled by a mega corporation.
Sakakibara said that “all the artists have put their everything into each single street and building you can see in Night City, so I hope you will enjoy exploring everything the city has to offer”.
We don’t have much longer to wait – Cyberpunk 2077 releases on November 19 2019 for consoles and PC.
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Esra Krabbe is an editor at IGN Japan. Follow him on Twitter here.
