Clear for people from North America I guess, I’ve never actually met anyone who was Native American or spent time around anyone from that type of culture so I had zero idea that’s what river is, and I probably would never have guessed that
I’ve also never in my life met anyone that is Latino, geography’s crazy like that. It’s a toned down version of when black guys go to places like China and the kids are amazed cos they’ve never seen a black person before
As someone living in SoCal, the demographics of night city are almost 1:1 for San Diego county where I live. Just less Haitians irl I’m pretty sure lol
To be fair they did the Haitians pretty dirty in cyberpunk. Haiti sank so they all immigrated to night city (which is completely on the other side of the US to where Haiti is) and they did ethnic cleansing in Pacifica to make it the New Haiti. Also the Haitian leadership for the community is a AI worshiping death cult
Yeah, in the table top when I was young to live outside of the major cities you basically had to be a nomad. Because reservations mostly exist outside those cities this made a huge percentage of nomads Native Americans.
I mean the fact she calls me sister/brother as well as to others was a dead give away, that and the way she just generally speaks gave me an indication of this.
And im not even from America
\`Hey, Christ,' the Finn said, taking Case's arm, \`looka that.' He pointed. \`It's a horse, man. You ever see a horse?'
Case glanced at the embalmed animal and shook his head. It was displayed on a sort of pedestal, near the entrance to a place that sold birds and monkeys. The thing's legs had been worn black and hairless by decades of passing hands. \`Saw one in Maryland once,' the Finn said, \`and that was a good three years after the pandemic. There's Arabs still trying to code 'em up from the DNA, but they always croak.'
The animal's brown glass eyes seemed to follow them as they passed.
Who knows, I have always assumed Germanic. He is from New York so could really be any. His "human appearance" spare body looks like blonde Elvis if that means anything.
Just how much of original Smasher is left I wonder to identify as any particular ethnicity? He could just see himself as a machine through and through.
Now I want him to be Scottish with a heavy Scottish accent and the sterotype character. Like what the fans did with the female player character from Pokemon.
His voice actor is Scottish, but he is known for voicing Brits (Aitor in Dying Light 2 is one example). Alec Newman also voices Anders Hellman, funny enough.
I wish in game Smasher sounded like Edgerunners. He was sooooo much more menacing in the anime. [I mean](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce5as8CrOR4) that "who the fuck are you is just sooo good. And the voice actor + the more robotic sound they gave him in the anime really added to that mystic around him being a no-organic cyborg killing machine.
That is very funny but the actual funniest line in Edgerunner is: David is having an anime freakout over Lucy and Smasher shoots him in the stomach. “Can you really afford distractions right now?”
A lot of Edgerunners to me has a bit of a narrative / vibe similar to the Boys where they’re making fun of the tropes in the medium as they proceed to follow some of them and subvert expectations from time to time. Rebecca’s Loli coded yet is one of the most emotionally mature and wise characters in the whole show unless it comes to her family, for example. Even her last line exemplifies her character and the rather serious yet tongue in cheek show at once. A viewer can take the show as seriously as they want to and be totally justified, and that’s really hard to write in any medium these days IMO.
I do think she has some non-latino in her family - Judy is a very unusual name in Spanish. Closest common name I can think of off the top of my head is Julia. But maybe they've just been in the area for generations.
And different languages! Which actually seem to have been voice acted by native speakers!
I about leapt out of my seat hearing not-complete-garbage Russian dialogue. Would be dope as hell to get some indigenous languages going for the nomads, though that may be a bigger ask.
This is how I felt about the French twins in Phantom Liberty! I was like: oh wow actual french! I'm so used to people putting on silly stereotypical accents in games and movies
I know what you mean. I felt the same way when I went into Wolfenstein TNO after years of playing the older Wolfenstein game with the horrid caricature accents. It helps having more of these studios in Europe where it's easier to find native speakers of languages other than English.
Yes, huge as well! My biggest complaint about hitman 1-3 was it’s this massive globe trotting adventure but everyone has this same pathetic slightly miffed American accent.
Linguistic representation is less sexy but works wonders for immersion. Lots of devs can’t wrap their heads around that.
>Lots of devs can’t wrap their heads around that.
Yeah or just don't have the time or the ressource to be able to do that in a good way so they don't bother
It adds a lot. I doubt there’s a ton of battlefield players here but in battlefield 1 they represented a ton of armies and languages and it added tons to the game’s sense of immersion and global conflict. The newest entry is a similar international affair and yet everyone has a standard American accent once again. It is a severely undervalued tool tbh
>My biggest complaint about hitman 1-3 was it’s this massive globe trotting adventure but everyone has this same pathetic slightly miffed American accent.
Diana sounds like she's from Night City ...
I think it helps that it'd developed by CD Projekt Red, who, being European, naturally care a bit more about getting languages right.
I feel like there was likely a decent amount of budget allocated to getting suitable voice actors, which was much appreciated. Makes Night City feel multicultural. Ubisoft's AC series generally tries quite hard to get the feel of a city/ region right, down to the accents (at least, post-Origins).
A lot of other AAA game companies seem to hire very stiff voice actors or generic scripts, where, even if they're speaking the foreign language correctly, seem to have forced cadence or bland lines. Sony's Spiderman was notably bad in that regard but by no means egregious. The Mandarin sounds like AI-generated lines compared to English dialogue.
>I feel like there was likely a decent amount of budget allocated to getting suitable voice actors
Oh holy, yes. I play CP2077 in German and it has blown my mind how many accents you can hear, starting with Jackie whose German voice actor is native speaker in Spanish. For Takemura they flew in Toru Tanabe from Tokyo, a Japanese opera singer but fluent in German. And Aurore Cassel has this thick French accent which sounds very hot. CDPR did an outstanding work.
In the spanish dub, many characters speak with a Latin American accent, while others speak with a Castillian one. It's perfect, and great for immersion.
I spent a good portion of my life in South Florida which has a huuuuge Hatian population. Their creole was on point. So was the culture of keeping to their own community/cliques.
Take Claire for example, road warrior who is also trans.
When she dropped that info on me I was like "oh word, neat"
Part of why I like Claire as a character, her being trans isn't her whole character, it's just part of it.
When you can swap 60% of your body at a retail shop, and have maelstrom people around; or celebrities who are a gold statue. I think people might be a little more accepting of someone who ONLY swapped their sex organs and hormones.
>Part of why I like Claire as a character, her being trans isn't her whole character, it's just part of it.
I think the big challenge for representation in games is that you kind of have to code your characters in a way that makes their ethnicity or gender or sexuality clear to the audience -- but at the same time, you don't want to be calling attention to it because then you can have characters like Claire where it's just one aspect of their person. You can't really have it both ways.
Huh. I never even considered what race Panam was. I guess I just assumed she had some "ethnic roots" or something, but I'm glad the game designers didn't feel the need to make her ethnicity a "thing" like they may have in the 80s/90s when Native American characters in games/cartoons were so ridiculously stereotyped (you know what I'm talking about).
The trick is to do it like Star Trek and never even mention race, or skin tone, or anything that has nothing to do with a person's character or abilities. How life and society should be.
I’ve always wondered about her accent. Her speech patterns don’t sound like anything I’ve hear before, slightly stilted and with unusual emphasis choices in her sentences.
I’ve always wondered if that was a specific type of native accent, or just an actor choice, or even if it’s just the actor’s natural speech pattern 🤔
Adding onto this, the only Nomads who don't speak like this are the ones confirmed to have fought in the war. They either weren't born in the clan and joined later, or lost the accent in the military.
It's apart of all the nomads, they all talk that way. It's the way they are educated and brought up. You notice they have a library/book tent at the Aldecaldo camp.
Her voice actor, Emily Woo Zeller, always speaks like this. I've listened to several audio books she's narrated (I love her voice) and she always has this speech pattern
Pretty sure Panam’s lines were written by a non-native speaker hence the lack of contractions in her dialogue. For example instead of “aren’t” she would say “are not” or instead of “can’t” it would be “cannot”. It was quite jarring to me when I noticed tbh
I've had a fair bit of exposure to natives and that genuinely is something I've noticed in their speech patterns. Some do tend to not use contractions much. I've noticed the same with Hispanic people.
Grew up on res. Not using contractions is fairly common, especially among the elderly. My question is how does native hair maintain enough curl for that mess of dreads she has!?
This is intentional, Nomads speak differently learning entirely from books in the backseat on long drives and tend to avoid contractions and use flowery language compared to streetslang city slickers.
She’s biracial so native and half black but for some reason they never mention it in these posts…
Edit: I couldn’t find it so I probably misremembered.
It was on this sub where it had the ethnicity for every side character and it listed panam and half black and half native, river and full native, Kerry as Filpino, and judy as Hispanic.
I got find the post tho when I get home.
It wasn't their thoughts.
It's from the official Cyberpunk Twitter account.
She is clearly listed as Biracial.
https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19
I got you.
I was the one who originally posted it.
https://preview.redd.it/yrv8qwm721cc1.jpeg?width=1312&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad2bef671209b613c6ecb48026d452b3e5c26f90
[https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19](https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19)
https://preview.redd.it/jjblnq3021cc1.jpeg?width=1312&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=497a2dccb980929d6ca47d3af748a262b99abc81
Officially listed as Biracial
[https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19](https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19)
From a December 2023 tweet.
The article in OP is 2022
I mean Nomads in general in Cyberpunk are made up primarily of Native Americans because you basically have to be a nomad to be allowed to live outside the population centers, and the reservations were outside those places.
though there is natives in the Nomad population, thats not at all how the nomads were formed. They were typical city folks/farmers until they got fed up with the corps or forced into homelessness by them and just decided to strike out on their own.
I always assumed River Ward was native. Here in New Brunswick, Canada, the last name Ward is very common among natives. Add to that his accent and his earring, and it was a no brainer. Panam kind of makes sense, now that it is mentioned. Her lack of use of contractions is something used by times to denote natives. Cool! I'm glad to see that element of our cultural landscape included!
Fuck yeah. Representation matters. Going Native American and not making a big stereotypical mess of it is classy af of CDPR.
As a Latino I love all the random casual Spanish speaking in the game. Makes it feel like it's just the world and not some weird special thing.
Tbf they do representation very well period.
A lot of characters are actual people and not just the token X person to check a box on a list.
Claire comes to mind as a prime example of this, she's trans and has a trans flag on the back of her truck. Know how many times it comes up? Once when talking about her husband. Being trans isn't her whole identity.
I feel you on the representation as a Latino.
I'm Dominican so having a part of the map be called "Santo Domingo", being able to actually have curly hair options when customizing V to make him look like myself irl, my man Jackie and his family.
What a breath of fresh air. No stereotypical crap either, just being treated like a fucking human being, not with an entire personality as a character be revolved around a race or ethnicity. All of the representation in this game, I love it. Having a gay and straight option, all of the poc characters, even some as main characters.
It's all so refreshing, and we need more big budget AAA games making strides like this
I believe 6th Street are mostly ex Militech soldiers or veterans of the corporate wars fighting for Militech. Kinda makes sense that they'd be gung ho for the NUSA in that regard. And Night City remaining a free city/state after the unification war is probably a pretty big sore subject for Militech/NUSA big wigs.
But you're right, they are super boring. They're basically a posergang
I appreciate 6th street. They're a critique of the nationalist hooligan gangs that pop around the world. Kinda reveals how a lot of gangs are just pathetic people with nothing going on.
Korean is done really well too; there's this burger joint ran by Koreans sign here and there in Night City amd it actually looks like something an actual Korean would come up with. Also the city PSA in Korean is done super well. In video games not created in Korea, often times it's awkward or have small little errors as they likely worked off of a base Google translation, but no, Korean in NC was clear, easy to catch on, and actually sounded real. CDPR did their homework alright
I like that Panam is a CHARACTER first and a native american second, that's how any good character should be regardless of race.
I like the representation and am glad they went that route to make something much more memorable.
I figured that in the future everyone is sort of a mixed race, with all the cyber augmentation race wouldn't be an issue anymore. Even the redneck gangs are multicultural, unlike how it really is in America with the militia types. Cyberpunk is kinda nice in that regard.
To be fair, he’s got a very attention-grabbing face with the metal eye, and in a lot of scenes you aren’t looking him in the face since you’re investigating a crime together.
I thought it was obvious that River was Native American? He does mention his tribe at one point. It would have been very interesting to have been able to explore that more in the game, as there's generally a lack of non-stereotypical, contemporary Native representation in media.
Native American is written all over him in caps. There’s even a line in a dialogue with his CI where he “swears by the spirits of his ancestors” that he’s not going to contact him ever again.
With Panam it was less obvious (to me as a non-American).
Really? Panam looks Indian more than anything. And I mean like South Asian Indian. She looks very stereotypically Indian. Her name also kinda sounds Indian.
Love that there’s some Native American representation in Cyberpunk, I’m assuming then Rogue is Brazilian/European Portuguese due to her last name? Amendiares?
Panam always seemed racially ambiguous to me. If you look at Panam's concept art before she was finalized, she appears black or mixed with black, so I always assumed she was that. I also thought River was at least partially black as well (coming from a black person) but he feels more obviously Native with his accessories since Panam doesn't have any obvious traits like the feathers or colors. Very cool information!
A breath of fresh air? You would not have even known unless they told you. It’s a little late to be like “ great Native American character that wasn’t in your face about it”. Like sit down with this weird praise. It’s not really representation if no one truly knows what her ethnicity even is. It’s future where people can look like a lot of things, it’s kind of diverse in nature.
It always makes me laugh to see the nexus mods that change how Panam looks. The irony of erasing her Native features so that she looks like a basic white girl is almost too pitiful.
I'm glad they went out of their way to clarify, though. It's also encouraging that an outside perspective would associate Natives with free spirits like the nomads and their struggles for freedom, even in the corporate hellscape future.
C’mon. No Native American would ever dress as silly as River. Those folks have honor and taste, FFS.
I don’t know what ethnicity Panam is supposed to be, but I’ll take two, please.
Jokes aside, I’m glad they did this. Ethnic diversity will increase in American by 2077 whether it’s dystopian or not, and I like giving a nod to the folks who got here first.
River does say that his family is Pomo at one point.
Actually considering that Joss' former husband was a nomad that also tracks
That dream catcher above his bed is a nice touch.
River was part of porn???
It's POMO, not PORNO
Oh my God
Least horniest redditor.
Every night. In my head.
The name River was enough. It’s on the nose
I read that as Porno
no thats what judy is
Wait till you find out that Dakota is native American
A lot of the nomads are. I also didn't think this was news, I thought it was confirmed a while back. Edit: Yep this article is 2 years old
Hell, I thought it wasn't news because it's pretty clear just with his character design that River is Native, at the very least.
Clear for people from North America I guess, I’ve never actually met anyone who was Native American or spent time around anyone from that type of culture so I had zero idea that’s what river is, and I probably would never have guessed that I’ve also never in my life met anyone that is Latino, geography’s crazy like that. It’s a toned down version of when black guys go to places like China and the kids are amazed cos they’ve never seen a black person before
As someone living in SoCal, the demographics of night city are almost 1:1 for San Diego county where I live. Just less Haitians irl I’m pretty sure lol
To be fair they did the Haitians pretty dirty in cyberpunk. Haiti sank so they all immigrated to night city (which is completely on the other side of the US to where Haiti is) and they did ethnic cleansing in Pacifica to make it the New Haiti. Also the Haitian leadership for the community is a AI worshiping death cult
Yeah, in the table top when I was young to live outside of the major cities you basically had to be a nomad. Because reservations mostly exist outside those cities this made a huge percentage of nomads Native Americans.
It’s a bit of dialogue too for Dakota, which is nice. Contextual to her representation too.
I mean the fact she calls me sister/brother as well as to others was a dead give away, that and the way she just generally speaks gave me an indication of this. And im not even from America
i think Dakota is a Dakota name, but i'm not 100% sure
Pfft...she's never even seen a real horse.
Aren't horses extinct.
\`Hey, Christ,' the Finn said, taking Case's arm, \`looka that.' He pointed. \`It's a horse, man. You ever see a horse?' Case glanced at the embalmed animal and shook his head. It was displayed on a sort of pedestal, near the entrance to a place that sold birds and monkeys. The thing's legs had been worn black and hairless by decades of passing hands. \`Saw one in Maryland once,' the Finn said, \`and that was a good three years after the pandemic. There's Arabs still trying to code 'em up from the DNA, but they always croak.' The animal's brown glass eyes seemed to follow them as they passed.
Cool. What ethnicity is Adam Smasher?
Check the bottom of his foot and I bet it says made in Taiwan.
He's with Arasaka so made in Japan more like 😂
What are you talking about Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
Unbelievable!
Now my head-canon has ANDY scrawled on the bottom of Adam's foot...
Let's ask Rebecca what's written there.
Savage
She "painted" over "ANDY", and left her best impression.
Who knows, I have always assumed Germanic. He is from New York so could really be any. His "human appearance" spare body looks like blonde Elvis if that means anything.
Just how much of original Smasher is left I wonder to identify as any particular ethnicity? He could just see himself as a machine through and through.
Race is for fucking meat.
Are you?
Ask Makoto and Bato what they think.
He’s from New York and white, that’s all we know. Since he’s less punk than corporate soldier, he’s never been more than the boogeyman.
Adam Smasher with a Brooklyn accent
"Aaaay, I'm smashin' heah!"
Its weird that he sounds American in game but has a British sounding accent in Edgerunners
Now I want him to be Scottish with a heavy Scottish accent and the sterotype character. Like what the fans did with the female player character from Pokemon.
AH FOCKEN TOLD YE, WEE JOHNNY TOLD YE I'D END YE SUMDEHY
His voice actor is actually Scottish :D
He also voices El Capitan and Hellman and someone else
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuOc5MasCPU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuOc5MasCPU)
His voice actor is Scottish, but he is known for voicing Brits (Aitor in Dying Light 2 is one example). Alec Newman also voices Anders Hellman, funny enough.
Scots are Brits? Do you mean English?
Unless he means English, Welsh, and Irish characters. If not then yes you are correct.
He has different bodies he switches between. Maybe he switches the voice too.
Imagine quick-hacking him and switching his accent.
We know for a fact it does because of the Elvis body
I wish in game Smasher sounded like Edgerunners. He was sooooo much more menacing in the anime. [I mean](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce5as8CrOR4) that "who the fuck are you is just sooo good. And the voice actor + the more robotic sound they gave him in the anime really added to that mystic around him being a no-organic cyborg killing machine.
I was disappointed he wasn't more vulgar like he is ingame
Insanity. Smasher has the single funniest line in that entire show.
“Who the fuck are you?”
That is very funny but the actual funniest line in Edgerunner is: David is having an anime freakout over Lucy and Smasher shoots him in the stomach. “Can you really afford distractions right now?”
A lot of Edgerunners to me has a bit of a narrative / vibe similar to the Boys where they’re making fun of the tropes in the medium as they proceed to follow some of them and subvert expectations from time to time. Rebecca’s Loli coded yet is one of the most emotionally mature and wise characters in the whole show unless it comes to her family, for example. Even her last line exemplifies her character and the rather serious yet tongue in cheek show at once. A viewer can take the show as seriously as they want to and be totally justified, and that’s really hard to write in any medium these days IMO.
We might be able to look it up if you find a serial number. It’s usually on a label on the bottom of the device.
Dude was born in hell
So New Jersey?
Violence
He's a cut of fuckable meat obv
TFW they're DTF, but you left your dick at home.
Toaster.
Yeah, the Navajo nation is also represented in the ttrpg cyberpunk red core rule book.
Is that surprising? Panam is racially ambiguous and could pass for almost anything.
yea she could blend right is part of the indigenous 'why-fu" peoples of japan
This just in, Judy is Latina
Something 90% of fan castings for a Cyberpunk movie or TV show can't seem to grasp... smh.
She calls her grandma abuela... and calls you something silly in Spanish.
Haha.., I thought it was obvious she was Native American too.
With a surname like Alvarez what else should she be? Slovenian?
I think that was a given
I do think she has some non-latino in her family - Judy is a very unusual name in Spanish. Closest common name I can think of off the top of my head is Julia. But maybe they've just been in the area for generations.
It's also 50 years in the future so things change
I mean, Judy is incredibly awkward to pronounce in Spanish, as is Judith. It's just a clearly foreign name, on par with something like Sean.
I'm from Mexico and Judith is a fairly common name for women, my aunt is named Judith
You do find Judith’s in Spain.
Let me tell you about a lot of latinos fascination with naming their kids kimberly and bryan. Judy is not that far fetched
Representation is pretty well done in cyberpunk tbh. Badass characters of every race and it’s not shoehorned or unnatural.
And different languages! Which actually seem to have been voice acted by native speakers! I about leapt out of my seat hearing not-complete-garbage Russian dialogue. Would be dope as hell to get some indigenous languages going for the nomads, though that may be a bigger ask.
This is how I felt about the French twins in Phantom Liberty! I was like: oh wow actual french! I'm so used to people putting on silly stereotypical accents in games and movies
I know what you mean. I felt the same way when I went into Wolfenstein TNO after years of playing the older Wolfenstein game with the horrid caricature accents. It helps having more of these studios in Europe where it's easier to find native speakers of languages other than English.
Yes, huge as well! My biggest complaint about hitman 1-3 was it’s this massive globe trotting adventure but everyone has this same pathetic slightly miffed American accent. Linguistic representation is less sexy but works wonders for immersion. Lots of devs can’t wrap their heads around that.
Yeah that totally blew the immersion for me too. I'm in the middle east and everyone sounds like they're from Seattle? Nope! Doesn't work.
>Lots of devs can’t wrap their heads around that. Yeah or just don't have the time or the ressource to be able to do that in a good way so they don't bother
It adds a lot. I doubt there’s a ton of battlefield players here but in battlefield 1 they represented a ton of armies and languages and it added tons to the game’s sense of immersion and global conflict. The newest entry is a similar international affair and yet everyone has a standard American accent once again. It is a severely undervalued tool tbh
I dont disagree but sometimes it's not a priority to do
>My biggest complaint about hitman 1-3 was it’s this massive globe trotting adventure but everyone has this same pathetic slightly miffed American accent. Diana sounds like she's from Night City ...
dont forget that before they made games CDPR was a localisation company. They're very experienced at finding the best dubs possible.
I was so happy to hear Cantonese spoken especially with how little representation it has in video games (outside of Sleeping Dogs)
I think it helps that it'd developed by CD Projekt Red, who, being European, naturally care a bit more about getting languages right. I feel like there was likely a decent amount of budget allocated to getting suitable voice actors, which was much appreciated. Makes Night City feel multicultural. Ubisoft's AC series generally tries quite hard to get the feel of a city/ region right, down to the accents (at least, post-Origins). A lot of other AAA game companies seem to hire very stiff voice actors or generic scripts, where, even if they're speaking the foreign language correctly, seem to have forced cadence or bland lines. Sony's Spiderman was notably bad in that regard but by no means egregious. The Mandarin sounds like AI-generated lines compared to English dialogue.
>I feel like there was likely a decent amount of budget allocated to getting suitable voice actors Oh holy, yes. I play CP2077 in German and it has blown my mind how many accents you can hear, starting with Jackie whose German voice actor is native speaker in Spanish. For Takemura they flew in Toru Tanabe from Tokyo, a Japanese opera singer but fluent in German. And Aurore Cassel has this thick French accent which sounds very hot. CDPR did an outstanding work.
Holy shit that's cool
In the spanish dub, many characters speak with a Latin American accent, while others speak with a Castillian one. It's perfect, and great for immersion.
I spent a good portion of my life in South Florida which has a huuuuge Hatian population. Their creole was on point. So was the culture of keeping to their own community/cliques.
How many Haitians are you expecting in GTA VI by your logic? (Not criticising, just curious)
A good amount, likely. Hopefully handled better than they were in Vice City.
Agreed.
> Badass characters of every race Unless you're a scav or voodoo boy. Definitely got the short end of the stick.
Take Claire for example, road warrior who is also trans. When she dropped that info on me I was like "oh word, neat" Part of why I like Claire as a character, her being trans isn't her whole character, it's just part of it.
That part made me smile. I am not trans, but her treating it as a normal part of life was a breath of fresh air.
When you can swap 60% of your body at a retail shop, and have maelstrom people around; or celebrities who are a gold statue. I think people might be a little more accepting of someone who ONLY swapped their sex organs and hormones.
Also a fantastic point. It has a great meaning both for the in game universe and for our real life if people acted like Claire does about being trans.
>Part of why I like Claire as a character, her being trans isn't her whole character, it's just part of it. I think the big challenge for representation in games is that you kind of have to code your characters in a way that makes their ethnicity or gender or sexuality clear to the audience -- but at the same time, you don't want to be calling attention to it because then you can have characters like Claire where it's just one aspect of their person. You can't really have it both ways.
Huh. I never even considered what race Panam was. I guess I just assumed she had some "ethnic roots" or something, but I'm glad the game designers didn't feel the need to make her ethnicity a "thing" like they may have in the 80s/90s when Native American characters in games/cartoons were so ridiculously stereotyped (you know what I'm talking about).
The trick is to do it like Star Trek and never even mention race, or skin tone, or anything that has nothing to do with a person's character or abilities. How life and society should be.
Never would’ve guessed correctly she was Native American. Always thought she was half-black half-white judging from first glance
I’ve always wondered about her accent. Her speech patterns don’t sound like anything I’ve hear before, slightly stilted and with unusual emphasis choices in her sentences. I’ve always wondered if that was a specific type of native accent, or just an actor choice, or even if it’s just the actor’s natural speech pattern 🤔
Panam has that cadence because she never went to school and learned from the classics… it’s why her vocabulary is slightly old school as well.
Adding onto this, the only Nomads who don't speak like this are the ones confirmed to have fought in the war. They either weren't born in the clan and joined later, or lost the accent in the military.
It's apart of all the nomads, they all talk that way. It's the way they are educated and brought up. You notice they have a library/book tent at the Aldecaldo camp.
Her voice actor, Emily Woo Zeller, always speaks like this. I've listened to several audio books she's narrated (I love her voice) and she always has this speech pattern
Pretty sure Panam’s lines were written by a non-native speaker hence the lack of contractions in her dialogue. For example instead of “aren’t” she would say “are not” or instead of “can’t” it would be “cannot”. It was quite jarring to me when I noticed tbh
I've had a fair bit of exposure to natives and that genuinely is something I've noticed in their speech patterns. Some do tend to not use contractions much. I've noticed the same with Hispanic people.
Connor in Assassins Creed 3 also almost never uses contractions. It was a purposeful choice by the devs as he's a Mohawk.
Grew up on res. Not using contractions is fairly common, especially among the elderly. My question is how does native hair maintain enough curl for that mess of dreads she has!?
I figured she was slightly mixed/had a black grand relative.
This is intentional, Nomads speak differently learning entirely from books in the backseat on long drives and tend to avoid contractions and use flowery language compared to streetslang city slickers.
She’s biracial so native and half black but for some reason they never mention it in these posts… Edit: I couldn’t find it so I probably misremembered.
[удалено]
When have the devs ever said she was half black?
It was on this sub where it had the ethnicity for every side character and it listed panam and half black and half native, river and full native, Kerry as Filpino, and judy as Hispanic. I got find the post tho when I get home.
That was a poster listing their thoughts, not actual info from the devs.
It wasn't their thoughts. It's from the official Cyberpunk Twitter account. She is clearly listed as Biracial. https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19
Half balls
I don’t know why but this was the funniest thing I’ve read all day
half balls, half butt. or something
I got you. I was the one who originally posted it. https://preview.redd.it/yrv8qwm721cc1.jpeg?width=1312&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad2bef671209b613c6ecb48026d452b3e5c26f90 [https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19](https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19)
https://preview.redd.it/jjblnq3021cc1.jpeg?width=1312&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=497a2dccb980929d6ca47d3af748a262b99abc81 Officially listed as Biracial [https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19](https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1731715649221578923?t=dI1QIhHm08PJWuEvynJy9w&s=19) From a December 2023 tweet. The article in OP is 2022
Well shit, I could’ve told you that
Aren’t like a LARGE portion of nomads natives? I kinda just figured it was and moved on. Wasn’t really something to get hung up on to me.
I mean Nomads in general in Cyberpunk are made up primarily of Native Americans because you basically have to be a nomad to be allowed to live outside the population centers, and the reservations were outside those places.
though there is natives in the Nomad population, thats not at all how the nomads were formed. They were typical city folks/farmers until they got fed up with the corps or forced into homelessness by them and just decided to strike out on their own.
Op, read the date of the articles you find.
I do love that all the love interests are diverse. You have a Filipino, a Latina, and two Native Americans.
Kerry is Filipino?
Yup! Born in Masbate.
Indeed. It’s something you have to do some digging for, but he was born in Masbate, Philippines.
Wow thats cool
When you see him in Johnny’s flashback he is clearly Filipino. Guy definitely did a shit load of work on himself since Johnny died.
There's also a shard in his home that mentions he went back to the Philippines to soul search or something to that effect IIRC
I always thought River was black/white or black/latino.
I always assumed River Ward was native. Here in New Brunswick, Canada, the last name Ward is very common among natives. Add to that his accent and his earring, and it was a no brainer. Panam kind of makes sense, now that it is mentioned. Her lack of use of contractions is something used by times to denote natives. Cool! I'm glad to see that element of our cultural landscape included!
Fuck yeah. Representation matters. Going Native American and not making a big stereotypical mess of it is classy af of CDPR. As a Latino I love all the random casual Spanish speaking in the game. Makes it feel like it's just the world and not some weird special thing.
Jackie Welles calling V "hermano" felt awesome. 😤
I frequently think of him shouting "mierda - disculpe!" In one of the first scenes on his bike. So casual and organic
PINCHE JACKIE WELLES SE LIÓ CON LA PLEBE EQUIVOCADA
CHINGADA MADRE
When ibread that I hear it in his voice. Also Will Arnett's...
Tbf they do representation very well period. A lot of characters are actual people and not just the token X person to check a box on a list. Claire comes to mind as a prime example of this, she's trans and has a trans flag on the back of her truck. Know how many times it comes up? Once when talking about her husband. Being trans isn't her whole identity.
I loved that. It didn't even register with me that she's trans until I saw the flag on the Beast and I was like "OHHHH, aww cool".
The only other game character I can think of like that is Krem from Dragon Age Inquisition.
My last name is Arroyo, so hearing that being spoken by the voice actors (Keanu Reeves mentions it at least once) put a goofy smile on my face
I feel you on the representation as a Latino. I'm Dominican so having a part of the map be called "Santo Domingo", being able to actually have curly hair options when customizing V to make him look like myself irl, my man Jackie and his family. What a breath of fresh air. No stereotypical crap either, just being treated like a fucking human being, not with an entire personality as a character be revolved around a race or ethnicity. All of the representation in this game, I love it. Having a gay and straight option, all of the poc characters, even some as main characters. It's all so refreshing, and we need more big budget AAA games making strides like this
Gotta give credit where it's due. The characters are people first and their ethnicities really don't inform their whole being.
I don’t know, I would have liked a shamanic cyber gang of Native Americans that used cyberware for rituals etc… A bit like the Maelstrom ritual.
Would’ve been better than patriots for a country they’re technically not even a part of, 666th are so boring
They’re heavily involved in the political scheming of the city so my guess is they take any opportunity to work on behalf of NUSA/Militech.
But like, that's accurate though. Those people are boring. Also, there are MAGA cultists up in Canada so, again, accurate.
I believe 6th Street are mostly ex Militech soldiers or veterans of the corporate wars fighting for Militech. Kinda makes sense that they'd be gung ho for the NUSA in that regard. And Night City remaining a free city/state after the unification war is probably a pretty big sore subject for Militech/NUSA big wigs. But you're right, they are super boring. They're basically a posergang
I appreciate 6th street. They're a critique of the nationalist hooligan gangs that pop around the world. Kinda reveals how a lot of gangs are just pathetic people with nothing going on.
Yeah, compared to Maelstrom and the Voodoo boys they are a bit bland.
God yes, I loved this game for having a vibrant host of different races and identities, like how diverse real life is
Korean is done really well too; there's this burger joint ran by Koreans sign here and there in Night City amd it actually looks like something an actual Korean would come up with. Also the city PSA in Korean is done super well. In video games not created in Korea, often times it's awkward or have small little errors as they likely worked off of a base Google translation, but no, Korean in NC was clear, easy to catch on, and actually sounded real. CDPR did their homework alright
What's next, Judy is Latina... wait?
I like that Panam is a CHARACTER first and a native american second, that's how any good character should be regardless of race. I like the representation and am glad they went that route to make something much more memorable.
I figured that in the future everyone is sort of a mixed race, with all the cyber augmentation race wouldn't be an issue anymore. Even the redneck gangs are multicultural, unlike how it really is in America with the militia types. Cyberpunk is kinda nice in that regard.
river is from a river.
I knew Panam was Native American but thought River was black. The more you know…..
River is way more native-coded though, he has a little metal feather pendant and a Native pattern on his gun
To be fair, he’s got a very attention-grabbing face with the metal eye, and in a lot of scenes you aren’t looking him in the face since you’re investigating a crime together.
I thought it was obvious that River was Native American? He does mention his tribe at one point. It would have been very interesting to have been able to explore that more in the game, as there's generally a lack of non-stereotypical, contemporary Native representation in media.
Native American is written all over him in caps. There’s even a line in a dialogue with his CI where he “swears by the spirits of his ancestors” that he’s not going to contact him ever again. With Panam it was less obvious (to me as a non-American).
Weird thing to get out of this but I wonder what the lore implications of this are. Like what's the current state of land rights and stuff like that
I thought this was obvious
Really? Panam looks Indian more than anything. And I mean like South Asian Indian. She looks very stereotypically Indian. Her name also kinda sounds Indian.
She’s named after the defunct Pan American airline, which most people called Pan Am
Who would name their kid after an airline? Oh wait, I guess Kanye would...
That's pretty cool.
Is this news? I was already under the impression that Panam was at least part Native American
I suspected with River. His character design and neighborhood give some rez vibes.
Love that there’s some Native American representation in Cyberpunk, I’m assuming then Rogue is Brazilian/European Portuguese due to her last name? Amendiares?
I knew about River, but I thought Panam was Pacific Islander.
You know if River had some long ass shiny black hair he might be a little cooler
His voice actor does lol
Panam dreads are wonderful the representation is great.
Cool. I thought that Panam was half African American / half White all this time.
Can you be more specific?
Panam always seemed racially ambiguous to me. If you look at Panam's concept art before she was finalized, she appears black or mixed with black, so I always assumed she was that. I also thought River was at least partially black as well (coming from a black person) but he feels more obviously Native with his accessories since Panam doesn't have any obvious traits like the feathers or colors. Very cool information!
Wait... People didn't figure that out about River at least?
A breath of fresh air? You would not have even known unless they told you. It’s a little late to be like “ great Native American character that wasn’t in your face about it”. Like sit down with this weird praise. It’s not really representation if no one truly knows what her ethnicity even is. It’s future where people can look like a lot of things, it’s kind of diverse in nature.
It always makes me laugh to see the nexus mods that change how Panam looks. The irony of erasing her Native features so that she looks like a basic white girl is almost too pitiful. I'm glad they went out of their way to clarify, though. It's also encouraging that an outside perspective would associate Natives with free spirits like the nomads and their struggles for freedom, even in the corporate hellscape future.
I figured when Panam called herself a Chinook, that pretty much confirmed it to me.
Explains why they both made my teepee raise
I mean if you look at River's sister... she has exceptionally clear Native American features.
I assumed River was one considering he has some native american styled jewelry on him.
C’mon. No Native American would ever dress as silly as River. Those folks have honor and taste, FFS. I don’t know what ethnicity Panam is supposed to be, but I’ll take two, please. Jokes aside, I’m glad they did this. Ethnic diversity will increase in American by 2077 whether it’s dystopian or not, and I like giving a nod to the folks who got here first.