CD Project devs want to "call out" big problems like homelessness and the wealth gap in Cyberpunk 2077 sequel

I don’t think your game is cyberpunk if it doesn’t touch upon income or class inequality. Otherwise it’s just a cyber game without the punk

Would love if it made it possible to do all the content without helping cops 😑
- You mean the one where you help the suicidal PTSD cop neighbor of yours? I actually liked that one, showing how even the good people in the police are ruined by the abhorrent injustice they have to tolerate from their corporate masters.
  In case you mean the river storyline, dude is just an uncle on a mission.

I mean, I'm pretty sure cyberpunk settings usually center around the dystopic future brought about by late stage capitalism.

I really enjoyed Cyberpunk, but I dont think it did enough to make me hate corporations. I wanted to see them activily being terrible, but you mostly just hear about how bad they are and idk, they just weren't portrayed as villianously as I think the game wanted them to be. Adam Smasher was the only enemy that I like really wanted to get my hands on, and even that was because of Edgerunners.

I did start to notice things during gameplay, like how there arent any animals, save for a few cats, no birds, nothing like that.

Now when I finally to the dive into the tabletop lore, that was when I found all the henious shit that I wanted to. Multiple corporate wars, purposly getting people addicted to cyberware, overthrowing governments (hey Ive seen this one!) And all sort of just vile disgusting actions that make you want to be Johnny Silverhand. Actually made me sad we didnt blow up Arasaka HQ again. Or Millitech for that matter, theyre actually kind of worse imo.

You didn't found reasons to hate corps in cp77, because this game was made by corp and released with biggest gamedev corporation flip flop the cp77 devs could do.
I got the big sad on Judy's diving quest, she goes on about how tha one corpo inundated the whole place for profits.
Or even the El'Captain quest where you need to go steal a medical truck because the corpos where poisoning his whole neighborhood real bad for years.
I can find more examples of these "small" atrocities, I think they are meant to infuriate you over time, problem by problem, and not display a big single thing you'll hate forever
The cyberpsycho hunts are where you find most of the evil corporation stuff. But that's all told through notes and environmental storytelling. So it's there if you're willing to search for it, but it's definitely not as big a part of the overall narrative as I expected it to be.
All that stuff you talked about in the tabletop lore is literally talked about in the game. It’s not hitting you in the face in the main quest line, but if you play the side quests you find tons of fucked up shit that the corps are doing.
I think the cat wasn't real Takemura talks about it.
- Bakeneko.
- There are a lot more cats than just the bakaneko.
Yeah, I'm mid way through my first play through and the lack of birds and animals just feels lazy / a tech limitation covered up by lazy writing, not a real thing to care about that corpos did.
Otherwise the corpos in the story so far don't seem that crazy bad or evil. Most of the time they enter the story it's just you stealing something from them and then trying to get it back.
Honestly, GTA V had far more pointed social / political commentary thus far, even if this is a much better overall story.
I dont think it did enough to make me hate corporations
Counterpoint: Biotechnica. Those bastards are almost as bad as scavs. Some of them are worse.
Also, maybe it looks normal for Americans, but what Militech are doing in the badlands definitely ain't right. (Phantom Liberty kind of ruins it by treating Militech's puppet president like one of the good guys, though. Night City ain't part of the NUSA, and it doesn't want to be!)
And, besides all the relic stuff, Saburo was also seriously considering nuking Night City (properly, not like Silverhand's half assed job), so there's that, too.

Of course, by "call out" they mean sort of vaguely point out that they exist without actually saying anything meaningful, and that will still somehow be too political for the "gamers".

No, this is just cynical and mean-spirited.
It was an individual developer talking on the podcast about what he wants the game to be, there's no reason to think he doesn't feel exactly the same way you do.
If you're going to be cynical, be cynical about whether or not that messaging would make it through the layers of corporate beurocracy until it's published, not whether the individual wants to do something meaningful, most do.

REEE why are you making games political?! /s

Incoming right wing boycott for WoKe GaMe!!

What's nice. But try focusing on making a working game at launch first.

I don't want to hear one damn thing about thier next game until the day of release. Over hyping was what got them into trouble last time.

The entire art direction of "Cyberpunk 2077" just screams wealth disparity. Does something more obvious than a sunrise really need to be explicitly stated?

Every in-game NPC: "The wealthy don't care about-" Me: "Yeah, I GOT it. Thanks."

Your character should be homeless, or at least be able to be, with all the issues that comes with

Imagine if they made a survival game in Night City where you were homeless and had to get food, water, shelter, avoid gangs and police, and treating combat the way Tabletop does. Having it fast, brutal and very easy to die in.
- I think a homeless survival game would be a great thing to make
- Imagine if they pitch it as Cyberpunk 2, complete with huge tech trees and stuff, so you start homeless thinking that you'll grind your way up to a body modded god like the first one, but the actual realities and difficulties of being homeless mean that it's impossible to ever crawl your way out, and at the end you realize that the only win condition you can hope for isn't progression, but just survival. Now there would be a bleak artistic statement on capitalism, that would be hated by every player and make none of its money back.

So it wants to be cyberpunk? Good to know.

I'm always amazed by the hypocrisy between CDPR and Cyberpunk.

On a completely unrelated note, I had a first glance at the thumbnail of this article and I was convinced the photo was taken in real life until I noticed the 'cybernetic seam' on the subject's face. I almost couldn't recognise this as an in-game screenshot and I already consider myself adept in recognising such images.