How Latinidad and Border Politics Construct Cyberpunk 2077

Luke Hernandez's paper argues that Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red, 2020) helps define the cyberpunk genre's aesthetic through the visual and narrative linking of Latinx people with tragedy, border violence, and surveillance. Drawing on dark play theory, the author contends that the game's play and design reinforce borderveillant logics, meaning media that sustains the infrastructure of border surveillance rooted in racial capitalism. The paper positions this as a consequential precedent for future cyberpunk works, while also suggesting that critical engagement and player resistance can reimagine the game as a space for radical, queer, and Latinx-affirming possibilities.

The analysis centers on Night City, the game's California-based setting, which is organized into largely racially and ethnically segregated districts. Santo Domingo, the primary Latinx and working-class neighborhood, is identified as relying on stereotypes of class and ethnicity. The author frames the game as a "global game" in Patterson's sense, observing that its ubiquitous diversity allows harmful stereotypes to pass without serious scrutiny. The paper also draws on Chun's concept of high-tech orientalism and Fickle's notion of ludo-orientalism to examine the portrayal of Japanese and Asian characters, particularly through the Arasaka corporation, and on Gray's idea of symbolic violence to show how such depictions are normalized in gaming culture.

Central to the argument is Molina-Guzmán's concept of symbolic colonization, which the author applies to show that the game homogenizes Latin American cultures into a single, consumable "Hispanic" category. Specific examples include the "Street Kid" origin, which begins in a Hispanic bar and features brown-coded, Spanish-speaking traffickers quickly killed, and the narrative fates of Jackie Welles and Judy Álvarez, both framed through border-related suffering and labor precarity. The paper's methodology is primarily close textual and play analysis of a single game, supported by critical scholarship in race, media, and game studies, rather than empirical audience data.