CYBERPUNK 2077: All Cinematic References in the Game Decoded

Absolute Power (1997)

What could connect Clint Eastwood’s film with a super-modern cyberpunk-themed computer game? It turns out quite a lot. In the prologue of Cyberpunk 2077, we embark on a mission where we have to steal from a luxurious apartment in the Arasaka tower, having previously disabled the security systems. Unluckily, after the theft, several people (including Yorinobu Arasaka and his father Saburo) enter the apartment, and we (V and Jackie Welles), with no choice, hide in a secret compartment with a one-way mirror.

We can observe the actions of people behind the glass, while remaining unseen ourselves. A guard even approaches the mirror and looks at us for a moment, but the nature of the one-way mirror keeps us hidden. After a moment, we witness Yorinobu kill his father, making us unwitting witnesses to high-level murder. Once everyone leaves the room, we escape through the window to exit the building. These events are the starting point for the plot of Cyberpunk 2077.

An almost identical sequence of events was seen in the film Absolute Power, nearly a quarter of a century older. Luther Whitney (Clint Eastwood) breaks into an exclusive villa, disables (hacks?) the security systems, steals jewelry, and surprised by the sudden appearance of the residents (a woman and her lover), locks himself in a room with a one-way mirror. A man (Gene Hackman) approaches the mirror and looks at himself for a moment, naturally not noticing the thief hiding behind it. After a few minutes, a struggle ensues between the lovers, and when the woman, in self-defense, swings a knife at the man, armed guards burst in and kill her with a gunshot. Once everyone leaves the crime scene, Luther escapes through the window. Later in the film, we learn that the man visiting the woman at her home was the President of the United States, making the main character, like V and Jackie Welles in Cyberpunk 2077, a witness to high-level murder. Both Luther and V then try to contact people who will believe their incredible story.

Romancing the Stone (1984) / The Dukes of Hazzard (1979–1985)

I don’t see the point of dedicating two paragraphs to such brief film references. Above, Little Mule, which takes its name from the Ford Bronco in Robert Zemeckis’ adventure film, while below, the car General Lee, which looks like a futuristic incarnation of the vehicle from The Dukes of Hazzard series (same color and side number).

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)

One of the missions is titled Do the Brawl in Cell 99, or Your Wife…, and the employer is a certain Bradley. We find ourselves in the middle of the plot of the (excellent, by the way) movie Brawl in Cell Block 99, and on Bradley’s assignment—who, of course, we don’t get to meet because he’s in prison—we have to rescue his wife from kidnappers. It’s one of the most interesting and developed film references in the entire game, as it takes up an entire mission.

John Wick (2014)

A character named Sergei talks about a regular guy with a beard, in brown shoes, with nothing breathtaking about him… This is a clear reference to both the character of John Wick, played in the trilogy by Chad Stahelski by Keanu Reeves, and to the famous “you’re breathtaking” spoken by the actor at E3 2019.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

There are also references to George Miller’s film as Easter eggs in Cyberpunk 2077. Next to a destroyed tanker truck, from which the last drops of fuel drip, lie the bodies of a well-built man in a mask and a woman whose shaved head and soot-marked forehead suggest that she is Furiosa. Although the character does not have the characteristic prosthetic hand remembered from Mad Max: Fury Road, the creators of the game confirm our suspicions shortly after. On a note describing the kidnapping of artificially inseminated mothers, she appears under the name… Charlize Fury.

The Fifth Element (1997)

Nearby, we can come across a body next to which there is a refreshing drink with a familiar-sounding name: LEELOU Beans Tropical. Yes, in Cyberpunk 2077, besides ammunition and guns, you can find nourishing food and refreshing drinks near corpses. However, the woman’s body does not resemble the character played by Milla Jovovich—different hair color, and Leeloo from Besson’s movie didn’t wear a tracksuit. This is not the only reference to The Fifth Element. It’s no secret that the developers had a treasure trove of ideas from Besson’s movie that they could adapt to their game: a future city diverse in ethnicity and full of original characters, vibrant colors, outlandish hairstyles, futuristic clothes, flying vehicles, imaginative weapons, etc.

Ghost in the Shell (1995 & 2017)

Cybernetic body modifications and musings on the human soul encased in an artificial body are elements drawn from Mamoru Oshii’s cult anime. It’s no coincidence that in Cyberpunk 2077, we can frequently encounter graphics depicting a small ghost emerging from a shell (“ghost in the shell”), as seen in the image below in the form of a tattoo (left arm, among roses).

With the remake that came over two decades later, Cyberpunk 2077 shares the street and building aesthetics, as well as the color scheme of a future city ruled by soulless corporations. The most powerful common element is the huge billboards and advertising surfaces on skyscrapers, as well as the gigantic holograms of fish majestically gliding through the sky. You can encounter them during the parade in the game.

Oh, I almost forgot! In the section about Akira, I promised that I would mention again in connection with Ghost in the Shell that the name of the motorcycle available in the game, Yaiba Kusanagi CT-3X, contains the word “Kusanagi,” which is a direct reference to the 1995 Ghost in the Shell and its main character, Major Kusanagi.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Titty Twister.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; The Karate Kid; Blade; Die Hard; Dirty Harry; Children of Men; The Shining; The Office; Breaking Bad

After the neon sign from the previous paragraph, there are not likely to be bigger references… so to cool off a bit, we move on to some smaller and not worth a separate paragraph movie references. In Cyberpunk 2077, when leaving the city limits, you can, for example, come across three billboards outside… Night City, and on the wall in the lobby of the building, you will find the inscription “Mercy is for the weak,” which is a part of a dialogue from The Karate Kid.

On the wall, you will repeatedly see the graffiti Tyger Claws – this is the title of a film with the former kickboxing movie star Cynthia Rothrock. In Afterlife, you can hear a piece from Blade (the one from the bloody disco), in one of the dialogues, the names of a certain (!) Joan McClane and Henry Callahan from known series appear, and in another, the organization The Human Project and Theo Faron – played by Clive Owen in Children of Men.

You can also hear Johnny Silverhand introducing himself with the words: And now, Panam, here’s Johnny, out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere! – of course, with a strong emphasis on “here’s Johnny,” drawn out almost identically to how Jack Nicholson did. This short list ends with the monologue borrowed from The Office of an Asian surgeon who accidentally killed a yakuza boss during surgery and fled to the USA on a boat, where it turned out he was… a good surgeon and deliberately killed the yakuza boss. A reference to Breaking Bad? Here you go: in the The Heisenberg Principle mission, we have to destroy a laboratory where a fictional drug called glitter is produced. And for dessert, a pizza on the roof, probably thrown there by Walter White by accident.

Joker; 007; Sailor Moon; Titanic; Star Wars; Terminator 3; Day of the Wacko

Cyberpunk 2077 offers players a photo mode where you can take almost any photo of your character. That’s how I took two photos for the intro – my V with a sniper rifle and on a motorcycle among sparks after I purposely crashed into parked cars at full speed for the sake of the photo. In photo mode, you can also use ready-made character settings, among which you’ll find, for example, Han Solo aiming a weapon, Sailor Moon, a pose called Like one of your French girls (i.e., Rose posing for a drawing by Jack), Agent 007 with a gun, Talk to the hand from Terminator 3, You’re breathtaking by Keanu Reeves…

…and the famous Joker pose on the stairs. I can’t believe it myself, but to take the above photograph, I spent half an hour changing clothes to look at least a little like the Joker. Oh, for dessert, the game creators offer a pose called Bo w ryj dać mogę dać (meaning I can punch you in the face), certainly named in honor of Day of the Wacko.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Squint your eyes and find it yourself.

Demolition Man (1993)

Since 1993, i.e., since the premiere of Demolition Man, it was one of the greatest movie mysteries of all time, easily standing alongside the question from Citizen Kane, what the last words of Charles Foster Kane meant, or the mystery of the never-opened FedEx package in Cast Away, although we all know it was satellite sleds… Okay, maybe I mixed something up. Going back to Demolition Man, I’m talking about the three seashells in the toilet replacing toilet paper, which John Spartan could not figure out.

The three seashells visible in the above photo, which are located in the toilet in V’s apartment (the main character we play as), unfortunately, only partially solve this one of the greatest mysteries of humanity. Since the game does not offer the possibility of using the toilet (I tried, but you can’t sit on the throne), we still do not know how to use this contraption after doing… poo. To dry our tears, we can at least enjoy the fact that we finally know what these three mythical seashells look like. And well, they look… like three seashells. I expected something more spectacular after 27 years of waiting for the mystery to be explained.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

The creators of Cyberpunk 2077 refer to famous movie characters in an unobvious way (aside from the fact that they always appear as corpses), as if they always wanted to be able to say that it’s not what we think and avoid paying copyright penalties. In a junkyard, we find a corpse in a refrigerator, next to which lies a characteristic hat (though it’s not the famous fedora). Junkyard – it’s a bit like the developers wanted to indicate where Spielberg’s entire movie should end up. I only wonder why the dead “Indy” is wearing white socks and sandals – maybe while flying in the fridge, he brushed against Poland?

One-Eyed Jacks (1961)

In the finale of the Pattern Recognition mission, we go through a cinema hall where a scene from the western directed by Marlon Brando, with him in the leading role, is being played. Why exactly this film was chosen by the developers to show in their game, I do not know, and despite watching the movie (I recommend it, it’s a great piece of cinema!), I cannot answer this question. Maybe some of you have a theory?

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

In something resembling a storm drain, we encounter something like the T-800 exoskeleton (from which we can take the sunglasses), nearby lies a smashed chaser with Shoot & Ride on the tank, further on are corpses, and a truck stands, while the displayed dialogue list shows names like Arnold Blake and Jimmy Connor. Although each of the elements mentioned above separately looks like a randomly left item, all of them combined give a clear picture of the chase scene in the storm drain from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Iron Man (2008)

A rather clear reference to the first part of the Marvel hit, i.e., the description of Tony Stark’s escape plan from captivity, disguised under the name Thomas Star.

RoboCop (1987)

Okay, maybe this big boy in the middle is not an exact copy of ED-209 from Paul Verhoeven’s movie, but he looks like a heavily upgraded model from the future, a descendant of the hearing-impaired, roaring-squealing walking machine.

Strange Days (1999)

The cyberpunk Braindance, which involves films shot from a first-person perspective and then analyzed by the player, is an idea taken directly from Kathryn Bigelow’s work. Moreover, the way we are introduced to Braindance in the game is almost identical to the prologue of Strange Days. In both cases, we witness the unexpected death of the recorder—in Strange Days, by falling from a roof, and in Cyberpunk 2077, by being shot. In both cases, the viewer (Nero/V), shocked by what they have just seen, rips the playback device off their head and takes a moment to recover.

Hardware (1990)

As soon as I saw this promotional graphic for Cyberpunk 2077, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen a cybernetic hand protruding from the ground somewhere before. Somehow, I remembered the movie Hardware (from which I only like the atmospheric love scene in the shower)—and indeed, when the deadly cyborg is found at the beginning of the film, its still-moving hand is sticking out from the ground. But I wouldn’t write about such a flimsy similarity between these motifs if it weren’t for the later part of the film. There appears a character played by Dylan McDermott, whose right hand is a cybernetic prosthesis, serving the same function (replacing a lost limb) as Johnny Silverhand’s left arm.

Acknowledgments

For providing some leads, I thank Jacek Jackowski, Katarzyna Kebernik, and Jakub Piwoński.

Sources

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