As a result, the Soviet Union is itself preserved from collapse, and the European Common Market and Japan emerge as global superpowers.

In tandem with economic collapse, other disasters have wreaked havoc across the globe, including food blights and devastating famines, as well as the destruction of entire regions of land as a consequence of war.

[2] With the lack of government and police enforcement due to the Central American wars and subsequent economic collapse, casual violence has become endemic in many parts of the world.

At the same time, megacorporations have risen to power and fight amongst themselves for dominance, and orbital habitats have begun to develop and form into independent states, both causes and symptoms of the increasing fracturing of civilization.

Bioengineering, against a backdrop of warfare, has resulted in the rapid development of cybernetic prosthetics and direct human-machine interfaces, and many now suffer from "technoshock," an inability to cope with a world of synthetic muscle tissue, organic circuits, and designer drugs.

[2] The main location for Cyberpunk is the fictional Night City, situated on the West Coast of the United States between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

With a population of five million, it presents a stratified society of gang warfare, corporate rivalries, and political machinations in which the players must survive.

These include charismatic musicians ('rockerboys'), bodyguards and assassins ('solos'), computer hackers ('netrunners'), road warriors ('nomads'), street experts ('fixers'), investigative journalists and reporters ('medias'), mechanics ('techs' or 'techies'), doctors ('medtechs'), corporate executives ('corpos'), and police officers ('lawmen').

[5] A choice of rules are provided for character creation, either by assigning points to purchase skills or by rolling d10s for a more random outcome.

When characters "jack in", they can interpret the NET in several different ways, including as a classic Dungeons & Dragons maze, or perhaps as a star-filled galaxy.

Cyberdecks include slots to contain Programs, selected ahead of time by Netrunners to assist in tasks such as evasion, decryption and detection.

Closer integration with other activities was a game design choice to ensure all characters have a part to play during a hacking scene.

[11] Dream Pod 9 released Night's Edge in 1992, taking the Cyberpunk 2020 setting and adding a horror theme, including vampires and werewolves.

An alternate world sourcebook, Cybergeneration, was published in 1993; it centers around teenagers with unusual, superhuman skills gained from a nanotech virus epidemic.

[16][1] The game is set after a fourth Corporate War; however, the events differ from Cyberpunk V3.0, which is considered to be a separate timeline.

[18] It was preceded by the release of a simplified boxed set, known as the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit, at Gen Con in August 2019.

The second was called Cyberpunk CCG, released in 2003, designed by Peter Wacks and published by Social Games.

Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone is a tabletop miniature wargame by R. Talsorian Games and Monster Fight Club, to be released in 2023.

She also grumbled about typos, noting, "Quite frankly, I don't think I've seen this many apparently careless, minor errors since Judges Guild went defunct some years ago."

Bambra found the setting "does a superb job of capturing the flavor and atmosphere of a disturbingly plausible and realistic future.

He found that "Combat is chart-heavy but playable, and extremely dangerous for player characters; one well-placed shot is all that it takes to wipe out a careless Nomad."

Varney thought the second edition's biggest flaw was lack of an index, but he also criticized the dichotomy of a system where "you can break into Eurobank and embezzle five million bucks, but you better pay your phone bill on time or you’re in big trouble."

With its smooth action, 'pure' cyberpunk atmosphere, easily accessible setting, and medium-low complexity, this game tops my list as the field's best route to dark near-future adventure.

"[37] In a 1996 reader poll undertaken by Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, Cyberpunk was ranked 10th.

Cyberpunk is set in an unforgiving world where betrayal and double-crosses are common, trust is hard to find and paranoia is a useful survival trait.

Contributor Rob Wieland praised the system for character generation, stating, "One of the signature elements of the game, lifepaths, went through a great refinement.

"[39] In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath noted this game's influence on the genre, saying, "The moral ambiguity introduced here eventually becomes a significant part of the language of urban science fiction and fantasy, paving the way for games like Shadowrun, Nightlife, Vampire: The Masquerade, Unknown Armies, and more in the edgy '90s.