Cyberpunk 2077 — Bugs Aside, They Sure Talk A Lot

Revolution? That’s what they wanted, anyway

At this point, Cyberpunk 2077 needs no introduction. It was in development hell for eight years and was sold as the next big thing. Over the years, the game would be overhyped to be the “next revolution in gaming” and any other synonym, and it looked really, really cool. More so, this game is being done by the same people who made The Witcher 3, which is considered one of the best games of the last decade. Indeed, this game is a national treasure in the making (but whose? Poland’s?). Yet, little did anyone know what was coming. Upon release, Cyberpunk faced nothing but disappointment and scandals.

Both console versions had been riddled with bugs making the game virtually unplayable. Refunds were issued nearly everywhere, and the developers were sued for conspiracy or something like that (I’m not keen on legal stuff) because they lied to their investors and prevented reviewers from playing the console versions. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine having at the top of all the collective expectations, only to fall short of it, and hard on your face too. That’s how bad the “recoil” for this game was. Although to be fair, the PC version was a solid game, if not a great one.

I know that because I played the game on PC until my computer kept crashing over and over and reasonably, too, since I was way below the minimum requirement. It’s just that the environment of the game is so immersive, you can tell that the developers put a lot of effort into making sure that the Cyberpunk universe feels authentic. Imagine going through a crime-ridden city in the dusk and seeing ads that are borderline NSFW, thinking to yourself, “where is the censorship?”. I could go on to describing more of it, but that’s not the point I want to get to. The game is immersive, and it even shows in the diverse, multicultural population of Night City, the primary setting for the game. It’s pretty… vivid… to a certain extent.

I have a chip in my head that translates everything that I hear into English

As expected of an immersive environment, it wouldn’t be true if they all spoke English, despite living in the same city (It’s not even different countries). Apparently, in 2077, the world became one giant melting pot. Hence, now there’s no disconnection between American and Japanese cultures, or any other culture for that matter (a Japanese corporation is the main antagonist of the game). But this Night City has a lot of different language speakers. You got Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish, and I think Haitian Creole (or something like that). But no matter what language they speak, there doesn’t seem to be any barriers to understanding one another. Well… it turns out that there’s an explanation for that. The protagonist has a neurological augmentation that translates everything into English, rendering language-learning virtually obsolete. But… that’s the problem.

In the future, people will have become so dependent on technology that there’s no point in even learning any language other than English (in Night City, anyhow). But… if it weren’t for whoever engineered the chip, then who would do the translating? It would be going back to school so that you could speak to people in other languages, especially when it’s the same city.

What I’m saying is that having a superchip embedded in your cortex isn’t an excuse for learning languages on your own. I mean, I just assume that in the protagonist’s case, who probably only speaks English, since that’s the only language they speak. Everything else is translated in their head.

So which “Engineer” is best suited for “Engineering”?

So for these chips that they put in your brain to work, someone had to translate the languages. And this is one chip with several languages built into it, so this has to be a smart chip (it has to be if it’s 2077). But who was that? It can’t be one person since this is several different languages from different regions of the planet.

The thing that I’m trying to get to is that you can’t have a brain-chip solve all your problems. You want to actually know the language because that’s the only proper way to get through it. Of course, you won’t be able to learn all of them, but at least one would be nice.

However, if you insist on getting a translator, you definitely should, especially since there’s Haitian Creole (that’s what it’s called, right?). I have no idea where to find those.

Do you know someone who speaks these exotic languages?

So we have several different languages to consider. I don’t remember exactly how many there were in the game, but Haitian Creole is the one that stood out the most for me since it’s not a language I hear a lot about. That and characters who spoke it in the game were Voodoo practitioners, so that’s also cool.

Anyway, what you need to do is find someone who can translate Haitian Creole. That would be interesting. I haven’t heard of anyone around me, though.

If you also choose some of the other languages, then yeah, that’s also good. You got Spanish, Japanese, and some other stuff… not necessarily in that order.

In Conclusion…

I don’t know if you can still get it for consoles, but it’s worth checking out on the PC if you have a high-end one since the game is very demanding.

Also, if you’re looking for an exciting language to study, I’d say Haitian Creole, which is what stood out for me in the game. That or maybe there’s someone out there that can translate.

And don’t get a microchip installed in your brain. That’s for lazy people. Don’t be lazy.