Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that managed to come back from the brink due to updates to its performance, graphics, and leveling system, which received complete overhauls in the 2.0 update. But one thing that the game has never lacked is a great story, full of complex characters and layered symbolism spread throughout its techno-dystopian setting.
One aspect of Night City which may initially go under the radar for players is the near-complete lack of animals, but this becomes more obvious as the game continues, players explore the map, and characters make references to the lost animal population of the area. The absence of animals in most parts of Cyberpunk makes those that do show up especially significant, and they tend to be used as symbols or metaphors for certain parts of the story, as well as the characters which inhabit Cyberpunk‘s world.
Iguanas Tend To Accompany Moments Of Great Risk – And Opportunity
These Reptiles Show Up At Very Specific Moments
First up on the scant list of animals in Cyberpunk 2077 is the iguana, of which there are actually two in the game’s story. The first is present in the game’s prologue if players start as a nomad, transporting the reptile across the Night City border. The second time, an iguana egg can be found within Konpeki Plaza during the mission to steal from Cyberpunk 2077‘s Arasaka Corporation, and eventually made into a pet in V’s apartment.
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In both instances, the iguana is found by V and Jackie, during a gig which they are woefully unprepared for. The nomad quest sees V and Jackie almost killed for their cargo, the contents of which they aren’t even aware of at the time. And as anyone who has played the game knows, the heist in Konpeki Plaza did not work out well for either the player or their friend. The iguana’s meaning can be extrapolated from these similarities in their appearances, and from V’s ownership of the pet iguana after the heist.
Iguanas as symbols in fiction have a complicated history, sometimes representing a struggle for freedom as in The Night of the Iguana, other times being more in line with representations of higher powers in folk tales. It’s likely that Cyberpunk is doing something new with the creature, associating it with characters within the story rather than previous literary examples.
The iguana is a rarity, almost a miracle in Night City, given its near-extinct nature and the brutality of the setting. It accompanies risk, and could be seen as a reward for the risks V and Jackie take, bringing themselves closer and closer to the status of legendary mercs. The iguana, like the Relic itself, is an unexpected miracle that V obtains through luck and ambition, specifically by stealing from a group more powerful than themselves.
This Poultry Poses A Moral Dilemma
Within Cyberpunk’s second act, another animal can be found, though this one is in markedly worse shape than the iguanas. It’s a dead chicken in the possession of Placide, a high-ranking member of the Voodoo Boys gang. Poultry is illegal in Night City, and thus, this chicken is an extremely valuable specimen. Which is why it’s important that Placide is introduced with the poultry, first chopping off its head in a dark back room, then granting it as a gift to a member of his community.
The chicken is a treasure, one gained illegally and dangerously, given the disease problem that apparently accompanies this kind of meat in 2077. Placide’s treatment of it immediately makes him an intimidating and complex character, and almost acts as a metaphor for his role in the game as a whole. He’s a character who is willing to do morally scrupulous, unsavory things if it will help his community, but has no care at all for the world or people outside of it.
The nature of the chicken as a supposedly doomed presence within Night City that is still around in Pacifica could also be a representation of the Voodoo Boys themselves, refugees that have been completely abandoned by society, but have fought to endure in this ruined part of the map.
Alternatively, the chicken could be a metaphor for V themselves during the Pacifica arc. After all, Placide recruits the player for a mission which is guaranteed to get them killed, using V for his own means before discarding them without a thought. Like the chicken, V is something rare and valuable from the outside world, due to the Relic in their head, but Placide is perfectly willing to chop off their head if it means freeing Brigitte from Netwatch’s trap.
The Ties Between Johnny, V, And The Bakeneko
Cat Symbolism Is Strongest In Night City
Finally, the most commonly spotted animal in Cyberpunk 2077 is the cat; specifically, these hairless cats, which can be found relaxing in alleyways and on piles of trash. V comments at one point that cats have proven more resilient than the other animals which once inhabited Night City, outlasting dogs, pigeons, and rats. In that way, one could see these cats as a direct metaphor for the parts of the city’s history that refuse to die. Not unlike a certain rockerboy embedded in V’s brain.
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These cats are fairly straightforward metaphors for Johnny Silverhand, whose continued existence as an engram of his former self mimics the way these hairless strays still walk the city streets, each ghosts of their former selves. This specific idea of the cats being ghosts is even brought up in the game by beloved cahracter Goro Takemura, the former Arasaka bodyguard, who tells V the story of the “bakeneko,” ghosts which take the form of cats and can even possess people. The moment of this dialogue is even accompanied by Johnny sitting next to a cat on a ledge.
There’s a nice shade of irony to the fact that Takemura, who Johnny is extremely ideologically opposed to, is the one whose philosophy on Night City seems to best represent Johnny’s place within it.
The cat, or bakeneko, is obviously a great symbol for Johnny’s role in the story, but it also works as a representation of V. Like these cats, V has struggled to survive in a city hellbent on killing them. Like these cats, V is a ghost of their former self, having died and risen again thanks to the Relic. And like these cats, V is often an ill omen for those around them, as most of the protagonist’s allies meet pretty horrible fates over the course of Cyberpunk 2077.
Based on the 1988 tabletop game, Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person action RPG game set in a dystopian cyber future developed by CD Projekt Red. Players will tackle the streets of Night City as customizable protagonist V, who struggles to keep their memories intact after receiving a strange cybernetic implant that slowly overrides their memories by a deceased celebrity known as Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves.
- Franchise
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Cyberpunk
- Released
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December 10, 2020
- Engine
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REDengine 4
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol