CYBERPUNK 2077.

• Author: Suderman, Peter
• Position: VIDEO GAME

Set in Night City, an expansive California cityscape brimming with rogue A.l.s, body-modded street thugs, and virtual cat-houses for every class and taste, Cyberpunk 2077 is a video game about sex, drugs, and robots--and what to do about them.

Based on a long-running series of tabletop role-playing games, the game is constructed from a stew of '80s and '90s science fiction references: There's more than a hint of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, of Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix, including a star turn by Keanu Reeves as a long-dead revolutionary rocker who turns up as an A.I. construct lodged in your consciousness.

Reeves makes an amusingly sardonic, irritably charming guide to Night City, a companion and antagonist who wants to get out of your head as much as the player wants him gone. But separation is harder than it looks: Along the way, you have to deal with a slew of corporate and political power struggles, from mayoral assassinations to murderous family succession squabbles over the fate of massive, privately run firms. Occasionally, you end...