It's 2020... Long Live Cyberpunk!

So 2020 is here.  It is now the game of the Dark Present. Back when I first started playing this game, it seemed so far away, so impossibly the future...

This is actually the second time this has happenned.  True fans of the game recognize we hit this first back in 2013, which was when the first edition of the game was set.  But far more people recognize 2020 as the true edition of the game.  Of course now we have Cyberpunk Red, and between it, and the hype from the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 game, a whole new wave of fans are rushing to join us.  Be gracious hosts my friends, new lie if being breathed into the game, and new faces have that old pulse going strong again. 

Regardless which edition you play, Original, 2020, Cybergeneration, V3, or Red, or even homebrew systems and settings, this game has withstood the test of time.  It is the original, the truest, the most pure, game of it's genre.  This game in fact helped cement the term cyberpunk as a genre in and of itself.  It's origins are strong, taking direct inspiration from the foundations of the genre, across all mediums.  Literature, Cinema, Anime, Comics, Manga, Music.... with this game, with this franchise, you have been able to perfectly replicate that theme, that feeling, that atmosphere, that drew you to the worlds of dark tomorrow.

And now we are here.  It's uncanny how much of the book prophesied what has come to pass.  It didn't get everything right, we aren't traveling in flying minivans, and we cannot download out consciousness into the net... yet.  We have lived to see some miraculous things.  Bionic prosthetics are becoming a reality.  Technology is improving quality of life faster than we can keep up with it.  We don't have cyberdecks, but we do carry around cellphones with the entirety of human knowledge at our fingertips 24/7.  Sadly, we are also living in a dystopia, under the thumb of a nightmare political hellscape, at the mercy of the corrupt and the ignorant, kowtowing to the corporate overlords and the living at the military industrial complex.

Of course there is light at the end of the tunnel, we are cyberpunks, we fight for a better world, or at least a better future.  We fight for those who can't fight for themselves.  We fight the corporations putting wealth before humanity.  We fight the bigots and the ignorant who can't see past there own experiences.  We fight the system that seeks to crush any resistance to maintain the status quo.  We fight for progress, we fight for change.

And we also play our silly little game.  Because in our games, we can at least pretend that things are getting better, even in the face of darkness. 

To all the fans of Datafortress 2020, thank you for riding alongside me all these years.  Here is to the future.  That neon street hasn't come to an end, we just hit an intersection with the present.  As long as there is a tomorrow, this game will have a place.