Cyberpunk 2077 Creator Details Two Of The Game's Biggest Gangs

CD Projekt Red shared a ton of new details about Cyberpunk 2077 during its latest deep-dive stream. The gameplay demonstration gave us a look at Pacifica, a rundown district of Night City that has been overrun by two rival gangs, and we learned a bit more about these warring factions from series creator himself, Mike Pondsmith.

As previously mentioned, two major gangs have staked out territory in Pacifica. First are the Voodoo Boys, a group mainly made up of Haitians who arrived in Night City after the environmental changes caused Haiti to be completely flooded.

"When I created [the Voodoo Boys] many, many years ago, I was looking at kind of a really interesting idea, which is what we would now call cultural appropriation: what happens when somebody comes in and tries to adopt a culture that they know little or nothing about and does it really badly," Pondsmith explained.

He continued: "The Voodoo Boys in [Cyberpunk] 2077 are really Voodoo Boys. They inherited the name, but it was sort of a natural fit; they were coming from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and they were the real thing, and they managed to take a lot of the elements of their original culture and meld it into the world of 2077, bring that cyberpunk vibe into a very old and respected culture. So they're a gang, but they're not really; they're more of a cultural phenomenon, they're more a way of cultural exploration."

On the other side of the spectrum are the Animals, who are driven by their desire for strength. "They're in it to basically build themselves up and become the tigers of their particular urban jungle," Pondsmith explained. "They want to be big, they want to be bad, and they want you to fear them just because they exist.

"But the Animals are very simple. They have an ethos: get big, lift, get strong, lift. So unlike the Voodoo Boys, who have a culture, the Animals have a thing, and contrasting that is interesting because in 2077, you get a chance to see that not every gang is the same as every other gang, and what motivates them depends on the people you meet on the street."

We learned a lot of other interesting details about Cyberpunk 2077 during the deep-dive video, including how sidequests will work in the game and how cyberware will change gameplay. CD Projekt Red also confirmed the game will allow for non-lethal playthroughs, and the studio is working with real city planners to design Night City.

Cyberpunk 2077 releases for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on April 16, 2020. The game is also coming to Google Stadia. For more about the title's collector's edition and pre-order bonuses, be sure to check out our Cyberpunk 2077 pre-order guide.