Cyberpunk 2077 has sparked debate over an in-game advert which uses the tagline “mix it up” paired with an image of a transgender woman.
The image was spotted in-game this week at E3 2019 and, alongside other in-game artwork, is on the wall of developer CD Projekt Red’s show floor booth.
Its combination of a sexualised model, the outline of her penis clearly visible, and quippy tagline been labelled as transphobic by some. I caught up with Cyberpunk 2077 art director Kasia Redesiuk – who designed the poster herself – at the show today for her take.
“I’m not surprised people have questions,” Redesiuk told me. “I’m currently taking care of in-game media, so branding and advertisements for the various corporations. And in this dystopian future, these megacorporations are oppressive, they’ve basically taken over and prescribe who people live. They constantly, aggressively sell everything.
“You’ll notice many advertisements – for anything, a table, chair, a roof tile – slap a random sexy person on top and say ‘hey, buy this’. This shows the sexploitation of those people, and many of our advertisements feature this sexualisation. We sexualise men, women, and people in between, all to show how terrible this is.