Being that Cyberpunk 2077 is, well, a Cyberpunk game, it's no surprise that numerous socio-political issues exist within the game and its background lore. Notably, the game doesn't really go out of its way to address these troubles themselves, instead focusing on the protagonist's attempt to survive and thrive despite it all, but some side quests and gigs will touch on these subjects, and all it takes is a quick stroll through Night City's streets to see that it isn't exactly a cheery place.
- The Megacorp conflict of Arasaka and Militech is by itself one large take that at corporate behaviors, however well trod the road is. Both of them are military contractors and wield ridiculous amounts of influence globally, influencing both governments as well as economies with their massive wealth. They're more or less immune to any sort of civil prosecution and can pay off any fine or bankrupt people trying to sue them. They also use for-profit media to protect themselves against all repercussions.
- The US government's attempts to reign both of them in is also subject to a Hero with Bad Publicity response. Both corporations attack its "overreach" and mock the authorities as ineffectual, stupid, or dangerous. Thus, no one wants to support them in stopping the corporations due the argument that private entities do it better.
- The government's attempt to nationalize Militech after the 4th corporate war, giving its executives high-ranking government posts in the process, backfired so thoroughly that the NUSA government is now a division of Militech in all but name.
- An early mission contains a document that talks about how health insurance in the United States (and former colonies) is incredibly screwed up. That for-profit medicine leaves many people destitute and has increased the number of homeless as well as criminals significantly.
- The Trauma Team is, by itself, a form of satire in that it is an ultra-expensive service only available to the very rich that can provide immense boosts to those who can afford them. They can even raise someone from the dead (provided they're not Deader than Dead) with their advanced technology. It is purely a business, though, and they will ignore anyone who can't afford their policies. They are also implied to not be afraid to collect from patients who are behind on payments, while saving their lives or take wholesale from those too far gone.
- Police Brutality is on full display throughout the game. Overheard conversations emphasize the police are discouraged from helping civilians at risk to themselves. The police are encouraged to use maximum amounts of force but do very little to discourage actual crime as you see them casually executing gang members in the street. They will also fire on you if you get too close. Corruption is shown to be rampant with many of the gangs paying off whole precincts and attempts to reform the organization are met with resistance from the top down. There is even an animated cartoon show that's one part Looney Tunes, one part Smokey the Bear, and one part horrifically violent called "Safe and Sound" with a talking police doberman narrating the best ways to minimize your chances of invoking police brutality (and/or accidental death by cop) upon you, while a paunchy pug named "Mr. Puggins" acts out wrong/right ways, often to fatal effect for poor Mr. Puggins.
- Privatization, profiteering, and civil mistreatment of police and public services in general is also touched on with the fate of NCPD. It used to actually be a legitimate city service, until the mayor privatized it a few years before the events of the game, simply for the fact that it wasn't profitable as a public service. He then further hobbled them by slashing their budget and their staffing, offering only token support programs to fill the gap. The already sky-high crime rate went up even higher, and the cops quickly found themselves overwhelmed by the sheer workload foisted upon them. The result is an entire police department full of bitter, underpaid, overworked beat cops who are so cynical and trigger happy, they act more like the gangs they're supposed to be fighting than proper police officers. Corruption is practically a requirement to be a part of NCPD, and the new corporate atmosphere as a result of the privatization means that officers will actively work against each other, even going so far as to order hits on fellow officers or simply luring them into gangoon ambushes because they asked the wrong questions. And even with the privatization, the NCPD still has a massive hole in their budget that is so big you could drop the Arasaka Tower into it and have room to spare, and the megacorps like Arasaka are already licking their lips and sharpening their knives for the inevitable moment that NCPD is officially dissolved and they can step in to install their own profit-driven service programs. Tying in with the notoriously mercenary Trauma Team (see above), one shudders to think what Night City's other civil services, such as the Fire Department and prison system are like. And the kicker? Privitazation is nothing new in real life. Several prisons have done just that (and received a notorious reputation for it), so the jump from corporate prisons to corporate police is getting more and more plausible every day.
- The worst part about the "Safe and Sound" episodes is that, within the context of Night City, they make sense. Offensive cybernetics have progressed to the point that a sufficiently-equipped person can kill people just by looking at them through the use of quickhacks and daemons note so it becomes a little understandable why a cop may reply with lethal force if you try to even so much as make eye contact with them. Night City is just that dangerous of a place.
- Further signs of the dangers of privatization comes from the bounties the NCPD has put out. Just about all of the gang members that you fight are wanted dead or alive. If you scan them, you'll find many have existing violent crime records like assaulting citizens, murder, sexual violence, etc. But just as many also have other heinous crimes such as... defacing corporate property, possession of stolen corporate goods, possession of illegal drugs, insulting corporate officials....
- The environmental devastation of the planet has left whole sections of the country uninhabitable. Somehow, the corporations have managed to monetize even this with "Real Water" costing 30 Eurodollars and advertisements talking about insurance policies for when your water becomes toxic. Real food is an incredibly expensive luxury with most people subsisting on processed garbage. Asking a food vendor if the shrimp is fresh gets the statement, "Yes, it comes from an aquarium farm downtown."
- The Moxxes were formed because of the rampant violence against women and the Disposable Sex Worker trope being treated as something true in-universe. The police had no interest in investigating their problems and the various gangs like the Tyger Claws deploy both drugs as well as violence to force them to comply. So they've become an ultraviolent Band of Brothels and Weird Trade Union that is listed as a gang just for defending themselves. The worst part is that the modern Moxxes are a gang now, and act like one to back it up, because their position as the weakest of all the gangs in NC means they had to play hardball to keep from getting run over. By the time V meets them, they're more about profiting off Night City's Sex Workers, rivalling the Tyger Claws in the sex BD and joytoy industry, and their former creed to defend them against violence is more like a footnote, since now the only way to be "protected" by them is to join their ranks.
- During the Corp Origin, it talks about how Arasaka Corporation takes advantage of local conflicts by providing old but reliable rifles to local populations in order to destabilize regions. They proceed then to use this chaos to pressure the governments to give into their demands. This would be ridiculous if not for the fact it is a real life fact in South America and Africa.
- The news is entirely controlled by the megacorporations that share bland, mind-controlling slanted stories while suppressing the truth. Arasaka, for example, kills the Space Administration of Europe only to blame it on an accident with their own news network and even attribute it to one of their rival's faulty equipment. Independent news services exist but these have almost no fact-checking and frequently forward conspiracy theories. It's telling that Regina Jones, a former ace "Media" who exposed so much corruption and mentored several other like-minded journalists, eventually said "Screw This, I'm Outta Here" and decided her investigative skills and information networks were better used as a Fixer.
- Veterans are oftentimes treated like dirt once they get injured, the wars are over, and the media attention is off the countries and the corporations that sent them there in the first place.
- "Freedom of the Press" has an unfinished documentary describing how crippled veterans had cameras waiting for them as they were rushed to the emergency room, Militech made a great deal about donating high-tech cyberware and premium healthcare... then as soon as the cameras were off they had them replaced with inferior Gen. 1 products.
- Another mission, "Backs Against the Wall" details the consequences of only 3% of Night City being able to afford healthcare: veterans suffering from severe PTSD and high cyber-psychosis risk are forced to rob Ripperdocs of their medications, having no social support, no therapy, and no one that cares what happens for them. It really speaks to the gravity of the situation where the "peaceful" option of recovering the medication (which didn't even work for the culprit) is him saying he wants to be alone and as soon as you leave the apartment and turn your back to him, you hear a single gunshot and can see the aftermath yourself. Judging from the conversation of the other residents at the complex, you get the sense they'll only be relieved the screaming has stopped. By far the biggest gut-punch however is reading his terminal: even till now he has worried fellow vets checking in on him and inviting him to the PTSD group therapy sessions but unfortunately, he's just too far gone.
- Johnny Silverhand is almost an in-universe Ur-Example of this, he was a soldier who found himself disillusioned with a system that cost him an arm after finding out a war he joined was a corporate backed lie. It cost him his identity, as during the time he was labeled a deserter, which the governments and corps worked hard to make seem negative. So he had to reinvent himself including changing his name, becoming a weapon against those same corporations and government.
- Sexualization in media is tackled with one of the advertisements you come across is advertising for dog food that involves a naked woman covering her breasts. So many ads are like this in the setting that, presumably, the adage of "Sex Sells" not only never faded (as it has been in real life) but every marketing department who drank that particular Kool-Aid loved it so much they decided to mix it with synthcoke and haven't stopped drinking it for several decades.
- According to CD Projekt Red, it was also the purpose of the infamous energy drink advertisement that trans models are normalized as sex symbols in the year 2077... with everything that entails given the above.
- Why suicide shouldn't be taken so lightly. CD Projekt Red is clearly shown not afraid of not sugarcoating it as we see a man jump off from the building, and hear how many people in Night City end their lives every day. It is further bolstered by the fact that in one of the endings where V kills themself, all of V's friends are shown to be hurt, angry, or disappointed.
- On that note, the endings make an argument life is ultimately worth living, that is if you're willing to make it count. In some endings, V accepts that their impending death, but keeps on fighting to live as long as they can and on their own terms.
- In the Devil ending: Principles matter, more than your body, or even your humanity. Staying true to yourself is more important than all the power and success life can offer.
- Mourning the loss of a loved one does ultimately get easier with time. Steve in one of the endings says this to Johnny in V's body about his grandpa; that when he died he missed him a whole lot, but the pain of loss does eventually fade over time.
- There's a thin line between Tough Love and outright bullying, and it can be very hard to distinguish between the two. One of the reasons Barry decides to commit suicide is the feeling that none of his coworkers like him, and if he eats his gun, the cop that repeatedly told him that he was a "pussy" breaks down crying because he only wanted to help Barry in his own misguided way.
- Many of the cyberpsychos show what happens when America's loose gun laws run into the reality of increasingly advanced weapons technology and military hardware. In real life, a section of the Constitution crafted hundreds of years ago decided everyone legally is able gets access to semi-automatic rifles capable of accurately firing thirty rounds or more in the time it takes to read this sentence. In the game's 2077, that same part of the Constitution, referenced by name whenever you visit a gun store, is also used to protect the right to keep and bear mantis blades, reflex upgrades, and other augmentations that can turn people superhuman. What's more, while this is a world where Cybernetics Eat Your Soul and can lead to cyberpsychosis, many cyberpsycho encounters play out in such a manner that it's debatable whether or not the person involved genuinely suffered from it, as opposed to being just an ordinary person with augmentations who finally snapped after a bad day. In 2077, just as in 2020, guns don't kill people, but give somebody who's on edge easy access to guns...
- The Second Amendment is notably parodied because Night City is no longer part of the United States as of 2002, or even the Free State of California as of the 2069, but an independent, corporate-run state. The Amendment is used as a Artifact Title by a gun store chain and as a defense by arms manufacturers, which is often the subject of mockery. Take this ad with a visibly pregnant woman, her biracial adolescent kids, and husband all wielding guns in advertising.
◊ In-universe, the laws around gun ownership in Night City in 2077 seems to very lax overall with vending machines on corner selling guns comparable to a Glock, and according to the devs, anyone can own a gun. - An Alternate Aesop Interpretation regarding gun control may also be valid as the police are utterly useless in Night City, gangs really are composed of violent psychopaths, and anyone who wants to be able to survive is likely to need weapons as well as training in them to protect themselves.
- Wilson, the friendly, portly man running said Second Amendment gun shop in Megabuilding H10 (V's home turf) and is shown to sell everything from handguns up to high explosives and heavy machine guns... but despite (or far more likely because of) this, he becomes absolutely furious when people show no common sense when operating firearms, kicking people out of his shop for improper handling or having their guns in their coat pockets instead of a secure holster. He even expresses his frustration to V later, saying, "[A] gun's something you gotta respect! You have no idea how to shoot, don't do it!" The message seems to be (from him at least) that everyone has a right to self-defense, but if owning a gun makes you more of a safety hazard than the ones you are trying to protect yourself and your loved ones from, then you have no business owning it. However, as per the game's usual cynicism, despite Wilson's frustration and good intentions, he can't really do anything about it since the people he kicks out are still incompetent gun-users running through the streets of Night City, and he's only one person who cares in a city that just couldn't give less of a damn.
- The Second Amendment is notably parodied because Night City is no longer part of the United States as of 2002, or even the Free State of California as of the 2069, but an independent, corporate-run state. The Amendment is used as a Artifact Title by a gun store chain and as a defense by arms manufacturers, which is often the subject of mockery. Take this ad with a visibly pregnant woman, her biracial adolescent kids, and husband all wielding guns in advertising.
