Cyberpunk 2077 – Pacifica District
The Pacifica District was heavily featured in CD PROJEKT RED’s E3 2019 demo of Cyberpunk 2077. It is located in the south west of the sprawl of Night City, and is a site of urban decay. The district was a major site of resort developments, but constructed was stopped midway by a global economic collapse. Since the collapse, the district has decayed and is littered with ruined and rusting structures. Poverty is everywhere and trash can be seen all over the streets. One of the last to be abandoned was the Grand Imperial Mall, a quest location seen in the E3 2019 demo.
Going the extra mile to build their setting, CD PROJEKT RED hired voice actors fluent in Haitian Creole to voice the local Pacifica characters. A real-time translation of the Creole into English is displayed on through V’s optical display.
Voodoo Boys
The most powerful faction in Pacifica is the Voodoo Boys, a gang of Haitian netrunners who have taken their name from an old gang in the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop RPG. The old Voodoo Boys were a violent and dangerous gang who started out as “average white boys.” Presumably, the Haitians who took the gang name didn’t appreciate the appropriation of their culture and made short work of them. The creator of the Cyberpunk franchise, Mike Pondsmith, enthusiastically endorsed this change in a Reddit post: “The original Voodoo Boys were a scathing commentary on cultural appropriation. I LOVE the idea that real practitioners of Voudon moved in and took back their turf. And they even got the Creole right!”
The modern Voodoo Boys are known both as protectors of their community and dangerously powerful netrunners that shouldn’t be crossed. In the demo, they operate out of a church and are lead by a character named Placide, who has been featured in many screenshots so far. We can expect Placide to become a major character in the game’s story.
The Voodoo Boys are in conflict with another gang called the Animals, who are obsessed with using whatever they can to make themselves stronger. They’ve taken control of the Grand Imperial Mall, and V has to use a variety of tactics to get intelligence on what they’re doing there. Placide has the power to send V to explore the deepest parts of the Net, but trusting the Voodoo Boys to do so carries significant risks. Everything in Pacifica will come down to the player’s choices, and the consequences they create. What is more, here you will find cyberpunk 2077 modding community.
