The evolution of video-game cyberpunk: 'Ruiner' and 'Tacoma'

Two very different sci-fi games, two similar cyberpunk philosophies.

What does it even mean, cyberpunk?"

It's a strange question coming from Magdalena Tomkowicz, the narrative designer of Ruiner, a top-down action game that takes place in an anime-inspired cyberpunk world. It just landed on Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this week from Polish studio Reikon Games, but fans of gritty sci-fi shooters have been looking forward to this one for months.

The thing is, Tomkowicz and Creative Director Benedykt Szneider never intended to create a cyberpunk game. They're simply products of the 1980s, pulling inspiration from their favorite childhood stories -- Alien, Die Hard, Ghost in the Shell -- to create something of their own. Tomkowicz is also a former journalist who covered emerging technology and consumer trends, and her professional curiosity informed Ruiner's aesthetic far more than any desire to re-create the world of, say, Blade Runner.

Besides, the traditional Blade Runner version of cyberpunk -- dense, dark city streets coated in smog and grime, eerily illuminated by walls of neon -- is out of touch with today's reality, according to Szneider and Tomkowicz. This aesthetic made sense in the '80s, but sci-fi is all about extrapolating from current technological and social trends, not clinging to 35-year-old ideas about the future. Blade Runner completely missed the advent of cellphones, after all.

"It's like it's actually a retro-futuristic genre and something that is locked in its bubble," Tomkowicz says.