Well, Hustlers, here we are again. Start of a new year one year deeper into to the dystopia that a generation of writers spent a few sad decades screaming and warning us about. Lucky them theyll all be dead soon. Not like us here out in the mess: we all got to keep living with it! But enough about the cyberpunk present, lets talk about the cyberpunk past: the recent past, of 2023.

On an open fire

Everybody in Cinci knows the best way to spend the holidays is hungover. Nobody understood it better than all of you wasters. This Christmas, Cinci received a visit from Saint Nick himself as part of our annual holiday event and, in the name of good cheer, you guys cumulatively gave him more than 3,200 beers, wines, and shots. More than that: when Santa offered you his friendship, of the entire cyberpunkdreams community, only four miserable grinches turned him down. Guess the Christmas spirit is alive and well in the dark future after all. Unlike the Christmas trees, or the reindeer, or the little kids. But hey if youre drunk on Christmas, and youre gonna be drunk on New Years, why bother sobering up between them? In Cinci, all the real heads are gonna schlep it to the new revamped bar mechanics currently active in Cowgirls and Franks and soon to be implemented across all of your favourite dives. Listen to the new bar stories to catch some of Cincis most sordid second hand: incest, accidents, and murders. Look, people gotta do something now that the Internets broke.
Like maybe try out the new content in the sex shops on Gamble Street. You get one guess whats goin on in there. But you know how bout you go and check it out your own self, just to make sure? And clear your schedule while youre at it because theres a lot going on. Or maybe youve been up and down Gamble Street before; maybe now youd prefer a different kind of opening up. Players whove been given permission from the local powers (if you have to ask, you dont have permission) should poke through your Life/Survival deck and look into Opening up the street: this promised deeper look into Gamble Street has been behind the content wall for quite a while. But those of you allowed past the wall can enter the Golden Chrysanthemum: the nicest place youve ever been, full of the worst people youve ever imagined. The menus dont have price tags because nobody who can afford to be there has to know. They trade in richer currencies than money.
Of course, by now the holidays are over and sooner or later youre gonna have to get back on the beat. But before you do, check your iron and make sure you got it right.

7 MAC 11s

At the start of December, we rolled out a weapons update that mostly changed things under the hood, though players who spend a lot of time with guns noticed a few convenient changes to their inventory management as well. We also tweaked a few other things here and there in the weeks just before and after weapon holsters, multiple delineations of weapon size, and experimenting with switchable ammo feeds being the big ones. Now its easy to equip, swap and manage multiple weapons at the same time not to mention a whole lot easier for us here on the production side to add new ones. For example: we also, and this is the most important part, added a katana. Yeah, thats right, like all the real cyberpunks have. Did you get yours already? You should, all the guys who own katanas are meeting up in Discord to talk about how cool and practical our weapons are. Speaking of practical weapons.

A thing you wont find in the magazines

Youre welcome. So thats the present and the past covered. Lets talk about miseries yet to come.

Out here in the fields

Players who keep their ears to the ground already heard the cars coming: the rest of you can think of this message as the roaring coal-rolling v8 motor of a deathproof Ford Falcon. This year youll be further from the PZs than ever before when you venture out into the badlands. West of Cincis border theres vast sprawl of dust bowls, famine, and subhumans that some still call Indiana. We have made the difficult and questionable decision to depict this way of life in our game cyberpunkdreams, which we understand some players may find in poor taste but other players will find that poor taste is just where it begins. Trekking along the abandoned highways youll find a world of indifferent hazards, and people who area little screwy. Sometimes the kind of screwy that Wes Anderson puts in movies and sometimes the kind of screwy that Tobe Hooper puts in movies.
Im not at liberty to say too much, of course thats called showmanship, friends, its why they gave me this job. But Ill just say that you need to keep your car in good condition, keep your spares secure, keep your shit on you, and keep your eyes open: one day you might make it all the way to the Mississippi river, but for now youve got to cross a rust belt full of danger.

Dont call it a comeback

Shes been here for years. Soon players will have the chance to become the cut man and cornerman for Zara a familiar face for gym rat players, who will soon become an entire full-fledged character. Get an up-close the illicit thrills and high stakes of combat sports, illegal and otherwise, where fighters rely on dirty tricks and clean supplies to achieve victory by any means necessary. Zaras next bout places her as an underdog against an accomplished athlete. You can pick whether her story ends like one or four but either way shes comin out of this like Apollo Creed.

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out

Zaras not the only one who can take a questionable route to better health. If youre looking for an edge you can always get yourself implanted with a hookworm: a specially bred symbiote that lives in your lower intestines and eats some of your food, increasing your hunger. In exchange, itll help you too: it can boost your immune system to fend off infections; it can release endorphins to help build muscle mass. Maybe theres a few knock-on effects down the road but its nothin you cant handle. Right? Well, only one way to find out. Sadly, thats all the news for now but who knows what might happen next? I got no idea and, buddy, I work here! But if you wanna see it all happen earlier-than-early, and see what everyone else is saying, join the discord and get yourself plugged in or follow us over on twitter, where were always blasting our funked-up beats right onto the airwaves. Well keep ourselves safe until next time, you try to do the same and remember, dont trust anyone with a big hat and a tiny gun.