Cyberpunk With Zoomer Characteristics

Does “post-cyberpunk” even exist as anything except a placeholder marketing category for publishers to sling newer edgier variations of cyberpunk fiction? I didn’t think so until a couple years ago when I became aware of a new aesthetic beginning to trickle into sight.

The source of the trickle was videogames, mostly the cellphone gacha games Girls Frontline and then Arknights, but to a lesser degree other sci-fi games like Nier Automata, Death Stranding, Apex Legends, and Valorant. There are similar visual motifs to those established by cyberpunk designers like Syd Mead and Masamune Shirow: dense urban landscapes, digital and/or holographic screens everywhere, neon lights, exotic greeble-laden vehicles. But whereas the traditional cyberpunk seems to always have one foot planted in the pop culture aesthetic of the 80s-90s era that birthed it, this new post-cyberpunk style uses aforementioned motifs as a jumping off point for an overall aesthetic that pulls way more from the present than from pop cultures past.

And that’s why I think this is a distinct aesthetic and not just the latest permutation of cyberpunk. At least just from the perspective of visual aesthetic, the cyberpunk of today is retrofuturism. Most of the actual thematic elements of cyberpunk just are reality now, but visually speaking it’s hard to imagine cyberpunk without towering green mohawks, Molly Millions/Wolverine hand claws, wrist-mounted keyboard pads, black leather, and DeLorean-esque mechanical designs. All of these were references to the punk counterculture of the late 20th century era. That’s why when they did a sequel to Blade Runner they made sure to set it in a retrofuturist alternate reality where Atari and the Soviet Union still exist.

Characterizing the Caricature 

In contrast, the post-cyberpunk style draws much more from current or at least extremely recent trends.

Also, that Arknights and Girls Frontline in particular share so many visual motifs isn’t too much of a surprise considering many post-cyberpunk-y artists like infukun, Skade, and Umineko have done designs for both.

A few of the distinct themes:

Character designs matter/K.R.E.A.M. (Kawaii Rules Everything Around Me)

There were a few predecessors to the post-cyberpunk style in gaming. 00s-early 10s games like Blacklight Retribution, E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy, and Vanquish integrated the dense urban landscapes, hackers, and neon. When you looked at the character designs, however, by and large they were conservative. Faceless cybernetic warriors in powered armor mowing down equally asexual cyber baddies.

Post-cyberpunk style, however, isn’t nearly so sober. In fact it has no problem mixing its drinks and dancing drunkenly on top of the counter demanding “DJ, hit that shit one more time” even though there is no DJ present tonight. The booze it mixes is futurism and kawaii.

A lot of this has to do with -- in a very cyberpunk turn -- changing business models. Gacha games like Arknights and Girls Frontline are free to download and make their money off in-game purchases. By and large these purchases are of in-game currency to roll the dice on obtaining new characters and/or new skins for those characters. If you’re going to be depending on getting people to shell out to roll for those, you’ll want to be going to market with characters like Siege, SliverAsh, and DSR.

A whole other, much longer piece could be written on the introduction of post-00s, post-cis-hetero-male-exclusive notions of sex appeal as a key marketing factor for Western games, but I’ll leave it there for now.

Clean lines, big fonts

Arknights in particular is in love with its fonts. The world of Arknights is filled with extra-governmental factions, and each of them have their own unique insignia and font, like Black Steel, Penguin Logistics, and the protagonist organization with the absolutely Based name of Rhodes Island. A lot of these could pass as the names and logos for underground you-probably-haven’t-heard-of-them Asian streetwear labels (more on that below).

And while classic cyberpunk is all about the grime that encrusts the cityscape and its characters (“High technology, low life”), post-cyberpunk tends to contrast the grime and decay of areas on the periphery, where most of the conflict takes place, with clean evocative urban centers its characters can stylishly lounge in. This seems like a reflection of the fact that both Arknights and Girls Frontline are made in China, a country that’s marked in the 21st century by stark contrast between hyper affluent urban centers and barren, rapidly depopulating countryside just outside the economic reach of the metropol.

Streetwear/Techwear

Technical fabrics, form-fitting sweats with cuffed ankles, dark, baggy military-esque parkas and jackets, sneaker/boot hybrids, long-sleeve shirts with large vertical text on the sleeves in sans serif fonts.

A lot of classic cyberpunk fashion either pulls from the black leather and ratty trenchcoats of late 20th century punk/alternative counterculture (Johnny Mnemonic, Shadowrun, GUNHED) or a direct callback to film noir and the 1930s “Golden Age of Sartorial Style” -- tweedy suits and skirt suits with massive structured shoulders, repp ties, heels, and bouffants. (“Memories… you’re talking about memories!”)

Many of the characters of Arknights and Girls Frontline owe much more to streetwear labels like Nike ACG, Acronym, and Virgil Abloh’s riot-inducing Off-White. They may be elite mercenaries or paramilitaries within the lore of their games, but stylistically many of them look ready to pose for a street photo in Shanghai, Tokyo or [Your City Here]’s Fashion Week.

(Techwear might arguably be already dead as of 2020, but it’s alive and well as a design hallmark in Girls Frontline and Arknights. This is a little ironic considering techwear took direct influence from cyberpunk, but futurism is nothing if not recursive.)