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.