A New Cyberpunk 2077 Judy Alvarez Mod Makes Her Bisexual – Here’s Why That’s Dangerous

As far as we’re concerned, straight people are always on thin ice when it comes to LGBT+ issues. Sure, we’ve got some upstanding allies around the globe and in our friend groups, but we’ve also all uttered a quiet ‘ugh, straight people’ under our breaths at least once. Well, you’ll be saying it again once you’ve heard about the new Judy Alvarez Cyberpunk 2077 mod that’s been going around, via social media.

Ever since the game released last year, people have been looking for ways to bypass the restrictions on romance options. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, we can still recall – with a shudder – that Dragon Age: Inquisition’s has its very own Straight Dorian and Straight Sera mods, despite the two characters being adamant that they’re gay. Like we said, straight people are sort of the worst.

Things have pretty much progressed in the same way with Cyberpunk 2077, with a Cyberpunk 2077 mod / hack that makes a male/female V able to form a romantic relationship with gay characters, like Judy and Kerry. We won’t be sharing how to do it because, frankly, mods like this are dangerous by design, but if you’re curious we’re certain you’ll find stuff on YouTube.

What makes these mods so volatile is that it’s already made gamers speculate about cut content and whether Judy and Kerry were meant to be bisexual in the first place. Now obviously there’s nothing wrong with Judy or Kerry being bisexual – but when you’ve got obviously coded romance options – Judy shoots Male V down several times, she does not do this for Female V – then it’s clear that Judy was designed to be a lesbian character. Changing that is just a big no from us.

And, as CD Projekt Red has already confirmed, Judy having lines for Male V does not equal cut-content. It just merely shows that voice actors have to do almost every line to cover all bases. It’s just another part of game development, folks.

Without putting too fine a point on it, we’ve already talked about how these mods can be absolutely detrimental to how the LGBT+ community is perceived. For one it forms the thinking of ‘queer people can be changed to fit the heterosexual mould’ at just a switch of a button, which is the thinking that leads to conversion therapy. And two? It conveys that lesbian and gay folk just haven’t found the right guy or girl to truly complete them and make them happy. Both of these thoughts are just pure, spiteful bullshit no matter how you look at it.

“But Gayming Magazine,” we hear you cry, “what about the mods that make Panam and River bisexual?” Well, first off we’d argue that Panam and River are already bisexual with their preference being the body type rather than the ‘flexible (aka, pretty offensive) gender’ thing related to voice type that Cyberpunk 2077 has going on. Let’s say that wasn’t the case though. It’s still different because there has been a lifetime of straight romance options in video games. There is always going to be. Making Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins bisexual isn’t going to rob you of your heaping mass of representation, but making Judy Alvarez bisexual in a pool of what, 3 lesbian characters in video games? Yeah, that’s going to sting for a lot of people.

So, straight people, modders that make queer characters straight, do us a favour yeah? Stop. You’re embarrassing.

About The Author

Aimee Hart

[She/They] Aimee Hart specializes in queer fandom, video games and tabletop, having started her career writing for numerous websites like The Verge, Polygon, Input Magazine and more. Her goal now is to boost LGBTQ+ voices in the video games industry.

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