At this point, it’s almost a cliche: I am playing Cyberpunk 2077 and I hate River Ward.
Everyone hates River Ward. Hating River Ward is a perennial topic on the Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit. Nathan Grayson hates River Ward. Luke Plunkett hates River Ward. This YouTuber hates River Ward. I knew it would never be easy for me to like a cop character, but given that I still enjoy procedurals like 9-1-1, I tried to go into meeting River Ward with an open mind.
But no. I hate this guy. And every time I am forced to hang out with him I get so mad about him being one of Cyberpunk’s romanceable options.
The reasons for hating River Ward are plentiful and also have been pontificated on by players ad nauseum. He’s a cop; he’s weirdly pushy with you; he is actually appealing to gay and bisexual men but he’s not into men and is kind of weird about it. My main thing is that in the mission where you’re introduced to Ward, he comes off as so virtuous, so determined to be the lone good cop in a bad system that he comes off as stupid. He learns that his detective mentor was involved in a cover up and is so offended that he goes to Internal Affairs with it, and it’s like dude, on average my character kills about thirteen people with a katana every time I leave my house. Do you know where you live?
Truly what infuriates me so much about River is that if you play as a female V in Cyberpunk 2077, you are surrounded by fuckable men, and the only one who wants anything to do with you is this gormless loser.
One of the first characters you meet in Cyberpunk is Goro Takemura, a corpo assassin for Arasaka, a corporation that serves as the big bad of the game. Goro is older, with grey hair flecked at his temples, his long hair pulled back into a loose bun. He has cyberware along the column of his neck, which you can always see because he unbuttons like the top three buttons of his crisp white shirt at all times. Both of you know that under normal circumstances, you’d be sworn enemies, but for the purposes of the game you have to work together. And you have chemistry—even a little flirtatious banter. But if you actually try to make this relationship romantic he rejects you, and it makes me want to scream.
There are a lot of characters that Cyberpunk 2077 players would rather date than River Ward. There’s sexy fanart of Takemura, or the old man sexy ripperdoc Victor Vektor, or, obviously, Johnny Silverhand, the character voiced by Keanu Reeves. This fandom truly does not exist for River Ward.
River Ward suffers from the same problem as the male romances in Hades 2. He doesn’t have any texture; he’s just into you and apparently that’s supposed to be good enough. I know that Cyberpunk is six years old at this point, but it does become all the more frustrating because we have never been in a better era for media that celebrates the desires of people who are attracted to men. If you look around at these pieces of media you’ll find that they have conflict.
Heated Rivalry is about a heated fucking rivalry. They don’t even like each other much when they start hooking up, but they’re attracted to each other and they want to get off, and learn along the way that they care about each other. In the world of hetero romance, you have books like Assistant to the Villain and The Irresistible Urge To Fall For Your Enemy, books that position conflict at the center of the story—in the case of The Irresistible Urge, it’s quite literally a selling point.
Cyberpunk does seem to understand the appeal of a slow burn or flirtatiousness. At a certain point in Judy’s quest, the female love interest available to female characters, she lets you crash at her place and in the morning leaves breakfast for you. All of a sudden, I had that creeping feeling of, oh my god, all that time I was hanging out with this cute girl we’ve actually been going on dates. If you stick around the apartment, Johnny Silverhand, the jester who lives in your head, will even note it to you. River’s storyline does not have any of this sweetness—just the assumption that you want to bone.
It comes off less like a fantasy for straight or bisexual women, and more like we are the object of River’s fantasy. Here comes V, a sexy merc, here to help River nab a serial killer, and isn’t it crazy that she’s into him too? The idea that V may have their own opinions about River doesn’t come up until River has already decided he’s in love with you. I’ve been that person before in real life, someone who other people project their desires upon. It’s not a fantasy of mine.
