The Red Strings Club launch trailer teases cyberpunk bartending and futuristic phone calls

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The Red Strings Club, a "cyberpunk narrative experience" about fate, happiness, pottery, and tending bar, is now live on Steam. That makes this a fine time to dive into the launch trailer to see what it's all about.

In reality, though, the trailer doesn't tell us much of anything, except that this game is obviously cyberpunk as hell: I half expected Keanu Reeves to show up at some point with a RAM doubler and a nosebleed. Fortunately, the video description is a little more explicit:

"The professed altruistic corporation Supercontinent Ltd is on the verge of releasing Social Psyche Welfare: a system that will eliminate depression, anger and fear from society. However, the bartender of a clandestine club and a freelance hacker don't regard this evolution as an improvement but as brainwashing. Alongside unwitting company employees and a rogue empathy android, the duo will pull all the strings they can to bring down this scheme."

I take it for granted that the bartender and the hacker are the game's "good guys," but I'm not convinced that they're in any better position to decide what's best for humanity than a globe-spanning mega-corp. Certainly corporations are machines of avarice and ambition, but if a greater good emerges from its intrigues—even as a side effect—then is it really a moral act to reject it? What gives any individual, be it a CEO or a suds-slinger, the right to determine or disrupt humanity's direction forward?

Ah, cyberpunk. So many questions, so few answers, such great music. We've got a review of The Red Strings Club right here.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.