Ever since the 1998 release of the Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook Firestorm II: Shockwave, fans of the game had been waiting for a third edition of the Cyberpunk game, known as Cyberpunk V3.0 (or Cyberpunk 203X). Over the years, the entire project had at times been discounted as vaporware, its delays due to other projects and Pondsmith's involvement in the development of The Matrix Online.
The game was released first in PDF form on December 17, 2005 and as a conventional book on January 15, 2006.
The setting has been heavily updated from its last event book series, Firestorm, which covered the opening of the Fourth Corporate War. The aftermath of the Fourth Corporate War has resulted in widespread corruption of the Net and major losses of hardcopied data, to the point that all data is intangible and recent recorded history is in doubt. An example that pops up in Pondsmith's demos at conventions, releases on the Internet, and in the finished game is that history has become so corrupted that many people in the world now believe Richard Nixon, instead of resigning over Watergate, committed suicide on camera and that memes such as the moon landing being hoaxed become prevalent.
The war has also led to the collapse of nations, the world economy, and many of the staple megacorporations. This civil upheaval leads to the rise of the "altcults", alternative cultures similar in vein to the "phyles" from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. In fact, Cyberpunk V3.0 has more to do with the new postcyberpunk literary movement and transhumanism than with the Gibson-Sterling mirrorshades movement.
In addition to rules changes to the Fuzion system and background, Cyberpunk V3.0 also uses concepts taken from Pondsmith's experience at Microsoft with computer and video games as well as corporate culture, such as a simpler character generation system using templates, web-based active content URL links for updates, and making groups, organizations, and corporations their own "characters".
Supplement and sourcebook[]
- BEYOND THE EDGE: Inside the Edgerunner Altcult
- GangBook
- Flash Pak
- DataPack Utility