CD Projekt Red decided that Kurt Hansen, the Barghest commander and lord of Dogtown, should get a little tweet for his birthday. The replies are a strange mixture of love, hate, and very contradictory. The official Cyberpunk Game Twitter celebrated it with a cake image simply saying, “One cake, ready for airdrop. Happy birthday to Barghest commander and lord of Dogtown, Kurt Hansen.” But, of course, players HAD to jump in with quite strong opinions on whether this guy even WANTED to be recognized.
Since its inception, it had always been a very split base. One user, alastor, noted without any hesitation, “Nobody likes him.” Ouch. For every person who would say that, there came another proclaiming, under the name of “Kurt Hansen’s lawyer,” “YEEEEEES FINALLY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR BALD BABYGIRL.” So it’s really about even. It’s rather amusing how strongly a fictional character can elicit emotions from real people.
Most of the debate wasn’t even around the birthday. It’s really one of the biggest what-ifs of the Phantom Liberty narrative. Several players, like Sample2501, had made statements, including, “I’m still a bit sad you couldn’t side with him against the NUSA and Songbird.” That one was reinforced numerous times as well. User kvngcookeiz responded to someone with “I would have rather side with him than NUSA.” It’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? There’s this mean warlord running a lawless district whom many players would sooner side with than with any official government force or even a supposedly sympathetic Songbird. Kind of brings you to ponder on the moral gray area of Night City.
But not everyone would go for that. Very hard, user art_jaguar stated it would not actually make any sense for V the protagonist to side with Hansen. To paraphrase, “I met the leader of a military coup who seized a section of the city who kept it largely as a slum… I didn’t think personally that was someone who could further my goals in any capacity.” Which is basically a straight-up answer, honestly. Why would V, a merc trying to survive in the city, trust someone like that? This gives us a great insight how well the dilemmas in the expansion were written.
There were of course also those that simply liked him as a compelling antagonist. User Lekill3rFou said, “Not sure the dude really deserve an happy birthday…But hey still an interesting character.” QuentinDeleon6 affirmed that “I hate the guy but gotta admit he knows how to throw a party.” So even his enemies respected that character. Fighting him was apparently among the best experiences in the game: FelipeMartinnes: “There fighting was so much fun.”
Then, in the middle of all the somber story talk, classic random Twitter moments kicked in: Josef was excited to share a birthday with him; EvelynLeeloo was lost, asking, “What is 2.31a?” which is totally unrelated but hey, that is Twitter. And, of course, there was the obligatory person, InfinityGlock, wishing Johnny Silverhand a happy birthday instead. Wrong iconic Cyberpunk character, choom!
Gleaning from there, pfuryexe would like to see an arena for endgame challenges, with FreestyleEngr chiming in about “No Mans Sky style updates” where new items drop monthly to keep everybody buzzing. It’s really cool to see that even at a birthday discussion, the community is genuinely passionate about the game’s future.
So what else can be said for this bottle message? Undeniably, Hansen is quite a memorable figure. CDPR definitely can be proud of a character that sparks mini serious disputes in their world. Then again, players discussing moral dilemmas, missed opportunities, and stuff have been around for months after the expansion’s release, even without these actor-driven controversies. The tweet was this goofy little side-goof, but it really opened a full conversation on moral choice, means of villainy, and good narrative in Cyberpunk 2077. That little birthday thing wasn’t just a birthday thing-a little accounted moment connecting players to the Phantom Liberty world. So that’s quite insane, even though the next-door-town scumbag roomie of that world is not something anyone would celebrate. Pardon me for that. Happy birthday, Kurt. I hope the cake was worth it.
