Idk why but the smashed mirror in Jensen’s apartment gets me every time. The whole apartment is just pure melancholy

[u/Lovecraftian666]

[u/r3vange]

Lore reason: Adam hates what he has become, he can’t get used to way he look

Real reason: The engine can’t handle mirrors with reasonable performance penalty…

[u/Comrade_Compadre → u/r3vange]

The OG handled mirrors by making them a window to the entire game rendered on a flipped axis

[u/r3vange → u/Comrade_Compadre]

Yeah that’s how they used to do it, but form say 2004ish to about 2015ish very few games had actual functioning mirrors.

[u/wayforyou → u/r3vange]

I remember playing Duke Nukem as a kid and only much later in life did I find out that the "mirrors" in the game weren't actually mirrors but seperate rooms where there was an NPC copy of you that imitated your movements.

[u/Shin-Tristan → u/wayforyou]

Even the AIs in 2026 can’t handle mirror properly and still have to use the window method lol

[u/Thutex → u/wayforyou]

oof, i can promise you that i found out after you.... seeing as i never thought about it and your comment just made me think about it 👀

[u/Aggravating-Ear-7529 → u/r3vange]

2020, even. Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t have functional mirrors, you have to activate it to see yourself and it’s a menu. 

[u/acdcfanbill → u/Comrade_Compadre]

Once engines started doing a bunch of post processing effects and screen space effects, this method produces results so poor that it's better to just not have mirrors :(

[u/Bubbly_Taro → u/r3vange]

When you want to clean the mirror, but accidentally fire the takedown module:

[u/BoffinBrain → u/r3vange]

I'm not sure about the performance penalty in this case, but it is sad to see developers shying away from this so often. I assume one of the reasons is that it requires them to implement a full set of 3rd-person animations to a game that is 90% FPS.

[u/MikolashOfAngren → u/r3vange]

How odd. The first game had perfectly functional mirrors. Although, I don't remember if enemies actually saw the reflection when I was sneaking around.

[u/Cobraman15 → u/MikolashOfAngren]

The mirrors in the original game were mirrored spawns iirc. So like you were looking at another npc of jc Denton just linked to your movements. With the complexity of the room organization architecture I think they just called a spade a spade and added it to lore reasons in hr avoiding the development headache.

Cyberpunk did something similar with Meredith stout where if she is killed then you can find her floating underwater in cinderblocks. They couldn’t get the physics of hair to work right under water so they just shaved her head and it became a rather effective element of the punishment she under went prior to being killed.

[u/Thedutchjelle → u/MikolashOfAngren]

The original also had very derpy animations for your character which may feel out of place in a more modern title.

[u/TheThirteenthApostle]

I love how if you read through the admin terminals and the janitors pocket secretary, and Adam's PC, the mirror has been available for pickup for weeks, but management keeps telling Adam its backordered.

[u/acdcfanbill → u/TheThirteenthApostle]

He kept breaking them if I remember right, so they're really saving him money and pain :P

[u/No_Nobody_32 → u/acdcfanbill]

There's a scene in one of the trailers where he looks at his reflection and smashes that mirror.

[u/Drive99]

A nice, simple example of environmental storytelling.

[u/definitely_not_tina → u/Drive99]

I could have sworn there was an intro sequence where he hits it

[u/Bubbly_Taro]

Another day waking up as a mechanical demigod with zero neuropozyne dependency 😩

[u/csaknorrisz → u/Bubbly_Taro]

I hate that they installed cutting edge future tech into me (and saved my life btw) from which I suffer zero negative effects

[u/TheUberMensch123 → u/csaknorrisz]

Well, it is heavily implied if not outright stated that Adam has no sensation of touch or feeling in his augments. A few concept art pieces also back that up.

It's pretty fucked up and I could see how it would cause a motherfucker to be depressed/isolated if he can't even have the sensation of touch anymore.

[u/MikolashOfAngren → u/TheUberMensch123]

IIRC DXHR said that he only sees his health bar if he's in pain. Since he always sees it in-game, it's safe to assume he's always in pain, ouch.

[u/StrangerDanger355 → u/MikolashOfAngren]

That’s actually pretty depressing…

I dunno if it’s any worse than Robocop.

[u/Much_Concentrate7780 → u/TheUberMensch123]

I think that's why the glass he's holding in the original trailer starts breaking. He can't actually feel it, and it's hard to judge the pressure he's applying to the glass

[u/Mantergeistmann → u/csaknorrisz]

Didn't they also remove some fully functional parts and install more than necessary?

[u/efeezyubeezy → u/Mantergeistmann]

yup! if u read the emails at the limb clinic theres one from the doc to sarif that explains it and also a medical report saying they only needed to replace arm and chest cavity but sarif decided to do his other limbs and more.

[u/Excellent_Ad_6941 → u/csaknorrisz]

Physical effects no, but I think MD showed there are definitely some drawbacks to augmentation

[u/Magical-Omni → u/csaknorrisz]

I never asked for this

[u/BelltowerApologist → u/csaknorrisz]

Medical reports state that Sarif had limbs which suffered no actual damage removed and replaced, which is pretty fucked up and I'd say kind of an egregious overstep and a tiny bit more than saving his life. Adam himself can find these documents in game.

Sarif didn't just give him life-saving augmentations. He turned him into his personal war machine.

[u/TAL_047]

What's worse is that the landlord is refusing to replace Adam's mirror, if you hack her computer at the lobby you can see that the building's condo company has already ordered the mirror, it's just waiting for a confirmation of the landlord

[u/ArmsKiller → u/TAL_047]

Would have been funny, if you could approve it and Adam's mirror miraculously was fixed.

[u/God_Faenrir → u/TAL_047]

He keeps smashing it.

[u/graph_worlok → u/God_Faenrir]

What is he, some sort of.. Adam.. Smasher?

[u/StrangerDanger355 → u/graph_worlok]

You think the boogeyman of Night City even cares for a mirror when all he cares about is destruction and killing?

[u/CorinthMaxwell → u/TAL_047]

In addition to apparently being anti-augmentation, the building's manager is quite bitter about being "politely" asked to rent more apartments in the Chiron Building to employees of Sarif Industries, which implies that she was also "politely" asked to kick some of her previous tenants out. Refusing to have Adam's mirror replaced is just her way of putting up as much "resistance" as she can.

[u/erov]

The music is melancholy too if I remember right

[u/shino1]

Funny to realize that this is probably because of technical reasons why it was hard to make a working mirror in this area, but they weaved it seamlessly into the storytelling.

[u/StrangerDanger355 → u/shino1]

Which is just genius and a very good way to show Adam’s inner turmoil and loathing

[u/big_floppy]

I wish they did more with the apartment

[u/Secret-Loss821]

The music here is really wonderful, does a great job of describing Adam's life as a whole after he got augmented

[u/l-i-g-m-a-t-a]

He didn’t ask for this

[u/whovianHomestuck]

https://youtu.be/whtNHRYJnrU?is=J0BDh982hPXtuggn

Relevant video

[u/magichour12 → u/whovianHomestuck]

Environmental storytelling hits different when you realize the broken mirror was probably just an engine limitation, but they made it mean something anyway. Fourteen years later and I'm still thinking about that apartment

[u/NonSupportiveCup]

Melancholy and Paint Wiz.

[u/Capable_Sandwich_422]

What would have been cool is that in the opener, after Adam is shot in the head, it flashes through all the memories and ends with him punching the mirror and screaming.

[u/sapphon]

It's also a great Doylist joke about the original: DE1 was one of the first mainstream 3D games to feature mirrors. (Confusingly, although much earlier, "Duke Nukem 3D" wasn't 3D =P) For a long time, because of the infinite recursion problem, they'd just be metallic-looking surfaces that reflected a static image. In DE1 you could see yourself in the mirror and at the time that was something big.

(Side note: I'm imagining Adam saying to himself, "Damn, I really didn't grasp that book I just read on paracetamol. Guess I'd better buy 2 more copies and study up!")

[u/Ragouzi]

I remember reading a detective novel (Olivier Norek, Surface) where a policewoman, (the main character) is disfigured (she gets shot in the face) and breaks a mirror. The writer writes (I quote) "The mirror ambushed her". The scene is incredible. When I read it, I told myself that Jensen must have had more or less the same nervous breakdown.

[u/Apprehensive-Ad2615]

i never asked for this per square meter

[u/Minute_Substance_798]

I kid you not this single detail woke my child brain to environmental storytelling and made me get into science fiction, changing my life's trajectory as I spent years studying it in uni. That game is fire

[u/boring-goldfish]

Not even an angry Kyle moment.

Adam just wasn't prepared for his first augmented sneeze and has been embarrassed about it ever since.

[u/GarbageBeneficial841]

Hakerate il PC del portinaio e vedete un bel retroscena sullo specchio xD

[u/Hefty-Pay7487]

piss filtered dystopian future

[u/Adam_Jensen_075]

It was a moment of weakness, that's all. Everything is alright now

[u/takufox]

Because he doesn’t recognize himself. He has no agency with how his body is used