Someone finally put the big question to Keanu Reeves, and wow did he have an answer. As part of the promotion around the release of The Matrix Awakens he and Carrie-Anne Moss spoke to the Verge on a range of topics and, at the end, talk turned to Cyberpunk 2077—specifically, the sex mods involving Keanu's character Johnny Silverhand, which developer CDPR does not like one bit.
Reeves says he hasn't yet tried out the game himself: "I've seen demonstrations but I've never played it." The Verge's Alex Heath then asks if Reeves was aware that players were modifying the game and his character was the most-requested sex mod.
"Yes! Oh my god: It's always nice when it's nice," says Reeves.
"I on the other hand say no thank you," interjects Moss, whose amused revulsion may be the real highlight here. "No thank you! Keanu's fine with it."
Keanu is not done with the VR sex thing.
"Think of how much money is in porn, right" says Reeves, as part of Carrie-Anne Moss's soul forever floats off into the ether. "So you could not even have to be there and people could have digital sex with your digital avatar... what's it called right now, For Members only? You could do a whole thing. Oh my god then you get the suit that's probably made in Sweden or some German thing, oh my god then you've got the VR thing. Then they've got the data on you with your arousal metrics..."
"Great," deadpans Moss.
"So then you're in the suit with arousal metrics through your Members Only Metaverse so then you're like take everything off and how do you feel about that relationship," Reeves concludes. "Then you hold that real thing and you're like oh man I'm so glad we have reality."
It's worth emphasising that the specific sex mod CDPR targeted was pretty rudimentary, and certainly a far cry from the sexual VR future Keanu is imagining. At the time CDPR told us that "Our most important rule regarding user-generated content, game mods in particular, is that it can’t be harmful towards others. In the case of model swaps, especially those that involve explicit situations, it can be perceived as such by the people who lent us their appearance for the purpose of creating characters in Cyberpunk 2077."
Well: Now we know what Keanu thinks about it. He's a pretty cool dude. I don't know whether he's completely up on how the internet uses certain words, but it's nice to think about.
