Pacifica in Cyberpunk 2077: The Abandoned Resort, the Voodoo Boys and Dogtown

What Pacifica is#

Pacifica is the district Night City built to be a vacation paradise and then gave up on. In 2077 it is a Combat Zone, a lawless area where gangs hold the territory and bullets fly without police or civilians in the way.

The in-game database calls it a microcosm of the city: it started with "⁠we're building a paradise⁠" and ended with "⁠dear God, what a nightmare.⁠" For the full map, see Night City districts.

Sub-districts#

Three of them.

• Coastview: A western sub-district of the original resort plan. The main gate into Dogtown is up here.
• West Wind Estate: The other western sub-district of the resort plan, now inside the Voodoo Boys' half of the district.
• Dogtown: Formerly Serenisands, the eastern section. A walled militia state added to the playable map by Phantom Liberty. See the Dogtown page.

How the resort died#

In the late 2050s and early 2060s investors, backed by the city council, tried to turn Pacifica into a luxury destination: hotels, casinos, spas, an amusement park and a stadium. Euro Business Machines, Petrochem and others put money in, and Militech put in the most. Hundreds of laborers, mostly from Haiti, built it.

Then an explosion under a construction site paused the project. Investigators found nothing. The truth was that Militech had built labs and bunkers under Pacifica in the 2020s. A wall went up around Serenisands, officially because of a gas leak, and construction restarted anyway.

The Unification War finished it. Investors fled in 2070, fearing a battlefield, and Pacifica was left a skeleton of concrete and steel.

Who runs it#

The Voodoo Boys are the netrunner gang that grew out of Pacifica's Haitian community. They protected a neighborhood the NCPD had abandoned, then took control of the west. A string of violent protests pushed an NCPD task force out in 2072, and on October 17 the local precinct was officially closed.

In the east, Colonel Kurt Hansen and BARGHEST took Serenisands and refused to leave when the war ended. See Kurt Hansen. Scavengers prey on whoever wanders in with chrome.

In 2020, RED and 2077#

Cyberpunk 2020 has Pacifica as a Night City section with Playland by the Sea, Coastview and the Pacifica Arcology. In Cyberpunk RED it is the Pacifica Playground, a rebuilding district with Militech as security. By 2077 the name is the same, but the paradise is gone.

In 2077 Mayor Lucius Rhyne re-designated Pacifica an independent district, dropping it from the city's administrative boundaries. That removed its crime from the stats, and Rhyne took credit for a 3% drop in Night City's crime rate. Kang Tao also showed interest in a server site there.

Landmarks#

EBM Petrochem Stadium is the big one, planned as the resort's centerpiece, and now the heart of Dogtown. Black Sapphire, an unfinished hotel tower in Golden Pacific, is the headquarters of BARGHEST.

In Cyberpunk RED the district had Playland by the Sea, Cubeland by the Sea and a Torta-sienda, along with gangs including 6th Street, the Voodoo Boys and the Piranhas. In Cyberpunk 2020 the Pacifica Arcology is the signature building.

Ambient details sell the decay: the security turrets are damaged all around the area, and ambient ads still play but skip or fade out from neglect.

Fixer's notes#

Where to go first: Dogtown, through Phantom Liberty, if you want to see what a dead resort looks like with people living in it.

What players miss: the contrast. Funhouse signs full of bullet holes, luxury pools full of chemical sludge. Our read: it is the most honest district in the game. Everything else pretends the city works.

Tabletop tip: Pacifica is a ready-made Combat Zone. No cops, two armed factions and a very good reason to be there.

Who knows who#