(Goes without saying, spoilers in this whole thread - and post
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Exactly this. Even during the ending you're like "I've got the biochip removed. Great!" and then suddenly it's thrust upon you "you're gonna die all of a sudden definitely in the next few months" and completely kills the possibility for any further continuation of V.
Everything I did and all I got was sadness from this game, and now I don't even wanna play it.
Can't help but agree with this. While it's of course just a game, I sometimes invest mildly into the plots and things that happen. In short, I immerse myself. The ending I picked gives V as engram in corporate control a future (for DLC or follow-up game?) but in essence you die.
I was heavily invested into the story up. Corpo V. Fall from grace. Damn. Can I ever make it back? And then Takemura comes up with this idea, his contacts. His old pal might even help! Oh no, the meeting goes sour, no help from him. And then the crazy plan begins to get in touch with the other Arasaka daughter. More stuff happens, it goes sour, on the run. Ups and downs, she gets in contact, we make a plan. In a personal dialogue V mentions the fall from grace and she says and implies it would be possible to get it all back!
What a huge motivation! And matter of factly I think it would not just be a simple motivational line for V to act in line, realistically, why NOT resort to such an asset like V in corporate or personal employ? Then we go to the tower, board meeting, crazy stuff happens, V overcomes but collapses, help is there ....
... only to wake up in space and feel a bit like in Portal (but with active testing and not being the last one). I have no clue what's going on, how it will end despite knowing the game will probably end soon. I'm curious to see, I long for closure. I do endless testing, to have a visitor eventually ... and he gives me the grim news I will die anyway?!
...
Wow. All for nothing. I can then decide to either go back to Earth and live the other 6 months to decay and succumb or upload V as engram, which I assume means death to the body (Soulkiller?) on the spot instead of being able to live on in the meat suit. Given what Alt said or hinted at but what V brushed aside in the Net scene and Alt encounter, you are gone anyway and the engram is something else.
Long story short, you die in any outcome I can imagine (not sure about the Nomad one).
I get it, the aim for a sad ending. An emotion. But is it that satisfying for the player, for every player, to have that thrown at them? I don't expect super happy endings or endings without struggle and maybe compromise. But this outcome, written forth in the story and unless retconned, means there will be no clear continuation to the next Cyberpunk game with the protagonist.
In my ending, maybe as engram and "new V", but it wouldn't be an "organic" (literally) continuation. I would've assumed they will go for something along the lines of the Witcher with "the same" protagonist throughout the series, but we'll have to see.
I personally would've longed for a less lethal ending where I get back to the roots and rejoin the corporation - even if I couldn't play the character under their employ in some sort of post-main quest open world play, it would've been a satisfying ending for me.
More than: "Die either way, could copy yourself tho, have fun!"