The chip and the false sense of urgency ruins the whole open world setting, cause who would do side missions and gigs when they know that they have a ticking time bomb in their head.
"Soulkiller is a Black Program written by Alt Cunningham, later stolen by Arasaka. "
cyberpunk.fandom.com
The relic is just a way to store the program into a chip, they tried to revive people with soulkiller, tested it on flatlined people, people about to flatline etc, never worked.
The relic has the same "program" why would it not? I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Soulkiller
Soulkiller is a Black Program written by Alt Cunningham, later stolen by Arasaka. Alt originally designed Soulkiller while working at ITS as a way of preserving the consciousness and memories of dying individuals. She was later kidnapped by Arasaka who planned to use the program for offensive...
cyberpunk.fandom.com
The relic has the same "program" why would it not? I don't understand what you're trying to say.
"Soulkiller is a Black Program written by Alt Cunningham, later stolen by Arasaka. "
Soulkiller
Soulkiller is a Black Program written by Alt Cunningham, later stolen by Arasaka. Alt originally designed Soulkiller while working at ITS as a way of preserving the consciousness and memories of dying individuals. She was later kidnapped by Arasaka who planned to use the program for offensive...
I don't know how else to explain this but you're really confusing two different things. Soulkiller is a program, yes. Designed by Alt and iterated on by Arasaka, yes.
The Relic, the physical biochip that is designed for mass-market consumption, is NOT designed by Alt. It was created and announced by Arasaka in 2077. She has no idea how the relic functions beyond that fact that it's a vessel for Soulkiller engrams.
The chip's complexity isn't to be understated, though. It's complex enough as a technology where Yorinobu threatening to sell it to Western corporations is enough to make Saburo get mad.
The story is for a linear game. There is a huge disconnect between the gameplay design team and the writing team, since both sides want to tell 2 completely different stories. There's even missions in this game that automatically disappear/fail if you dawdle about for too long. But the biochip, nah, I'll just sit outside this shop and pass time in the weeks until I get the right clothes to spawn.
Last edited:
They could have pulled it off pretty easy if they would have incorporated The Countdown and the pills. Say some choices in sidequests would increase the Countdown % and others would decrease it. So you would have to choose carefully. And by the end, depending on % of the Countdown tarot card, it would alternate if either V lives, lives with 6 months set timer or die. Other simple solution would have been pills or some tech that slows it down and some gigs and sidequests would give you them with correct decisions.
I think I would have much preferred the ending if it had went something like this:
- you choose the Arasaka option
- the doctors tell you that that they successfully removed the chip
- you are fully cured
- you can now return back to earth
- credits roll
- Judy comes out and tells you "it was a prank bro, you only got 6 months to live"
- end
Relic 1.0 was for mass-market, 2.0 was for Arasaka employees only and never supposed to be sold, but never worked, Hellman explains this.
I would assume the same code from Alt's project (soulkiller), somewhat resembles what is in the relic 2.0, afterall, soulkiller is used to imprison people in an AI prison (like Mikoshi), which can then transfered onto a chip and into someone's head.
So the chip and soulkiller can be interlinked quite easily..
we are lucky they didnt get ideas form you lolI finished the game a couple of days ago, got the Nomad ending and then checked the other outcomes, thinking there may have been other more interesting conclusions. Sadly, that's not the case. It's disappointing that you go through the story and, in the end, you accomplish nothing except perhaps separating yourself from Johnny.
In many ways, I am bothered by the fact that every ending is tainted by V's death (or the threat of imminent death she/he can supposedly do nothing about), but what's even more frustrating is that this resolution cuts *our* experience of Night City painfully short without a clear way out via DLC or any additional side content. Instead of having the chance to immerse ourselves in V's life in NC, we are thrust directly into action with a confusing double inciting incident:
* First during the lifepath story, i.e. my corpo V losing her job
* Then the heist and getting stuck with the biochip
So much happens in these first moments, but most of it just feels like "stuff you need to go through before the actual game starts". And yes, that's exactly what it is. Our time in NC proper is what happens after V wakes up in the dumpster. Then, the pace of the story is fully based on us finding a solution to the biochip problem ASAP, so the game absolutely rushes to kick us out of Night City again, whether by killing V or by making her/him leave the place for good (and then die in some unknown location). It's so deeply disappointing we get so little of NC because the plot is such.
Also, CDPR may have designed V thinking she/he was a faceless, expendable one-off protagonist, so they wanted to make sure there is no way for her/him to come back. But I feel they have accidentally created a character that in her/his facelessness is just whatever we interpret them to be, making them that much more important to the player. I haven't felt such attachment to a fictional character in a long time, and it may just be because V is a bit of a loser, someone in their mid/late 20s, without any significant accomplishments, kind of lost, trying to make something of her/himself, not really getting what life is about and making a ton of mistakes while attempting to figure that out. Metaphorically speaking, this sounds like a lot of us on the other side of the screen. So we care about V and we want her/him to succeed *badly*. We go through the story with the same desperation and fear she/he feels. In some way, it's a personal tragedy when V fails no matter what decisions we have made throughout the game. And I get that the message can be "you just can't win no matter how hard you try", but that's a message that I don't personally find fitting in this context. There are some fantastic stories out there where the main character gets an absolute beating i.e. Orwell's "1984", but that requires a proper setup and reasoning if the point is to achieve more than just make the audience depressed. Unfortunately, V doesn't fail for any good reason other than misery porn similar to what we have seen in TLOU2 which turned into a complete over the top joke in the whole California bit. Some writers mistake misery and shock for poignancy and realism, and I'm afraid that's what happened in most CP2077 endings. This is very much in line with the kind of stories we've been getting in films, games, shows and books for at least a decade. It reflects our pessimism as a society when we create and binge on these hopeless, grim stories. I've seen this play out so many times, I literally have no more patience for it when it just seems to be done for the sake of making people feel crap. It's such a counterproductive message to us as human beings, and it tries to disguise itself as something "deep" when it really, really isn't.
Unless I missed something, there's no good reason why V's engram has to be rejected by their body after returning from cyberspace, especially that we had obtained the actual schematics for Johnny's engram from that scientist guy. It's not addressed why we couldn't manufacture V's engram that overwrites her/his old body (or even a completely new, unrelated one, like Johnny+V) in order to settle in. Going back into V's body as a copy is an interesting premise in itself, but it's completely overshadowed by the pointless late-game shock reveal of an imminent death in 6 months for reasons that make no sense. It would be so interesting if V came back as an engram, and we would be there to experience a proper epilogue addressing the question: is V's copy really her/him or not? We could see and experience or even decide if V has changed having undergone this "conversion". This could bring us back to Night City so V can complete her/his journey of self-discovery.
The Nomad ending is the least soul crushing one, but it still makes little sense. I get that V would want out of NC (after all, this arc is about finding friends and choosing them over the shallow excitement and chaos of city life), but it's presented in a way that does not stand up to scrutiny. V is a fighter, we know that, so why are they not going nuts again about their health situation like they did earlier? Like we, as players, clearly are? It also makes you feel horrible for involving Judy (or other characters) in the whole thing if you're just going to wither away and die (I've lost a relative to cancer, and it was traumatic to me to watch it happen) in some unspecified location. Why is she so happy in the credits if is V is dying? Being scared for your loved one's/ partner's health is extremely distressing, and even if you want to give them the best few months before they go, I can barely imagine how it feels to have to lose them at such a young age. This leaves very real psychological scars (it's called widowhood effect, and it's very well documented), and chances are you would have been better off if they hadn't met you in the first place to experience all this pain. This ending is just so dissonant with its own implications, it hurts. And if V does find a solution to this health issue, why not say that out right, even if it's just plaster over the cracks since the whole dying thing makes little sense. It's just baffling and unsatisfying.
I love this game and its character cast to bits, but unless additional story/side content gets released that clarifies the endings, I really see no reason to ever progress past the "point of no return" ever again. If it's the journey that matters, our journey in Night City is currently cut awfully short. My best hope is that an expansion adds a large plot line that will open up one more extra ending that will be thought-provoking and respectful of the player's choices throughout the game. And that it will ultimately deal with the cheap sense of futility we get from the existing endings.
Besides, I really want V & co back for more adventures. Otherwise what's the point of making all of them so excellent?!
Sorry for the rant, had to let it out finally!
In many ways, I am bothered by the fact that every ending is tainted by V's death (or the threat of imminent death she/he can supposedly do nothing about), but what's even more frustrating is that this resolution cuts *our* experience of Night City painfully short without a clear way out via DLC or any additional side content. Instead of having the chance to immerse ourselves in V's life in NC, we are thrust directly into action with a confusing double inciting incident:
* First during the lifepath story, i.e. my corpo V losing her job
* Then the heist and getting stuck with the biochip
So much happens in these first moments, but most of it just feels like "stuff you need to go through before the actual game starts". And yes, that's exactly what it is. Our time in NC proper is what happens after V wakes up in the dumpster. Then, the pace of the story is fully based on us finding a solution to the biochip problem ASAP, so the game absolutely rushes to kick us out of Night City again, whether by killing V or by making her/him leave the place for good (and then die in some unknown location). It's so deeply disappointing we get so little of NC because the plot is such.
Also, CDPR may have designed V thinking she/he was a faceless, expendable one-off protagonist, so they wanted to make sure there is no way for her/him to come back. But I feel they have accidentally created a character that in her/his facelessness is just whatever we interpret them to be, making them that much more important to the player. I haven't felt such attachment to a fictional character in a long time, and it may just be because V is a bit of a loser, someone in their mid/late 20s, without any significant accomplishments, kind of lost, trying to make something of her/himself, not really getting what life is about and making a ton of mistakes while attempting to figure that out. Metaphorically speaking, this sounds like a lot of us on the other side of the screen. So we care about V and we want her/him to succeed *badly*. We go through the story with the same desperation and fear she/he feels. In some way, it's a personal tragedy when V fails no matter what decisions we have made throughout the game. And I get that the message can be "you just can't win no matter how hard you try", but that's a message that I don't personally find fitting in this context. There are some fantastic stories out there where the main character gets an absolute beating i.e. Orwell's "1984", but that requires a proper setup and reasoning if the point is to achieve more than just make the audience depressed. Unfortunately, V doesn't fail for any good reason other than misery porn similar to what we have seen in TLOU2 which turned into a complete over the top joke in the whole California bit. Some writers mistake misery and shock for poignancy and realism, and I'm afraid that's what happened in most CP2077 endings. This is very much in line with the kind of stories we've been getting in films, games, shows and books for at least a decade. It reflects our pessimism as a society when we create and binge on these hopeless, grim stories. I've seen this play out so many times, I literally have no more patience for it when it just seems to be done for the sake of making people feel crap. It's such a counterproductive message to us as human beings, and it tries to disguise itself as something "deep" when it really, really isn't.
Unless I missed something, there's no good reason why V's engram has to be rejected by their body after returning from cyberspace, especially that we had obtained the actual schematics for Johnny's engram from that scientist guy. It's not addressed why we couldn't manufacture V's engram that overwrites her/his old body (or even a completely new, unrelated one, like Johnny+V) in order to settle in. Going back into V's body as a copy is an interesting premise in itself, but it's completely overshadowed by the pointless late-game shock reveal of an imminent death in 6 months for reasons that make no sense. It would be so interesting if V came back as an engram, and we would be there to experience a proper epilogue addressing the question: is V's copy really her/him or not? We could see and experience or even decide if V has changed having undergone this "conversion". This could bring us back to Night City so V can complete her/his journey of self-discovery.
The Nomad ending is the least soul crushing one, but it still makes little sense. I get that V would want out of NC (after all, this arc is about finding friends and choosing them over the shallow excitement and chaos of city life), but it's presented in a way that does not stand up to scrutiny. V is a fighter, we know that, so why are they not going nuts again about their health situation like they did earlier? Like we, as players, clearly are? It also makes you feel horrible for involving Judy (or other characters) in the whole thing if you're just going to wither away and die (I've lost a relative to cancer, and it was traumatic to me to watch it happen) in some unspecified location. Why is she so happy in the credits if is V is dying? Being scared for your loved one's/ partner's health is extremely distressing, and even if you want to give them the best few months before they go, I can barely imagine how it feels to have to lose them at such a young age. This leaves very real psychological scars (it's called widowhood effect, and it's very well documented), and chances are you would have been better off if they hadn't met you in the first place to experience all this pain. This ending is just so dissonant with its own implications, it hurts. And if V does find a solution to this health issue, why not say that out right, even if it's just plaster over the cracks since the whole dying thing makes little sense. It's just baffling and unsatisfying.
I love this game and its character cast to bits, but unless additional story/side content gets released that clarifies the endings, I really see no reason to ever progress past the "point of no return" ever again. If it's the journey that matters, our journey in Night City is currently cut awfully short. My best hope is that an expansion adds a large plot line that will open up one more extra ending that will be thought-provoking and respectful of the player's choices throughout the game. And that it will ultimately deal with the cheap sense of futility we get from the existing endings.
Besides, I really want V & co back for more adventures. Otherwise what's the point of making all of them so excellent?!
Sorry for the rant, had to let it out finally!
I don't think the damage is so heavy. Hanako would not make Vi ridiculous offer of a job in Arasaka for last 6 months if she knew Vi can't do the job. Maybe she\he can't assemble that cube but it's not disabled.
Of course, it is very frustrating, but Johnny as we could see was still Johnny becoming an Engram. Therefore, Vi won't change a lot.
Im quite disappointed with endings as well. But isn't in 2nd ending (All Along the Watchtower) its hinted that V and friends will try and look for fix for V's problem? Maybe its sorta tying us to upcoming DLCs that will be about finding that fix?
Dunno about other endings though.
Dunno about other endings though.
I don't know if people understand this but V definitely died when they got shot by Dex. The relic 'rebooting' our body is via nanites, which explains the span of several hours it took for us to wake up. This caused irreparable damage to our neural network, and was already in the process of converting our brain. From this point in the story to the end, you are on borrowed time. Use it wisely.
V is an echo to Johnny. Not exactly the same perhaps, but similar in their life-paths, start from nothing, becoming infamous, and dying as a result of their actions. Unlike Johnny we have the ability to see that all our family, friends, or even enemies are dealt with before we go. We even get to help him out with the few people that are still around (except Henry, ditched that guy in every play-through thus far). Each ending is to see how your V sees to their loose ends. Not to somehow overcome the inevitable. Will you die a scoundrel who pushes everyone away? Will you become known for your kindness around Night City? Are you a cassanova who tried to romance every character? Up to you. The end is just the closing of a book, it does not define its contents.
Though obviously a future DLC could add an additional ending, or additional story content beyond particular ending routes.
V is an echo to Johnny. Not exactly the same perhaps, but similar in their life-paths, start from nothing, becoming infamous, and dying as a result of their actions. Unlike Johnny we have the ability to see that all our family, friends, or even enemies are dealt with before we go. We even get to help him out with the few people that are still around (except Henry, ditched that guy in every play-through thus far). Each ending is to see how your V sees to their loose ends. Not to somehow overcome the inevitable. Will you die a scoundrel who pushes everyone away? Will you become known for your kindness around Night City? Are you a cassanova who tried to romance every character? Up to you. The end is just the closing of a book, it does not define its contents.
Though obviously a future DLC could add an additional ending, or additional story content beyond particular ending routes.
Than you. I hope cdpr will re
Thank you for this, I fell apsolutely the same way. I just hope Cdpr will look and see honest and long rants like yours. I hope they will do somethnig about it. +1 from me
Hm, the same people who:
Did every side quest and ran around Athkatla even if their pockets were full and Imoen was abducted by an evil sorcerer who wanted our soul
Did run around in Orlais and Ferelden as an evil Sorcerer wanted to turn the entire world into a demonic hellhole
Did sign up for every monster hunt quest for a couple of Orens while their beloved adopted daughter was quite obviously in deep shit and danger
Did every Daedric Quest instead of doing something about the evil dragon god from ancient past trying to destroy the world
Bascially, there is always this disconnect between the game and story to tell. The Dragon Age Archdemon is kind enough not to attack Denerim until we are ready and finished everything up, Merhunes Dagon opens up lots of portals but no matter how long we roam through Cyrodill he won't invade for real etc
And on and on. I ma so used to this by now I that I do not even hold it against Cyperpunk. Better than having a real timer ... and games having time limits are about the worst to have...
Nanites are programmed to work in a certain way, surely they can be reprogrammed (especially by a super powerful AI) to do whatever is needed to do.
If the nanites managed to rewire your brain then why can't they re-rewire your brain if they're programmed to do otherwise?
So much theorycrafting about making V survive. Like I, personally, don't understand why he has to survive. Endings bring a very powerful message, especially if you do suicide or do corpo slave route or allow Johnny to take over. The dialogs, the messages, the music. It is a very strong message. Yet here we are demanding some "better" ending.
As far we can surmise - V was not meant to stay alive. As is original V, not engram.
But if we so choose to let engram continue to live, instead of Johnny, we are supposed to check couple endings to get more info of why Vs engram can't live in his original body. To answer that question, first we have to understand how soulkiller works and what engram is.
Checking wiki: https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Soulkiller
Soulkiller virus is a program capable of creating a digital emulation or copy of a netrunner's mind, utilizing an advanced matrix recorder storing it in a huge database
So basically a kind of a "copy" of what you were at some point of time.
Meaning that engram is a "copy" of who you where, no you. Meaning that Saburo left copies of himself in each Arasaka tower over the world just in case and at some point will be updating each of them up to date(We can think of this because of Arasaka ending)
Now, onto why "immortality" is kinda possible:
Once again, we read wiki:
cyberpunk.fandom.com
And this gives us even newer piece of info - engram without relic should not even be self-aware. This raises a shit ton of questions I don't have any answers. Especially how Alt Cunningham is alive AI that has huge computing power and wants to expand it even more by assimilating even more engrams. Probably because some things behind that "Black wall" are giving her a hard time. But not the point of relevance here.
But back to topic, only version 2 of relic, one V got in himself, allows to "reincarnate". To a player it might seem like it is straight up reincarnation or plain moving from one body to another. But it is not, why? Because unlike "Cortial Stack" from "Altered Carbon" that allows to move you from one body to any other, Soulkiller or engram with relic v2 does not do it. Meaning that if you, or in our case V, dies, that engram that becomes self-aware - who the fuck is that? Like seriously? I don't have an answer.
Why V can't go back to his body if we wipe Johnny's engram from him? Because his engram is a copy of V after it was altered by Johnny. So well, even a copy of V is still affected by what Johnny was. If we listen to their dialogs, especially in Arasaka or Panams endings, we will get to know that, firstly Relic does reconfiguration of Vs body. Meaning that it adjusts host body to engram on chip. Why this happened? Because gonk's body got a bullet in there and died with chip inside, so chip still having some power in it went to work. Being experimental and not fully working thing all of this is unexpected to even the author of this Relic. This leads us to a valid thought that if Hellman or anyone else creates another copy of this same Relic and fills it with Vs engram, then we take some recently dead body and damage brain(while planting chip before) or maybe just take dead body and that would be enough. This will solve our ending problem.
Real question is, is it worth it?
As far we can surmise - V was not meant to stay alive. As is original V, not engram.
But if we so choose to let engram continue to live, instead of Johnny, we are supposed to check couple endings to get more info of why Vs engram can't live in his original body. To answer that question, first we have to understand how soulkiller works and what engram is.
Checking wiki: https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Soulkiller
Soulkiller virus is a program capable of creating a digital emulation or copy of a netrunner's mind, utilizing an advanced matrix recorder storing it in a huge database
So basically a kind of a "copy" of what you were at some point of time.
Meaning that engram is a "copy" of who you where, no you. Meaning that Saburo left copies of himself in each Arasaka tower over the world just in case and at some point will be updating each of them up to date(We can think of this because of Arasaka ending)
Now, onto why "immortality" is kinda possible:
Once again, we read wiki:
Relic
The Relic is a series of Arasaka biochips allowing the storage and manifested reading of digitized human psyches known as engrams. At least two separate versions of the biochip prototype were developed by 2077, according to the summarized internal report assembled by the former director of the...
cyberpunk.fandom.com
And this gives us even newer piece of info - engram without relic should not even be self-aware. This raises a shit ton of questions I don't have any answers. Especially how Alt Cunningham is alive AI that has huge computing power and wants to expand it even more by assimilating even more engrams. Probably because some things behind that "Black wall" are giving her a hard time. But not the point of relevance here.
But back to topic, only version 2 of relic, one V got in himself, allows to "reincarnate". To a player it might seem like it is straight up reincarnation or plain moving from one body to another. But it is not, why? Because unlike "Cortial Stack" from "Altered Carbon" that allows to move you from one body to any other, Soulkiller or engram with relic v2 does not do it. Meaning that if you, or in our case V, dies, that engram that becomes self-aware - who the fuck is that? Like seriously? I don't have an answer.
Why V can't go back to his body if we wipe Johnny's engram from him? Because his engram is a copy of V after it was altered by Johnny. So well, even a copy of V is still affected by what Johnny was. If we listen to their dialogs, especially in Arasaka or Panams endings, we will get to know that, firstly Relic does reconfiguration of Vs body. Meaning that it adjusts host body to engram on chip. Why this happened? Because gonk's body got a bullet in there and died with chip inside, so chip still having some power in it went to work. Being experimental and not fully working thing all of this is unexpected to even the author of this Relic. This leads us to a valid thought that if Hellman or anyone else creates another copy of this same Relic and fills it with Vs engram, then we take some recently dead body and damage brain(while planting chip before) or maybe just take dead body and that would be enough. This will solve our ending problem.
Real question is, is it worth it?
Last edited: