also a good guessI'm guessing Mr. Blue Eyes will turn out to be Richard Night and we'll find out he faked his death.
Just a random thought.
Yea more than half of those 20% are generic Arasaka ending, which is kinda depressing - both the endings and the fact those people didn't do more side content.also a good guess
p.s.
I just figured.
Only 20% on GOG and Steam did even finish the main story...
Only 6% did finish it with "The Sun" achievement, what i belive is the real one, because of the space mission
Definitely agree, joining the many feedbacks on the main topic about these endings.
However, not sure why people consider the V post-Soulkiller as a "Fake V", as this is actually the whole point of debating about Soulkiller (except if I missed something, in that case, please let me know) : in my opinion, having V surviving without this "most probable 6 months" deadline would be sufficient, working as a happy ending.
It's not about depressing endings. It's about being killed off without a meaning.V being hit with Soulkiller made the story that much darker and surprised me in a great way. The cyberpunk world isn't a happy pleasant place with cheerful endings...for me the types I seek are the the kinds that strive for an intense feeling of realism. All this talk about "it's to depressive"...I just can't relate with stories that play it safe. Characters constantly winning in the end without losing something just feels unrealistic and boring. The call logs made me feel distant from the characters as if I'm physically and emotionally separated from them. These plot devices helped create a darker tone and mood that I've been waiting to see in stories more.
So giving up a good chunk of her/himself in addition to the burning desire to smoke is not enough?On a very sarcastic note!
For those who want a happy ending and to let V survive. Give it to them, but you need/have to sacrifice everyone on the way that you get to know, might like or whatever.
V should have the "option" to sacrifice/burn everyone for her own personal benefit and "happy ending" where she lives. (a complete 180 on the suicide ending)
It's not about depressing endings. It's about being killed off without a meaning.
You could argue that every iteration of V loses something. Either you become a pawn to arasaka, lose your body, lose friends and a part of yourself because the soulkiller copies the status quo with the alterations already made by the chip and so on.
The cancer only makes sense in the low effort arasaka ending, where you don't surrender yourself to arasaka (the game literally says that), because they removed the chip before it could finish its work.
The cancer is just a tacked on it device, even soap opera writers are ashamed to use.
In the legend ending, V boards crystal palace (why not buy a regular ticket and enter as a tourist) to go out in a blaze of glory in one final suicide mission.
In the nomad ending, V leaves night city and abandons all the things V arrived to achieve. V literally let's her lucky charm (bullet) fly away in the wind and becomes a nomad, who is not meant for greatness anymore.
All versions of V lose something and in addition get their golden hourglass (reaper man from Terry Pratchett reference), only to make the player feel sick.
People are upset because of the lazy writing (of the endings), lack of closure, plot holes and contradictions (sometimes even only minutes away from each other) and the poor cop-outs.
People are upset, because we got a game over screen after finishing the game.
Btw. This is a game and not a deep and interlectual essay about the meaning of life.
It's a cyberpunk themed game.
And cyberpunk is the genre always asking "What does existance mean? Is artificial life as valuable as natural life? What does natural and artificial mean? What's defining humanity?".
So yeah.. it's no essay, neither intellectual nor otherwise. But it's more or less doing the standard of the genre.
But it's funny of you bringing up Reaper Man, i mean you remember how it ends? Of the final dance?
The missing closure lies in the writers failure to open up an acceptance chapter. The biggest cop out they can offer, would be actually going against everything established before. Bringing up another Deus Ex Machina device saving V.
I'd rather haved liked a story about preventing soulkiller, and the loss of V, but i personally have seen to many dialogues pointing towards it being not a story of rebellious survival, but acceptance of change and inevitable death.
And i dislike the game for not offering discussion with the supposed romances with V pointing out how inevitable her early demise might be and them reacting more towards that.
So yeah, i guess i'm in minority in liking the actual story, but having preferred some other story. And would rather see them working towards the closure with the given story, than trying to change the story.
But maybe i'm completly wrong and CDPR already has the Deus Ex Machina in place with the Blue Eyed Guy and the Space Casino - but for them being completly mad didn't wait until that was finished.
So again, not a good reason to kill off the character after concluding the story.
Well. Genre is not an excuse for killing off a character in the epilogue - especially without a solid narrative reason.
Making the players feel shit is not a narrative reason.
I read the mother of cyberpunk - neuromancer (off course the whole sprawl trilogy) and surprisingly few main characters die in fact, most of them just leave town and retire or get to life in cyberspace/conciousness box.
So again, not a good reason to kill off the character after concluding the story.
In addition, having annendi g where V simply survives but leaves town in a max effort ending is not cheapening the story in any way - its rewarding the player for doing activities.
This is still a game and not a book of movie.
And brain cancer? Really? It's a soap opera ending.
I despise the ending. Note the singular there. Ending.
I hate it not necessarily because it's sad or even that it's meaningless (although I find it bizarre to consider the value of selling Kafka's Metamorphosis as a AAA "role playing" game), but because it isn't coherent. The story presents a Problem. You have a chip in your head that is slowly killing you. The whole driving purpose of the story is dealing with that Problem. The end of the game drops that unresolved problem in your lap like a rotting fish. There's no resolution. There's no movement to the story. Just a build up, a wet plop, and a rancid stench of something that should have been digested long ago.
The closest thing to character development and story progression is the "temperance" ending, where you give your body to Johnny and dissolve into cyberspace. And what does *that* ending look like? You die, but in the worst possible way. V the person still exists, but Johnny is now doing the driving. All this to support a contrived narrative where Johnny quits smoking and gives a guy a guitar. This meager, insipid redemption is the best you can hope for in this game in terms of character movement and story resolution. And oh, by the way, it's not you. You are a pendant in a box your friends and family don't even know to visit. You were never the main character in this story. It was the Johnny Silverhand show from the start. You didn't accomplish your stated goal of survival. You didn't even get anything along the way in the process of failing to do so. No meaningful sacrifice. Not even serenity. You remain the same acidic, childish V right through until the end of the story. You don't give your life to save the world. You don't even save yourself. If you're going to kill my character, fine - give me a reason to make it matter, even if only to myself.
Instead... just... plop. Dead fish.
I agree with the notion it's stupid to go "And after that they died - the end.". But nothing needs inherently to end with "And they lived happily ever after.". Well besides maybe wanting better sales numbers as people seemingly prefer fairy tales and classical narrations. As they don't want to deal with the reminder of death in something they wanted to consume as seemingly "mindless" entertainment.
And i even agree that i myself would have preferred something more on the side of mindless entertainment and living happily after having been a good person.
Sorry but having 3 (nearly 4) people i personally knew die of cancer in the last 1,5 years, makes me laugh about your complaint about any kind of cancer being a soap opera ending.
I think we can agree on the notion that even a surviving V might not necessarily live happily in a Hollywood style.
Giving up dreams, watching people die just because you live, living with alts words scratching at the back of your mind...
There are fates worse than death.
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Saying. The endings would have been dark enough without the plot-cancer.
It's a stupid tool that does not even make sense, except it's a build up for a continuation of the story. If it is a plot device, it's either highly cunning or highly dumb.
The endings would have been dark enough without the plot-cancer.
It's a stupid tool that does not even make sense, except it's a build up for a continuation of the story. If it is a plot device, it's either highly cunning or highly dumb.
I think because the in their rewrites and changing of characters changed to game to be about johnny's arc and story - not V's. We are the vessel being reaped by the chip and johnny and his vehicle.I despise the ending. Note the singular there. Ending.
I hate it not necessarily because it's sad or even that it's meaningless (although I find it bizarre to consider the value of selling Kafka's Metamorphosis as a AAA "role playing" game), but because it isn't coherent. The story presents a Problem. You have a chip in your head that is slowly killing you. The whole driving purpose of the story is dealing with that Problem. The end of the game drops that unresolved problem in your lap like a rotting fish. There's no resolution. There's no movement to the story. Just a build up, a wet plop, and a rancid stench of something that should have been digested long ago.
The closest thing to character development and story progression is the "temperance" ending, where you give your body to Johnny and dissolve into cyberspace. And what does *that* ending look like? You die, but in the worst possible way. V the person still exists, but Johnny is now doing the driving. All this to support a contrived narrative where Johnny quits smoking and gives a guy a guitar. This meager, insipid redemption is the best you can hope for in this game in terms of character movement and story resolution. And oh, by the way, it's not you. You are a pendant in a box your friends and family don't even know to visit. You were never the main character in this story. It was the Johnny Silverhand show from the start. You didn't accomplish your stated goal of survival. You didn't even get anything along the way in the process of failing to do so. No meaningful sacrifice. Not even serenity. You remain the same acidic, childish V right through until the end of the story. You don't give your life to save the world. You don't even save yourself. If you're going to kill my character, fine - give me a reason to make it matter, even if only to myself.
Instead... just... plop. Dead fish.