[Spoiler Alert] About the endings

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Do you want more RPGs with happy endings?


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I agree, the Star ending is like, a sort of a happy ending, but very uncertain...

I want to know why doesn't Johnny go back/stay with Rogue after you choose to give him the body after the Don't Fear the Reaper choice. Rogue is still alive and dwelling in Afterlife in that version, so I want to know why doesn't Johnny go back for/to her...

Maybe I'm wrong,
But in the ending "don't fear the reaper", Johnny didn't have the important dialogue with Rogue. So he "stay" (and Rogue too) with the "bad ending" of the Drivin' in North Oak.
The opposite to the Sun Ending, where he have a kind of reconciliation with Rogue but where we all know the fate of Rogue (a "suicide" mission help to reconsiliate in some sort)

No "good" ending for him :)
It tells something about Johnny and is actually important detail. Johnny doesn't give a damn about but himself and Rogue is just another person, who is just means to an end to him, despite her feelings towards Johnny.
 
What did Mike originally say in his first video about cyberpunk and it's world? this is also in Cyberpunk Red...




I'll take the guy who's been making the game for almost longer than many of us have been alive, over your word.

so Yes even if it's a small victory Cyberpunk DOES need a happy ending because right now it's not even about saving V, it's about saving sliverhand and coming to grips that V regardless of how you go about it is going to die unless you forfeit V's humanity to the corporation, which doesn't sound like saving anyone.

Yeah the bleak 'fail to save yourself in all endings' is not in keeping with the setting imo.
Normally this would be the worst thing about the endings but CD Red managed to really push the boat out and make something with utterly trash mechanics that can make the player feel their choices have been ignored and their characvter overwritten.
 
The endings, to me (and, frankly, it seems very deliberate given that these themes are consistently developed throughout the entire game) are less about whether you die than whether you have lived well.

I mean, that is what the game is about! The soul, the purpose of consciousness, etc.

So if people automatically equate dying with unhappy ending then the point of the game does rather seem to have passed them by!

2077's world is filled with characters who live pointless lives, never do anything about it, and then die. Even if you approach the game in its most utterly basic, Michael Bay-style examination of the issue (Dex and Johnny talking about going out in blazes of glory), the point is made. And it is made with far more sophistication time and again elsewhere.
 
in my view very early on especially if you just focus on the main sorry things to get to the choice with Johnny, V is seemingly resigned to their fate, realizing they're barely alive anymore and while they're focused on seperate themselves from Johnny they accept they're dying rather easily.
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The endings, to me (and, frankly, it seems very deliberate given that these themes are consistently developed throughout the entire game) are less about whether you die than whether you have lived well.

I mean, that is what the game is about! The soul, the purpose of consciousness, etc.

So if people automatically equate dying with unhappy ending then the point of the game does rather seem to have passed them by!

2077's world is filled with characters who live pointless lives, never do anything about it, and then die. Even if you approach the game in its most utterly basic, Michael Bay-style examination of the issue (Dex and Johnny talking about going out in blazes of glory), the point is made. And it is made with far more sophistication time and again elsewhere.
thing is, I came in wiht a very different idea based on both advertising(none implied it was a race agsidnt the clock before V kicks it with only a hint of it in the launch trialed) and familiarity with the tabletop system on what the story was going to be about.
Namely, I came in knowing Johnny from 2013 and 2020, i know what he was like, I know how he treated rogue, Alt, Kerry and the rest of Samurai and so I knew nothing Johnny could do even in the voice of Keanu make me like him exactly.

Even in the context of the story outside of being in V's head, I hated Johnny and the fact he was going to be my death made me wish I could delete him.

Dex and Johnny imo were wrong always, there's nothing wrong with growing old,. in fact growing old and dying of old age in night city is an achievement. that's how I wanted to play my V, not someone who is okay with dying like the rest but fade away after being labeled the best, even for a short time. So that's why I took the route of getting out of Night City with Panam.
 
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in my view very early on especially if you just focus on the main sorry things to get to the choice with Johnny, V is seemingly resigned to their fate, realizing they're barely alive anymore and while they're focused on seperate themselves from Johnny they accept they're dying rather easily.
That depends entirely on your own dialogue choices.
 
That depends entirely on your own dialogue choices.
not really, what V says to Vik about being his Frankenstein, that's kind of pre-set, V even in their most abrasive accepts it and like when I collapsed during the panam missions, all my dialogue choices make it sound like V knows they're on their way out and not even trying to fight it really, just trying to go out as big as they can. unless I missed a dialogue choice in there that specifically made it seem like they're not thinking they're going to die.
 
not really, what V says to Vik about being his Frankenstein, that's kind of pre-set, V even in their most abrasive accepts it and like when I collapsed during the panam missions, all my dialogue choices make it sound like V knows they're on their way out and not even trying to fight it really, just trying to go out as big as they can. unless I missed a dialogue choice in there that specifically made it seem like they're not thinking they're going to die.

Sounds like your own projecting, cause every other line is "I'm fine" and "We'll figure it out"
 
Yeah the bleak 'fail to save yourself in all endings' is not in keeping with the setting imo.
Normally this would be the worst thing about the endings but CD Red managed to really push the boat out and make something with utterly trash mechanics that can make the player feel their choices have been ignored and their characvter overwritten.
There's nothing in game contradicting how things sometimes went down in the cyberpunk novels that defined the genre back in the 80's. There's one where protagonist dies, epilogue happens with protagonist former partner in crime so to say hearing... about killer. There's one where unraveling mystery comes with losing partner and child, family. Movies then, in Blade Runner depending on cut, protagonist is on a timer, that was worked somehow out for sequel Blade Runner 2049 and guess what happens in that?

Something I have seen thrown a lot as example for contrary is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, but it's cyberpunk novel and parody of genre at the same time. It's also his first book, it doesn't have Noir or subtlety of genre.

CP 2077 is one of the very few relevant cyberpunk works for a very long time as it deals with existential matters in a world not sometimes that different to ours, in fact it's sometimes difficult to tell where the line separating the two. Philosophical take is built up, say how V feel about choice with Delamain in the end and players take on that in the end. If it's the same or not, anyway game enables certain things for a very reason how it was written to the end.
 
Sounds like your own projecting, cause every other line is "I'm fine" and "We'll figure it out"
except it's clear from how V says thoses lines they're not sure and or trying to assure someone else. their delivery, the voice actors, made me never believe for a second V thinks they're okay especially with how V is portrayed when clearly happy and positive vs those lines you mentioned.
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There's nothing in game contradicting how things sometimes went down in the cyberpunk novels that defined the genre back in the 80's. There's one where protagonist dies, epilogue happens with protagonist former partner in crime so to say hearing... about killer. There's one where unraveling mystery comes with losing partner and child, family. Movies then, in Blade Runner depending on cut, protagonist is on a timer, that was worked somehow out for sequel Blade Runner 2049 and guess what happens in that?
This isn't the novels tho, this is adapting a tabletop game, one of which who's very first edition was made about THE EXACT SAME TIME as those novels. Cyberpunk 2013, 2020, V3/Cybergen and now Red as a tabletop games as I quoted the guy who made it is about saving yourself more than others. 2077 is the one that breaks away from that in this franchise, which makes it stand out a LOT.

Something I have seen thrown a lot as example for contrary is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, but it's cyberpunk novel and parody of genre at the same time. It's also his first book, it doesn't have Noir or subtlety of genre.

it does have noir tho, just not in the typical girl walks into the PI Type noir, to say normal Noir is club jazz, it's more jazz fusion/prog jazz.

CP 2077 is one of the very few relevant cyberpunk works for a very long time as it deals with existential matters in a world not sometimes that different to ours, in fact it's sometimes difficult to tell where the line separating the two. Philosophical take is built up, say how V feel about choice with Delamain in the end and players take on that in the end. If it's the same or not, anyway game enables certain things for a very reason how it was written to the end.
except in Del's quest, there's options to save everyone invovled, save just the original, or do something "new" by hybridization which on Stark contrast you have V gets the body but only has 6 months(Star, Sun and backing out of Devil) , Johnny gets the body and gets to live anew(Temperance) or ultimately no one goes on with the body (Devil if you sign and self harm). There's no ending where Johnny and V become one being (which I'd personally be against due to my personal views on JS) or a way to save both Johnny and V. which after a profound moment like the formation of a forcefully unified Del, I was sure my Netrunner focused V would suggest.

BUT NAH.
 
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This isn't the novels tho, this is adapting a tabletop game, one of which who's very first edition was made about THE EXACT SAME TIME as those novels. Cyberpunk 2013, 2020, V3/Cybergen and now Red as a tabletop games as I quoted the guy who made it is about saving yourself more than others. 2077 is the one that breaks away from that in this franchise, which makes it stand out a LOT.
Wut? do androids dream of electric sheep is from 1968, Blade runner is 1983, Neuromancer is 1984 and mirror shades is 1986, CP 2013 is 1988, exact same time is a bit of a stretch, it's clearly building on those foundational texts.
 
This isn't the novels tho, this is adapting a tabletop game, one of which who's very first edition was made about THE EXACT SAME TIME as those novels. Cyberpunk 2013, 2020, V3/Cybergen and now Red as a tabletop games as I quoted the guy who made it is about saving yourself more than others. 2077 is the one that breaks away from that in this franchise, which makes it stand out a LOT.
Not really, from CPRED manual:

"Second trick to running Cyberpunk: Play hard and fast. You should not be afraid to kill off Player Characters. You should constantly be getting them into fights, traps, betrayals, and other soap operas. There should be no one they can trust entirely, no place that’s absolutely safe. Never let ’em rest. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play fair. But you should always play for keeps. If they cache weapons somewhere, steal them. If they stop for a rest, mug them. If they can’t handle the pressure, they shouldn’t be playing Cyberpunk. Send them back to that nice roleplaying game with the happy elves and the singing birds."

And for the endings, also in CPRED ruleset the different types of endings of an adventure:

▶ Antagonist Escapes

▶ Antagonist is Killed

▶ Antagonist Toppled

▶ Edgerunners Captured

▶ Edgerunners Escape

▶ Ending Cliffhanger

▶ Greater Threat

I just quote the description of the last two ones, because seem the relevant ones here:

▶ Happy Ending The Edgerunners win the day! In Cyberpunk, this could be a major victory like toppling a Corporation or minor victory like getting paid after finishing a mission. Any job you can walk away from, choomba.

▶ Pyrrhic Victory The Edgerunners won, technically. They finished the job and they killed the Antagonist, but their victory came at a hefty price. Their HQ burned to the ground or an important NPC died during the final confrontation. Whatever the case, while they’re walking away winners, the Edgerunners shouldn’t feel like it. Be careful—while this victory feels very Cyberpunk it can be a tough act to follow

In all endings except 1, V is alive.

In Star,Sun,Secret and Temperance Arasaka received a severe blow. I would say that is Pyrrhic Victory, if your mindset is V death.
It could also be seen as Happy, if your objective was to become a Legend (Sun) or find some sort of happiness with a new family/friends Star.

Wut? do androids dream of electric sheep is from 1968, Blade runner is 1983, Neuromancer is 1984 and mirror shades is 1986, CP 2013 is 1988, exact same time is a bit of a stretch, it's clearly building on those foundational texts.
And Mike Pondsmith always acknowledged that (+Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams).
 
This isn't the novels tho, this is adapting a tabletop game, one of which who's very first edition was made about THE EXACT SAME TIME as those novels.
Maybe I'm wrong or I missunderstood, but Cyberpunk 2077 from what I understand, is not an "adaptating of the tabletop game" but rather "inspired by the tabletop game". If the nuance can say something for other than me :)
 
Wut? do androids dream of electric sheep is from 1968, Blade runner is 1983, Neuromancer is 1984 and mirror shades is 1986, CP 2013 is 1988, exact same time is a bit of a stretch, it's clearly building on those foundational texts.
Look at the words I'm replying to, he said the 80s I was replying to work of the 80s. It's known Mike took inspiration of those but even then clearly took his own bend to them.
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Maybe I'm wrong or I missunderstood, but Cyberpunk 2077 from what I understand, is not an "adaptating of the tabletop game" but rather "inspired by the tabletop game". If the nuance can say something for other than me :)
CDPR 2012
 
CDPR 2012
What I want to said with "inspired", it's CDPR have take some "liberties" with the original tabletop game.
Like about Alt, who could seem to be quite "dark" and against Netwatch in CP77, but in the tabletop game, she work with Netwatch for build the black wall.
Or CDPR have "ignore" that to detonate a nuke in Arasaka tower was not Johnny's "idea" at all, but an operation entirely directed by Militech of which Johnny was only a "cog" (who took the opportunity to try to free Alt). In the original game, he has nothing of the "terrorist" who planned the whole operation presented in CP77.
 
Not really, from CPRED manual:

<snip>

In all endings except 1, V is alive.

In Star,Sun,Secret and Temperance Arasaka received a severe blow. I would say that is Pyrrhic Victory, if your mindset is V death.
It could also be seen as Happy, if your objective was to become a Legend (Sun) or find some sort of happiness with a new family/friends Star.
to you quoting the manual yes I know, I quoted the book section from right before that. But also note even with the events of 2077's final act that was suppose to be in service to the main goal, which was to fix V's health, sticking it to Yorinobu was suppose to be the icing. In all endings their health is still crap and in several they're technically giving up their body entirely. which gets even messier if you go by the lore of what the tabletop and Mike has said on record, the engram version of V, much like the Engram version of Johnny is only about 80 to 95% of the original person and the rest is an AI's attempt to fill in gaps, meaning depending on how you look at it the engram isn't even V, at least not the one who we played in the Prologue, but a new being that thinks it's V much Like Engram Johnny thinks it's Johnny but is clearly missing parts of its memory ( wolvers, backhand, Militech, what happened that night in 2013 & 2023 ) and Alt's cybernetic self only remembers apart of itself as Alt but no longer holds the emotional warmth she once had.

so yeah I'd actually say 3 endings V isn't alive. it's heavily implied that the construct presenting itself as Alt is going to pull a borg (assimilate into our collective) on whoever comes with her past the black wall and as I just explained above, V after the the devil may not be OUR V anymore. notice how we don't even get to see V's engram actually just that final scene of them laying down? and in the ones V "lives" they're on a death March with only months left to live and no routes to seemingly get out. So to me we failed to save V, and this isn't even something I'd classify as Pyrrhic victory as even with Arasaka crippled, all it does is leave Militech and their NUSA reunification plan to be pushed harder in the face of the failures /collapse of Arasaka in Night City.
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What I want to said with "inspired", it's CDPR have take some "liberties" with the original tabletop game.
Like about Alt, who could seem to be quite "dark" and against Netwatch in CP77, but in the tabletop game, she work with Netwatch for build the black wall.
Or CDPR have "ignore" that to detonate a nuke in Arasaka tower was not Johnny's "idea" at all, but an operation entirely directed by Militech of which Johnny was only a "cog" (who took the opportunity to try to free Alt). In the original game, he has nothing of the "terrorist" who planned the whole operation presented in CP77.
32 years changes things, netwatch may have shut her out in a very cyberpunk way, which is why she couldn't get coaxed out by the Voodoo boys until Silverhand's engram.

On the nuke, no that's a much more elaborate answer, namely Mike has confirmed that even in the best shape soul killer as it was in 2023 can only copy 80 to 95% of the human mind at best, that on top of Johnny's real body being shot to pieces by Adam AND THEN CRUSHED by rubble as well as bombarded by radiation from the explosion , what Spider pulled from it may not have remembered. Also as 2077 IS Canon to Red according to Mike, who is helping make the DLCs. This is Mike saying what I mentioned about Johnny's body on Reddit : https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/lheqvn/_/gn0g87h
 
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32 years changes things, netwatch may have shut her out in a very cyberpunk way, which is why she couldn't get coaxed out by the Voodoo boys until Silverhand's engram.

On the nuke, no that's a much more elaborate answer, namely Mike has confirmed that even in the best shape soul killer as it was in 2023 can only copy 80 to 95% of the human mind at best, that on top of Johnny's real body being shot to pieces by Adam AND THEN CRUSHED by rubble as well as bombarded by radiation from the explosion , what Spider pulled from it may not have remembered. Also as 2077 IS Canon to Red according to Mike, who is helping make the DLCs. This is Mike saying what I
In Cyberpunk RED (role playing book) p124, Johnny is also "cut in half" by Smasher...
P124.png
"Hey, Steelhead! Let's Rock and Roll!" Johnny is standing in plain sight, a Militech SMG in one hand, the Malorian in the other. He begins pumping out rounds at Adam.
Adam turns, but hesitates, astonished at the audac- ity of the Rockerboy, challenging him with weapons that won't even crease his cyborged armor. An arm comes up. The autoshotgun in it opens fire. APDS rounds cut the young rocker in half. Johnny spins and falls to the ground, a surprised look on his face, the Malorian still smoking in his Fist. It only takes a second.
I think it seem obvious why CDPR have did that :)
It seems very hard to me, to wake up with a guy in our head, worse than the Johnny that is presented to us (at the beginning at least).
It would have less "impact" if it was just "a participant of the operation" like Murphy for example.
 
I find the 6 month plot cancer cheap and tacky but that was blown out of the water by my revulsion for the way they rendered all choices meaningless by boiling your character's ending fate and characterisation down to a mission choice of who they want to risk getting killed.
Unless there's some post ending expansion that will try and suture up that mess i don't see any motivation to re-engage with Cyberpunk.
Just remember.. ANYONE who didn't like the story is because of.. checking notes.. power fantasy reasons apparently. Facepalm
 
In Cyberpunk RED (role playing book) p124, Johnny is also "cut in half" by Smasher...

I think it seem obvious why CDPR have did that :)
It seems very hard to me, to wake up with a guy in our head, worse than the Johnny that is presented to us (at the beginning at least).
It would have less "impact" if it was just "a participant of the operation" like Murphy for example.

They could have just.... not used characters from 2020. The TT game isn't popular at all, nobody would care. All the characters like Rogue, Kerry and Johnny feel SO forced and out of place. Like, why even make it 2077 when 90% of the characters in the game are from 2020?

Should have been references at most.
 
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They could have just.... not used characters from 2020. The TT game isn't popular at all, nobody would care. All the characters like Rogue, Kerry and Johnny feel SO forced and out of place. Like, why even make it 2077 when 90% of the characters in the game are from 2020?

Should have been references at most.
Or "why don't use them ?"
Like you say, majority of players didn't know or didn't care about the tabletop game, so they didn't even know these characters before playing to Cyberpunk 2077. So for them (the majority), no problem, I suppose :)
(And matter of tastes, they seem "not forced" to me... when Johnny have to meet a "buddy" (like Kerry), this "buddy" can't have 20 years old...)
90%...? In my point of view, it seem to be far from 90% (even very far).
 
They could have just.... not used characters from 2020. The TT game isn't popular at all, nobody would care. All the characters like Rogue, Kerry and Johnny feel SO forced and out of place. Like, why even make it 2077 when 90% of the characters in the game are from 2020?

Should have been references at most.
because they're the creators favorites, both at RTG and at CDPR, they're also the examplar characters, Johnny is THE Rockerboy, Morgan(who is an odd duck out still in 2077), Santiago and Rogue are THE Solos, Rache, Spider & Alt are THE netrunners, Saburo Arasaka and his family is THE corpos/execs. If you pick up cyberpunk 2013 (if you can find a copy), 2020 and Red, all of them star those characters to a certain point, showing both favors by the writers and more over what "high level" can look/be like. and it's only more ridiculous in the now retconned out of Canon, Cybergeneration where those characters became literally mid level superheroes leading a generation of basically a mix of mutants, metahhmans and iron man styled teenagers against the corporate machine. To top it off due to cybernetic enchantments and other health treatments, 80 (as rogue and Adam would be) is the new 50, 100 is the new 70 and 150 is the new 80 (as Saburo himself shows)
 
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