Did they cut Meredith Stout's arc from the story? (SPOILERS)

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First of all, despite what Youtube & the rest of big websites say, I have been enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 a lot. When the game reaches it's heights like "Dream On" & "They Won't Go When I Go", it's 10/10. But when I see underwhelming filler quests & filler areas in the map, I am confident that this game cut so many content to throw out the game in December. One of those plot threads that I feel cut from the game is the Meredith Stout story arc. She was in a lot of promotional materials. She was announced as a romance option a long time ago. In one of the promotional images, we saw a tattoo with the phrase "Never Again" which implied that she might have a deeper backstory.
However in the actual game, her role was reduced to a fling rather than what you call "Romance". We meet her first during prologue. Then we might meet her for a short sex scene after the prologue if we helped her earlier.
Sex is a major theme in Cyberpunk stories & when it's done well, this enhances the story both aesthetically & philosophically. In Cyberpunk 2077, sex is everywhere from Sex Toys to Joytoys. However thematically, I feel like CDPR brushed off most of those themes superficially. I remember CDPR saying that sex is in the game to enhance the narrative. I agree this about Witcher 3. In Witcher, even minor romance options like Jutta, Sasha or Keira, had extensive stories & conclusions even if you didn't actually initiate a sex scene. Even prostitutes had optional dialogue options unlike the single hooker in Jigjig street with bad voice acting.
In contrast to this, Meredith feel like a plot point that we explore just superficially. Not exploring the meaning of "Never Again" was disappointing. This is really interesting because Judy's tattoo called "Underwater Where Thoughts Can Breathe Easily" gets incorporated into the story. Even the quick sex scene that we initiate feel so out of place. Symbolism of "No Tell Motel" & "Never Again" feels like this was supposed to be the final quest of a much bigger questline which tells me that huge chucks of this game are missing which allegedly confirmed by recent leaks.
Meredith is not the only character with this treatment. A lot of characters in the game feels so superficial including Fixers, Cyberpsychos & lifepath prologue characters. This game feels so departed from the quality of characters in Witcher 3. Remember Lena & attention to her story? Abundance those things made Witcher 3 rise above other AAA games.
Hopefully devs gonna add these cut content to the game with updates instead of completely forgetting them just like what they did with Iorveth.
 
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Yeah, seems like that start of corporate arch with all the skullduggery, snooping, hacking, and assassinating that came with the idea of corps. But nope, a night in a shady hotel and the line is done. I feel a corp centric questline outside of the main quest was definitely missing.
 
Probably... I'm pretty much convinced that there should have been two more main story arcs, and Stroud was probably part of the corpo one, most likely centered around Arasaka and Militec. There just seams to be sooo much leftover stuff there that points to deeper stories in almost every direction.
 
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Probably... I'm pretty much convined that there should have been two more main story arcs, and Stroud was probably part of the corpo one, most likely centered around Arasaka and Militec. There just seams to be sooo much leftover stuff there that points to deeper stories in almost every direction.
Yes. Militech & Biotechnica are barely in the game. The entire main story with Arasaka feels like Act I of a much bigger game followed by Militech & Biotchnica in Act II & Act III which will climax with the next corporate war.
Seriously, this is the biggest adaptation of Cyberpunk lore & it doesn't have a corporate war?
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Yeah, seems like that start of corporate arch with all the skullduggery, snooping, hacking, and assassinating that came with the idea of corps. But nope, a night in a shady hotel and the line is done. I feel a corp centric questline outside of the main quest was definitely missing.
exactly feel that way
 
CDPR toned/cut down the adult stuff because, tmu, SONY threatened them that if they didn't they would not be allowed to publish the game on their consoles.
Well, they can censor those stuff in Playstation only. Also CDPR can put an underwear or something in cutscene to tone it down instead of removing entire questlines. But really doubt that's the case since there's a full frontal scene with Alt.
However, my post is not about sex at all. It's about missing story arcs & the entire game feeling unfinished.
 
1) pity that during the scene at the hotel she is dressed, but it's okay to have little things
2) yes I was also hoping for an intertwining with her, if not a romance at least that could entrust you with secondary missions.

I hope that with the introduction of the cdprojet dlc it introduces new scenarios, maybe this too, so I can continue playing with V in this splendid game
 
Well, they can censor those stuff in Playstation only. Also CDPR can put an underwear or something in cutscene to tone it down instead of removing entire questlines. But really doubt that's the case since there's a full frontal scene with Alt.
However, my post is not about sex at all. It's about missing story arcs & the entire game feeling unfinished.

I admit, I am entirely crude here when I wonder what sort of society we live in that they felt the need to censor Lady's ass in Devil May Cry 5.

No wonder everyone is wearing black x's in this game.
 
Well, they can censor those stuff in Playstation only. Also CDPR can put an underwear or something in cutscene to tone it down instead of removing entire questlines. But really doubt that's the case since there's a full frontal scene with Alt.
However, my post is not about sex at all. It's about missing story arcs & the entire game feeling unfinished.
But the point is they censored all version likely because Sony threatened them again. Remember Sony threatened ubisoft with watchdogs, so ubisoft disabled and locked all the true shaders and feature settings because they didn't want the pc version looking better than their version. If it wasn't for the tech heads and modders no one would have ever known. CDPR may not be completely innocent on things cut from the gane but they may not be singlehandedly guilty either.
 
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Meredith was probably never going to be a main character because her fate is determinate.


Ironically, with less freedom, they could have done a much larger story arc with her.
Both endings feel so unsatisfying. It still feels like an ending of a much bigger quesline that we didn't see. If Meredith is there to warn us about the ruthlessness of Militech, I did that. But none of these bigger corporations other than Arasaka play a considerable role in the story. Meredith quest would feel okay if it lead to a bigger questline with Militech. Right now, it feels so superficial when it come to the lore.
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1) pity that during the scene at the hotel she is dressed, but it's okay to have little things
2) yes I was also hoping for an intertwining with her, if not a romance at least that could entrust you with secondary missions.

I hope that with the introduction of the cdprojet dlc it introduces new scenarios, maybe this too, so I can continue playing with V in this splendid game
Romance & sex scenes are okay. I want them in a Cyberpunk story. But I need context to those situations. When I think about Cyberpunk 2077, first word that comes to my mind is "superficial".
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I admit, I am entirely crude here when I wonder what sort of society we live in that they felt the need to censor Lady's ass in Devil May Cry 5.

No wonder everyone is wearing black x's in this game.
I only play in PC but agree that Sony censorship getting ridiculous.
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But the point is they censored all version likely because Sony threatened them again. Remember Sony threatened ubisoft with watchdogs, so ubisoft disabled and locked all the true shaders and feature settings because they didn't want the pc version looking better than their version. If it wasn't for the tech heads and modders no one would have ever known. CDPR may not be completely innocent on things cut from the gane but they may not be singlehandedly guilty either.
Yeah. That would be true if there wasn't a full frontal nudity in other quests.
 
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But the point is they censored all version likely because Sony threatened them again. Remember Sony threatened ubisoft with watchdogs, so ubisoft disabled and locked all the true shaders and feature settings because they didn't want the pc version looking better than their version. If it wasn't for the tech heads and modders no one would have ever known. CDPR may not be completely innocent on things cut from the gane but they may not be singlehandedly guilty either.
Sony should be abandoned then. Keep their relationship with Xbox and PC crowd.
 
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