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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.
