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

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I think at this point we all know there were a lot of things that didn't make it to the release cut. Hopefully things that feel unresolved will be fleshed out as the free DLCs drop. And my bet is that the free DLCs will be the stuff they really wanted to have in the release but ran out of time.

And it would appear they ran out of time to even make that chop clean. For example, leaving behind the files and code which can be turned on in the console, and will make a male V be able to romance Judy. Also, as examples, are things like this thread -- the feeling that this aspect of the game is un-finished.

I think that is the reality, and I'd have to agree it made business sense. Because delaying the game again would have really hurt the investors, their own company, etc. They simply tried to bite off too big of a chunk.

Compare the main story and major side quests in TW3 to this game. This game has a lot more actually -- even in its current state.

Not hating on CDPR, but simply seeing the world through their lense.
After all I enjoyed the parts of the game. I really hope those developers earned their money back after 8 years. I hope they also humble enough to make things right for people who bought the game.
 
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.

Thats exactly how I feel about "Melissa Rory" .... She had her own trailer and song made... even the cutdown gig is called Bullets like the written song... and the leftover-dialog surely points torwards a much wider questline... MaxTec and Trauma Team in general seem also to be cut straight out of the game.... both were not just advertised way bigger - both have a loud kickoff ingame TT in the tutorial mission and MT on the road to your home right after -> but than neither of these organizations play a role after beeing introduced to the game at any point... just sad.

I really hope they bring back some stuff from Meredith, Melissa and hell even Jacky (!) ... what for me is the biggest disappointment in this regard... f*ck this cheesy montage of his "good times with V"... gimme the companion missions shown in trailer, let me "feel" how they became chooms by playing their story.
 
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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.
BEAUTIFULLY Put and Excellent catch on the Tattoo (Never saw that). I wondered about Meredith after my successful All Foods mission and I was looking forward to a relationship with her being an Ex Corpo-rat myself. Heck I even, refused a certain Beautiful girl's Gig (At first) because it would be going against Militech and I had what I thought was a relationship with a newly-minted VP. I even cheered when I saw Meredith on N54 getting that Promotion and thought:

"I made that happen"
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Another point is, I could see the pain and vulnerability in her eyes when I first talked to her and fear (Credit to the Actress who portrayed her, Kudos)

She choose the Corpo path and she found out it wasn't all it was cracked up to be ( Also a possible fate for "V")
 
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I think it may be that CDPR had to release the game without thinking about the corresponding male LI. I think DLC may add more Stout's content and maybe the corresponding male LI. Will he be Dum Dum?
In the side job Second Conflict, if Dum Dum alive and keep his position (help Royce and probably not help Brick), Johnny will said that he think Dum Dum is look familiar. I think he might also have a deeper backstory

Assuming Stout's tattoo really has meaning, "Never Again" and a broken heart maybe hints that she was hurt in love. "No Tell" maybe hints that these're very serious that she can’t tell anyone, or related to some secrets.
BTW one of Scavs mob has tattoos that seem to be Valentinos
 
should be really easy to add gilchrist as a mirror to stout, same text message after the gig, hell even same animations during the sex scene, just swap their appearance with the appearance mod or do something more involved like the mod that allows femV to romance panam,
gotta note how long it took for the river for malV mod to be releasedafter that, and how up to today right now no one ever asked for a "Gilchrist romance"
 
Not to disappoint people hoping for more Stout content but the big problem there is the fact that Meredith is a determinant character. If you don't side with her, she is dead in a large number of playthroughs. If they wanted her to be a character that's important, she'd have survived no matter but she's dead in any playthrough that doesn't involve you handing over the chip. Which means that they'd have to record multiple scenes using her and the other guy for any Militech plotline based on her.
 
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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.
[She dies, and you can see her dead body in the water]
 
Not to disappoint people hoping for more Stout content but the big problem there is the fact that Meredith is a determinant character. If you don't side with her, she is dead in a large number of playthroughs. If they wanted her to be a character that's important, she'd have survived no matter but she's dead in any playthrough that doesn't involve you handing over the chip. Which means that they'd have to record multiple scenes using her and the other guy for any Militech plotline based on her.
Shouldn't be a dealbraker, River can die too if you pick the wrong line during his quest but he's still a LI
 
Imagine if she never died. Meredith Stout pleads for protection to Kang Tao by defecting. News anchor Gillian Jordan broadcasts it live to the public while NCPD covers it up with the help of Kang Tao. . This would create an amazing comeback for her in which we meet her again but deeper into the darker world of Kang Tao.
20210610154827_1.jpg
 
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I don't know if that was said, but it seems to me that Meredith appear in a TV show maybe for Militech mecasuit :)
So I don't know if Anthony does it when you choose to betray Meredith.

Found it :
 
I forgot about this video. The wait for DLC is killing me. . >_<"
It's that kind of detail that does that to me, Cyberpunk is on another level.
Making a video like this that the vast majority of gamers certainly won't see, or pay attention to, is just awesome. It's an insignificant video, but if you put all the insignificant details together in this game, it's great :)

If someone who have betray Meredith, could said, yes Anthony doing that TV show... One word, incredible :D
 
It's that kind of detail that does that to me, Cyberpunk is on another level.
Making a video like this that the vast majority of gamers certainly won't see, or pay attention to, is just awesome. It's an insignificant video, but if you put all the insignificant details together in this game, it's great :)

If someone who have betray Meredith, could said, yes Anthony doing that TV show... One word, incredible :D
I hope they don't stop making these types of videos. I can see Ozob Bozo be a video-bomber towards Gillian Jordan scaring the entire news crew.
 
This is another loose end storyarc left unfinish.
But one can hope for a DLC to tie up loose ends.

Now if they made her a LI, hmmm...
Could Militech have the tech level to save V?
 
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.
Yep, If Larian was able to do it, CDprojekt could too if they wanted.

Plus we've already seen that if a game is really wanted by players, Sony can really put up a fight to have it on their console (like with the Call of Duty drama).
 
There are a lot of very fully developed characters in CP77 that only have 'bit parts' seemingly...there could have been a lot more. I can easily imaging Meredith giving V some side jobs, rather like a fixer would. She might even have a relationship like Corpo V did with Jackie in that prologue.

Could 8ug8ear been a romanceable character? Since female V can't romance Panam, could she romance Saul after betraying Panam's scheme to hijack the Basilisk...that sure would have been an interesting dynamic to carry through to the Star ending. How about the female mechanic V rescues from the Wraiths in the Dakota gig? Seems like Neil the sex shop vendor could have had more to do, plus the junk vendor in Cherry Blossom Market.

Of course if CDPR had carried through on every possibility in the game, they might never have finished it. I also had this theory that the whole Aldecaldo storyline could have been an expansion with minimal changes. Imagine Panam being introduced in the main game in a small way [not just the minuscule glimpses we do get currently]. and then the Badlands Expansion being released when everybody clamours for MOAR PANAM!!

Eh...my random thoughts after many hours of play...
 
A large part of this really is due to the echo chamber of the fandom. Meredith Stout was one of the first characters we were introduced to for Cyberpunk 2077. We see her in the "Demo Mission" and assume that, like Jackie, she's meant to be a major player in the game. The player characters start filling in the details in their head and start creating an elaborate as well as big story in their heads,

This is something that was ESPECIALLY evident in the Corpo Lifepath fans as people created the assumption the game would somehow contain the option of working for the corporations the entirety of the game and you wouldn't be an Edgerunner at all but a corporate mercenary. Which is entirely against the cyberpunk ethos. Basically, they believed you might have an option of playing an Imperial Stormtrooper in a Star Wars game.

PHANTOM LIBERTY is something that looks like it is going to dramatically enhance the amount of Nu USA and Militech content but I doubt that Meredith will have much of a role in the work. I wouldn't be surprised if they included e-mail or more though.
 
I feel like the only person that doesn't do the Millitech route of the quest. I aint missing out on the only vendor that sells legendary tech shotguns just to get some trim. Plus Jackie approves when you do the quest without corpo strings.

Well, I guess you get a decent melee weapon for helping Stout, but I like Cottonmouth better. It's a better weapon and you don't have to deal with that annoying buzzing noise and the control vibrating. Oh, and most importantly is you don't look like a giant moron swinging a dildo around. That honestly felt like something that belonged in Saints Row, not in Cyberpunk.
 
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