I loathe the whole relic/slow death thing so much I keep walking away - is there a mod yet to tell Dex to go pound sand?

[Kalzandius]

So I played through the game awhile back. Got through the DLC and thought that ending might save it. In a way, I suppose it did. An ending where V gets to survive. (I couldn't care less about becoming normal. That was fine with me.) What bugged me about the DLC ending is the awful writing. They completely ignored believability in the effort to make things as absolutely bleak as possible. Bleak beyond what should have been possible if anyone involved had functional brain cells.

Recently, i've been bored without a game I wanted to play so I tried again to play CP 2077. I got as far as cleaning up every NCPD hustle and gig in Watson with the only thing left to do go talk to Jackie (and thus Dex) which I just... couldn't bring myself to do. So i shut the game off.

Again.

That was the 5th time I've done the above loop of clearing watson and just noping out.

I like the game world.
I like the game engine/play feel.
I want to immerse myself in this world and enjoy it.
But.
I keep fixating on the whole "you are slowly dying" thing and it just bugs me so much I shut the game off leaving V in a state where they're not doomed due to contrivance. Everything points to Dex being a moron. V and Jackie are noobs who have no business taking that job. Why is there no option for V to laugh at Jackie and say no way? (other than the GM saying "but if you don't do this, my whole planned story goes out the window"). That's contrivance.

I would be much happier with this game if you could run around just doing gigs and side hustles and totally ignore the main plot.

Johnny would've been annoying but tolerable if he wasn't slowly eating your brain. He is not real. He's an AI cancer.

The whole "main character is dying" thing shifted my opinion of Johnny from "he's annoying" to active hatred.

Worse, the Johnny Silverhand thing is a niche kind of cringey. It's a kind of cringey that only people who played TTRGPS may understand. Imagine a group of friends who play a TTRPG regularly. One session, someone who doesn't usually run the game decides to try their hand at it and runs a game--only to insert their player character as an NPC that's super amazing at everything, is so cool, etc etc, and half the story beats are there to remind you how cool and awesome this guy's character is.

That's the vibe i get from this game. Forget YOUR character. Your V. This is all about Johnny and he is not only narratively erasing your existence, the story has him literally erasing your existence.

The whole situation of V being a walking dead person on a doomclock turns this game from a 11/10 for me to a 2/10. I hate it so much I can't even make myself play the game past that point. My V isn't stupid enough to accept Dex's job.

I'm pretty sure it's wasting time trying to ask about a mod or DLC that effectively lets you tell Dex 'no' and ignore his job and then just do the side jobs, gigs, and scanner hustles.

Some of the main jobs could persist in a world where V isn't a moron who jabs a volatile chip into their head.

Someone else could hire us for some other reason to down the AV and grab Hellman. It doesn't need to be V's personal interest. The whole nomad arc could still happen.
Judy could still reach out to us (as a merc she knows) to help find Evelyn after some other moron falls for Dex's BS and botches the job.
The VDB could always just hire us as a Ranyon to clear out the mall. Doesn't have to proceed into the cyberpsace bit with alt after that.
There are ways some of the quests could be saved but honestly, I would happily ignore ALL of them to escape the contrivance of the deathclock.

I want to experience this game world without constantly thinking that the character is going to die soon no matter what choices it makes or what happens. All roads lead to death is just... no. If some people actually like that? fine. No worries. Just give those of us who can't stand it an option. Let us say no to Dex. Let us totally avoid having that cancerous AI in our head.

And if it's "if you don't like it, don't play" - well, that's exactly what i've already been doing. I've been shutting the game off because my V is not a moron.

I am REALLY hoping that Orion does not repeat this trope of the main character dying. If they do, I will not be buying that game.
If EVERY ending in Orion = you die, I will also not be buying that game.

Would also like a radiant job type system where we can keep playing after the main story is over by doing random jobs that generate every so often.

Simply being alive is not a "happy ending" in and of itself.

Anyway, i'm pretty sure most of the responses to this post are going to be "well if you don't like the relic, then don't play". Again, that's already what I'm doing. I think the plot setup is contrived. There is no player agency. No choice. Nothing against Keanu but I would just as soon never experience Johnny at all. That character and the stupid brain eating AI thing absolutely ruins this game for me. (even if it was just changed so that he's stuck in your head but NOT gradually overwriting/killing V I wouldn't hate it so much).

 

[Taril]

Everything points to Dex being a moron. V and Jackie are noobs who have no business taking that job.

How so?

The plan was pretty well prepared. It also went well.

Up until the unplanned incident of Yorinobu murdering Saburo causing the whole place to go on high alert.

Even then, things were generally fine, up until Dex put a bullet in your brain. Where he incidentally hit the Relic and caused it to malfunction, not only resurrecting V, but initiating the brain overwrite procedure.

Like, literally, had Dex not done that (Or hit anywhere else in your brain) the whole "Slowly dying" plot wouldn't have happened.

Why is there no option for V to laugh at Jackie and say no way? (other than the GM saying "but if you don't do this, my whole planned story goes out the window"). That's contrivance.

Because the entire point is that V and Jackie spend 6 months becoming BFFs and it's Jackie's dream to hit the big leagues.

It feels kind of weird because this all happens in the opening cutscene and all we really experience is a "6 month later" text as we start the intro mission with rescuing Sandra.

We as players have very little interaction with Jackie, who's supposed to be incredibly close to us and is the driving force for us caring about working for Dex.

It is also why Jackie's death had very little impact on me. Like, without any interaction to make me care like V is supposed to, his death was very "Whatever" as a result. (Compare this to Angel's death in Borderlands 2, who helps you through the entire game and thus makes me feel horrible every time she has to die)

I would be much happier with this game if you could run around just doing gigs and side hustles and totally ignore the main plot.

You pretty much can.

After you do the Heist and talk to Takemura at Tom's Diner... You can simply ignore every story mission from then on and just run around doing Gigs and NCPD scanners.

If you want to access Phantom Liberty, you have to do a couple more story missions (Opening up the rest of Panam and Judy's side missions) and you're good to go (Bonus points is the intro missions for PL involve Johnny being turned off for most of it)

That's the vibe i get from this game. Forget YOUR character. Your V. This is all about Johnny and he is not only narratively erasing your existence, the story has him literally erasing your existence.

Aye. You don't really get to know much about V. Especially through the main plot because V is continually being melded into Johnny.

It's why I don't get people who are super fixated on V being in the sequel... Since you never really got to play V. You were mostly playing Johnny in V's body (Sure at the start of the game you had some more independence, but after a few story missions you became mostly Johnny)

I am REALLY hoping that Orion does not repeat this trope of the main character dying. If they do, I will not be buying that game.
If EVERY ending in Orion = you die, I will also not be buying that game.

I doubt that Orion will do the "Character dying" plot. Given the many issues it raises and the lack of originality it would show.

However, having every ending being "Death" is likely. Since that's generally the theme of the IP. The whole thing is about how there's no hope and you're doomed because of corpo dystopia. This held true even in Edgerunners too where David also didn't make it at the end.

Would also like a radiant job type system where we can keep playing after the main story is over by doing random jobs that generate every so often.

This sort of exists in Phantom Liberty. Airdrops and Vehicle Deliveries are repeatable events you can keep doing forever (The latter will trigger all throughout the base game too)

It's likely that Orion will feature something similar given the reception of people wanting such things and these inclusions they made in PL.

 

[Kalzandius]

Because the entire point is that V and Jackie spend 6 months becoming BFFs and it's Jackie's dream to hit the big leagues.

If your BFF wanted to light himself on fire and jump off a bridge, would you let them do it? Going straight to a high profile hit on Arasaka when the characters are basically newbies is just dumb. Hell, even Dex asks if you want to go out in a blaze of glory or get old. There's no option to say "nah, I'd prefer to end up like rogue being an old person pulling strings from behind the scenes.

How so?

The game is peppered with a few bits of info that suggest Dex is an idiot. Hell V even has a line (it escapes me right this second) telling Jackie this guy shouldn't be trusted. Also there's content out there exploring Dex's reputation.

The whole thing feels like super low level characters eyeing a prize too big for them. And the game NEVER allows the player to have any meaningful choice. You cannot tell Dex you're not interested and pass on the job. After you crash through the ceiling and the case gets damaged, you can't say "F this stupid chip, I'm getting you out of here." There is such a thing as cutting ones losses and taking off. (and then obviously not going to the meet up with Dex after the fact). And that's not even getting into the utter stupidity of how this delicate as hell chip that needs specific coldness not to destroy itself is suddenly fine if put into a HOT PERSON'S HEAD. The chip was designed to be put into a cold corpse and activate immediately. Based on their own writing and setup, slotting the chip in a living person with body heat should have immediately fried the chip so it broke. They were so focused on the stupid deathclock nonsense they forgot to try to make any of it make sense.

And there is nothing anywhere in this game that demonstrates that supernatural things are real. Ergo. Johnny is NOT a ghost. He is not a real person. He is a scheming AI as evil as the ones beyond the blackwall just trying to escape. I don't want that POS in my head. My character is my character. I do not want to play someone else's character. I don't care how amazing they think Johnny is. The deathclock thing makes me utterly despise him.

The entire end of act 1 is very ham handed, forcing us into this plot contrivance of the ticking deathclock that I absoloutely despise. Even beyond the ludonarrative dissonance of "hurry up you don't have much time left" + "huge open world with lots to see and do". (I really, really wish game companies would knock it the hell off with the main story arcs seeming super urgent.

But yeah, even if they slightly changed it so that there was no clock. V wasn't constantly dying, just "stuck with johnny" and was trying to find a way to get rid of him just because they want to get rid of him, I'd be okay with it. I despise the deathclock enough to where I stop playing the game before that point. The majority of the game sells you the promise of a cure and then it renegs on it. It's deceptive and crappy.

And the writing for the DLC ending makes Bethesda's writers look competent.

 

[Taril]

If your BFF wanted to light himself on fire and jump off a bridge, would you let them do it?

No. But this isn't the same thing.

This is taking a risk on a job to advance your status.

Going straight to a high profile hit on Arasaka when the characters are basically newbies is just dumb.

You really undersell them. Jackie has been a mercenary for most of his life at that point (Before then, he was in a gang doing similar work)

V can be a newbie if they are from the Corpo or Nomad lifepath where they've only been a merc for 6 months (One of the many reasons why it feels like Streetkid is the "Correct" lifepath)

It's not like it's their first gig or anything. Heck, the prelude requires you to take on the Maelstrom whom are dangerous as heck.

Hell, even Dex asks if you want to go out in a blaze of glory or get old. There's no option to say "nah, I'd prefer to end up like rogue being an old person pulling strings from behind the scenes.

"Dex asks if you want to get old"
"There's no option to say I want to get old"

???

Also, Dex is just trying to get a handle on your personality. Whether you're gonna try and be a risktaker or play it safe. (Either way it doesn't matter what you answer at all though...)

P.s. Rogue did stupider things than Dex is asking you to do... Literally she went in with Johnny to bumrush Arasaka so Johnny could nuke the place.

That's HOW she got to the position of being able to pull the strings. She did the big crazy things (Due to Johnny) which got her reputation she needed to start being the boss.

You cannot tell Dex you're not interested and pass on the job. After you crash through the ceiling and the case gets damaged, you can't say "F this stupid chip, I'm getting you out of here."

Actually, V tries to do just that. But Jackie won't let you abandon his dream. That's why he tells you to call up Evelyn when the chip is damaged and shoves the thing into his own head.

He wants you to see the gig through to the end because its his only shot to achieve his dream. Which is the entire driving force behind V's life at this point, since they had nothing until they met Jackie (Corpo and Nomad literally abandoned their prior life. Streetkid just returned from Atlanta after it didn't go well)

There is such a thing as cutting ones losses and taking off. (and then obviously not going to the meet up with Dex after the fact).

The thing about that is they couldn't go anywhere else because Delamain was pre-programmed to take you to Dex. Also, Dex was the only person with any power to help you out of the terrible situation you were in. Given he has connections and Arasaka is on a massive hunt for you (As they think you murdered their CEO...)

And that's not even getting into the utter stupidity of how this delicate as hell chip that needs specific coldness not to destroy itself is suddenly fine if put into a HOT PERSON'S HEAD. The chip was designed to be put into a cold corpse and activate immediately. Based on their own writing and setup, slotting the chip in a living person with body heat should have immediately fried the chip so it broke.

It's not that stupid.

The chip needs to remain cold to be stored. Not unlike how a cryogenically frozen person needs to stay cold.

When the chip is ready to activate, it will be able to handle temperature because it's designed to reboot a person into being alive whilst also manipulating the brain so that the engram stored on it can be put into the body.

Putting it into your living head is likely to start its activation procedure as it won't be in a cold stasis.

Which is why Jackie was expecting some reaction when he put it in. But due to some reason (Activation protocols or just janky experimental tech issues) it didn't activate until after V was shot and it was hit by a bullet and damaged.

Ergo. Johnny is NOT a ghost. He is not a real person.

Johnny is not a ghost. He is never noted to be one.

He is a real person. He is an engram that is a complete copy of his entire mind and personality saved digitally. He is not AI. He is a digitalised person.

He appears because the Relic is merging with V's brain. Meaning the digitalised person on the chip and the fleshy person in V's brain are getting mixed together.

Thus, Johnny is able to learn and react to things that V experiences. While V gets some snippets of Johnny's memories and picks up some of his vices and mannerisms.

My character is my character. I do not want to play someone else's character.

I mean... Technically, even if Johnny never existed in the game, you'd be playing someone else's character.

V is V. No matter what, you're limited to whatever is written for how V is. You might have a couple of choices here and there, but overall you're playing whatever the writers made V to be.

That's one of the things in regards to narrative based games that CDPR produce, you're not playing your own character, you're playing what the writers made.

Ironically, this game was made with immersion in mind and gives you some tools to try and be your own character... But 99% of the writing just shoehorns your V into one personality.

But yeah, even if they slightly changed it so that there was no clock. V wasn't constantly dying, just "stuck with johnny" and was trying to find a way to get rid of him just because they want to get rid of him, I'd be okay with it. I despise the deathclock enough to where I stop playing the game before that point.

Okay...

But what exactly would this change?

There isn't actually a deathclock in the game. You can spend however many thousands of hours you want across years playing the same save file and nothing happens.

Outside of the initial noting of the deathclock by Viktor, it basically isn't brought up again (There are a few incidental dialogues were you can mention it. And the scripted crash outs imply some sort of progression. But these are very minor)

It's not like the earlier Atelier games or Breath of Fire IV where there's literally a countdown on your screen that game overs when it runs out.

This is a major reason why a deathclock won't be used in Orion. As it wasn't particularly good writing here in 2077 with its lack of actual effect.

The majority of the game sells you the promise of a cure and then it renegs on it. It's deceptive and crappy.

Actually, it doesn't.

Quite literally, the game keeps telling you there is no cure. The entire game is about V grasping at straws hoping that maybe everyone is wrong and there is in fact a cure (With the side plot of Johnny gaslighting you into becoming a terrorist because of course he does).

The only renege is the fact that you do end up finding 2 different "Cures" for it. The Devil ending where V gets turned into an engram to be put into a new body "At a future date" by Arasaka and The Tower ending where the NUSA has a magic cure they pull out of their backside (But leaves V unable to ever use Cyberware again)

Meaning, despite the entire game telling you there is no cure... Turns out there is.

 

[-Nailes-]

Spoilers in my text, be warned,

I dont mind V taking the Heist job, its one of the better parts of the game tbh. As a player you have no idea where it leads and V wants to reach the major leagues and is willing to take jobs from lesser fixers to get there, in comes Dex.
Several characters like Viktor and Claire will talk about Dex, negatively, but I'm willing to accept that V and Jackie are would ignore that for a job that lands them in the "major leagues".

The heist itself is pretty wellplanned and Dex doesnt actually play a large role in it. He brings V and Evelyn together, he hires Delamain but thats about it. Dex doesnt select any team for the job, you already have a team and this is shown when you free Sandra Dorsett with them in a gig for Wakako; Jackie and T-bug.

V then gets the flathead, an essential to get past security, after talking to Dex, who provides some info(on Meredith and connects V to Evelyn, but thats it). Royce laughs at Dex and its V who does the heavy lifting. After that V goes to see the Braindance together with T-bug and figures out security.

All in all its a well planned and prepared operation. There isnt a single gig in the game that has any preparatory work before hand. There are few other games that have you prepare for a job the way that Cyberpunk does.
The gig goes well and should be a success but something totally unexpected happens; Saburo visits his son and then something even more unexpected happens; Yorinobu decides to kill his own father. The coincidence of this happening when V and Jackie are there is incredible. I wish I had this luck playing the lottery.

But V still gets out with the relic. You cant give Jackie a maxdoc in the Delamain and heal him so he dies. Gameplay has a tendency to make cutscenes look forced, which is one of the reasons I hate cutscenes and am glad this game has very few. They often ignore ingame mechanics to push you in a certain direction.

What follows is rather odd. Instead of dissapearing, V goes to meet Dex. We already figured out V is someone who does what needs to be done when it has to be done. And Dex hasnt done or arranged any special up to that point. Hiring a cab or giving you the number of a Corpo agent arent exactly difficult jobs. So why go to Dex, whats he going to do? Hire another cab? V can do that him/herself by this point. LOgically, V would have called Dex on the holo and said; "I'm out of town for a while" and then move into the badlands or something.
Ofcourse we know why, Dex has to shoot V and V has to die and 'reset'. If that happened at the end of the game, I probabaly wouldnt bother with it either, I usually power through this segment.

A part about it that bugs me is that V then repeatedly, when talking about the heist, will say "fu-ed that up too". And I'm sitting there nodding "no, no, nonono" because thats just not true. If Saburo arrived ten minutes earlier the heist could be called off. If he arrived ten minutes after the relic was stolen, V and Jackie would be long gone. But lottery luck has him arrive just as they are taking it out of the case. Even then, if they talk and Saburo leaves, the heist goes on. V and Jackie never fu-ed it up, in fact the planning and execution are excellent. Something they didnt expect happens; Saburo, who is 150 years old at this point, gets murdered by his 100year(I'm guessing at this point) old son.

I can see the appeal of what you propose, I would like it if the heist succeeds, V doesnt die and reset, Johnny doesnt appear and you just get to do gigs and sidemissions. I would have liked that, more than the original main story. The game is still very popular and from what I'm seeing, most people dont engage much with the story nowadays. They connect with the universe and the characters but the story has been pushed into the background.

Dont get me started on the endings. The corpo ending is strong, its powerful but its not one you'd repeat. The others, I'm less impressed with. I like Phantom liberty, the missions, the side gigs. I think the only thing that bothered me is that Dogtown is very mad max, rather than Cyberpunk. But thats okay, its the endings that disliked the most, especially the NUSA one. If thats art then I'm going to throw some ink at a canvas right now, I'm an artist too now. Its just bad.

 

[Kalzandius]

The only renege is the fact that you do end up finding 2 different "Cures" for it. The Devil ending where V gets turned into an engram to be put into a new body "At a future date" by Arasaka and The Tower ending where the NUSA has a magic cure they pull out of their backside (But leaves V unable to ever use Cyberware again)

The Devil ending (which i have never played through and never will) is not a cure. You die. There is no established truth anywhere in the game or lore that the paranormal is real in this setting. There's a lot of conjecture and people making things up that sound spooky but the game does not show that anything supernatural actually does exist for real. It's all mythology and superstition. "becoming an engram" is just someone (or something) making an AI that acts like the person it was copied from. It's not them. It's a fake copy.

"Johnny" is not Johnny. It's an AI loaded with his memories. (which even the Alt AI will tell you are inaccurate).

If V gets engramized, they're dead (again). What remains is not V but another AI that acts like V. That's still death in any functional sense.

Whether or not Arasaka /could/ remove the relic and save V is, i think, left ambiguous. Even if they had the ability to do it, they have no reason to do it. They're evil. They see no gain to themselves for doing it so they're going to lie to V and tell them whatever would benefit the corp the most. Even if Arasaka has the ability to remove the relic, they're going to say they don't. So that ending (as far as I'm concerned) doesn't exist.

The DLC ending could have been tolerable. Becoming a normie would have been fine with me. What irritated me about the sloppy writing in the DLC ending was how sloppy it was, trying to shoehorn BLEAKNESS in just to be bleak. There's no good reason V can't call people on the AV and tell them they're going in for some experimental surgery, talk to you when i wake up. There's no good reason why Reed can't follow up with your contacts after the coma sets in and tell them where you are. They just wanted everything to be as crappy as possible. They didn't even bother to think up a justification for why Panam is mad at you; they just have her disappear without a word. Add to that, why the hell would V want to go immediately back to NC after waking up? People don't shake off the effects of a two year bedridden coma in 5 minutes. The only reason V goes back to NC is so the writers can club us over the head with how weak and useless V is in that ending. I mean, never mind the fact that someone doing a minimal cyberware playthrough can get through the entire game. The difference between having a few bits of cyberware and none isn't the difference between a Navy SEAL and a geriatric. Why is there no option to just say "yeah, screw it, I'll stay here and take that desk job". Because the writers were angry at so many players hating the other endings they had to bend over backward to make the "Okay, fine, you can live" ending suck in every other conceivable way besides being dead. Those two guys that mug you outside vic's clinic at the end are literally the devs punishing the playerbase for wanting to not die.

It feels incredibly spiteful.

Post automatically merged: Jul 11, 2026

 

[Spockprime]

I hate it, as I do in other popular games that use some version of the trope, including BG3's you have a tadpole in your brain and you're dying quickly (which is actually quite similar to BG2's your soul has been stolen and you have only a few days to live). It's a lazy and uncreative way of attempting to move the story forward by nagging the player to death.

There are mods that slightly reduce the annoyingness of the nagging: mods that shut Johnny up, mods that remove Victor's statement that you'll be dead in two weeks; mods that reduce and/or eliminate relic malfunctions. None of them do quite what you're asking or what I'd like to have.

That being said, it hasn't prevented me from enjoying the game for many hours. Here's my approach. If the developer builds a game using that trope but doesn't actually enforce it on the player, then I mentally rewrite the game to my own satisfaction. In CP2077, I ignore every reference to the relic killing me. It's simply an annoying bug in the software that the devs never patched out. I am a resident living the life of a mercenary in Night City. The "endings" don't bother me, because I don't ever trigger them all the way through.

In BG2 / BG3, it's even easier. I know something none of the characters in the game know. The Dungeon Master is my personal friend, and has already decreed that neither the loss of my soul nor the tadpole in my brain are going to harm me.

 

[SigilFey]

MASSIVE SPOILERS for both CP2077 and Denis Villeneuve's ARRRIVAL.

The whole "main character is dying" thing shifted my opinion of Johnny from "he's annoying" to active hatred.

That's the vibe i get from this game. Forget YOUR character. Your V. This is all about Johnny and he is not only narratively erasing your existence, the story has him literally erasing your existence.

That's one of the things in regards to narrative based games that CDPR produce, you're not playing your own character, you're playing what the writers made.

It feels incredibly spiteful.

I know I'm merging individual detail points here, but I'm focusing on the larger sentiment of the post, as all of the details identified lead to over-arching responses to the game. It's that larger response I'm focused on.

CDPR's titles have always been bold, both in material and technologically. For players that have overall negative reactions to the game's premise or story, of course those are valid reactions -- it's opinion! Not liking something, even if it's widely popular, is still a perfectly valid stance. But I think any sentiment of, "It should have been different," begins crossing lines of invalid reasoning.

(Note: This is not an argument that people who dislike the game should change their minds, but simply highlighting that validly identifying why one dislikes a piece is not simultaneously "evidence" that the piece should have been crafted differently. It's an argument between liking dark chocolate and disliking milk chocolate or vice versa. Validly identifying why milk chocolate is good does not automatically mean that dark chocolate is bad, or that the chocolate was not made properly. It's just expressing a preference. There is no final, objective distinction that proves either superiority or inferiority between the two different types of chocolate.)

CP2077's premise, themes, and execution are classically tragic and cathartic. The endings are the culmination of those central themes: The Quest for Immortality, The Tragic Hero, and The Inevitability of Entropy and Mortality. Right there, we have a massive argument that has existed for thousands of years of recorded history, philosophy, and literature. It's an argument that spans belief structures and societal norms from A. Greece to the modern day, and all eras in between.

Is that really the way it works? We have no answer for that, and there are plenty of attempts to address the ideas throughout all forms of literature and art.

I view the core argument here as a clear lense of the modern world we live in. Much of modern society (that has access to things like $60-$80 video games) is based on encouragement, support, optimism, and mental health. That's not a bad thing! For real life considerations, that's a healthy way for a society to operate. Because of that, a lot of media (let's say: formal media) is targeted at constructive resolutions to conflict. New media that focuses on the raw nature of tragedy, nihilism, or catharsis is far more uncommon than it was 40-50 years ago. This makes works like CP2077 much more rare and perhaps unfamiliar to modern audiences. It's not a storyline that is common to engage with in 2026.


_______________


The core here is the Cyberpunk Universe that Mike Pondsmith created. "Welcome to the dark future." The whole premise of Cyberpunk (both Pondsmith's version and the wider genre) is Loss of Humanity, Corporate/Economic Domination, and Fatalism. There are no "happy endings." No one will ever save the world. There is no fairy tale magic. There is no brighter tomorrow. There is the dystopian reality of the present, and that's all we have left. It may be sustained, but it cannot be fixed.

Therefore, including a "happy ending" would dishonor the core tenets of the genre as a whole. It's not that it can't be done -- we have plenty of examples of dystopian stories that do feature the idea of things getting better, or at least people carving out happiness within them. The problem is that, while those stories may have cyberpunk elements...they're not part of the traditional cyberpunk genre.

CDPR clearly wanted to create a narrative that honored the roots of the genre. Therefore, happy endings are off the table. That's not "Cyberpunk."

_______________


Another example of this same disparity between modern audiences and media focused on catharsis is the movie Arrival. Over the years, I am astounded by how many people I've watched it with (I love the film ) either don't get the ending, or if they do, they get caught in a circle trying to deny the ending. They're looking for the happy ending:

• Louis will have her daughter! So everything will be okay.
  • No...her daughter will eventually die of the rare disease, and her husband Ian will leave her.
• Well, she knows it will happen, so she can figure out the cure and her family will be okay!
  • No...that's the "weapon" the heptopods gave her. If you change the future, you destroy the future. It will result in disaster for the heptopods 3,000 years later.
• So she can just not have her daughter! That fixes everything.
  • No...it still changes the future. Any attempt to avoid her pain will simply cause more widespread pain and suffering. The future where everything is okay will be destroyed and replaced with something else. There's no telling if it will be better or worse.
• So -- no matter what she does -- she might destroy everything? The only thing she can do is let her life fall apart!?
  • Yes...endure her future and all the pain that will bring. The comfort is knowing it will all be okay in the end. Tragedy is just part of it. She must sacrifice her happiness.
• That's horrible! No -- no way! That's a terrible movie! Why would anyone make this!

And...sigh. The beauty of it is lost simply because the reality is not a "happy ending." Yes, my example is loaded for the point. But, fact: life is pain. Looking on the bright side and liking fairy tales isn't a problem -- but it's a coping mechanism, not the ability to redefine how reality works. The pain of reality will still be there no matter how we look at it. Cathartic/fatalistic pieces are a safe exploration of the uglier parts of reality. No one has to "like" that sort of literature! And it's perfectly okay to dislike that sort of literature! But I always encourage people to appreciate that sort of literature.

And if it's "if you don't like it, don't play" - well, that's exactly what i've already been doing. I've been shutting the game off because my V is not a moron.

And this is where it leaves a lot of players, unfortunately. Disliking it is perfectly valid! Preferring less fatalistic stories is completely worthy. It doesn't change what the cyberpunk genre is, though. Cyberpunk is dark, tragic, and bleak. No happy endings. Not liking that Is identifying: "I prefer milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate." Dark chocolate will still be a thing, but no one will be forced to eat it.

 

[Kalzandius]

Cyberpunk is dark, tragic, and bleak. No happy endings.

Not necessarily. As defined by William Gibson, cyberpunk is essentially "high tech, low life." Nowhere in there is a mandate that everything has to be bleak and nihilistic. I haven't seen anyone asking for "we want an ending where Arasaka is destroyed and the corporate dystopia is overthrown and it's all sunshine and rainbows.

Some of us just hate the ludonarrative dissonance of the "omg your'e dying and have weeks to live" + huge open world that we want to explore at our own pace and enjoy being immersed in that world. When you have the backdrop of the damn Johnny AI eating our brain it colors everything. "why do I care about that because i'm dead in weeks anyway". Why would V even START any sort of romance if they knew they were going to be dead in 6 months? It makes zero sense. You can't enjoy anything. You can't immerse yourself in anything but the primal need to survive.

Being alive at the end of the story is not some sort of shiny happy ending. The corporations are still there. The drugs are still there. The gangs are still there. V's actions had no lasting impact anywhere. They'll be forgotten in a month. The story arc of "yeah you did what you did but no one cares" is not a happy ending.

This whole Johnny thing is the same thing as a TTRPG player getting to run the game and then making that entire campaign about telling the other players how awesome their former PC (now NPC) is... over and over again.

If there was a way to tell Dex "no" and skip that whole thing, never get the relic, never deal with the stupid constantly dying nonsense, and just do side jobs and gigs and whatnot, then V will never have become a legend. No one would remember them. (That's not a happy ending if the character's supposed goal was to become a legend).

Don't forget the peak and valley thing. When EVERYTHING is terminally bleak and overwhelmingly nihilistic then nothing is.

Their ham handed attempt to make the DLC ending obnoxiously depressing didn't even work at being depressing. It was so poorly written all my editor brain (I am a novelist) could do was find all the flaws in the setup and think about how that made no sense at all. I didn't have the chance to be depressed by the ending because it was so ridiculous, out of character, and very clearly designed as a middle finger to everyone who hated that V dies in every base game ending. It's enough of a 'downer' ending that V can't be a merc anymore. Or that they sold out to the NUSA (which could be considered a bad ending as well). There's no reason other than spite to the players that they had to lose their romance (if they had one) and none of their friends like them anymore. It's an unrealistic narrative that makes Bethesda's writing team feel competent by comparison.

The fact that the relic is "slowly killing" V made me hate Johnny and want as little to do with him as possible. I did not do any of his quests that could be avoided. I did not do anything with Kerry or Us Cracks or any of the devil ending stuff. I will not do that. I despise the cancer AI eating the main characters brain so much that i would legit pay a programmer to create a mod that allows telling DEx no (if such a thing were permitted and within my budget).

But I suppose it's a waste of breath at this point given the game is older. Simpler just not to play it again despite how much I actually enjoy running around the world and doing stuff.

I really hope that Orion skips the "main character is dying" trope. I don't want to have that nagging on the back of my consciousness and sucking the damned joy and immersion straight out of the experience of playing the next game.

 

[Taril]

Not necessarily. As defined by William Gibson, cyberpunk is essentially "high tech, low life." Nowhere in there is a mandate that everything has to be bleak and nihilistic.

Yes, necessarily.

Cyberpunk, the IP, has been continually written this way.

William Gibson has nothing to do with the nature of Mike Pondsmith's creative work.

Yes, Gibson was influential in the genre of "Cyberpunk" as a whole, but in this specific IP it is Pondsmith who created it.

Across all iterations of this IP, from the numerous TTRPG's to recent things like this game and the Edgerunners series... It's all about being bleak. Often going through horrendous tragedy and an untimely end to boot.

It's the overarching theme about how individuals don't (And cannot) matter. How everything is pointless because megacorporations are going to trample over everything and control the world.

The thing to keep in mind is Cyberpunk the IP is not necessarily representative of Cyberpunk the genre. (One of the reasons I think the IP name is awful as it makes it very confusing to talk about without people accidentally mixing them up - Hence my continual use of qualifiers when using the term)

This particular IP has been, and will continue to be, quite divisive as a result. The excessively bleak and nihilistic nature of the IP will routinely push away those who don't enjoy such things. With it likely to continue to have only "Bad" endings (As well as continue to have Arasaka as the primary antagonist)

As a result, I do wonder why CDPR chose to utilise this IP. As opposed to IPs that offer more variety (Or making their own IP) especially since it's not like the TTRPG's are/were such a massively popular thing to boost popularity.

It also makes me very curious about Project Hadar, the actual new IP the company is creating. In both its depth (Due to having to make everything from scratch rather than piggybacking on an established IP) as well as the direction they take the writing (Given that they have complete control, rather than being stuck adhering to the prior authors themes)

 

[Kalzandius]

The thing to keep in mind is Cyberpunk the IP is not necessarily representative of Cyberpunk the genre. (One of the reasons I think the IP name is awful as it makes it very confusing to talk about without people accidentally mixing them up - Hence my continual use of qualifiers when using the term)

Ahh. Fair. I keep thinking people are talking about the genre as a whole, not the specific IP.

 

[Spockprime]

...
The thing to keep in mind is Cyberpunk the IP is not necessarily representative of Cyberpunk the genre.

This. And I'm not even sure what the Cyberpunk genre is, given that the description is used so widely for different types of works. Neuromancer of course, but Judge Dredd, Robocop, Blade Runner, Total Recall, The Matrix are just a few of the range of movies that loosely get lumped into it, along with Ghost in the Shell and a massive set of other animated works. Pondsmith's version is one of the more depressing ones. My complaint about CP2077 has never been that the endings are bad. They're supposed to be bad. My complaint is that the short timeline implied for the main character is incompatible with the open world exploration model.

...
It also makes me very curious about Project Hadar, the actual new IP the company is creating. In both its depth (Due to having to make everything from scratch rather than piggybacking on an established IP) as well as the direction they take the writing (Given that they have complete control, rather than being stuck adhering to the prior authors themes)

I'm curious why they even announced the mystery new IP. I assume that it's not Cyberpunk-ish, because they already have the second Cyberpunk game in development. I assume that it's not fantasy Medieval, because they already have that in the Witcher.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

As a result, I do wonder why CDPR chose to utilise this IP. As opposed to IPs that offer more variety (Or making their own IP) especially since it's not like the TTRPG's are/were such a massively popular thing to boost popularity.

If I remember, it's because some of the devs were really fans of the TTRPG. So they likely thought it will be great to make a game from it and with Mike P. agreement, here we go (Mike words : Cyberpunk 2077 is a game made by fans for fans).
At the end they were right, with over 40 millions copies sold and the stuff around it (two seasons of Edgerunners, card game which breaks Kickstarter record), the game is agurably a success.

 

[Taril]

I'm not even sure what the Cyberpunk genre is

It's mostly some form of "Futuristic Dystopia"

Beyond that, it's quite vague. Intentionally so. Given the fact it is an off-shoot of prior, also vague, genres. Those being Steampunk and Dieselpunk (The latter being so vague that its title didn't even exist until some 70 years AFTER it got popular)

The general theme of these genres is more about aesthetics and technology rather than literary details (As defined by the prefixes). While the suffix simply denotes some form of dystopia to which there is some form of authority to rebel against (Because sticking it to the man is a timeless classic)

My complaint is that the short timeline implied for the main character is incompatible with the open world exploration model.

Aye, though this is mostly just a writing fumble. Luckily, there's no actual mechanics backing it up (Even though it was somewhat implied with the Red Pill, Blue Pill thing... You just kind of never used Red Pill and only popped Blue Pill when telling Johnny to F off occasionally)

Interestingly, the early Atelier games did have both a short timeline AND open world exploration. As an actual mechanic. The games had a certain deadline to achieve the main goal... But you had to explore, fight (And grind levels to fight stronger things) and craft stuff for side quests while every action advanced time.

While I absolutely HATED these with a burning passion of a thousand suns... They were popular enough to continue making games and the IP has a massive catalogue (Of course, having cute/sexy anime girl protagonists helps a lot with popularity, regardless of gameplay)

In CP2077, it's mostly just an awkward bit of writing rather than something that actually gets in the way.

The larger qualm I have with the game, is the stupid person inside your head. I hate the whole "Johnny keeps showing up to give his opinion I don't care about" and even more I hate the whole "V becomes more like Johnny over the course of the game because Vulcan Mind Meld BS"

Not only does this intrude on gameplay when he shows up in random side gigs and what not (While having absolutely tons of bafflingly dissonant interactions. I.e. A common thing I encounter is having a heated encounter with him at Tom's Diner telling him to F off and that he's a piece of crap... Then not 5 seconds later I look at the Tarot Card on the wall and we're all buddy buddy best pals)

But it also shifts a lot of the story away from the player character and onto Johnny. It's less about V's story and more about Johnny's story (And of course the forced Johnny sections of gameplay are trash. Ripping you out of your character you built to play a specific playstyle and into Johnny who's a loser and just shoots his stupid penis-compensating handcannon)

I'm curious why they even announced the mystery new IP. I assume that it's not Cyberpunk-ish, because they already have the second Cyberpunk game in development. I assume that it's not fantasy Medieval, because they already have that in the Witcher.

Well, I guess it's mostly for investors. Releasing the information that they're working on 3 major titles would make them more interested in investing into the company rather than keeping a major project hidden (And having a huge hole in monetary flow when reporting financials)

Beyond that... Who knows what they're going to be doing.

They could double up on a genre. Or they could do something brand new.

Given that the studio is focused mainly on story based games, repeated genre doesn't necessarily seem implausible as there would be entirely new worldbuilding and characters to keep things distinct.

Though if it is a new genre... Space Opera could be a thing. There's a hole in the market there given the flop of things like Mass Effect: Andromeda, Starfield and Outer Worlds 2 (Also, KotoR remakes got cancelled so they won't be coming either)

 

[SigilFey]

Not necessarily. As defined by William Gibson, cyberpunk is essentially "high tech, low life." Nowhere in there is a mandate that everything has to be bleak and nihilistic.

Yes, necessarily.

Cyberpunk, the IP, has been continually written this way.

William Gibson has nothing to do with the nature of Mike Pondsmith's creative work.

^ This. While Gibson may never have directly identified it as a genre standard, one author does not an entire genre dictate. Obviously, Tolkien introduced the concept of high fantasy, but not every single story will exactly ape his unique approach to narrative, structure, or imagery.

The genre of cyberpunk (of which Pondsmith's work is only a part) follows suit with Gibson's work. And even though his work may not have been quite a grim or graphic as Pondsmith's, I would challenge anyone to find a cyberpunk story he wrote that has a happy ending. At best, his endings are ambiguous, bittersweet, or haunting. The largest body of works remaining in the pre-2000s era (Blade Runner, Akira, Beneath a Steel Sky, The Matrix...) all contain some form of permanent loss, bleakness, or fatalistic transformation where technology irrevocably alters humanity.

More recent stories (Alita: Battle Angel, Ghost in the Shell, Minority Report...) certainly adapt cyberpunk motifs, settings, elements, and themes, but tend to arrive at "fairy tale" resolutions with the protagonist overcoming all odds, discovering they are strong enough, finding the answer to the riddle, etc. -- giving those story arcs more in common with romanticism or inspirational pieces than cyberpunk pieces. They're happily-ever-after stories with cyberpunk trappings.

 

[-Nailes-]

Their ham handed attempt to make the DLC ending obnoxiously depressing didn't even work at being depressing. It was so poorly written all my editor brain (I am a novelist) could do was find all the flaws in the setup and think about how that made no sense at all. I didn't have the chance to be depressed by the ending because it was so ridiculous, out of character, and very clearly designed as a middle finger to everyone who hated that V dies in every base game ending. It's enough of a 'downer' ending that V can't be a merc anymore. Or that they sold out to the NUSA (which could be considered a bad ending as well). There's no reason other than spite to the players that they had to lose their romance (if they had one) and none of their friends like them anymore. It's an unrealistic narrative that makes Bethesda's writing team feel competent by comparison.

Good to know others feel the same way about that ending as I do. Its not just a bad ending, its a badly written ending. Thats way worse.
I felt it coming as soon as Reed says "call your friends but no confidential information" because apparently going to the hospital for surgery is confidential. V is in a relationship with Judy(could be panam for male V) but just dissapears for a couple weeks without even telling where to. I was immediately suspicious.
If I go away for a couple days, I tell my loved ones where I'm going because they are my loved ones. Judy only stays in NC for V, that tells us enough. If V told Judy she was going to the hospital, Judy would pack her bags and follow V(it solves the confidential information part because she joins V). But no, V doesnt say anything, the rugpull was being prepared.
It only goes downhill from there. And yes, I was constantly thinking the devs got so upset that people wanted a happy ending(or a hopeful ending which many found in the nomad ending) that they wanted to give players a cured V but then rugpull it all. In a stream a long time ago Pavel Sasko talked about happy endings and how you couldnt have them. He compared it to Romeo and Julliet(though I dont think he got the story) and said he was making art.
Like I said before, if that ending is art, then I'm going to throw some ink at a canvas, I'm an artist too now.


Btw, cyberpunk can have "good" endings or endings that lean in a positive direction. The system isnt overthrown but the protagonist liberates themselves for example. The protagonist still has to live in that world.
The matrix has a positive ending, even if the rebellion is temporary, Ghost in the shell has a transformative philosophycal ending. Neuromancer doesnt see the world change but Case gets his life back.

The Corpo ending was the most powerful ending but very sad. Its the best written ending though I would never replay it. The others endings are... well, what am I supposed to do with those? They are rather vague and all over the place, tbh. Its a good ending for Johnny in some cases, its always bad for V because "it has to be"? Well, it results in endings that didnt fullfill me at all. At least with the Corpo ending I felt something. The others just leave me sitting there wondering what to make of it.
The nomad ending is the exception, because it leans towards hopeful. No idea whather that was intentional, I suppose it wasnt.

 

[MartineDee]

I'm going to respond to the title.

Yes. My instinct was to get rid of Dex.

The compromise I found was to ignore the problem and enjoy the map. It turned out the problem only progresses with the main story, so I call that an AWESOME deal. If you go there, you'll squeeze every last ounce of fun out of NC before you enter and ending on your own terms.

On my first playthrough, I found the roller coaster right around the NYE 2020/21, and the fireworks outside started as I was riding it. You can't repeat that experience again. A wonderful couple of minutes. And I had it by doing the above.

Gotta praise CDPR for making it possible to stretch the gameplay on your own terms, rather than putting an actual timer on V and your gameplay. Some dev groups would have totally done it and so have sunken the gaming experience.

 

[Kalzandius]

I just don't understand why "the main character doesn't die" at the end is considered a "happy" ending. Merely existing (especially in NC) isn't a happy ending. Hating the trope of spending the whole game "dying" doesn't mean a person wants all sunshine and rainbows at the end. No one is asking for Arasaka to be wiped out of night city and all the problems to be fixed. No one is asking for V to end up as king/queen of the Afterlife and still be a walking Abrams tank.

Even in an ending where V is free from the obnoxioous brain-eating cancer that is the Johnny AI, Arasaka is still there. Militech is still there. Nothing whatsoever that V does during the course of the game has a lasting impact on NC. They may as well never have existed. V is not changing anything at all for the better. They don't achieve their dream of becoming a legend. We should be given the choice of agency for our character. Do we want to go out in a blaze of glory and become a legend even if it kills us, or do we want to get our head on our shoulders and stay alive even if it means no one remembers us in six months. In that case V doesn't get their dream. Merely walking away from a mess alive at the end. That is not a traditional happy ending.

I don't get why so many sociopaths seem to love the fact that the character you spend hundreds of hours seeing NC with MUST die at the end. There's a senitment out there that the death penalty for certain crimes is "getting off easy". Suicide is often called "taking the easy way out". One could argue that staying alive in NC is worse than being killed. So, how is that a "happy" ending?

Again, I haven't seen a single post asking for an ACTUAL happy ending where Arasaka is run out of NC and the gangs are cleaned up or Mayor Peralez is freed from whatever it is that the conspiracy is doing to him. We are annoyed at the lame trope of constantly dying. Johnny would have been fine (for me) if it wasn't forcibly taking over the character's brain. That one aspect of the story makes me LOATHE him and want him the F out of my head. The fact that it reeks of someone running a TTRPG and inserting their former PC as an NPC and constantly waving them in your face "look how awesome my character is!" only makes him more irritating.

While it's nowhere near the scope of this game, Tainted Grail had the "passenger in your head" thing too, but it wasn't slowly killing you there. And that was just fine.

There are a lot of things going on in this story that V simply slinking away into the shadows alive at the (one possible) ending isn't "happy". It's merely "not horrible."

 

[chimerafan]

What you're searching for is Prolonged Prologue, google it

 

[Taril]

Even in an ending where V is free from the obnoxioous brain-eating cancer that is the Johnny AI, They don't achieve their dream of becoming a legend.

Actually they do.

Literally, they made it to the big leagues from working with Dex. Even though Dex doesn't survive, they're still noteworthy. In that they are freely able to go into The Afterlife (Which is reserved only for big league mercs and Fixers).

Further to this, V's reputation spreads all throughout Night City. There are side gigs where people refer to you as the "Badass merc who came back from the dead".

All this is before you actually do The Sun ending and become a true Legend.

I don't get why so many sociopaths seem to love the fact that the character you spend hundreds of hours seeing NC with MUST die at the end.

Since that's the only way for there to be a "Bad" ending for the character.

The character that is a living legend, able to beat Adam Smasher, who owns all manor of expensive apartments and dozens of the rarest cars in the entire world. To say nothing of the plethora of military grade Cyberware they're able to own and utilise.

If they live then it's not a "Bleak" or "Nihilistic" ending. It's a character actually breaking out of the system that keeps individuals under the boot of corporations and managing to become the richest person in the world and being powerful enough to singlehandedly take on the biggest Megacorporation on the planet and win.

While it's nowhere near the scope of this game, Tainted Grail had the "passenger in your head" thing too, but it wasn't slowly killing you there. And that was just fine.

Arthur wasn't really in your head. Thus he only appeared at bonfires and select sequences when you went to restore his body.

Conversely, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 did have "Passenger in your head" and it was as equally obnoxious and annoying as in 2077. With Fabien constantly showing up to give his opinion all the time and repeated sequences where you play not as your character you've specialised to work a certain way, but as this absolute loser, in some absolutely appalling gameplay (Imagine playing a detective game. Made for children. With mental handicaps.)

The writing of "It's slowiy killing you" is a very minor aspect of the issue of Johnny. Especially given how little importance such a notion has on the gameplay. Johnny is bad because he intrudes onto your gameplay. V can't react to any scenes because they have to give way to Johnny to opine on everything. Even with the option to tell him to F off, you still have to be interrupted by the jerk and tell him to go away when all you want to do is immerse yourself as a merc running around Night City.

With the worst aspect being the influence Johnny has over V. Early in the game you are allowed options to play your character. You can decline alcohol or cigarettes. You can decide whether to take drugs or not. But after a few story missions this gets ripped away. You HAVE to smoke. You HAVE to drink. You HAVE to take drugs. Why? Because you're becoming Johnny and that jerkface's will is stronger than yours.