New Ending (SPOILER ALERT)

[Geralt199]

I Like idea that Phantom Liberty ending change meaning and inpact of storming arasaka tower. Think about IT. Before dlc we did IT for selfish reasons vendetta/ saving your own life. On meta level knowing as a player how NUSA treatment ends storming arasaka and ending reign of this corporation put V in position of character WHO sacrafice his own life to save Night City and his / her friends. Saburo Has a power to destroy City even enslave world for Ex Victor working for Zetatech. Storming tower and destroying mikoshi prevent all of these. The costs is sacrafice of V life same as Silverhand, Alt and Martinez did before US. IT is no more desperate saving your own life. IT is prolonging and taking part in legacy. Thanks to PL ending we can feel that we saving others not ourself. CDPR gaves US good ending because by storming tower we can now negate main theme of Cyberpunk genre which is you can't save a world only you can do is to try save yourself. Now we know consequences not destroying arasaka and can choose the rebel Path of destroying IT rather than gave up your ideas and receive treatment that mutilate your mind and body. You can be savior in world without Hope and meaning After sacrafice you receive a reward. Relationship with a loved one, resurecting Silverhand giving friend a second chance or becoming afterlife legend. Good ending is making a legacy, inpact as Sky in Cloud said, in the hopless world not saving your own life. Saving life is not a good ending. This is just my personal way of interpreting IT. I think story and meaning behind it is really amaizing.

 

[CTPhipps]

There's an element about the ending that also recontextualizes other endings too.

1. Mr. Blue Eyes is the person who came up with the cure for Songbird so he absolutely CAN cure V. It's not a scam he's running on him/her. The "Don't Fear the Reaper" ending actually has hope for V now even if V doesn't believe it. Indeed, Songbird can potentially be there with Mr. Blue Eyes waiting to help them escape.

2. The Nomads theoretically can get in touch with him as well or Panam, or perhaps find a similar cure.

3. Arasaka absolutely COULD cure you if they wanted to if the NUSA could but they choose not to. You're engramed because they don't want to give you a cure and care for you for two years when they can just hit you with Soulkiller and call it a day.

 

[jcthrawn]

Like many players, I was too emotionally engaged and waiting for a new thrilling ending when you don’t have to betray yourself and all your friends. I’m finally artistically pleased they did it so harsh and I wanted to kill myself !  Think about it : going with the government and the CIA of a dark future was really not meant to go well, and then it’s like the Arasaka « I trust capitalism » ending, you get fucked and lose all your friends and love. I personally sticked with Songbird knowing she was the twisted kind who would betray me, but I invested emotionally in her hoping CDPR could give us an ending were we can change her, were she would just come back from the moon with guilt and help us with super dark netnetrunning skills. If such a secret ending exist, it’s a race for who will find it ! Even if it does not exist, its great for Cyberpunk, because everything is harsh, all endings needs sacrifices, and a final where you live is a final where you lose everything and NUSA and Militech take over Night City. I sticked with a charismatic terrorist spy traitor which I wanted to love in a hopeless childish crytpo-dyke friendship, she was so fucked-up she ruined everything, then not to betray myself I must go back to my best anticapitalist and antigovernment friend Panam, hoping for a collective future for my clan and my love while I will die true to my principles (and true to my friendship with another left-wing terrorist gone IA). Which fucking other game gives you that kind of opportunities ?

 

[DavidXanatos]

The point of having multiple endings ist to offer to everyone the ending they would enjoy the most.

Making 3 (4) + 1 bad endings is not good marketing, this way you loose people who don't enjoy a bad ending. Point to make, everyone who really did not like the endings and after reading reviews does not like the new one eider will NOT buy the DLC and this means $$ lost for DC PR, with this ending CD PR just screwed themselves out of 30 bucks with hundreds of thousands of people, millions of revenue lost.

Also what annoys me most is that the endings are not realistic even within the sci-fi world setting of the game.

First of all, an engram is an engram its software doe snot mater who's, Jony being able to stay in the body but V not is plain stupid, its bad writing its forced BS for the sake of getting the story where one wants. This ending should be at least no mater who stays in the body the body dies, that would not be good but would at least not be stupid.

Second Arasaka made that darned thing, if some one can remove it than its them, ok may be its not removable at all, but then how can the FIA remove it, I'm sure Arasaka has their stock of illegal AI's as well, its not plausible that the FIA could save V's live (even though handicapped) and Arasaka could not, that's again bad writing, lack of adhesion to the own world building.

Thirdly the FIA ending, the human brain is not made to interface with hardware, its highly implausible that it could get damaged in a way that does not make one severely disabled, but only prevents interfacing with unnatural components. Its painstaking bad writing, its beyond bad, plus a lot of combat implants in arms legs etc do not even have to interface with the brain, attaching to the peripheral nervous system would be good enough. Also what struck me as very suspicious was how fast Victor came to the conclusion that there is absolutely nothing that could be done, come one really? Nothign? Only from telemetry, no brain biopsy no nothing, ... try some more sensitive transducers, kranial stem cell infusions, drugs? I'm sure that's a solvable issue. In my head canon Vic now under a corporation boot was forced to say this, V's fine except for probably some FIA installed software limiter, that a skilled net runner could remove.

So here is my pitch for a Cyberpunk 2080, setting NC still under Militechs rule is on the verge of new corpo war with Biotechnika, the tensions are being manufactured by the NUSA, the FIA is runnign false flag operations to start a war between the two parties, scheming to sweep in once boot sides are exhausted and take NC once and for all. In that setting V after a few months of physical therapy (why V lost their implants all the money earned until then was sitting comfortably in their bank account multiplying, now ready to be spent in huge quantities on the best doctors, and physiotherapists) and not wanting to accept the situation finds out that their current state is not a result of their physical state but indeed a well disguised FIA malware intended to keep them from interfering, finds a capable net runner, or just lets the entire hardware be replaced just to be sure no backdoor or so are left behind, gets new implants and ventures to prevent the upcoming war by exposing the FIA operations in NC.
Now isn't that a good sequel it even provides a really great, plausible, consistent in universe explanation why the player has to start all over with V from 0.
And if we want Jonny back, there is no plausible reason why the FIA could not make a copy before erasing the relic, so we could have a mission where V breaks into a FIA facility to steal the new chip Jonny is on, just may be this time don't put in in their head, instead find for it some nine inorganic matrix to sit around in V's flat and to chat with over the holo whenever they want.

 

[Krul2k]

With the tech readily available in the CP universe what's the story or non story about clones?

With all that tech wouldn't it be simple to clone V, engram old V an then put the engram in the clone? Or is that to simple, seems like the engram is actually the hard part but I'm honestly coming from a place of complete ignorance in terms of both science an lore.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

With all that tech wouldn't it be simple to clone V, engram old V an then put the engram in the clone? Or is that to simple, seems like the engram is actually the hard part but I'm honestly coming from a place of complete ignorance in terms of both science an lore.

Not sure, but for me, if Saburo Arasaka, the most powerful (likely also the wealfiest) men on earth, was forced to use his son's body instead of simply use a clone of himself (which seem far more easy in theory). I tend to think that cloning a dude and putting an engram in the clone doesn't seem to be possible yet.

 

[Krul2k]

Not sure, but for me, if Saburo Arasaka, the most powerful (likely also the wealfiest) men on earth, was forced to use his son's body instead of simply use a clone of himself (which seem far more easy in theory). I tend to think that cloning a dude and putting an engram in the clone doesn't seem to be possible yet.

Yeah i get that tbh, just seemed exceedingly weird to me, they can literally download someone onto a chip but not clone them, heck we don't have half their tech an can do animals, it a really strange scenario if I'm honest but as i said that's just from someone who don't know the lore or science

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Yeah i get that tbh, just seemed exceedingly weird to me, they can literally download someone onto a chip but not clone them,

Cloning it's a whole another thing than engrams. A clone can't "grow" very fast, so you have create one in advance and "store" it until you need it. While engrams are just "datas", which can be copied, transfered, stored or modified rather easily.
(that's why Goro say to V that Arasaka can't provide a suitable body yet. It might be possible, but not before the death limit of 6 months).

 

[LokenWar]

Here is my reflexion about the new ending.

For me, what make sense to the all history, on this new ending, is the fact that Arasaka falls without the V & Silverhand action. That puts on the table a new view of point, where means V & Silverhand weren't so important as they thought because without them Arasaka also was defeated. In my opinion, that's proves Silverhand was just a narcicistic terrorist.

For the other hand, when V decided to obtain the cure, he had to give Songbird to Red & NUSA, and also eliminate Silverhand, and abadoned the main quest, so as the title of the DLC say to win the liberty you have to pay. In this case with your own life, to be a phantom. And that price is you lose everything as pay for what you did it to arrive to that point.

Remember at the begging of the DLC we abandoned our live to go help Songbird because she offers us a cure. We could say: "I'm not going to risk my onw life", but insetad of that, we took the risk and lost all sense just to find the cure. And to reach this point we killed a lot of people, and betrayed everybody, also ourselves, because we abandoned our live. Betrayed everybody because we abandoned our live and because during the DLC non of any decision we took was good for anyone more than us to find the cure. Because if we thought about Songbird we had taken her to the moon, where she could be cured and free, but we would lost the oportinuty to find our cure.

So, in conclusion, obviusly I'm not happy to know V lost his power, more when I were level 53 and I was almost inmmortal, with my blood pump and mylitech "apogee" sandevistan. But, if I would to be free that's the price for abandoned my life to risk everything for a call, of one stranger called "songbird".

And now V is a nobody who can have a normal live, without be involved on terrorist plans or FIA plans, where everybody got fucked. And the most important thing for me, V lost of his view Sivlerhand, so now he can be V and choose his own life. Because before this ending I don't remember any of the characters involved on this were happy. They had problems or V make them get involved in problems, but with V in coma two years, everyone get a better life, because they choosed to be away of the problems.

I know for some people the good ending could be Panam's ending. But in this ending V only live for a short time, and he deads, so I think isn't a good ending for V, is just a good ending for the spectator who still alive with a good feeling. Instead of this, the new ending, makes the specator live with a bad feeling like V, but V is alive with full of time for life as the spectator live.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

In my opinion, that's proves Silverhand was just a narcicistic terrorist.

Do you know that at time, the nuke planted by Johnny in Arasaka tower was provided by Militech, and the whole assault on Arasaka tower was also led and sponsored by Militech? Also that the enormous detonation which destroyed city center was due to a big Arasaka's nuke bured in the tower basement, which was detonated by Arasaka to "erase" everything about the attack?

Narcisic, for sure, no doubt... A "terrorist", I would rather say a "designated, ideal and most important, dead culprit" for Arasaka and Militech for propaganda.

 

[Krul2k]

Here is my reflexion about the new ending.

For me, what make sense to the all history, on this new ending, is the fact that Arasaka falls without the V & Silverhand action. That puts on the table a new view of point, where means V & Silverhand weren't so important as they thought because without them Arasaka also was defeated. In my opinion, that's proves Silverhand was just a narcicistic terrorist.

For the other hand, when V decided to obtain the cure, he had to give Songbird to Red & NUSA, and also eliminate Silverhand, and abadoned the main quest, so as the title of the DLC say to win the liberty you have to pay. In this case with your own life, to be a phantom. And that price is you lose everything as pay for what you did it to arrive to that point.

Remember at the begging of the DLC we abandoned our live to go help Songbird because she offers us a cure. We could say: "I'm not going to risk my onw life", but insetad of that, we took the risk and lost all sense just to find the cure. And to reach this point we killed a lot of people, and betrayed everybody, also ourselves, because we abandoned our live. Betrayed everybody because we abandoned our live and because during the DLC non of any decision we took was good for anyone more than us to find the cure. Because if we thought about Songbird we had taken her to the moon, where she could be cured and free, but we would lost the oportinuty to find our cure.

So, in conclusion, obviusly I'm not happy to know V lost his power, more when I were level 53 and I was almost inmmortal, with my blood pump and mylitech "apogee" sandevistan. But, if I would to be free that's the price for abandoned my life to risk everything for a call, of one stranger called "songbird".

And now V is a nobody who can have a normal live, without be involved on terrorist plans or FIA plans, where everybody got fucked. And the most important thing for me, V lost of his view Sivlerhand, so now he can be V and choose his own life. Because before this ending I don't remember any of the characters involved on this were happy. They had problems or V make them get involved in problems, but with V in coma two years, everyone get a better life, because they choosed to be away of the problems.

I know for some people the good ending could be Panam's ending. But in this ending V only live for a short time, and he deads, so I think isn't a good ending for V, is just a good ending for the spectator who still alive with a good feeling. Instead of this, the new ending, makes the specator live with a bad feeling like V, but V is alive with full of time for life as the spectator live.

It's the same ending for Arasaka apart from one and it was always like that from before Phantom Liberty

The only time it's different is when V decides to trust Hanako.

You don't abandon your life, you're simply "investigating" another possible lead on a cure, one at that point of time could seem more solid than the others.

The endings are "edgy" for the sake of it, nothing more, their crap (crap feeling) because they (devs/writers) think they need to be.

The "secret" ending in the base game was the opportunity to offer something unique/different, instead they choose same copy/paste (not the mission, prologue after the mission)

I get the impression CDPR want's V out the picture if I'm honest, they just constantly did it wrong including in PL, luckily i have a head that can think an while it thinks 3/4 endings in PL are rubbish i still think a couple from the base game are decent enough to see my chars out on an the one i like from PL can just stay the "good" memory my char has from NC.

 

[CTPhipps]

With the tech readily available in the CP universe what's the story or non story about clones?

With all that tech wouldn't it be simple to clone V, engram old V an then put the engram in the clone? Or is that to simple, seems like the engram is actually the hard part but I'm honestly coming from a place of complete ignorance in terms of both science an lore.

I mean the answer for that is. "Yes, it would be simple if you had tens of millions of dollars, a couple of years worth of time, and were certain the Engram is you."

It's the same ending for Arasaka apart from one and it was always like that from before Phantom Liberty

The only time it's different is when V decides to trust Hanako.

You don't abandon your life, you're simply "investigating" another possible lead on a cure, one at that point of time could seem more solid than the others.

The endings are "edgy" for the sake of it, nothing more, their crap (crap feeling) because they (devs/writers) think they need to be.

The "secret" ending in the base game was the opportunity to offer something unique/different, instead they choose same copy/paste (not the mission, prologue after the mission)

I get the impression CDPR want's V out the picture if I'm honest, they just constantly did it wrong including in PL, luckily i have a head that can think an while it thinks 3/4 endings in PL are rubbish i still think a couple from the base game are decent enough to see my chars out on an the one i like from PL can just stay the "good" memory my char has from NC.

I'd love to hear an ending that actually has any sort of pathos or good writing to it from the people who hate these endings.

You can complain about specifics but this story has a lot of great emotional beats.

The people who are complaining about it don't seem to actually have any complaints other than, "I want my LI" and "V will be awesome."

I mean, can they describe what would be a good ending to them that has emotional resonance than, "Yay, I win?"

Seriously, hit me with it. I want to know what the upsides and downsides would be to THEIR ending. What makes it emotional and powerful? I am all interested.

 

[LadyMiseryAli]

I mean the answer for that is. "Yes, it would be simple if you had tens of millions of dollars, a couple of years worth of time, and were certain the Engram is you."



I'd love to hear an ending that actually has any sort of pathos or good writing to it from the people who hate these endings.

You can complain about specifics but this story has a lot of great emotional beats.

The people who are complaining about it don't seem to actually have any complaints other than, "I want my LI" and "V will be awesome."

I mean, can they describe what would be a good ending to them that has emotional resonance than, "Yay, I win?"

Seriously, hit me with it. I want to know what the upsides and downsides would be to THEIR ending. What makes it emotional and powerful? I am all interested.

Ok. I'm a writer of fanfic, so this ending has been giving me ideas on how to improve it. So here goes. I don't mind the coma part. It's an experimental procedure so whatever is going on to rebuild V's brain, it's gonna take a bit and it's better for them to be in a state where they're not in pain and screaming the whole time so a coma makes sense. HOWEVER, I would change a little something. Rather than have the love interests left in the dark, maybe Reed starts to feel bad because he sees V's phone blowing up with messages from whomever V is with. He has someone hack the phone, sees all the messages, feels bad and he decides to give the love interest a call. Tells them what's going on to a point. Hell, I would even go a little further and have him sneak them into the facility one evening so they can see V and so he can explain why they're in a coma and why it's undetermined they will be in one. The love interest understands, is emotional, but is understanding of the situation now. Flash forward to two years later, V wakes up, everything goes from there. I would have them meet with Misty, then Misty gives the love interest a call to come get V from wherever they're talking. An emotional reunion occurs. V is still in a state of shock because of losing their cyberware and everything else, but the love interest assures them that they can bounce back, that it's okay to just be a normal person again. They didn't completely stop living their lives in those two years but they were holding onto hope that V would one day wake up, so Judy didn't just go off and get married and Panam didn't ghost him. Hell, would have had Kerry returning from the tour, OR have V give him a call from a hotel room or something and they talk, like the ending is originally, only I would have made it more emotionally charged and more of Kerry being relieved and happy that his man is okay again.

 

[BabaBooey88]

So few people appreciate the beauty that is (don’t) fear the reaper. Full tilt catharsis that is easily contextualized for any life path, though it’s obviously the proper street kid ending, where one takes the fight straight to Arasaka. An easy two for one; trying to save your life but gonna end everyone else’s regardless.
“You, me, and Arasaka Tower…”

I’m glad they had the balls to do this new ending in such a way, and it’s more bleak than I hoped for. I thought someone would die if V gets cured, perhaps stabbed in the back at the last minute - but instead all their friends just move on? Maaaaan that’s rough.

If this doesn’t communicate to people V is done, I’m really not sure what will.

Night City is the main character of this franchise and always will be. V is just a two bit player that got in way over their head.

 

[LokenWar]

Do you know that at time, the nuke planted by Johnny in Arasaka tower was provided by Militech, and the whole assault on Arasaka tower was also led and sponsored by Militech? Also that the enormous detonation which destroyed city center was due to a big Arasaka's nuke bured in the tower basement, which was detonated by Arasaka to "erase" everything about the attack?

Narcisic, for sure, no doubt... A "terrorist", I would rather say a "designated, ideal and most important, dead culprit" for Arasaka and Militech for propaganda.

I know it. Anyways, what does that mean to you? Do you justify a terrorist attack just because a corporation is involved?

For me it doesn't change anything, Silverhand is a terrorist like Militech or Arasaka were. What happens is that Silverhand believes he is different because he fights against them, when Militech and Arasaka commit crimes fighting against each other. In my opinion, there isn't any ideal where you have to make pain to others to succes your objectives. For me, he's just a lier, who thinks can play to be God and choose the destiny of Night City and it citizens.

 

[CTPhipps]

Ok. I'm a writer of fanfic, so this ending has been giving me ideas on how to improve it. So here goes. I don't mind the coma part. It's an experimental procedure so whatever is going on to rebuild V's brain, it's gonna take a bit and it's better for them to be in a state where they're not in pain and screaming the whole time so a coma makes sense. HOWEVER, I would change a little something. Rather than have the love interests left in the dark, maybe Reed starts to feel bad because he sees V's phone blowing up with messages from whomever V is with. He has someone hack the phone, sees all the messages, feels bad and he decides to give the love interest a call. Tells them what's going on to a point. Hell, I would even go a little further and have him sneak them into the facility one evening so they can see V and so he can explain why they're in a coma and why it's undetermined they will be in one. The love interest understands, is emotional, but is understanding of the situation now. Flash forward to two years later, V wakes up, everything goes from there. I would have them meet with Misty, then Misty gives the love interest a call to come get V from wherever they're talking. An emotional reunion occurs. V is still in a state of shock because of losing their cyberware and everything else, but the love interest assures them that they can bounce back, that it's okay to just be a normal person again. They didn't completely stop living their lives in those two years but they were holding onto hope that V would one day wake up, so Judy didn't just go off and get married and Panam didn't ghost him. Hell, would have had Kerry returning from the tour, OR have V give him a call from a hotel room or something and they talk, like the ending is originally, only I would have made it more emotionally charged and more of Kerry being relieved and happy that his man is okay again.

Pretty good writing. As a writer myself, I give it props!

Post automatically merged: Oct 1, 2023

I know it. Anyways, what does that mean to you? Do you justify a terrorist attack just because a corporation is involved?

For me it doesn't change anything, Silverhand is a terrorist like Militech or Arasaka were. What happens is that Silverhand believes he is different because he fights against them, when Militech and Arasaka commit crimes fighting against each other. In my opinion, there isn't any ideal where you have to make pain to others to succes your objectives. For me, he's just a lier, who thinks can play to be God and choose the destiny of Night City and it citizens.

It was a war and people died.

I also feel like V is in no room to judge Johnny given their own body piles.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I know it. Anyways, what does that mean to you? Do you justify a terrorist attack just because a corporation is involved?

Nope, but the bomb which killed a bunch of innoncents and blow up the Arasaka tower and a big chunk of Night City center wasn't the one Johnny used. Johnny's one barely destroyed few floors of the Arasaka tower around the 30th floor
So if Arasaka didn't use its own nuke, only soldiers present around the 30th floors in the Arasaka tower would die (something which happen during war, soldiers die).

The only Johnny's goal this day, it was to access to the Arasaka subnet to free Alt. If it wasn't Johnny to plant Militech bomb, they would hired someone else anyway.

But well, corpo propaganda... Johnny was the one who kill innocents, deads can't defend themself and say otherwise anyway

 

[CTPhipps]

Also, "corporation" doesn't really accurate describe Arasaka such as "Occupying Nation State" in 2020.

Mind you, the bomb went horrifically wrong.

The funny thing was, it actually did save millions as it ended the Fourth Corporate War that was as devastating as WW2.

 

[DavidXanatos]

I'd love to hear an ending that actually has any sort of pathos or good writing to it from the people who hate these endings.

You can complain about specifics but this story has a lot of great emotional beats.

The people who are complaining about it don't seem to actually have any complaints other than, "I want my LI" and "V will be awesome."

I mean, can they describe what would be a good ending to them that has emotional resonance than, "Yay, I win?"

Seriously, hit me with it. I want to know what the upsides and downsides would be to THEIR ending. What makes it emotional and powerful? I am all interested.

Well simplest option: everyone dies except V....

Less deadly option, V must choose to let their love interest be killed in order to get the cure. (go left and save the love interest boss fight 1, or go right and get to mikoshi and survive, boss fight 2 other opponent).

Worst option, V needs to find a body donor and the only match found in time is someone they have a strong emotional relation to (panam, or an other aldecaldo, judy, kerry, etc...), soooo ... you can imagine what comes next... would be quite nice artistically to make the point that most people when their live is at stake will become the worst people. We are civil as long as the circumstances allow but when push comes to shove we are savage creatures.
Closing scene, V alive and "well" a live legend in their new top notch apartment, starts crying under the shower... may be smashing a mirror, their new face being a permanent reminder of what crime they had to commit in order to survive, keeping the face out of shame or to punish themselves and be reminded whom they had to sacrifice in order not to die themselves.
That's some pretty emotionally moving $hit right there, impact full enough for you?

I mean what would be more demonstrative and hammering the point down that NC breaks everyone, then to giving the player the choice to eider die or to have to murder an NPC that the charakter had a strong emotional relation with.

There are pretty many ways to make the ending emotionally impact full without having the ending be V dying, in fact I'd wager that having V dye is the least imaginative ending, and not that impact full at all.

And lets be honest it makes the entire game pointless, I mean if V is going to die whats the point in doing anything anyways, sure V does not know that back then but we do most of us did even during the very first play through, its surely spoils the fun knowing that all the afford is for not. Often resulting in ignoring the main game and just playing all the side missions.

 

[CTPhipps]

Well simplest option: everyone dies except V....

Less deadly option, V must choose to let their love interest be killed in order to get the cure. (go left and save the love interest boss fight 1, or go right and get to mikoshi and survive, boss fight 2 other opponent).

Worst option, V needs to find a body donor and the only match found in time is someone they have a strong emotional relation to (panam, or an other aldecaldo, judy, kerry, etc...), soooo ... you can imagine what comes next... would be quite nice artistically to make the point that most people when their live is at stake will become the worst people. We are civil as long as the circumstances allow but when push comes to shove we are savage creatures.
Closing scene, V alive and "well" a live legend in their new top notch apartment, starts crying under the shower... may be smashing a mirror, their new face being a permanent reminder of what crime they had to commit in order to survive, keeping the face out of shame or to punish themselves and be reminded whom they had to sacrifice in order not to die themselves.
That's some pretty emotionally moving $hit right there, impact full enough for you?

I mean what would be more demonstrative and hammering the point down that NC breaks everyone, then to giving the player the choice to eider die or to have to murder an NPC that the charakter had a strong emotional relation with.

There are pretty many ways to make the ending emotionally impact full without having the ending be V dying, in fact I'd wager that having V dye is the least imaginative ending, and not that impact full at all.

And lets be honest it makes the entire game pointless, I mean if V is going to die whats the point in doing anything anyways, sure V does not know that back then but we do most of us did even during the very first play through, its surely spoils the fun knowing that all the afford is for not. Often resulting in ignoring the main game and just playing all the side missions.

Oddly, I feel like the ending's biggest change is that it establishes V probably does live in "Never Fade Away" because the ending establishes the cure the NUSA has came from the same person V is working for in the Heist ending.

PROBABLY.

But not CERTAINLY.