Thread summary and disclaimer
Romances in Cyberpunk 2077 are not part of the main story, they bear no impact on the story in any sense at this point, aside from the various ending sequences that they give closure to they don't contribute, in terms of narrative, to much of our decision making or our own character development. Your V will pretty much forget about them up until the events at the roof where you are prompted to call them if you choose to. While the main story has characters you can romance tied to it, they will be phased out onto their own separate side stories to leave you with your choice of engaging with them or not at all.
Praise
Briefly summed up achievement and impact with the positive aspects of the romance and its value to the Cyberpunk 2077 community.
Depression
And now we get to the unfortunate depression that kicks in, as the start of your relationship is basically the end of it as well.
To sum up all the points that leave people with sadness after the best part of the romance is over. And we are aware that there can't be endless content on release, but to stop it at the start, and after the first sex? I doubt that was the original plan.
Hope
While it would be nice to have the romance reflected in some ways in the events of the main story. It is probably their saving grace to be side quests and tied to city events and ecosystem. And they did in some ways interact with your endeavors. If you call the characters after a big story mission they will comment on it with you, it is a nice touch. The following summed up list will propose improvements to the romance feature.
If you by any chance happen to be one of the lovely people involved with the development of this wonderful game, feel free to start from here since you likely are aware of the above mentioned points.
Disappointment
In the relation to romances, 2 other issues seem to be very widely discussed. The lack of characters to romance and the characters sexual preferences.
On the first point it is a good time to define what the community sees as a romance. Romance isn't just having sex with a character, otherwise we would be treating the 4 joy toys as romance choices, which no one does. Romance refers to the commitment that the character makes to us and we to them and our investment in their story and further development of this relationship through dialogue. Some people felt they couldn't find any of the 4 choices worth their time and expressed desires for other characters to be dated. Or simply felt that some were cut and were intended to be romance choices. To give reference as to who they are I tried to compile the most requested ones.
While we all wish to see more choices in the future, until the above mentioned issues with the current relationships are addressed we would be setting ourselves for a low standard for any future character. It would only lead to the same feeling of missed opportunity and unfulfilled potential in regards to romance. Therefore I hope we can all agree on wishing to first set a higher bar for quality in this regard, so all the following characters feel like real expansions of our quality time with them.
Many threads try address the developers choice of making the romanced characters have sexual preferences. They mostly seem to call for making all characters player sexual, basically bisexual or offer the counter argument that it is better to keep them as they are and advocate for more character choices in the future instead. The most prelevant one seems to be surrounding
Judy. And the consensus is always on the side of keeping them as they are. In
Judy's case her dialogue and background story is woven with her sexuality. Taking that away from her to accommodate the player, majority agrees would be a lazy way of addressing this topic as well as it would damage the integrity of her character and personality that the designers and writers envisioned her to have. This sentiment extends to the other romance choices and the community for the most part agrees with the authors and their original vision and wish to keep them the way they are. One of the arguments emphasizes that such changes would sever the ties the players have to them as they are now, but also appreciate the value of having been treated to 2 separate parts of their personality in their acceptance and their refusal. Therefor acknowledging the depth of character they show as well as reflect authenticity to reality, making them stand out as their own defined personalities within a virtual setting.
However, following the threads we tried to find why these 2 topics arose often. The conclusion I think might be related to how little time people felt they got to spend with those that rejected them. They felt a lack of opportunity of getting to know them better in a way. Because their new friendship basically comes to a forced halt similar to those that did end up in a relationship with the character. There should be still ways for them to get to know these characters better as friends and spend time with them around a certain event.
Reason
I wanted to include this bit because it will go towards showing how important this part of Cyberpunk 2077 is for so many of us. And why this feature of the game has most replay value and investment on our part. And I can tell you with high confidence that many of us would hop back in immediately, if we just get more text messages from our beloved character that we romanced after already completing everything.
I also wish to say why this topic has lasting value in an environment that will mostly focus on more gameplay features, while somehow not considering romance to be a gameplay feature, and or condemning it to a lofty wish to make Cyberpunk a dating simulator game.
Please share with me if you feel I forgot to include valid points or haven't addressed some. Thank you if you took the time to read all, I tried to sum up most while hoping to keep it easier on the eyes.
I feel like he’s being used horribly in the main story and I’d love for V to at least try and help him out, assuming the story isn’t over.
