Those Misty readings in the post-credits scenes are there for a reason, you know.
then leave him out! i don´t need Mr. Reeves for a good game. Game might´ve gone better without that jack!
Remember there are other endings they can choose for Johnny.
that I agree but sadly it makes no difference if you skip Johnny content or not, at least in current version. Honestly this should have been it, if you do Johnny's quests, you get to choose to either give Johnny body or take it but die while if you do not you can either give Johnny the body willingly or live.
Finished last night and I didnt like the ending. After wondering about the others I did like a lot of people here did and looked up the others only to find out there all the same. V dies just like the rest of you found out. It does leave a hollow feeling even though I got the six months to go live free as Ctrl-V with the nomads. I don't feel like restarting to waste time only to die no matter what. They made it a point to let you know that the construct is not you, both Alt and Johnny say so at different times. It might have the same personality and memories but the soul or heart of the person is gone. Snuffed out when the copy was made.
I mean how hard is it to put in one decent ending where V doesn't die? I came up with one reading through the forums here today.
You wake up inside Mikoshi before you are lit up with soulkiller with Alt and Johnny. Its there you find out Alt has scanned you and says that you have six months left, and that the body is johnny's. You are given the options like before, give the body to johnny to live the natural life left or stay in it for the six months. If you have a good relationship with johnny he asks if there is any other options and Alt says that there was one. She could deconstruct Johnny's construct and reprogram the bio-chip (She wrote soulkiller she would know how to do it since soulkiller writes the person to an engram) using the 'key code' of johnny that started the conversion process to start repairing the damage. Johnny said earlier if it mean he was wiped he would do it to save V. Not only would V not be copied but would survive and would give some sort of redemption to Johnny's arc.
Even if his chip was some sort of prototype that was designed to wipe a person, as it was said before, it should be able to be reprogrammed or tricked at least to revert the damage. (Same program name, different code?) V wakes up and who knows, still rides off with the nomads, (Panam/Judy) to start a new life.
Just my two cents on the matter.
I mean how hard is it to put in one decent ending where V doesn't die? I came up with one reading through the forums here today.
You wake up inside Mikoshi before you are lit up with soulkiller with Alt and Johnny. Its there you find out Alt has scanned you and says that you have six months left, and that the body is johnny's. You are given the options like before, give the body to johnny to live the natural life left or stay in it for the six months. If you have a good relationship with johnny he asks if there is any other options and Alt says that there was one. She could deconstruct Johnny's construct and reprogram the bio-chip (She wrote soulkiller she would know how to do it since soulkiller writes the person to an engram) using the 'key code' of johnny that started the conversion process to start repairing the damage. Johnny said earlier if it mean he was wiped he would do it to save V. Not only would V not be copied but would survive and would give some sort of redemption to Johnny's arc.
Even if his chip was some sort of prototype that was designed to wipe a person, as it was said before, it should be able to be reprogrammed or tricked at least to revert the damage. (Same program name, different code?) V wakes up and who knows, still rides off with the nomads, (Panam/Judy) to start a new life.
Just my two cents on the matter.
I just want my River romance to play out well, because I deserve that after this torturing story, V deserves it, River deserves it and so do Joss and her kids. And of course everyone else who chose him. because that romance and the family is the only light in this dark world that i need. you can have all the things you want if I get that. just give me that as reward for playing!
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Please rant away at your heart's desire!Ah man, thank you, it's been really therapeutic to read through so many people's opinions on this matter! Although this reply is a bit specific (spoilery re: endings/closure if you romance River), I really wanted to get this off my chest and hope y'all don't mind!
Just for context: I think it is a bit shit that there is only one main romance per sexuality, especially considering the endings. I really lucked out in that I really like River and he was the kind of romance I wanted in Night City. But after a questline that I really enjoyed, sex scene that I think was one of the better in the game, agreeing to be in a relationship, and brief (fun) text correspondence, it just kinda died. If you visited, he would have really generic conversation options, and if you phoned he would say (paraphrasing) 'hey babe, I'll call you back soon," and hang up. I naively thought that was the game's way of saying they had no filler content until another quest he would phone you up for. But that quest didn't exist. So, I figured I would look forward to how he would be brought into the ending, and got on with the rest of the game. Eventually people stopped calling and I had no side quests left, so I figured I had burned through all content and went past the point of no return.
Forward to the ending choices >>
It sort of bothered me you could never have a really open conversation with River about the biochip, even though you collapsed in front of Panam and Judy because of it and could chose to explain the situation. But that really, really bothered me on the balcony phonecall when you couldn't tell River what was going on when you called him. He suggests a night cap since you are both awake so late and you can either blatantly lie to him or just vaguely say that you can't. It sucks, it just feels so ingenuine. But I figured, the conversation was otherwise nicely bittersweet, so I would get on and enjoy the ending.
Arasaka: the first option I did. I chose it because I didn't want any of my friends to die for me, but did not think through the implications on Johnny before I went in. I know perhaps that was a bit stupid on my part, but I was too focused on what would be the best way to get the chip out and return to a more stable existence. I actually liked that when you could phone home from space, and tell River what was going on, that he seems to be incredibly determined to find out where exactly in space you were and come find you no matter what. Like, that was actually super sweet. But when I chose the six months option it gave me zero closure regarding what actually happened after that, so I decided to play through another ending.
Panam: I went into this looking for more closure, and didn't consider the implication of leaving Night City afterward. I was just trying out alternative ending options so didn't consider that sure, it would have been a pretty dick move to get the nomads to help you out and then just stay in Night City afterward and let them leave alone after major loses because of you. Obviously, River doesn't want to leave with you because of his family, so you end up having a break up scene that sat really heavy on me. It was super depressing, but his reasoning is honestly logical, and fuck it, I didn't even want to leave night city anyway! So, I figured, what the hell, I would try the Johnny ending, even though I wanted to end things on my own terms and not through him.
Johnny ending: man, this ending would have been the best for my character, if only it didn't skip forward so much in time! It took away the choice of how you wanted to go out and forced your character into doing that one last mission to go out with a bang. I wanted to go visit my friends and romance option again and live out the rest of my life with a priority on them, whilst trying to find a cure. But that just isn't a choice. Instead, the game suggests I have been really distant towards River those last months, which sucked as an ending because I left on the mission feeling like things with him weren't going so well! He says he's going to visit his family and you have the option to say along the lines of 'but i'm dying!' As if his priorities are skewed, even though it's you that are fucking off in literally two minutes. It just feels so unfairly accusing, haha. Even if that mission was actually supposed to lead to your survival, your neglect until that point not being a choice feels unfair.
Initially I was super depressed about the inevitable death. Then I kind of came to terms with it. But it just hasn't sat well with me because of the lack of closure on your own terms. If I have to die, let me chose exactly how.
So, sorry, bit of a rant. But I'm really worried about potential canon because I think options are more or less hopefully for different romance options. Panam's ending sucks for my character's romance with River, but if you romance Panam, it seems much more hopefully to leave with her than her staying in Night City, unhappy. If there had been more than one option per sexuality, it might have been an interesting dilemma to (for example) face inevitable heartbreak with Riven, versus going with an alternate-option who was happy to leave Night City with you, and having to choose your priority in the life you had left, etc.
It just sucks because I absolutely adored my first playthrough until narrative content ran out and I faced the endings, but I cannot bring myself to play it again, knowing what lies ahead. I feel really bad for everyone who rushed the main story to get rid of Johnny and then couldn't find motivation for the side storiesI just keep subtly encouraging my friends to complete all the narrative before they end, because I can almost predict their views of the end and don't want them to regret how quick they did their playthrough!
I made a very similar post a few days ago before starting to post here and it had pretty much exactly the same thing in it as what you just wrote. You just put it more eloquently.
I went through the same steps, minus finishing all the side quests since I wanted to get rid of Jhonny. And I had the same ending as your first one. And I left with the same feeling. Except for me my romance (Kerry) wasn't even something that I cared so deeply since he really isn't my ideal romance choice.
I would have been fine with the outcome, but as you said, there is no closure on our terms. It feels unfair and down right mean from the game for the sake of being depressive.
I totally understand the reasoning for there not being any happy endings. That being said, I disagree with the reasoning, on the contention that, as a player, and as someone with control over V, and as the story revolves around trying to survive, if it is all pointless in the end, how are we supposed to be fulfilled? In every ending, you die and are completely gone due to Soulkiller. That fucking sucks. I don't care if there are bad endings or if the good ending is hard to achieve, I think we as players, and the characters in the game, deserve some way to win, some hopeful outcome where it isn't all hopeless.
Cyberpunk is a dystopian genre, I get it, but that doesn't mean that we should be the "wrong people" to get a "happier ending for everyone", to quote Johnny and V respectively from the end.
We should have some ending where we basically give a metaphorical "fuck you" to Night City; if it is, in some way, implied that the city itself is the antagonist, with the likes of Arasaka, Alt, Johnny, and so on being minor antagonists within it if not embodying different parts of it, then why should we effectively be punished by hearing that our character dies, not in 6 months, but as soon as he/she/they jack in, resulting in Soulkiller killing you?
Don't get me wrong, the story, narrative, and emotional weight in the game is phenomenal, and it's probably one of the best games I've played in terms of narrative/story, ever, but man the endings just are soul draining... and I don't think it's for any good reason either. Nihilistic "acceptance of the inevitable" or "haha you die no matter what because of circumstances" are not fulfilling endings, are not satisfying, are not insightful, or anything else.
Let V live.
Cyberpunk is a dystopian genre, I get it, but that doesn't mean that we should be the "wrong people" to get a "happier ending for everyone", to quote Johnny and V respectively from the end.
We should have some ending where we basically give a metaphorical "fuck you" to Night City; if it is, in some way, implied that the city itself is the antagonist, with the likes of Arasaka, Alt, Johnny, and so on being minor antagonists within it if not embodying different parts of it, then why should we effectively be punished by hearing that our character dies, not in 6 months, but as soon as he/she/they jack in, resulting in Soulkiller killing you?
Don't get me wrong, the story, narrative, and emotional weight in the game is phenomenal, and it's probably one of the best games I've played in terms of narrative/story, ever, but man the endings just are soul draining... and I don't think it's for any good reason either. Nihilistic "acceptance of the inevitable" or "haha you die no matter what because of circumstances" are not fulfilling endings, are not satisfying, are not insightful, or anything else.
Let V live.
They were a little disappointing to me honestly. Not all, but some. Knowing that I did all this just to be screwed at the end, to be told I am going to die... to have no hope. No happy ending. That sucks. I wish there was an option to have a better ending, better than even the "OK" one with Panam where you take off into the desert with the presumption that you will only live another half a year. Even though there's nothing after that that the player can see, it still sucks.
Also, I feel like a continuation AFTER the credits roll, instead of being forced to reload a previous save would be a better option.
Or maybe two?
An option to start anew if your ending allowed for it (like the one with Panam) and being able to return to Night City to tie up loose ends - but to be able to CONTINUE your gameplay without having to rewind all the work you just did to end the game.
Alternatively, there could be a new game plus mode that would allow you to keep everything you worked hard for (custom weapons, experience, etc). Maybe something to keep in mind for DLC.
Just kinda sucks the game just ends and in some of those endings you're just....gone. I hate it.
Also, I feel like a continuation AFTER the credits roll, instead of being forced to reload a previous save would be a better option.
Or maybe two?
An option to start anew if your ending allowed for it (like the one with Panam) and being able to return to Night City to tie up loose ends - but to be able to CONTINUE your gameplay without having to rewind all the work you just did to end the game.
Alternatively, there could be a new game plus mode that would allow you to keep everything you worked hard for (custom weapons, experience, etc). Maybe something to keep in mind for DLC.
Just kinda sucks the game just ends and in some of those endings you're just....gone. I hate it.
I actually really dig this ending! I'd totally be happy to accept it. After all, it is definitely Jhonny who needs redemption.
again for as felt the 100th time, the Panam ending is only ok if your straight male. for everyone else bad. but i also get that Panam for you is as important as River for me.
It's even better for the female because you can get Judy on top.
Right? So much for "cyberpunk's dark tones", because this story revolves around a happy (bittersweet) ending for Johnny. It's laughable people keep bringing up cyberpunk as a genre. It really does feel like bad a bad fanfic for Johnny Silverhand.
I'm curious who all would be interested in a DLC that is some big side mission mid-game but doesn't affect the ending or a DLC that has you playing a different character entirely? Cause to me if the DLC doesn't somehow effect the ending it is worthless in my eyes. Could you guy find motivation to play it cuz I couldn't. I can barely find the motivation to start a new game as it stand right now.
It was his own arrogance at play. That's it. And he took thousands of innocents with him.
You know, I liked him after a while. But I do hope he doesn't return because I don't really need his meta-commentary on everything my V does. He can kick back in cyberspace with Alt.
Not sure. Doubt it. Unless it fixes the basic problems with the lack of rpg in this game i probably will abandon this game.