[Spoiler Alert] About the endings

[Witzzard]

You like endings that’s cool. But all endings leads to the same dumpsink that is death in 6mo.
game was advertised as as story driven where you can shape your story. Well it ends up that you can make just one shape, but you can chose the different textur - like a edgy tarot star, Devil or sun.

for me thats ultra weak, like for most people in this thread and prolly in general. But Im pretty sure that CDPR is happy that it just blow 350mln$ to satisfied minority of its customers

Ah so you basically want them to be corpo whores not taking risk, but rather trying to please the general market. So maybe they should cut all that story crap and rather do another Dota or Pubg or something. Understood
Nah believe me, if you want to make ridicilous statements, i'll trump you buddy

And yes i like stories with closures, something i didn't totally get here...

 

[Barsenthor]

Ah so you basically want them to be corpo whores not taking risk, but rather trying to please the general market. So maybe they should cut all that story crap and rather do another Dota or Pubg or something. Understood
Nah believe me, if you want to make ridicilous statements, i'll trump you buddy

And yes i like stories with closures, something i didn't totally get here...

Like this corpo whores that made Skyrim, GTAV, Assassins Creed Origin/Odyssey/Valhala and Horizon Zero Dawn - look at these losers, they know nothing about the edge, and edgerunners, and runners, or about anything. they know nothing beside making games that were pleased by general audience, made millions, are cornerstones of respectives genres and will be remembered by generations
fuck them

 

[noneforthree]

Of course you do because they are cringe. Writers for games and mainstream movies these days are so incompetent that they think doing the exact opposite ridiculous end from the usual ridiculous end is some kind of intellectual revolution. Don't want a fairy tale ending, well here is the exact opposite which is arguably even less realistic, so innovative, much message!

If they actually knew how to write they could pull of an actually satisfying sad ending, like Anna Karenina or Foucault's Pendulum, two of my all-time favorite books, where the end actually feels like it finishes the story in a surprising yet logical and definitely appropriate manner. Of course, those writers, were also not complete idiots so they didn't base their stories on a self-insert, first-person character. Weird.

Cool that my comment, about my genuine feelings sparked a creative writing 101.

 

[nadsh]

V accepting death can be seen as being out of character. Especially with the doll-scene in mind

I don't know if it's possible to play it differently, but with the dialogue options/choices I picked for my V the overall theme was far from the acceptance of death. She was constantly angry and scared up until the end, and Johnny's last words were to never stop fighting.

Again, I'm not against keeping V's death as a possible outcome, I just don't want it as the only outcome, especially keeping future playthroughs in mind.

 

[Witzzard]

Like this corpo whores that made Skyrim, GTAV, Assassins Creed Valhala and Horizon Zero Down - look at these losers, they know nothing about the edge, and edgerunners, and runners, or about anything. they know nothing beside making game that was pleased by general audience, made millions, are cornerstones of respectives genres and will be remembered by generations
fuck them

Still not making a point against Multiplayer gameplay without story being the most profitable thing to do
And really wanna bring up Bethesda or Ubisoft as a great example CDPR should go to? I mean, i guess they better cut the outfits backout and resell them through an ingame shop or something

But better leave it be, as we're straying happily from the topic of this thread.

 

[IAMNOTV]

My only wish is for CDPR as a company to meet the same fate as V, unless the ending is rewritten.

 

[NikitaNiki]

So many people come in with the argument "I liked the game because V was always gonna die" or "Cyberpunk needs to be sad". Good for you, you can keep your sad ending. Clearly lots of other players weren't satisfied with that. Maybe ONE ending for us wouldn't hurt you. Why argue against it?

Also to point out, I would not have minded my ending NEARLY as much if I had any agency in the epilogues. Instead in all the ones I played I had three ways to say the same thing - whatever the devs wanted V to say. Different flavors of the same shit. If V made it big in NC why can't I use my last 6 months living life to the fullest? Or at the very least, be honest and truthful with my friends and loved ones? Why can't V ask for help from the people closest to her? Instead she jumps out of a space station on a last solo mission - btw people saying that ending is hopeful I'm pretty sure you're trying to assault the same place Arasaka takes you in that ending where they tell you there's no cure. So... It's not actually very hopeful.

 

[nadsh]

I'm pretty sure you're trying to assault the same place Arasaka takes you in that ending where they tell you there's no cure. So... It's not actually very hopeful.

Nope, different place. It's a giant space station controlled by the ESA, it's hinted that Mr Blue Eyes knows about V's condition and is a possible link to a cure (he says something along the lines of "I know you would do anything to survive"). The same guy is present in the Peralez quest.

 

[Barsenthor]

Still not making a point against Multiplayer gameplay without story being the most profitable thing to do
And really wanna bring up Bethesda or Ubisoft as a great example CDPR should go to? I mean, i guess they better cut the outfits backout and resell them through an ingame shop or something

But better leave it be, as we're straying happily from the topic of this thread.

The old saying says
amateur poets borrow; mature poets steal

iIf you want to know who’s better looks at the charts, in UK CP77 is on 15th position while Assassins Creed Valhalla on 4th, and GTAV on 9th.

anything else?

 

[Witzzard]

So many people come in with the argument "I liked the game because V was always gonna die" or "Cyberpunk needs to be sad". Good for you, you can keep your sad ending. Clearly lots of other players weren't satisfied with that. Maybe ONE ending for us wouldn't hurt you. Why argue against it?

Also to point out, I would not have minded my ending NEARLY as much if I had any agency in the epilogues. Instead in all the ones I played I had three ways to say the same thing - whatever the devs wanted V to say. Different flavors of the same shit. If V made it big in NC why can't I use my last 6 months living life to the fullest? Or at the very least, be honest and truthful with my friends and loved ones? Why can't V ask for help from the people closest to her? Instead she jumps out of a space station on a last solo mission - btw people saying that ending is hopeful I'm pretty sure you're trying to assault the same place Arasaka takes you in that ending where they tell you there's no cure. So... It's not actually very hopeful.

If one totally wants a "V dies, because death inevitable and we need to accept it ending" - having endings wherein V doesn't die lessen that message, as death no longer is inevitable (at least not in the immediacy).
So to me it's better to set you goal immediately and stay with one story you want to write if you can't combine different endings.
But if it should be such a story or not, is somewhat disconnected from how well the actual story is done. As that's just a preference to what story one likes.
And as you write, the inevitability still would actually have needed a ending that shows V trying to make the best out of a shitty situation.

In the end i'm personally i don't care as much about which story they've done - i just would have wanted them to deliver nothing as muddled. I got my "Edgy" stuff by having just read the nice short the little match girl and Girls Last Tour...
And i completly could have done with a Shadowrun Hong Kong like ending, that still shows it's all pretty bad, but you need to live with it or something.

 

[nadsh]

If one totally wants a "V dies, because death inevitable and we need to accept it ending" - having endings wherein V doesn't die lessen that message, as death no longer is inevitable (at least not in the immediacy).
So to me it's better to set you goal immediately and stay with one story you want to write if you can't combine different endings.
But if it should be such a story or not, is somewhat disconnected from how well the actual story is done. As that's just a preference to what story one likes.
And as you write, the inevitability still would actually have needed a ending that shows V trying to make the best out of a shitty situation.

In the end i'm personally i don't care as much about which story they've done - i just would have wanted them to deliver nothing as muddled. I got my "Edgy" stuff by having just read the nice short the little match girl and Girls Last Tour...
And i completly could have done with a Shadowrun Hong Kong like ending, that still shows it's all pretty bad, but you need to live with it or something.

I already know that death is inevitable when you have an incurable illness, don't know what the lesson is. There's plenty of that in life. I never got the impression that it was supposed to be the main theme of the game anyway. This is an RPG that's supposed to take the player's choices into account and be replayed multiple times, not a terminal illness simulator. "Life sucks and then you get plot cancer and die" doesn't promote replayability, no matter how good and engaging the story is before that.

EDIT: I mentioned it before, I actually like the current open endings. Would prefer a post ending DLC that continues the story with different outcomes, but I'd rather keep the open endings than get expanded but completely fatalistic ones.

 

[suicidesuki]

I guess you could say they are sad endings. But in my opinion V still lived his life in it's plenty overcoming any difficulty and building a friendship with the "guest" inside his brain.

 

[Eakani]

I see 563 pages as evidence that the endings are lacking something and the player is left with headcanon only not with rewarding endings CDPR talked about. It doesn't feel rewarding that we aren't allowed to fulfill Vs main objective. It is like ME3 ending but without saving the galaxy

I mean, someone who says V dies is in the same way right, as someone saying V doesn't die. We have many maybe's and could be's, but nothing the game really tells us.
Heck, even the suicide ending could be open if you want it to, because it happens offscreen. The relic could save us again, we wake up in a crematorium seeing Johnny looking at us and saying, "You little naive merc, you didn't learn anything!".

There is no proof for anything, just the imagination of the player, in all endings and thats what i don't like.

 

[NikitaNiki]

If one totally wants a "V dies, because death inevitable and we need to accept it ending" - having endings wherein V doesn't die lessen that message, as death no longer is inevitable (at least not in the immediacy).

I don't necessarily agree with this as we're talking about a game. If your chosen ending is that V should die because that's what makes sense to you then you wouldn't pick the "V lives" ending if it was available would you? Or maybe everyone would pick that one if it existed because it's more fun to play a game where the hero lives since it's a game and not a piece of media I'm otherwise ingesting.

I also think the "hero death" is particularly played to death across all media types. It's not more powerful or impactful just because they're dead. In each ending countless people have died to get you where you are as it is. V has to live with that if she lives. You can write a meaningful, impactful, hopeful, sad story without killing off the MC at the end. And in this case it may have made an interesting story. One time. There's no replayability if your goal is a lost cause. You're fighting to survive, but jokes on you, you can't.

 

[onosendai7]

And how did Johny survived from ill-fated attempt to rescue Alt and tower nuking? He, like, openly attacked Arasaka and lived 10 years. No Arasaka punishment, no even legal persecution — how?
Logic is sacrifixed to power fantasy, again.

Unlike what is depicted in Cyberpunk 2077, Johnny is not a petty rocker of the local scene. Johnny is already a star. Johnny has signed with some entertainment corp and is not a no-one but generates tens of thousands of benefits. Even Arasaka thinks twice about icing some rockerboy acclaimed worldwide.

Johnny Silverhand

Johnny Silverhand, born Robert John Linder,[1][Twitter 1] was a famous and influential rockerboy and lead singer of the band Samurai before its breakup in 2008.[2] A military veteran who defined the rockerboy movement as it is known today, Silverhand was the most prominent figure who fought...

cyberpunk.fandom.com

 

[Witzzard]

I already know that death is inevitable when you have an incurable illness, don't know what the lesson is. There's plenty of that in life. I never got the impression that it was supposed to be the main theme of the game anyway. This is an RPG that's supposed to take the player's choices into account and be replayed multiple times, not a terminal illness simulator. "Life sucks and then you get plot cancer and die" doesn't promote replayability, no matter how good and engaging the story is before that.

EDIT: I mentioned it before, I actually like the current open endings. Would prefer a post ending DLC that continues the story with different outcomes, but I'd rather keep the open endings than get expanded but completely fatalistic ones.

And i don't even disagree with you about the replayability there. The thing is, this game is wierdly muddled.
But a lot of people are saddly saying "Look at the story, such a story is a bad story!" - no it's not. It's just not the kind of story you want and was advertised. And i'm completly on board with people being upset about the advertisment - just not about the idiocy of going "all stories about death are just edgy shit".

I don't necessarily agree with this as we're talking about a game. If your chosen ending is that V should die because that's what makes sense to you then you wouldn't pick the "V lives" ending if it was available would you? Or maybe everyone would pick that one if it existed because it's more fun to play a game where the hero lives since it's a game and not a piece of media I'm otherwise ingesting.

I also think the "hero death" is particularly played to death across all media types. It's not more powerful or impactful just because they're dead. In each ending countless people have died to get you where you are as it is. V has to live with that if she lives. You can write a meaningful, impactful, hopeful, sad story without killing off the MC at the end. And in this case it may have made an interesting story. One time. There's no replayability if your goal is a lost cause. You're fighting to survive, but jokes on you, you can't.

The thing is, it literally would give you a choice to die. Death is not a choice. The only choice, which is in game, is the point of time. Some stories simply don't harmonize with each other.

And again i'm completly against how it's now played. With ladders of presumably false hope to survive the thing killing you.

Do we have dozens of Heros die stories? Yes, certainly. But we also got dozens of them surviving. So that in and of itself is no argument imo.

 

[onosendai7]

Panam's suggestion and the Tarot reading by Misty. Which in-universe predicts all of the endings.

Not at all.
But as I said times and again, you choose to believe that in spite of what others NPC say, not because that is true and proven. You find meaning where there is none...

 

[CasperTheGhost]

nobody is saying all stories that end in death are edgy and wrong, or whatever (or at least as far as i can tell or recall)... most of us are saying stories within video games (hell maybe even just in general, not strictly games) that have the protagonist's death shoehorned in, especially with really flawed logic, are not good or enjoyable, may even be bad, and edgy isn't always a dirty word, however, usually when we have edgy for no other reason then being edgy... that usually does windup being pretty bad, at least in storytelling.

 

[onosendai7]

And i don't even disagree with you about the replayability there. The thing is, this game is wierdly muddled.
But a lot of people are saddly saying "Look at the story, such a story is a bad story!" - no it's not. It's just not the kind of story you want and was advertised. And i'm completly on board with people being upset about the advertisment - just not about the idiocy of going "all stories about death are just edgy shit".

The story is lame in its conclusion. The main characters does the impossible to save his/her life. There is no other motivation than saving V.'s life. V. succeeds despite the odds. And where is the expected conclusion ? "Well, fuck you you moron, I'm the writer and V. dies. Now or in 6 months. Because. I. Decided. So."
So much for logic or fulfillment, so much for the background or the lore.

The thing is, it literally would give you a choice to die. Death is not a choice. The only choice, which is in game, is the point of time. Some stories simply don't harmonize with each other.
And again i'm completly against how it's now played. With ladders of presumably false hope to survive the thing killing you.
Do we have dozens of Heros die stories? Yes, certainly. But we also got dozens of them surviving. So that in and of itself is no argument imo.

The fact that V. dies is not the problem.
The way that death is brought is just pathetic.
All game long there is an add for the Arasaka program, you're also told about Saburo's engram successfully implanted in his son, and when that solution can be reached for V., it is lamely denied by Alt because of "the soul". "Well, fuck you you moron, I'm the writer and V. dies. Now or in 6 months. Because. I. Decided. So."

 

[I_Willenbrock_I]

And i don't even disagree with you about the replayability there. The thing is, this game is wierdly muddled.
But a lot of people are saddly saying "Look at the story, such a story is a bad story!" - no it's not. It's just not the kind of story you want and was advertised. And i'm completly on board with people being upset about the advertisment - just not about the idiocy of going "all stories about death are just edgy shit".



The thing is, it literally would give you a choice to die. Death is not a choice. The only choice, which is in game, is the point of time. Some stories simply don't harmonize with each other.

And again i'm completly against how it's now played. With ladders of presumably false hope to survive the thing killing you.

Not all stories about the character going belly up are edgy and shit.

The epilogue however, is. Partially because V dies off screen to some idiotic plot-cancer and partially because of the atrocious writing behind it.

- 80% of the story is about the survival of V (in fact us). Surviving, only to get 6 months cheapens the previous 80% of the game.

- Vs death has no positive effect for the world. Arasaka losing 17% stock value will result in lots of layed off workers. Arasaka is also highly active in the production of consumer products.
EBM might be the only one cheering, while Militech will likely go to war with arasaka. This means that V achieved nothing substantial or got redemption or revenge.

- all the people who gave their lifes died for nothing. Johnny goes to cyberhell. Death of a side character in a narrative has to be meaningful. Giving the protagonist a life is a meaning. A life for a life. Not a life for 6 months.

- the terminal illness trope was already used in this game. Reusing it is on the level of soap opera writing.

- the whole justification behind it is BS. Nanobots rewriting DNA. My nose is bleeding right now.

- the justification behind not being able to cure it is even more dumb, when there is an actual therapy in the game that cures nerve damage with nanobots. In addition, whole companies make a living of changing DNA in humans. My nose won't stop bleeding...

All this stuff only happens in the epilogue. While the story has some weak spots, it's overall still very enjoyable and makes more or less sense all the time. Nothing that really breaks my suspension of disbelief or immersion.
That's another factor why the endings feel extremely out of place, unfinished and hurried.

The story itself is not shit... Only the epilogue is, because letting a person die after a journey to safe its life is just bs.