Going offtopic from endless Relic issues, I`ve googled the words Alt says when we connect to Mikoshi and walk up the path towards pyramid.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
"Written in 1926 (when Yeats was 60 or 61), "Sailing to Byzantium" is Yeats' definitive statement about the agony of old age and the imaginative and spiritual work required to remain a vital individual even when the heart is "fastened to a dying animal" (the body). Yeats's solution is to leave the country of the young and travel to Byzantium, where the sages in the city's famous gold mosaics could become the "singing-masters" of his soul. He hopes the sages will appear in fire and take him away from his body into an existence outside time, where, like a great work of art, he could exist in "the artifice of eternity." In the final stanza of the poem, he declares that once he is out of his body he will never again appear in the form of a natural thing; rather, he will become a golden bird, sitting on a golden tree, singing of the past ("what is past"), the present (that which is "passing"), and the future (that which is "to come")."
In Panam ending one of a first things we see is a golden bird which lands on our side for a brief moment and flies away. I always thought it had some connection to Johnny. I dont know if anyone mentioned it before. For me its a nice touch.
''If the player chooses the Street Kid lifepath, V will meet Padre during the prologue of Cyberpunk 2077. Then, during the montage where all of the lifepaths converge, there is a brief scene showing V and Jackie talking to Padre in Heywood. However, after the prologue ends and V starts taking on gigs from fixers, Padre introduces himself to V as if for the first time. This doesn’t make sense, because Padre has met V at least once no matter what V's life path is .''
That's blatantly false when it comes to the Streetkid life path, as for the rest Padre meets loads of mercenaries every day, he hired Jackie and V was brought along as a side kick since V has no rep before meeting Jackie in any of the other two lifepaths.
Padre formally introduces themselves after The Heist because V is a known quantity.
''Periodically throughout the game Johnny Silverhand will appear to V in order to have a conversation, and nobody else can see him. This frequently happens while V is talking to other characters, and yet they never comment on the long pauses while V deals with Johnny. However, if V is talking to another character and takes too long to respond for any other reason, the other character will get impatient and call V out for wasting their time. Does this mean the Johnny visions happen much quicker in real time than they do in V’s head? Cyberpunk 2077 never says, but it would be the only answer which makes this make sense. ''
This is really grasping at straws, and I do remember character actually asking if V was alright when this was going on.
''If V chooses the Arasaka ending, they’ll learn that Saburo Arasaka is still alive in the form of an engram, sort of like Johnny. Hanako has been communicating with the engram and following her father’s orders in secret, without telling the Arasaka board. Hanako claims that she needs V’s testimony to prove to the board that Yorinobu killed his father before she’ll reveal the engram, but this appears to be entirely unnecessary. ''
It's a political coup, Hanako can't go against the board by herself with the engram since Yorinobu has full support of the company's forces.
''There’s no reason for the Arasaka board to believe V, a random thief, over the engram of Saburo Arasaka, so Hanako could have just gone to the board herself. ''
Missing the point here, V is not there to prove anything, V is there to facilitate a coup.
''Johnny’s personality only exists as an engram inside of V’s mind, which means nobody else can see, hear, or touch him. However, his ability to interact with objects in Cyberpunk 2077 seems to be inconsistent. Johnny can be seen to grab real-world items (such as a bucket, which he sits on during “Automatic Love”) and he interacts with furniture and vehicles. The question is, is Johnny really touching and interacting with real-world objects, or is V just having more complicated hallucinations as the game goes on? ''
Really? Talk about grasping at straws here, it's a digitized hallucination, it's literally there for cinematic purposes and nothing else, this is not by any stretch of the word a plot hole, as you wouldn't call lens flares a plot hole.
''Takemura was Saburo Arasaka’s bodyguard and a highly-trusted member of the Arasaka staff up until his defection at the end of “The Heist.” After Saburo is killed by his son, Takemura starts working with V in order to prove Saburo’s guilt and get revenge for the murder. After several major quest lines, Takemura finally meets with Hanako, who already knows about the murder and trusts Takemura immediately. In fact, Takemura went through a lot of unnecessary plots and schemes to get to Hanako, including dealing with her bodyguard Oda, when he could have just gone straight to Hanako and told her everything. ''
Is anyone really paying any attention to what's happening at this point?!
Takemura didn't defect, and he starts working with V because V is his only connection in Night City and happens to know about the murder.
Takemura can't approach Hanako since she's being looked over by her brother Yorinobu, she's under constant watch. Furthermore Takemura is being pursued by Yorinobu's special forces and Arasaka undercover agents hence the schemes to get to Hanako.
Takemura couldn't have known that Hanako knew about Saburo's murder at the hands of Yorinobu, what a ridiculous statement.
I tend to feel grasping at the Relic for plotholes is mostly an attempt to be aggravated rather than a legitimate complaint. The alleged holes come in two flavors:
1) There's a scientific discrepancy! Unless we have a cutting edge field leader in Man-Machine Interface (they exist, initially success in operating a computer with just your mind was an early '00s thing) and the Biology/Data Science of consciousness in here, and they are working in fields substantially similar to what we're talking about, no one has the qualifications to in any way say "well, the Relic should work like this based on reality! See! What a plothole!" And that's before we extrapolate the vast advances in science and technology pre-supposed as part of the Relic and CP '77 in general.
2) There's an in-game discrepancy! I think we can assume that the barely understood prototype of a here-to-fore completely undemonstrated technology, put into extreme and previously untested field conditions with substantial damage and no support, as explained to us by people who might not know how it works, only partially understand how it works, or basically are trying to explain a steam engine to a pre-schooler, might not work in a perfect accordance with each and every one of the handful of spoken lines we get about it. The core facts that A) Johnny is overwriting V, B) this is NOT how you are supposed to use the damn thing what with a random mind-body match up and the rest of everything else, and 3) This process is apparently quite physically traumatic given those conditions, those stay the same.
Pretending that because Vik (who has no idea how it works really) has a different opinion than Hellman (who lead the project but is still very much venturing into the unknown) who has a different view than the ineffable AI (who just ripped your soul/consciousness apart and is reading your biomon direct) on an inherently only barely known technology is somehow a plot hole seems a bit...well, desperate for a reason why they got it wrong. I would say that if you went back to real science you would find similar "plot holes" in virtually every field, often with many extremely smart people waging large academic wars over the matter.
Your right.
For my part, is a way to exorcise the impression of being ripped off that the game left me savor whit it's nice Diabolus ex Machina right at the end.
As you say I search for the data presented within the game to make sense of what has transpired: maybe I missed something crucial on the way...but perhaps, the player was never intended to understand the full length of the plot, as some say incomplete, just to appreciate the accurate details from the source material and philosophical conundrums presented in the side jobs and by the NPCs.
Since it's a RPG resp. a game with RPG-elements, in an alternate universe, staged in the future, partly asking controversial questions, and with not perfectly described technology: What does it all mean? Whatever you want! As long as you don't try to force your opinion into my head. I don't want your Johnny in my mind, so to say.
Ambiguity and making the player asks questions is great. Provided it's used where appropriate. At certain points the game does this well. Ambiguity for the purposes of ambiguity itself so you don't have to flesh out content is another matter. Ambiguity is not a catch-all way to validate the artistic vision.
Various slices of the endings are arguably ambiguous in an inappropriate manner. You aren't asking yourself what you think about it all. You're asking yourself how the hell any of it makes sense, how it went where it did and filling in the blanks because the game doesn't want to bother itself with doing so (wild guess, because they ran out of time).
You're right about your views on the matter though. You're absolutely justified to have them. I'd like to think all players are on the same team. Despite any disagreements.
the real complaint is they don't believe they should have ever written that story, not the details. I dunno, its a story, that may be only partially finished. There are decent reasons to go either way. We'll see
I have no problem with the overall story. It's not particularly interesting on a conceptual level but that's a matter of taste. In fact, the complaint is precisely the details.
This is my whole problem with the narrative surrounding this game, it overstayed it's welcome way beyond any reasonable doubt and people are just instigating themselves in a contest to see who can get angrier and trash the game and the company more, like a sick egotistical sport...
It's very rare to see any reasonable debates and criticism about it without having the mob jump to using hyperbole and gaslight the entire argument.
Which is why I ultimately appreciate this thread, yes we disagree, but it's a reasonable and insightful debate, and it's one of many of this game's virtues whether you agree with the themes, plot or narrative vehicles or not.
Your right.
For my part, is a way to exorcise the impression of being ripped off that the game left me savor whit it's nice Diabolus ex Machina right at the end.
As you say I search for the data presented within the game to make sense of what has transpired: maybe I missed something crucial on the way...but perhaps, the player was never intended to understand the full length of the plot, as some say incomplete, just to appreciate the accurate details from the source material and philosophical conundrums presented in the side jobs and by the NPCs.
you understand the plot fine, you just don't like the plot, and are looking for a rational basis for not liking it. What you really object to is the fact that the main character has 6 months to live. Do you question any of the other science fiction? cyberware, cyberpsychosis, netrunning, space travel, AVs, nuclear fallout, emotion drive chips, braindance? Cyber Viruses.
Ambiguity and making the player asks questions is great. Provided it's used where appropriate. At certain points the game does this well. Ambiguity for the purposes of ambiguity itself so you don't have to flesh out content is another matter. Ambiguity is not a catch-all way to validate the artistic vision.
Various slices of the endings are arguably ambiguous in an inappropriate manner. You aren't asking yourself what you think about it all. You're asking yourself how the hell any of it makes sense, how it went where it did and filling in the blanks because the game doesn't want to bother itself with doing so (wild guess, because they ran out of time).
You're right about your views on the matter though. You're absolutely justified to have them. I'd like to think all players are on the same team. Despite any disagreements.
I have no problem with the overall story. It's not particularly interesting on a conceptual level but that's a matter of taste. In fact, the complaint is precisely the details.
Yeah, they're really nitpicking and reaching there. It appears to be trashing the game for the hell of it.
so your complaint is not that he has 6 months to live, but rather that you don't believe a body would reject a foreign body based on drastic DNA changes, by a science fiction biochip
you understand the plot fine, you just don't like the plot, and are looking for a rational basis for not liking it. What you really object to is the fact that the main character has 6 months to live. Do you question any of the other science fiction? cyberware, cyberpsychosis, netrunning, space travel, AVs, nuclear fallout, emotion drive chips, braindance? Cyber Viruses.
Yes, I have a issue whit the 6 months thing, as I previously said.
Did I not like the plot? I don't think so. I really appreciated it.
You are right though. The way I go with, in looking for contradictions in order to feel better about this thing, should also be applied to the other fictional elements. I don't do it because they don't bother me as much as the expedient used to expand this narrative universe for upcoming releases.
so your complaint is not that he has 6 months to live, but rather that you don't believe a body would reject a foreign body based on drastic DNA changes, by a science fiction biochip
In the context of the DNA part, my complaint is the way it establishes it as a problem doesn't make sense. Obviously, if you alter cell DNA it's likely to express itself differently. A cell might, say, express a different surface protein. Yeah, that might be enough for your immune system to kill it if it's seen as "non-self".
The first issue is if you have the technology to alter the DNA you know it's going to happen and, if it works, probably what is being changed. It would be understood ahead of time if those changes were going to alter cell behavior significantly enough to trip the immune system. It wouldn't come out of left field. It would be stupid to have nothing in place to mitigate those issues.
The second issue is it goes off without a hitch for Johnny. That... makes no sense. If radical alterations to your DNA by the biochip are going to provoke this response then it's going to provoke this response no matter what eventually. Your immune system doesn't function in a way where it has any "intelligence" or can make this distinction. It would make zero sense for it to accept Johnny over.... yourself. Yourself being yourself is why your immune system doesn't kill you in the first place.
What they should have done, in my opinion, is simplify and say the chip is a one off type of deal. That is, the biochip gets an engram, goes in a head somewhere and completes it's process. Once it's done the option to place another engram on it and complete the process again isn't possible.
Even there it would be questionable to present this information at the very end of the game. If this were true it would be known information. This is why it's "bad". The game doesn't give a shit if any of it makes sense. Based on current understanding or potential future understanding. All it cares about is finding a way to shove 6 months to live in there for the sake of 6 months to live. It then takes it a step further and tries to get cute to justify it.
When it comes to "sci-fi" the proper approach, if you're going to touch on a specific topic, is to research the topic and incorporate it in a way where it could make sense. Blindly making stuff up and poorly explaining it to satisfy an end because it sounds cool is bad sci-fi. Forcing a result using half-baked means because you want to generate an emotional response is bad writing.
My main complaint is this last part. V raids Arasaka with Johnny/Rogue. V wants to be legendary and go to space. This connection isn't really hinted at when you decide to raid Arasaka with Johnny/Rogue. Smasher teleports from nowhere like QED police and kills Rogue. Why? The game wants Rogue to suffer a tragic end for the sake of it. Johnny gets to decide if the player keeps the body or not solely to present an emotionally charged dilemma. If you romance Judy she bails at the end of this path because the game wants to emotionally destroy the player (gig successful, assholes...). You have no say in it.
This is one ques... Sorry, ending . One need not look far into any of the others to find the exact same approach. It doesn't care if it's coherent or makes sense. It merely wants certain events to transpire a certain way to create a certain player response. All predetermined and carefully mapped out for every ending. How does this fit with a game touted as choices and consequences heavy?
Go ahead, defend it like a vicious honeybadger protecting some brilliant, subtle and ambiguous design philosophy. I don't see it that way. I tried to see it that way. I tried really hard.
This is one ques... Sorry, ending . One need not look far into any of the others to find the exact same approach. It doesn't care if it's coherent or makes sense. It merely wants certain events to transpire a certain way to create a certain player response. All predetermined and carefully mapped out for every ending. How does this fit with a game touted as choices and consequences heavy?
I mostly complain about how every ending is doom, but this is just as bad. The game simply decides for you what your V wants to do with their time left based entirely on what you choose to do on that roof. Your last interaction with your LI can completely color your opinion of the ending you got if you chose wrong and got a V that tells them to fuck off. It's crazy.
The game simply decides for you what your V wants to do with their time left based entirely on what you choose to do on that roof. Your last interaction with your LI can completely color your opinion of the ending you got if you chose wrong and got a V that tells them to fuck off. It's crazy.
Just how many, many times does a game have to spell out that its main theme is "how should we face our own death?" before the player base gets that the writers are aspiring to more literary ends in their collective art and are carrying the theme through to its end. Cyberpunk 2077 is a tragedy... no happy endings, only the possibility that the protagonist will find redemption in how they approach their fate.
Not for people like us. Not in Night City.
Night City is an impressive piece of worldbuilding. I'm all for exploring it again with with new protagonists in DLC, and that would give writers a chance to explore other themes. But V's story in the base game gives players a chance to try out a number of answers to the the aforementioned question, and while they don't offer player wish fulfillment, they're dramatically satisfying. And because they're dramatically satisfying, I think V's story is finished.
There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.
Night City is an impressive piece of worldbuilding. I'm all for exploring it again with with new protagonists in DLC, and that would give writers a chance to explore other themes. But V's story in the base game gives players a chance to try out a number of answers to the the aforementioned question, and while they don't offer player wish fulfillment, they're dramatically satisfying. And because they're dramatically satisfying, I think V's story is finished.
Interesting. Maybe I'm jaded, but I see the endings where V is given a death sentence but doesn't actually die as a convenient way to leave an opening for "rebooting" V in a sequel, in that a cure would require a new body and V would be kicked back down to level one. I'd be surprised and disappointed if they didn't take this route. I'm wondering, for people who like the endings, would you be annoyed if V comes back as the main character in a future game?
Just how many, many times does a game have to spell out that its main theme is "how should we face our own death?" before the player base gets that the writers are aspiring to more literary ends in their collective art and are carrying the theme through to its end. Cyberpunk 2077 is a tragedy... no happy endings, only the possibility that the protagonist will find redemption in how they approach their fate.
Not for people like us. Not in Night City.
Night City is an impressive piece of worldbuilding. I'm all for exploring it again with with new protagonists in DLC, and that would give writers a chance to explore other themes. But V's story in the base game gives players a chance to try out a number of answers to the the aforementioned question, and while they don't offer player wish fulfillment, they're dramatically satisfying. And because they're dramatically satisfying, I think V's story is finished.
There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.
I honesty cannot see a FPS that have you literaly trash the army of a main Megacorp facility and kill what is considered the most powerful asset of said megacorp, be a "memento mori".
In the context of the DNA part, my complaint is the way it establishes it as a problem doesn't make sense. Obviously, if you alter cell DNA it's likely to express itself differently. A cell might, say, express a different surface protein. Yeah, that might be enough for your immune system to kill it if it's seen as "non-self".
The first issue is if you have the technology to alter the DNA you know it's going to happen and, if it works, probably what is being changed. It would be understood ahead of time if those changes were going to alter cell behavior significantly enough to trip the immune system. It wouldn't come out of left field. It would be stupid to have nothing in place to mitigate those issues.
The second issue is it goes off without a hitch for Johnny. That... makes no sense. If radical alterations to your DNA by the biochip are going to provoke this response then it's going to provoke this response no matter what eventually. Your immune system doesn't function in a way where it has any "intelligence" or can make this distinction. It would make zero sense for it to accept Johnny over.... yourself. Yourself being yourself is why your immune system doesn't kill you in the first place.
What they should have done, in my opinion, is simplify and say the chip is a one off type of deal. That is, the biochip gets an engram, goes in a head somewhere and completes it's process. Once it's done the option to place another engram on it and complete the process again isn't possible.
Even there it would be questionable to present this information at the very end of the game. If this were true it would be known information. This is why it's "bad". The game doesn't give a shit if any of it makes sense. Based on current understanding or potential future understanding. All it cares about is finding a way to shove 6 months to live in there for the sake of 6 months to live. It then takes it a step further and tries to get cute to justify it.
When it comes to "sci-fi" the proper approach, if you're going to touch on a specific topic, is to research the topic and incorporate it in a way where it could make sense. Blindly making stuff up and poorly explaining it to satisfy an end because it sounds cool is bad sci-fi. Forcing a result using half-baked means because you want to generate an emotional response is bad writing.
My main complaint is this last part. V raids Arasaka with Johnny/Rogue. V wants to be legendary and go to space. This connection isn't really hinted at when you decide to raid Arasaka with Johnny/Rogue. Smasher teleports from nowhere like QED police and kills Rogue. Why? The game wants Rogue to suffer a tragic end for the sake of it. Johnny gets to decide if the player keeps the body or not solely to present an emotionally charged dilemma. If you romance Judy she bails at the end of this path because the game wants to emotionally destroy the player (gig successful, assholes...). You have no say in it.
This is one ques... Sorry, ending . One need not look far into any of the others to find the exact same approach. It doesn't care if it's coherent or makes sense. It merely wants certain events to transpire a certain way to create a certain player response. All predetermined and carefully mapped out for every ending. How does this fit with a game touted as choices and consequences heavy?
Go ahead, defend it like a vicious honeybadger protecting some brilliant, subtle and ambiguous design philosophy. I don't see it that way. I tried to see it that way. I tried really hard.
your theory isn't really correct, we already have the ability to alter DNA and create organs. We can grow ears on rats. We however have not solved many of the immune system rejection issues in implants, and can't change the fact that some people get autoimmune diseases, or antirejection medication is not effective. Also, V is actually taking the opposite medications, that strengthen his immune system ability to attack foreign bodies(Vik tells you this in your first meeting)Just because you make technological advances in one field does not mean you make equal advances in another. Just because one biotechnology works for some humans, doesn't mean it works for all. And we frankly are not given enough information to figure if its scientifically feasible. It may in fact not be, I mean it is after all science fiction, which speculates based on theory.
As to reasons why it works for Johnny, but not V, the most obvious one is building an immunity, and treating the relic like a virus, which isn't really an ass pull. thats what happens to many other DNA changing foreign bodies. Its also an experimental technology that only now has gotten viable hosts. Science tends to attempt to solve problems once they can identify their existence, not before. Thats the basis of the scientific method.
but your beef with the other facts highlights that your real problem is you feel the gods(writers) are punishing V at a whim. To a certain extent this always true, the writer controls the story, but is it inconsistent?
Judy told you all game she has no desire to stay in NC. So yeah, it would actually be bad writing for her to stay there. I don't think its about a gut punch, river and Kerry got no problem with staying in NC. If your theory was true, they'd all leave.
Adam smasher killing a character is not out of character, they also foreshadow it. Some people dying in the process of a head on attack with a powerful force is not an improbability. And to prove its not just an unavoidable fate of the gods, you can actually prevent it from happening with different choices.
what you propose would be charachters and situations warping themselves even more than what they wrote, just to make the player feel better. It would further undermine their writing up to that point.
Now you could say they should have never wrote an LI that would make a life choice that wasn't based on V's desires, but is that better writing? They could never have written Adam Smasher as a beast who protects Arasaka and is a force of nature, but if it wasn't Adam, shouldn't they have something else that serves a similar purpose?
Look, this is subjective, its perfectly feasible to say you don't like that the writers chose to write this story. But these concepts are not reaches, or ex Machina.
1)experimental science doesn't go according to plan
2)love interest values clash with some player's values
3)Highly dangerous mission takes a toll
the only unavoidable one is 1, and thats not surprising, its not something the player has the least control over.
I mostly complain about how every ending is doom, but this is just as bad. The game simply decides for you what your V wants to do with their time left based entirely on what you choose to do on that roof. Your last interaction with your LI can completely color your opinion of the ending you got if you chose wrong and got a V that tells them to fuck off. It's crazy.
its an rpg, Your choices determine the outcome. And they go out of their way, many would say to the detriment of a branching narrative, to let you choose a different ending if you don't like where those choices lead, without starting over. The choices that lead to your outcome are not going to be explicit, that would be spoilers. But they do make sense.
Its not the ending you get, You can pick your ending.
1)whats the most important thing?
a)survival b)relationships c)ideology d)win big e)security f)friends live.
1)Are you the type of player who wants V to fight for their lives, picking the slim chance of success?
V goes back to their body, and takes the most likely to succeed option for living on.
2)Out of the resources you have, which do you think is most likely to succeed at keeping you alive?
a)nomads b)night city c)arasaka
3) are loved ones/friends how you want to spend your time?
V picks whatever path his most important friends/loved ones are on.
4)would you rather go it alone? or with friends
secret ending
Some things clash. some work together, the player chooses whats most important to them.
there's an ending for all of those choices. If you tell me whats most important, I'll find an ending for you.
Interesting. Maybe I'm jaded, but I see the endings where V is given a death sentence but doesn't actually die as a convenient way to leave an opening for "rebooting" V in a sequel, in that a cure would require a new body and V would be kicked back down to level one. I'd be surprised and disappointed if they didn't take this route. I'm wondering, for people who like the endings, would you be annoyed if V comes back as the main character in a future game?
v in a new body seems like a real possibility. But, for me, the story doesn't have to be about V. V is cool, but i wouldn't mind a character with a less basic motivation. V is about survival, sex/relationships, or quality of life.
as for restarting at level 1, thats a controversial idea, though I wouldn't mind it. Especially if there were more lifepaths/skills.
I honesty cannot see a FPS that have you literaly trash the army of a main Megacorp facility and kill what is considered the most powerful asset of said megacorp, be a "memento mori".
For me the problem is that story tried to be like this, maybe as a way to "introduce" players to the NightCity so in the course of 1-2 years they would jump to the MP, while CDPR would be in the mids of next Witcher game.
We all know how this worked out, but the the whole concept was fatally flawed from the beginning, because trying to tell this kind of story was destined to fail in this kind of setting (sci-fi world with almost limitless possibilities), with this main Character (VO that simply outdone themselves and his/her overall badass-ness) and stellar side characters (LIs and Goro, but even short-lived Jacki or Evelyn).
All of this is just tearing apart suspension of disbelief resulting in either treating endings as an mere interlude of the story or rejecting them in this form, what is a reason of this thread to exist plus all the complaints elsewhere that this simply can't be it (YouTube, reddit, other forums).
For me this is a true "get out of jail free" card for V, where jail is plot cancer. Expectations are just too high and too wide spread to be shunted aside.
Interesting. Maybe I'm jaded, but I see the endings where V is given a death sentence but doesn't actually die as a convenient way to leave an opening for "rebooting" V in a sequel, in that a cure would require a new body and V would be kicked back down to level one. I'd be surprised and disappointed if they didn't take this route. I'm wondering, for people who like the endings, would you be annoyed if V comes back as the main character in a future game?
My impression was of a poorly implemented hook for an expansion but I can see your point regarding resetting bodyhopping to a sequel. The longer you leave it(given a sequel may be 10 years down the line) does V actually have value for a return over a new character.
In hindsight they should not have marketed it as an RPG where your decisions have gravitas. It's an action-adventure on rails and lacks the choices and branching stories that real rpgs, like Dragon Age: Origins, Witcher 2/3, the Fallout games, Disco Elysium, or Baldurs Gate 3, offer.
When you have a protagonist with a minimal backstory, then many players expect the game to give them the freedom to make meaningful choices and not just pick between different ways to die.
Just how many, many times does a game have to spell out that its main theme is "how should we face our own death?" before the player base gets that the writers are aspiring to more literary ends in their collective art and are carrying the theme through to its end. Cyberpunk 2077 is a tragedy... no happy endings, only the possibility that the protagonist will find redemption in how they approach their fate.
In my opinion you have quite some choices. For sure it could be more, but it's a game and not a life simulator.
Because the background of the protagonist is rather undefined, I could fill in my own perspectives and therefore give the choices even more meaning.
My character lives at the end of the epilogue that fits best to my choices and will lead some purposeful life among loved ones, with his love interest, may it be a short or long time.
Edit: Oh, and the main character ist definitely dead in only one of seven endings, presumably dead in two more. In 4 endings he/she lives.
en.wikipedia.org
.
