This whole thread started an interesting conversation about endings and about what people wanted/were expecting.
But at the same time it makes me curious.
How many of you were familiar with cyberpunk, and I don't mean just the game but the whole setting?
Whether it was Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, movies like Bladerunner and ghost in shell, maybe books like Neuromancer etc.
Because it seems to me people went into this game/story with their own ideas of what cyberpunk is...
I understand the need for a happy ending, I really do. But truly happy endings in this setting are always rare. There is always something stopping the main character form achieving it. (death, loss of a loved one, depression, merger with an AI ang I can go on and on. The point I'm trying to make is that in this kind of world you are a spec of dust, irrelevant and changing the world for the better is basically impossible. The best you can count on is to continue living in some fucked up way.)
Now to the endings,
This game has multiple endings and not a single one of them is outright bad or good. What do I mean by that is that they are all bitter sweet.
V's life ends the moment Dex shoots him/her in the head, that's a fact. (like it or not, it is what it is)
The game revolves around a man/woman franticly trying to save his/hers life while the the inevitable doom lurks around the corner. V is going to be erased, the chip made that sure the moment it brought you back to life.
It's up to you how you deal with it and whether you accept it or lash out.
Despite all of that being true you are still given an option to save yourself but in true cyberpunk fashion it's never that simple.
- V finally succumbs. The pain, the fear, loosing yourself it is too much. All that you were all that you could've been, all the dreams you had are gone but one thing remains. The final action, defiance to the fucked up situation you find yourself in. BANG, you take your life away and the pain is gone. Your life truly ended that day when everything went to shit in that hotel. (it is a sad ending but in a way beautiful. V was put against unbeatable odds and only way out was death)
-V realizes that his/her life is over, the biochip did so much damage and he/she is fading. But one thing remains. This man that has been with you since the beginning, this man that you hated for what he was doing to you, this man that you've seen change in front of your own eyes from an arrogant asshole to a caring prick that would take a bullet for you. And you decide that if I'm going to disappear at least some good can come out of it, you give Johnny a second chance at life or an opportunity for a payback against Arasaka.
-V fears for his/her life, he/she doesn't want to disappear, the life he/she lead, the dreams he/she had. V wants to chase them still. It is not know whether he/she would succeed but it's worth a try. And the only way to save your life is making a deal with the devil/Arasaka (in true cyberpunk fashion). For a chance at life, for a chance of a brighter future, that some day you might walk as a free man/woman, you take that deal. Who knows what the future brings, but maybe just maybe one day you'll be yourself again.
-V's life is at an end. He is loosing himself. The fear, the pain. (you can see this at Clouds, V fears being forgotten, V fears death...'Death is death is death'). But there is a way out, there is a person in your life that would throw it all away, climb the highest peak to be with you. Would walk through hell to see you safe. And so you call Panam even though you know you would be putting her in danger and her whole clan, but the fear of dying is to much.
(I consider this ending the best and yet I would call it bitter sweet. You are given control back, you are given your life back but with that comes a price. Now there are things implying that V's condition could be salvaged and that those six months aren't a sure death sentence but we will have to wait and see. If V is going to die and there is no 'cure' despite there being obvious implications that there is a way I find Panams messge at the end is out of character. But if they did find a 'cure' then okay.)
Like I said, the endings are bitter sweet (you wont find sunshine and rainbow in them lol. All of them demand some kind of sacrifice...your body/mind, freedom, glory in Nighy City etc.)
But I do think there should be an ending that gives you a happy/bitter sweet ending separate from Nomad/Panam one, because not everyone is going to be playing a male V romancing her.
An ending where V lives, but has to leave NC or finds and opportunity of fixing himself/herself in another part of the world.