The chip and the false sense of urgency ruins the whole open world setting, cause who would do side missions and gigs when they know that they have a ticking time bomb in their head.
"Soulkiller is a Black Program written by Alt Cunningham, later stolen by Arasaka. "
Soulkiller
Soulkiller is a Black Program written by Alt Cunningham, later stolen by Arasaka. Alt originally designed Soulkiller while working at ITS as a way of preserving the consciousness and memories of dying individuals. She was later kidnapped by Arasaka who planned to use the program for offensive...cyberpunk.fandom.com
The chip and the false sense of urgency ruins the whole open world setting, cause who would do side missions and gigs when they know that they have a ticking time bomb in their head.
They could have pulled it off pretty easy if they would have incorporated The Countdown and the pills. Say some choices in sidequests would increase the Countdown % and others would decrease it. So you would have to choose carefully. And by the end, depending on % of the Countdown tarot card, it would alternate if either V lives, lives with 6 months set timer or die. Other simple solution would have been pills or some tech that slows it down and some gigs and sidequests would give you them with correct decisions.The chip and the false sense of urgency ruins the whole open world setting, cause who would do side missions and gigs when they know that they have a ticking time bomb in their head.
I think I would have much preferred the ending if it had went something like this:
Same result but much better execution
- you choose the Arasaka option
- the doctors tell you that that they successfully removed the chip
- you are fully cured
- you can now return back to earth
- credits roll
- Judy comes out and tells you "it was a prank bro, you only got 6 months to live"
you don't agree?
I don't think I hate my life that much right now.you don't agree?
Relic 1.0 was for mass-market, 2.0 was for Arasaka employees only and never supposed to be sold, but never worked, Hellman explains this.I don't know how else to explain this but you're really confusing two different things. Soulkiller is a program, yes. Designed by Alt and iterated on by Arasaka, yes.
The Relic, the physical biochip that is designed for mass-market consumption, is NOT designed by Alt. It was created and announced by Arasaka in 2077.
we are lucky they didnt get ideas form you lolI think I would have much preferred the ending if it had went something like this:
Same result but much better execution
- you choose the Arasaka option
- the doctors tell you that that they successfully removed the chip
- you are fully cured
- you can now return back to earth
- credits roll
- Judy comes out and tells you "it was a prank bro, you only got 6 months to live"
- end
I don't think the damage is so heavy. Hanako would not make Vi ridiculous offer of a job in Arasaka for last 6 months if she knew Vi can't do the job. Maybe she\he can't assemble that cube but it's not disabled.Die in 6 months as disabled, original V
Of course, it is very frustrating, but Johnny as we could see was still Johnny becoming an Engram. Therefore, Vi won't change a lot.Die in 6 months as Engram V
Welcome to the club.I finished the game a couple of days ago, got the Nomad ending and then checked the other outcomes, thinking there may have been other more interesting conclusions. Sadly, that's not the case. It's disappointing that you go through the story and, in the end, you accomplish nothing except perhaps separating yourself from Johnny.
In many ways, I am bothered by the fact that every ending is tainted by V's death (or the threat of imminent death she/he can supposedly do nothing about), but what's even more frustrating is that this resolution cuts *our* experience of Night City painfully short without a clear way out via DLC or any additional side content. Instead of having the chance to immerse ourselves in V's life in NC, we are thrust directly into action with a confusing double inciting incident:
* First during the lifepath story, i.e. my corpo V losing her job
* Then the heist and getting stuck with the biochip
So much happens in these first moments, but most of it just feels like "stuff you need to go through before the actual game starts". And yes, that's exactly what it is. Our time in NC proper is what happens after V wakes up in the dumpster. Then, the pace of the story is fully based on us finding a solution to the biochip problem ASAP, so the game absolutely rushes to kick us out of Night City again, whether by killing V or by making her/him leave the place for good (and then die in some unknown location). It's so deeply disappointing we get so little of NC because the plot is such.
Also, CDPR may have designed V thinking she/he was a faceless, expendable one-off protagonist, so they wanted to make sure there is no way for her/him to come back. But I feel they have accidentally created a character that in her/his facelessness is just whatever we interpret them to be, making them that much more important to the player. I haven't felt such attachment to a fictional character in a long time, and it may just be because V is a bit of a loser, someone in their mid/late 20s, without any significant accomplishments, kind of lost, trying to make something of her/himself, not really getting what life is about and making a ton of mistakes while attempting to figure that out. Metaphorically speaking, this sounds like a lot of us on the other side of the screen. So we care about V and we want her/him to succeed *badly*. We go through the story with the same desperation and fear she/he feels. In some way, it's a personal tragedy when V fails no matter what decisions we have made throughout the game. And I get that the message can be "you just can't win no matter how hard you try", but that's a message that I don't personally find fitting in this context. There are some fantastic stories out there where the main character gets an absolute beating i.e. Orwell's "1984", but that requires a proper setup and reasoning if the point is to achieve more than just make the audience depressed. Unfortunately, V doesn't fail for any good reason other than misery porn similar to what we have seen in TLOU2 which turned into a complete over the top joke in the whole California bit. Some writers mistake misery and shock for poignancy and realism, and I'm afraid that's what happened in most CP2077 endings. This is very much in line with the kind of stories we've been getting in films, games, shows and books for at least a decade. It reflects our pessimism as a society when we create and binge on these hopeless, grim stories. I've seen this play out so many times, I literally have no more patience for it when it just seems to be done for the sake of making people feel crap. It's such a counterproductive message to us as human beings, and it tries to disguise itself as something "deep" when it really, really isn't.
Unless I missed something, there's no good reason why V's engram has to be rejected by their body after returning from cyberspace, especially that we had obtained the actual schematics for Johnny's engram from that scientist guy. It's not addressed why we couldn't manufacture V's engram that overwrites her/his old body (or even a completely new, unrelated one, like Johnny+V) in order to settle in. Going back into V's body as a copy is an interesting premise in itself, but it's completely overshadowed by the pointless late-game shock reveal of an imminent death in 6 months for reasons that make no sense. It would be so interesting if V came back as an engram, and we would be there to experience a proper epilogue addressing the question: is V's copy really her/him or not? We could see and experience or even decide if V has changed having undergone this "conversion". This could bring us back to Night City so V can complete her/his journey of self-discovery.
The Nomad ending is the least soul crushing one, but it still makes little sense. I get that V would want out of NC (after all, this arc is about finding friends and choosing them over the shallow excitement and chaos of city life), but it's presented in a way that does not stand up to scrutiny. V is a fighter, we know that, so why are they not going nuts again about their health situation like they did earlier? Like we, as players, clearly are? It also makes you feel horrible for involving Judy (or other characters) in the whole thing if you're just going to wither away and die (I've lost a relative to cancer, and it was traumatic to me to watch it happen) in some unspecified location. Why is she so happy in the credits if is V is dying? Being scared for your loved one's/ partner's health is extremely distressing, and even if you want to give them the best few months before they go, I can barely imagine how it feels to have to lose them at such a young age. This leaves very real psychological scars (it's called widowhood effect, and it's very well documented), and chances are you would have been better off if they hadn't met you in the first place to experience all this pain. This ending is just so dissonant with its own implications, it hurts. And if V does find a solution to this health issue, why not say that out right, even if it's just plaster over the cracks since the whole dying thing makes little sense. It's just baffling and unsatisfying.
I love this game and its character cast to bits, but unless additional story/side content gets released that clarifies the endings, I really see no reason to ever progress past the "point of no return" ever again. If it's the journey that matters, our journey in Night City is currently cut awfully short. My best hope is that an expansion adds a large plot line that will open up one more extra ending that will be thought-provoking and respectful of the player's choices throughout the game. And that it will ultimately deal with the cheap sense of futility we get from the existing endings.
Besides, I really want V & co back for more adventures. Otherwise what's the point of making all of them so excellent?!
Sorry for the rant, had to let it out finally!
Thank you for this, I fell apsolutely the same way. I just hope Cdpr will look and see honest and long rants like yours. I hope they will do somethnig about it. +1 from meI finished the game a couple of days ago, got the Nomad ending and then checked the other outcomes, thinking there may have been other more interesting conclusions. Sadly, that's not the case. It's disappointing that you go through the story and, in the end, you accomplish nothing except perhaps separating yourself from Johnny.
In many ways, I am bothered by the fact that every ending is tainted by V's death (or the threat of imminent death she/he can supposedly do nothing about), but what's even more frustrating is that this resolution cuts *our* experience of Night City painfully short without a clear way out via DLC or any additional side content. Instead of having the chance to immerse ourselves in V's life in NC, we are thrust directly into action with a confusing double inciting incident:
* First during the lifepath story, i.e. my corpo V losing her job
* Then the heist and getting stuck with the biochip
So much happens in these first moments, but most of it just feels like "stuff you need to go through before the actual game starts". And yes, that's exactly what it is. Our time in NC proper is what happens after V wakes up in the dumpster. Then, the pace of the story is fully based on us finding a solution to the biochip problem ASAP, so the game absolutely rushes to kick us out of Night City again, whether by killing V or by making her/him leave the place for good (and then die in some unknown location). It's so deeply disappointing we get so little of NC because the plot is such.
Also, CDPR may have designed V thinking she/he was a faceless, expendable one-off protagonist, so they wanted to make sure there is no way for her/him to come back. But I feel they have accidentally created a character that in her/his facelessness is just whatever we interpret them to be, making them that much more important to the player. I haven't felt such attachment to a fictional character in a long time, and it may just be because V is a bit of a loser, someone in their mid/late 20s, without any significant accomplishments, kind of lost, trying to make something of her/himself, not really getting what life is about and making a ton of mistakes while attempting to figure that out. Metaphorically speaking, this sounds like a lot of us on the other side of the screen. So we care about V and we want her/him to succeed *badly*. We go through the story with the same desperation and fear she/he feels. In some way, it's a personal tragedy when V fails no matter what decisions we have made throughout the game. And I get that the message can be "you just can't win no matter how hard you try", but that's a message that I don't personally find fitting in this context. There are some fantastic stories out there where the main character gets an absolute beating i.e. Orwell's "1984", but that requires a proper setup and reasoning if the point is to achieve more than just make the audience depressed. Unfortunately, V doesn't fail for any good reason other than misery porn similar to what we have seen in TLOU2 which turned into a complete over the top joke in the whole California bit. Some writers mistake misery and shock for poignancy and realism, and I'm afraid that's what happened in most CP2077 endings. This is very much in line with the kind of stories we've been getting in films, games, shows and books for at least a decade. It reflects our pessimism as a society when we create and binge on these hopeless, grim stories. I've seen this play out so many times, I literally have no more patience for it when it just seems to be done for the sake of making people feel crap. It's such a counterproductive message to us as human beings, and it tries to disguise itself as something "deep" when it really, really isn't.
Unless I missed something, there's no good reason why V's engram has to be rejected by their body after returning from cyberspace, especially that we had obtained the actual schematics for Johnny's engram from that scientist guy. It's not addressed why we couldn't manufacture V's engram that overwrites her/his old body (or even a completely new, unrelated one, like Johnny+V) in order to settle in. Going back into V's body as a copy is an interesting premise in itself, but it's completely overshadowed by the pointless late-game shock reveal of an imminent death in 6 months for reasons that make no sense. It would be so interesting if V came back as an engram, and we would be there to experience a proper epilogue addressing the question: is V's copy really her/him or not? We could see and experience or even decide if V has changed having undergone this "conversion". This could bring us back to Night City so V can complete her/his journey of self-discovery.
The Nomad ending is the least soul crushing one, but it still makes little sense. I get that V would want out of NC (after all, this arc is about finding friends and choosing them over the shallow excitement and chaos of city life), but it's presented in a way that does not stand up to scrutiny. V is a fighter, we know that, so why are they not going nuts again about their health situation like they did earlier? Like we, as players, clearly are? It also makes you feel horrible for involving Judy (or other characters) in the whole thing if you're just going to wither away and die (I've lost a relative to cancer, and it was traumatic to me to watch it happen) in some unspecified location. Why is she so happy in the credits if is V is dying? Being scared for your loved one's/ partner's health is extremely distressing, and even if you want to give them the best few months before they go, I can barely imagine how it feels to have to lose them at such a young age. This leaves very real psychological scars (it's called widowhood effect, and it's very well documented), and chances are you would have been better off if they hadn't met you in the first place to experience all this pain. This ending is just so dissonant with its own implications, it hurts. And if V does find a solution to this health issue, why not say that out right, even if it's just plaster over the cracks since the whole dying thing makes little sense. It's just baffling and unsatisfying.
I love this game and its character cast to bits, but unless additional story/side content gets released that clarifies the endings, I really see no reason to ever progress past the "point of no return" ever again. If it's the journey that matters, our journey in Night City is currently cut awfully short. My best hope is that an expansion adds a large plot line that will open up one more extra ending that will be thought-provoking and respectful of the player's choices throughout the game. And that it will ultimately deal with the cheap sense of futility we get from the existing endings.
Besides, I really want V & co back for more adventures. Otherwise what's the point of making all of them so excellent?!
Sorry for the rant, had to let it out finally!
The chip and the false sense of urgency ruins the whole open world setting, cause who would do side missions and gigs when they know that they have a ticking time bomb in their head.
Nanites are programmed to work in a certain way, surely they can be reprogrammed (especially by a super powerful AI) to do whatever is needed to do.I don't know if people understand this but V definitely died when they got shot by Dex. The relic 'rebooting' our body is via nanites, which explains the span of several hours it took for us to wake up. This caused irreparable damage to our neural network, and was already in the process of converting our brain. From this point in the story to the end, you are on borrowed time. Use it wisely.