I know that this is a huge wall of text (bigger than the black wall hur hur hur hur) so if you want to skip to the end where I mention how I would have ended the game then by all means!
I beat the game & saw every possible ending. I want to say that I loved the middle 80%. The start was kind of meh and the ending was a let down but everything in between was fantastic. I completed all of the side quests and open world missions and consumed every piece of in game content. I mention this not as a lowkey flex but to say that I put in the effort to absorb as much of the story as possible and even with that due diligence the endings were still so random/generic.
I don't care that V dies. There's a certain other big well known game series where the protagonist dies and it feels surprising and significant.
To me there are two clear reasons why the ending was unsatisfying:
1. V's death isn't revelatory or significant. The death of V does not affect the world at large in any significant way. You dying does not bring down Arasaka nor does it shift night city. There is no grand effigy erected in your honor. The world goes on with or without you... your dent, more like a bump.
It's clear that the writers in the late stage were inspired by West World. From the music selection to the ending with Yori witnessing the Arasaka empire crumble on screen as he says "Violent delights have violent ends". Then there's the ending where you're James Delo's under going repetitive scrutiny in your hermetically sealed room. These threads worked in Westworld which established nuanced themes across several seasons. Good storytelling is the result of simple math 2+2 = x where X is an unexpected but reasonable outcome. This leads me to my second criticism which is that not only was X unsatisfactory but the 2+2 part needed some love as well.
2. For a world built on a cyberpunk foundation, established by one of the founders (Mike Pondsmith) the integration of cyberspace was severely lacking. Here in lies my suggestion for the bridge to a better story arc...
When I was taken to the voodoo boys metro tunnel i thought, "awww yes, here we go... here's where we get into the meat of the cyberpunk threads". I've got the world's best netrunner gang about to dunk me into the "real world" matrix style... got me really excited. We jacked in and as I stood in front of the black wall... this mythical thing that i had read so much about from datashards... I thought... holy crap that's it? That's the fabled black wall? It could have been an awesome moment like looking over the cliffside at nightcity for the first time. It looked insignificant. It indicated to me that not enough effort was placed upon establishing the core pillar of the cyberpunk genre - cyberspace.
Had they really put more effort into fleshing out cyberspace as an entire inner world they would have tee'd themselves up nicely for a far more satisfying and relevant final conflict. Instead we got endings that felt kind of generic. I want you to imagine this game released under the title GTA2077... this is how I would have imagined the endings to have been:
- future thug wakes up in bed... rich.
- future thug walks away from it all... takes the bus
- future thug drives off into the distance with his nomad waifu
Where's the ending that ties in cyberspace in a meaningful way? Where's netrunner IceT and mr Cyber Dolphin?
I wanted to see more of Alt and her world. I wanted to see all of the souls that she reaped from soulkiller (ending of evagelion?)... what does the world beyond the blackwall look like? So much effort was put into establishing the great wars between Arasaka, Militech, and the rebels but the real war would be in cyberspace. It would be terrifying to witness mass death through AI driven cyber attacks, you know world building... Why does cyberspace look like voxel matrix? Make alt more significant and integrated in the story instead of a mcguffin... Make the true war waged between massive corporations in cyberspace and we're the rebellion guided by the OG rebel himself - Johnny Silverhand.
TL;DR: Final thought... to reiterate we needed the end to feel significant or revelatory. We got neither... you die.. so what... night city goes on without you. I would have made the end about the bigger struggle for control of cyberspace. The corps used it as their ultimate weapon to reign in the world. The black wall is the fragile pact that ended the corpo wars to keep everyone in check... if the corporations overstep then the flood gates open... recent events edge us closer to that possibility. Alt Cunningham has spent the last 50 years as the guardian of the black wall... the all powerful AI with the power to destroy the world. You have progressed through the story of cyberpunk2077 and are given the ultimate choice. Do you bring down the wall or do you sacrifice yourself or johnny to ensure that the wall continues for the next millenia?
I beat the game & saw every possible ending. I want to say that I loved the middle 80%. The start was kind of meh and the ending was a let down but everything in between was fantastic. I completed all of the side quests and open world missions and consumed every piece of in game content. I mention this not as a lowkey flex but to say that I put in the effort to absorb as much of the story as possible and even with that due diligence the endings were still so random/generic.
I don't care that V dies. There's a certain other big well known game series where the protagonist dies and it feels surprising and significant.
To me there are two clear reasons why the ending was unsatisfying:
1. V's death isn't revelatory or significant. The death of V does not affect the world at large in any significant way. You dying does not bring down Arasaka nor does it shift night city. There is no grand effigy erected in your honor. The world goes on with or without you... your dent, more like a bump.
It's clear that the writers in the late stage were inspired by West World. From the music selection to the ending with Yori witnessing the Arasaka empire crumble on screen as he says "Violent delights have violent ends". Then there's the ending where you're James Delo's under going repetitive scrutiny in your hermetically sealed room. These threads worked in Westworld which established nuanced themes across several seasons. Good storytelling is the result of simple math 2+2 = x where X is an unexpected but reasonable outcome. This leads me to my second criticism which is that not only was X unsatisfactory but the 2+2 part needed some love as well.
2. For a world built on a cyberpunk foundation, established by one of the founders (Mike Pondsmith) the integration of cyberspace was severely lacking. Here in lies my suggestion for the bridge to a better story arc...
When I was taken to the voodoo boys metro tunnel i thought, "awww yes, here we go... here's where we get into the meat of the cyberpunk threads". I've got the world's best netrunner gang about to dunk me into the "real world" matrix style... got me really excited. We jacked in and as I stood in front of the black wall... this mythical thing that i had read so much about from datashards... I thought... holy crap that's it? That's the fabled black wall? It could have been an awesome moment like looking over the cliffside at nightcity for the first time. It looked insignificant. It indicated to me that not enough effort was placed upon establishing the core pillar of the cyberpunk genre - cyberspace.
Had they really put more effort into fleshing out cyberspace as an entire inner world they would have tee'd themselves up nicely for a far more satisfying and relevant final conflict. Instead we got endings that felt kind of generic. I want you to imagine this game released under the title GTA2077... this is how I would have imagined the endings to have been:
- future thug wakes up in bed... rich.
- future thug walks away from it all... takes the bus
- future thug drives off into the distance with his nomad waifu
Where's the ending that ties in cyberspace in a meaningful way? Where's netrunner IceT and mr Cyber Dolphin?
I wanted to see more of Alt and her world. I wanted to see all of the souls that she reaped from soulkiller (ending of evagelion?)... what does the world beyond the blackwall look like? So much effort was put into establishing the great wars between Arasaka, Militech, and the rebels but the real war would be in cyberspace. It would be terrifying to witness mass death through AI driven cyber attacks, you know world building... Why does cyberspace look like voxel matrix? Make alt more significant and integrated in the story instead of a mcguffin... Make the true war waged between massive corporations in cyberspace and we're the rebellion guided by the OG rebel himself - Johnny Silverhand.
TL;DR: Final thought... to reiterate we needed the end to feel significant or revelatory. We got neither... you die.. so what... night city goes on without you. I would have made the end about the bigger struggle for control of cyberspace. The corps used it as their ultimate weapon to reign in the world. The black wall is the fragile pact that ended the corpo wars to keep everyone in check... if the corporations overstep then the flood gates open... recent events edge us closer to that possibility. Alt Cunningham has spent the last 50 years as the guardian of the black wall... the all powerful AI with the power to destroy the world. You have progressed through the story of cyberpunk2077 and are given the ultimate choice. Do you bring down the wall or do you sacrifice yourself or johnny to ensure that the wall continues for the next millenia?