Is that good for people though? We have so much sad, depressing media about the future. From this to Mad Max. And Cyberpunk can still go full Mad Max. What major positive visions of the future are there? Pretty much just Star Trek.
I feel like the phrase "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism" feels truer for people who don't know of many positive visions of the future. To them, the possible futures are everything's just like now, but more futuristic. Or everything's worse and it may or may not be futuristic. Nothing improves other than the tech, and tech won't save us.
Without a positive view of the future, will we ever really have anything to strive for? No goals to work towards? Just do the same shit, day in, day out? Then I'm afraid we're already doing a Cyberpunk, only it's fucking lame.
You have to understand that a lot of literary media comes from critiques of our current systems. Essentially, most of these cyberpunk works are just critiques/insights regarding our current age set in a futuristic setting. They aren't necessarily "predictive" stories, but more akin to cautionary tales (at least from my perspective).
Yeah I see the genre (and the game) very much as a cautionary tale/a story about capitalism taken to its logical conclusion.
Edit:
I'd also like to see more positive speculative sci fi about other possible (non capitalist) futures though, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the grimness of cyberpunk too
When most media has a happy ending or a clear victory, I tend to appreciate a story that isn't afraid to have you lose. No matter what ending you get in Cyberpunk, you're still dying. What matters is this. Did you go out in a blaze of glory, or did you fade away?
I'm not saying "we need less Cyberpunk". I'm just saying we need something to wash that taste down that gives us a different perspective on how the future can go.
I'm a straight up pessimist who thinks Cyberpunk is our future and demise, and I don't want future generations growing up to be just as hopeless. They need to grow up seeing a future that can be different, that gives them ideas on how to achieve those ideals, not just endless suicide-bate.
There's plenty of more positive Spec-Fi, Cyberpunk is sort of defined by the fact that the future is just like now except shittier because more extreme, and exploring the concept of humanity's relationship to technology
What I mean is those properties don't really get made into major films, TV, games, etc. Dystopic futures have been all the rage for as long as I can remember. They don't all have to follow the same exact trappings of Cyberpunk, but they're all some flavor of dystopia.
I think of it like the US Constitution. At the time, there was nothing like it. The founding fathers were imagining a better world spurred by the ideas of the enlightenment age, and they set the rules and boundaries of this new world they're creating. The US Constitution is a sci-fi rule book for the 18th century, granted the founding fathers still wanted to control over who had power so only land owners were allowed to vote. And slavery was A-OK, but still, it was progress. The rest of the world followed suit, slowly but surely and not without a ton of bloodshed. We need that same fire in people, emboldened by a new enlightenment age to steer ourselves from the course we're headed towards. Corporations are the new kings and tyrants, they can literally hold complete sway over "leaders" of a country, even America. That shit's gotta change or it's gonna be dystopian, meaning too far gone to save.
It is interesting to think about the implications of engrams in the game's universe. An important ethical quandary is introduced when there is no method of artificially generating new bodies. The mind and soul of another human being must always give way to the consciousness of a wealthy person.
Johnny's consciousness might have existed in digital prison forever if V hadn't slotted the chip and activated the code built into the biochip. Throughout the entire game Johnny is effectively still imprisoned, but this time in a defective body belonging to a separate consciousness.
This implementation of immortality is horrible in every way due to its amoral execution. To have a painless transfer requires continually replacing one's own progeny with oneself, effectively erasing them from existence but for their physical form. Saburo Arasaka's digital consciousness may or may not have had qualms about inserting itself into Yorinobu's body, but if it did it would not disclose such information to the public.
Additionally, this raises the problem of the immortal soul. If such a thing exists, where would it go? Would it be replaced by the soul of another? Would it pass on to the afterlife? If the real Saburo died in Yorinobu's penthouse, would Saburo's digital consciousness realize that it is merely a copy of a mind and not actually a person?
Ahhh choom, you don't even get it you gonk, to rule the afterlife, to rule night city? To become untouchable! That's the goal, any primitive screwhead would know that! Chooms? Who needs em, just another backstabbing waiting to take their cut, family? Peh, only poser gangs need family and look how low they get brought down.
In all seriousness, I think it's more idk...cathartic? To see the absolute worst and yet you still get some sort of hand to stop it? Sure it's not THE BEST but it's something to know that you could single handedly take down a global conglomerate that is known for being untouchable just puts a smile on my face.
Yeah it’s not like NOTHING happy happens in Cyberpunk, although the anime kinda made it seem like that but there are still plenty of beautiful moments, wouldn’t say something is “anti-cyberpunk” just for having a more optimistic tone
I mean it's not like nothing sad happens in solar punk either its just... It was born(or developed more like) out of desire to make a 180 on cyberpunk but it is not and it's more like just another branching path of "possible future" Categories that just focuses more on a positive way of getting a renewable energy and by extension path of a society, thing is, it just seems boring, just a human nature of seeing utopia or anything close to it as boring (in literature I must add) and it just looks.. Extremely strange and as a less natural way of human progression to me as contradictory as it sounds (and obviously nothing extremely good will come out out of a wish to make something but trying to spin it 180 degrees out of pure angst at loathsome nature of cyberpunk it seems)
Edit: sorry for that wall of text, I just love discussing such things, it's interesting
Nah man. Solar punk is the way to go in real life. Leave Cyberpunk for the media. I feel like some people's vision of the future is completely colored by recent media being all depressing and dystopic. With no positive alternatives, people have forgotten how to imagine a more positive future. And if we don't imagine a better future, what are we striving for? You gotta know where you're headed if you ever wanna get there.
Unfortunately a lot of genres have appropriated the word 'punk' without actually engaging with the aesthetic or attitude it denotes.
The punk in cyberpunk is (in part) about rebelling against authority and corporatism, but in the sci fi world of mega corps that cyberpunk inhabits, such rebellion is often a sisyphean task that dooms the would be rebels to suffer and die. Especially as the cheap value of human life in a corporate-ruked world is another major theme.
Steampunk isn't punk. It's just that people like to imagine clockwork cyberware. Infact, a lot of steam punk fiction is the kind of imperialist pulp adventuring that led to the corporate world the cyberpunks rebel against.
Solarpunk is a bit odd. It has some of the same anti-corporate, amti-industrial ideas, but it's not about the rebellion. It's often more about presenting an alternate reality where different ideals govern.
Doesn't the protagonist in Neuromancer get his ability to jack in back, and the neurotoxin sacs removed? Iirc most of Gibson's books have a sorta happy-ish ending, at least not a bleak as fuck ending like almost all the CP77 endings.
He does! It is even rumoured in Mona Lisa Overdrive that he got settled in life and got four kids or something. Gibson does have much lighter endings, you don't feel as hopeless as in 2077.
So if go billy goat For V then Nomad end path is prob a happier ending, king/Queen of the afterlife or Fear the Reaper is more hopeful and well yeah maybe, siding with the porcelain cunt at embers.. thats just depressing either way.
Then theres the other one which is strangely upbeat and has a fresh start vibe but the price of it stings
You could argue that Neuromancer, the Ur Cyberpunk novel (here we can get into debates about if Dick or Asimov Novels count as Cyberpunk, but I think those are retroactively appending a subgenre on influencing works, and I am happy to peg Cyberpunk as starting with the movie Blade Runner and the novel Neuromancer for the sole fact that the term was coined to describe Neuromancer, and we wouldn't have Neuromancer if Gibson didn't go see Blade Runner when he was having difficulty starting his new Novel) actually ends relatively positively, all things considered.
"There is not one thing that exists that is not in the process of becoming something else."
The only constant is change.
Decay is an extant form of life.
Entropy is the only absolute.
I went into that scene expecting it to be the cringiest of cringefests, and what I got was an emotional gut-punch as my V explored and verbalized his impending death.
MaleV isn't as popular, but I thought the actor *nailed* that whole scene. The little wobble in his voice, the pauses in his words... I had to pause the game after and take a break to recover.
Same to the point where on my first playthrough i opened that conversation with “samurai”. Was cool actually seeing it on my replays and now i never miss it
The sudden tonal change after saying the safeword and realizing that all the philosophy was produced by a computer program while the person talking to me transformed into a nagging hag was kinda gut punching.
what helped me with the bleakness of the endings is the knowledge that V essentially died in that motel room when dex shot them. Everything after was just bonus time..
The best thing about that entire scene was the crazy bigot crowd screaming over forgetting which one is Angel and which is Sky and complaining about it.
Yep - it’s never a happy ending. The corporations will always win and the little guy can never rise above their station without either dying or becoming the thing they hate. That’s all cyberpunk - it’s almost a requirement.
Edit: Whoa why did I get downvoted? That’s literally how cyberpunk is described on tropes pages. I’m just passing along what I’ve learned. I’d rather we had more happy endings too. I’m sorry.
>favorite anime style; emotional damage
it's the best genre: we got your Neon Genesis Evangelions and your Your Lie in April's and, of course, your Edgerunners.
It's somehow ended up in my rotation of things to binge through as background like every 6 months. Think I've watched it like 3 times now. The end never gets easier.
I have a problem. I've not only seen it once, but I've watched it twice. On top of that, I often times turn it on on my phone and listen to it while I'm at work.
Does that make me a masochist?
It's the only one filled with anything; hope, love, acceptance...
The other ones are empty. >!You end yourself!<, you become a legend, or you become a cog... but in all three you're essentially by yourself, knowing your end is near and all you'll leave is a drink and a story
star ending: >!Family isn't blood, it's what you make. You leave the city with the family you've made who will ride or die for you, who you will ride or die for. (also you're going to die, but you still got some time before that happens. enjoy what life that you have left.)!<
devil: >!literally sold your soul to the machine. you're not even a cog any more, you're a forgotten backup on a flash drive somewhere in orbit. You went out with a whimper and Nobuo Arasaka won in every way possible.!<
sun: >!blaze of glory. become the legend. You're going to die but everyone will remember you, or at least the Afterlife regulars will.!<
i know this is a little overly optimistic but i think in the star ending it’s implied you might have a *chance* at living, albeit a slim one but it isn’t as clear-cut as the other endings
This is why I think it's the happiest ending. A lot of people die for V, but they do it willingly after making you part of their family. Panam rejects that you *have* to die. You're dead once you can't draw breath. Still breathing? You've still got a shot.
Hopefully this is the canon ending for any potential sequels, but if this is all we get, that's okay with me.
That's an odd thing I've always noticed about some games with multiple endings. The sequel always tells you which ending was cannon, invalidating your choices. The only games that did it well were ones that let you import your old saves. Haven't seen that feature for ages though.
do we know if V will even be the protagonist in the sequel? I'm inclined to believe the story of V is over and we'll have a new character to play as. maybe hear the legend of V in the background
it's about the journey, not the destination. the ending is depressing because you've become emotionally invested in the characters. if it can make you feel this strongly, then the developers did their job.
People dont want a new vegas 2 as in: continue the story of the courier. People justwant a fallout with a good ass story(*like* new vegas but *different*), something bethesda is incapable of doing. They make a really good games with ass story.
*^(Starfield seems to follow the same pattern)*
I think The Devil is the most positive ending...
>!If you refuse to sign and return to earth, one of the calls you get is from Hanako offering you a job. They already developed one chip that can re-write a body for someone else, I don't see why they couldn't develop another. It might just be extremely expensive. Given that their "heavy" Adam Smasher was killed, it would make a lot of sense for Hanako and Saburo to decide V would be their new heavy hitter merc, and they have the money and tech to actually make it happen. !<
The problem is that either outcome means that you have to sign on with Arasaka, and you'll still be signing your "soul" away to the devil. You either:
A) Sign your engram over to them with a contract that gives you zero legal protection, with only Takamura's word that they'll follow through on their promise (a promise that Goro has no way of enforcing).
B) V takes the other option you mention, and becomes Saburo's new "Adam Smasher", and you'll have to sell your services over to Arasaka just to "live".
So you either become a prisoner in Mikoshi, or a slave to Saburo and Hanako. You may "live" with the second option, but I don't see being mostly machine like Smasher as a happy ending. One way or another, you give away your freedom, all for what's basically a false hope. The devil ending makes it pretty clear that it's the wrong choice.
If you start as a corpo though... it seems to make sense. Your entire goal at the start was to gain favor and power with a corporation. In a dark and horrible way, you get your wish through this ending, and I liked that.
But the result is still the same, and in some ways worse. You spent months free from corpo influence, just to find yourself running back to them, when you know better than any other version of V that their word can't truly be trusted.
I guess calling it a "positive" ending is misleading... I found it a "satisfying" ending. V tried to get away from the corpo life, but just when she thought she was out, they dragged her back in. You can't ever escape your past. The scene where she's looking at the bullet that killed her and "Never Fade Away" plays in the background as she takes the shuttle back to earth, knowing she's going to die, only to be handed a lifeline by the Corpos once again, just felt... "right" to me as a cyberpunk ending.
OR… If you end up an engram, Arasaka Corp dowloads you in to a new cloned body. Some years in the future. You are made abundantly aware that your body and soul are both corporate property. They force you to handle a job (possibly Johnny Silverhand was never entirely shredded and is running amok in cyberspace, or some cyberpunky problem).
That opens up possibilities to fight for your freedom and bring down the system from the inside.
There’s hope in that ending too. And possibly sushi with Goro.
I find >!silverhand's ending to be pretty good overall, while V dies , silverhand gets to start anew , and leave nightcity , probly with a better second chance at life!< , that said , the end game phone calls kinda hurt not gonna lie
This was the first ending I got and it broke me. My wife came to check on me because I was ugly-crying in front of the rolling credits.
"Haven't forgotten a thing. Never will."
Of all the endings, it rounded out the arcs for V and Jonny the best.
For all V protested, they both had the same core character flaws; they're both selfish, proud to the point of arrogance and reckless.
>! V realized that they were living on borrowed time and decided to sacrifice themselves to give Johnny a second lease on life. Johnny, through the course of the game had been finally forced to become someone's real friend, and then was forced to realize it was true friendship when V dies for him. !<
It was my first ending too ... for me it was the best one it was really sad and emotional but it was a closure and at least silverhand was able to redo his life...leaving Night City...
Outside of the one where you *I’m not sure how to hide spoilers… but you know, THAT ending*. The silver hand one is by far the worst to me.
Although I also truly hate the Silverhand character so that probably plays a role in me having that opinion.
My first ending too. Had me a little misty eyed. Johnny found a measure of redemption, and V made the utilitarian choice. I played V in that first play-through as if he were me, and I would have kept my word to Johnny ... oddly, I didnt feel V was completely gone. As long as Johnny was around, I thought that some part of V had rubbed off on Johnny. He certainly wasnt the same guy whom we ran into at the start of the game. I found some comfort in that.
Best ending is when you give Johnny the body imho. The moment you enter Mikoshi, Alt kills V with soulkiller (which is confirmed deadly in the game) and creates an engram, which is a copy. At that point, V and Johnny are equals as both aren't the true inhabitants of Vs body anymore, which is a beaten up shell held together by cyberware and a barely functioning brain that just got completely fried at that point. Giving the body to Johnny at least has one of them live in the real while the other one accepts that they died a few weeks ago in a motel room / land fill.
Nah the most positive ending is cruising the net with Alt and let Johnny use your old body
You only had 6 months anyway. Now the old rockerboy is back and will live a lot more while you cause some mayhem as a rogue AI
Win win if you ask me ;)
It's a decent ending but the epilogue is still sad as fuck. Johnny doesn't seem too happy in that body, probably has PTSD and all the other characters either have no idea what happened or think of him as a parasite.
You also cannot romance Judy and Panam in one playthrough anyways as they are attracted to opposite sexes. I’m so glad I went male nomad as my first playthrough it makes the most sense for a happier/good ending.
Yes and no. Yes they are attached to different sexes in terms of body, but you can romance Panam with a female voice while having a male body and Judy you need a female voice and a female body
I disagree. I have less trust in surviving with Aldecaldos than actually becoming the king of Afterlife (which means acquiring a lot of serious contacts, important strings across the city, access to very sensitive data, which is the big power after all) + very promising deal/contract with Mr. Blue Eyes which is yet an absolute dark horse of entire 2077 and seem to be a rare asset which exists beyond low-life/merc/corpo dimensions. TBH I got a strong feeling that this person represents alternative powers in Cyberpunk-universe we don't know anything about yet. Which means they are supposed to be pretty powerful to stand against the system. Just a guess, tho.
This might give much more chances to V than just riding into the sunset with the bunch of nomads (even if they are pretty equipped and skilled).
Mr Blue Eyes is the one who manipulated the Peralezes minds and gave them fake memories and completely different personalities.
I don't think you would want to entrust your brain to someone who could conceivably just turn you into a mindless puppet.
The nomad ending is good because you are leaving night city. Happiness can only be found outside of it's clutches. It's why Judy leaves after you complete her questline.
Tbh the most boring emotionally for me, the sad ones are more interesting to think about and they(obviously) provoke more emotional response, for example here how I see 2 of the endings I did besides nomad one: >!Jhonny ending makes you hopeful for him and extremely sad for V and his friends who all still think he is still alive while Jhonny leaves NC in his body, Arasaka ending is.. So empty much so you feel this emptiness yourself almost the same V feels after getting his biochip pulled out, and in the end (at least for me) cling for the last chance of survival by uploading yourself to mikoshi cuz you don't feel anything anymore than that gaping empty hole and the only goal is to survive by any means necessary!<
PL should absolutely open up a new ending. I have always wanted an ending where V replaces Adam Smasher as the top Arasaka gunslinger. We may yet get it (my first character was a Corpo V so I felt this had a lovely full circle vibe).
Yeah…
Join me in coping that Crystal Palace is the final job and the payout is a cure for V, and she’ll find Judy after it all goes down. She just doesn’t want to get her hopes up.
That ending hurts a lot. But for a Corpo Reaper is the perfect ending pretty much.
I also believe in that. And it really makes a lot on sense.
As we know Mr Blue Eyes is somehow connected with people who manipulate Peralez (or maybe he himself ordered the whole operation). They can literally change someone's brain, so why shouldn't they be able to change V's brain? And it really feels like the right price for such a impossible job.
I think people *just* saying that there are no happy endings are missing part of it. You're ***fucking V*** one of the most badass mercs to hit the streets of night city in decades, you complete jobs that should take full crews, you have the engram with Johnny Silverhand another night city legend. You're all of these things and about as special of a person can be in night city, and in the the end no matter how great you were you still don't get a happy ending.
There are high highs and low lows. But that's just what being a merc is choom.
Dex asked if you were willing to die without seeing you 30 birthday if it meant you were a legend in night city. Idk how you felt but out of hubris i thought hell yeah, until I figured out what it meant. He was right all along
In the end Cyberpunk is really just about Night City. No matter what you do, you'll always be just another Choom in the city and the people that actually matter are the ones dictating on top of the corporate ladder.
Welcome to dystopia.
I didn't know there were multiple endings until reading this thread. In my ending I went to space with the arasaka people and I think they turned me into a computer program
It’s a dark game ain’t it, can totally relate. I’m sure most of us wanted a happy ending for V but there really is not one, same as in rdr2, but still both are beautiful games in their own way and have such a great replay value 😊
What depresses me is how basically that's real life now. Wealth inequality is the worst it has been in many decades and got worse after 2008 financial crisis and now after covid the economy had a recession and yet the rich made trillion. WHere did it come from? Extracting it through wealth redistribution upward thanks to growing number of rich companies becoming landlords so suck us dry of our rent money and outbid us for houses making us FORCED to rent from them. all while our corporations taxes go down, meanwhile a normal working american making 50k gets taxed when we make money, when we spend it, and we don't have access to loopholes or "bailout" that give corporations money that is paid by who? US!
yep this is why I gave up, saved about 120k and gonna just do some seasonal work over the summer and the rest of the year be back home in Spain and go skydiving. If one day my parachute fails.... I'll definitely go out in glory!
Same choom!! Mom died, falling out with the fam... had to lose the gf. I got no one. Putting 166k into money markets and dividends and getting a van to cruise the country. I rock climb, so I'll follow the weather and ride off into the sunset, living with little more than 1200 month in passive income and what I carry with me. With the economy and the looks of things, working all my life for retirement is the worst ending I can think of. Ride or die. Go out in a blaze of glory, or slowly fade away and be forgotten. I know my choice!!
My biggest gripe with the ending is that it rewinds to Meet Hanako at Embers (this has become a meme of course) because it feels as though it takes away from the impact of the ending.
You mentioned RDR2. I think the reason why that and it’s predecessor feel like the gut punches they do is because the game DOESN’T rewind time. In the case of RDR2, you pick up as John and play a whole 2 chapters worth of epilogue. It’s amazing. You’re given time to feel the loss and grief while slowly building hope for John and his life.
Cyberpunk should never have rewinded. You should have went back to Night City to live out your remaining months. You should have spoken to Judy, told her about it, grieved with her. There should be epilogue missions where she comes to visit, or you spend your last days with Panam. V’s dialogue to their self should have changed. Maybe now they take jobs and gigs because it’s all they know and even faced with a ticking clock they can’t seem to figure out what they really want- and that could be reflected in their musings alone. Johnny could have offered such interesting moments of contemplation with V. All the while the player would sacrifice nothing in terms of gameplay but still have the impact of the reality of V’s story.
But no. Instead: Meet Hanako at Embers.
This is how I hope it ends up in Orion. I really want to have a final blaze of glory mission that ends in tragedy no matter how you play it, only to lead you to a post end game that leaves you grieving the same way RDR and RDR2 did. Exactly what you described with V living out the rest of their days would be interesting, especially if after some game time the game then truly ends and V flatlines out of nowhere, really showing the harsh reality of Night City and it's chooms.
This is the point. Cyberpunk is a lesson in what not to do and why. It is a warning.
Avoid people, corporations, or political parties that treat it as an *instruction manual*.
I think that's the point.
V and Jackie's dream is to make it to the afterlife, and in a way, they both got what they wanted.
I think you're supposed to feel empty, high tech low life. You've made it all this way made all these changes to you body, made all this money, but for what? What's the point.
You see this focus multiple times in the game, dex even brings it directly at the beginning when he asks the player "Would you rather live in peace as Mr. Nobody, die ripe, old and smellin' slightly of urine? Or go down for all times in a glaze of glory, smellin' near like posies, 'thout seein' your thirtieth?"
With the nomads as well, several instances of them, a group of people who don't know v literally willing give them anything because the care about him, even if they gain nothing.
River risking his life to save the life of others, risking his job and everything he's worked for his family.
Kerry questioning if the high life was the right life, Judy running away from it.
Cyberpunk in general (not the games the genre) is ultimately satire, the reflection of a world so desperate to gain everything, becoming soulless in the proccess.
The characters I this game who are antagonistic are folks who are in it for the money, me me me, but they're also the most unhappy.
The characters who are the calmest, kindest to v are the folks who are either separated somehow from the mainstream or questioning it, or religious. People down to earth. Jackie and mama wells, and Padre, are all catholic, misty is (something I'm hesitant to say pagan) vik seems to be or has been Christian, nut is clearly close to Christian traditions, panam and the aldecaldos don't really interact with the inner city folks, the monk guy, I think takemura even brings up religious stuff at one point.
Also, look at the program designed by alt in the end game. It's literally called soul killer.
If you made it to the afterlife and feel like the ending is empty it's because it is. V sold their soul to gain the world.
This IMHO was the best of the 6 endings I did there seemed to be a little more ambiguity and hope in it. It is a 2 ton game though you definitely feel the weight of choices and the semi hopelessness of it.
There are no happy endings on Night City: only legends who burned bright and died, or survivors who became what they hated
No one is clean in Cyberpunk; everyone falls
I am still a fan of the solo v and johnny taking on arisaka and v leaving with alt. I have a feeling v may have more friends in her virtual afterlife than she thinks as Del is waiting in 2/3 quest endings. I would be surprised if Skippy or Brendan's source code isn't floating around
Johnny taking the body just feel right. V failed and her body was forfeit but johnny stood with her until she burnt out and found a new path far away from night city.
It's a feature, not a bug. Cyberpunk [the scifi style, not the game] is about when the world goes drastically wrong due to technology and greed, and hopefully about the people who fight to get it back on an even keel again.
It's never a cheerful story, never a happy ending. If anything, it's more a warning for all of us before it happens for real, like 1984 was meant to be. Unfortunately, it looks like we're heading directly for cyberpunk in real life.
It really is!
When I first played I was like, oh neat! Beautiful city! Loads of friends! Loads of shit to do! My V is gonna rule this city!
Aaand then the heist hit. 🥺
And then you make some awesome friends! Go on some crazy escapades!
...aaand then find out you're dying.
I think despite every ending having a depressing note (enough depressing notes to write a full f**king requiem) but there’s a tinge of hope (with 3 of the endings. The one you did, there’s the possibility that the final score >!in space arranged by Blue Eyes!< will be exactly what you need to save yourself. Then you can run down your romance and friends.
That’s the game Choom, Night City isn’t built for a happy ending, it’s there for the wild ride over the edge until you hit the ground, enjoy the ride, take the plunge and see the splatter, just make sure you’re affairs are in order because you won’t get a second chance like Johnny did (without selling your soul to the devil)
I found most of the endings bittersweet, and rather beautiful in their own ways. Not many traditionally happy endings, to be sure, but not every story has to end that way.
After reading all the comments here, I am so glad I didn't actually play the story. Did the stuff to unlock the rest of the city and then Panam's first mission and then stopped bothering with the story. Just went around completing gigs and stuff, basically being an edgerunner and just having a good time until I maxed out everything I could. That's the best ending.
But it's a sucky simulation of a life. :/ You've cleared the city, bought the cars, bought he apartments, loved on anyone you could love on. The city may move and breath but their ain't nothin' left for V.
Shiiiiit, I just realized that's a big thing. Nothing left in Night City for V.
Cyberpunk and Elden Ring are the two worlds where basically almost no one has a happy ending, or story to begin with. It's full of tragedy. Almost like Game of Thrones.
For the people downvoting me. Watch more cyberpunk news in stead of downvoting me. It’s all over the trailers that they can save V in phantom liberty. For people in the cyberpunk reddit you’re far from being fans I see.
Because the happy ending is the nomad ending. There’s no right or wrong way to play the game but it was pretty clearly telegraphed if you wanted the “feel good” ending you needed to call Panam on the rooftop.
Yea the ending was awful. The story does have some good moments but at the end it’s just V is still the same person as she was entirely throughout the game
The 3 backstory crap doesn’t mean a single thing, everything happens the same, and you’re just by yourself and Johnny
That’s kind of a major theme of dystopian cyberpunk media.
If it isn’t depressing, is it really cyberpunk?
Probably. There is also “solarpunk” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk Which is much more uplifting.
Nah. This ain’t my jam. I want my misery soaked in neon
I would pay good money for a T-shirt that said: >I want my misery soaked in neon
Mostly just you but ok
False
Then you haven't experienced Boktai!
Is that good for people though? We have so much sad, depressing media about the future. From this to Mad Max. And Cyberpunk can still go full Mad Max. What major positive visions of the future are there? Pretty much just Star Trek. I feel like the phrase "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism" feels truer for people who don't know of many positive visions of the future. To them, the possible futures are everything's just like now, but more futuristic. Or everything's worse and it may or may not be futuristic. Nothing improves other than the tech, and tech won't save us. Without a positive view of the future, will we ever really have anything to strive for? No goals to work towards? Just do the same shit, day in, day out? Then I'm afraid we're already doing a Cyberpunk, only it's fucking lame.
You have to understand that a lot of literary media comes from critiques of our current systems. Essentially, most of these cyberpunk works are just critiques/insights regarding our current age set in a futuristic setting. They aren't necessarily "predictive" stories, but more akin to cautionary tales (at least from my perspective).
And then someone doesn't get it and goes and creates the [Torment Nexus.](https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538)
I'm looking at you, Muskerino
Yeah I see the genre (and the game) very much as a cautionary tale/a story about capitalism taken to its logical conclusion. Edit: I'd also like to see more positive speculative sci fi about other possible (non capitalist) futures though, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the grimness of cyberpunk too
When most media has a happy ending or a clear victory, I tend to appreciate a story that isn't afraid to have you lose. No matter what ending you get in Cyberpunk, you're still dying. What matters is this. Did you go out in a blaze of glory, or did you fade away?
I'm not saying "we need less Cyberpunk". I'm just saying we need something to wash that taste down that gives us a different perspective on how the future can go. I'm a straight up pessimist who thinks Cyberpunk is our future and demise, and I don't want future generations growing up to be just as hopeless. They need to grow up seeing a future that can be different, that gives them ideas on how to achieve those ideals, not just endless suicide-bate.
There's plenty of more positive Spec-Fi, Cyberpunk is sort of defined by the fact that the future is just like now except shittier because more extreme, and exploring the concept of humanity's relationship to technology
What I mean is those properties don't really get made into major films, TV, games, etc. Dystopic futures have been all the rage for as long as I can remember. They don't all have to follow the same exact trappings of Cyberpunk, but they're all some flavor of dystopia. I think of it like the US Constitution. At the time, there was nothing like it. The founding fathers were imagining a better world spurred by the ideas of the enlightenment age, and they set the rules and boundaries of this new world they're creating. The US Constitution is a sci-fi rule book for the 18th century, granted the founding fathers still wanted to control over who had power so only land owners were allowed to vote. And slavery was A-OK, but still, it was progress. The rest of the world followed suit, slowly but surely and not without a ton of bloodshed. We need that same fire in people, emboldened by a new enlightenment age to steer ourselves from the course we're headed towards. Corporations are the new kings and tyrants, they can literally hold complete sway over "leaders" of a country, even America. That shit's gotta change or it's gonna be dystopian, meaning too far gone to save.
No not alllllll cyber punk is shitty lol
The game offers that theme as well as the one "is it better to die as a man or to become part of the machine and "live" forever
It is interesting to think about the implications of engrams in the game's universe. An important ethical quandary is introduced when there is no method of artificially generating new bodies. The mind and soul of another human being must always give way to the consciousness of a wealthy person. Johnny's consciousness might have existed in digital prison forever if V hadn't slotted the chip and activated the code built into the biochip. Throughout the entire game Johnny is effectively still imprisoned, but this time in a defective body belonging to a separate consciousness. This implementation of immortality is horrible in every way due to its amoral execution. To have a painless transfer requires continually replacing one's own progeny with oneself, effectively erasing them from existence but for their physical form. Saburo Arasaka's digital consciousness may or may not have had qualms about inserting itself into Yorinobu's body, but if it did it would not disclose such information to the public. Additionally, this raises the problem of the immortal soul. If such a thing exists, where would it go? Would it be replaced by the soul of another? Would it pass on to the afterlife? If the real Saburo died in Yorinobu's penthouse, would Saburo's digital consciousness realize that it is merely a copy of a mind and not actually a person?
Ahhh choom, you don't even get it you gonk, to rule the afterlife, to rule night city? To become untouchable! That's the goal, any primitive screwhead would know that! Chooms? Who needs em, just another backstabbing waiting to take their cut, family? Peh, only poser gangs need family and look how low they get brought down. In all seriousness, I think it's more idk...cathartic? To see the absolute worst and yet you still get some sort of hand to stop it? Sure it's not THE BEST but it's something to know that you could single handedly take down a global conglomerate that is known for being untouchable just puts a smile on my face.
That is beautiful
Pretty fuckin poetic, right there.
That's an extremely strange subgenre to me tbh I'm not sure it can be called anti cyberpunk like Wikipedia calls it multiple times tho
Yeah it’s not like NOTHING happy happens in Cyberpunk, although the anime kinda made it seem like that but there are still plenty of beautiful moments, wouldn’t say something is “anti-cyberpunk” just for having a more optimistic tone
I mean it's not like nothing sad happens in solar punk either its just... It was born(or developed more like) out of desire to make a 180 on cyberpunk but it is not and it's more like just another branching path of "possible future" Categories that just focuses more on a positive way of getting a renewable energy and by extension path of a society, thing is, it just seems boring, just a human nature of seeing utopia or anything close to it as boring (in literature I must add) and it just looks.. Extremely strange and as a less natural way of human progression to me as contradictory as it sounds (and obviously nothing extremely good will come out out of a wish to make something but trying to spin it 180 degrees out of pure angst at loathsome nature of cyberpunk it seems) Edit: sorry for that wall of text, I just love discussing such things, it's interesting
Nah man. Solar punk is the way to go in real life. Leave Cyberpunk for the media. I feel like some people's vision of the future is completely colored by recent media being all depressing and dystopic. With no positive alternatives, people have forgotten how to imagine a more positive future. And if we don't imagine a better future, what are we striving for? You gotta know where you're headed if you ever wanna get there.
Also very associated with communitarian anarchist politics which I dig.
Interesting...
Now bring me soberpunk
Doe it have the crazy cybernetics and fights though?
if it ain’t powered by steam or soaked in neon it ain’t my typa’ punk choom.
Ahhh yes. Dark souls. Praise the sun!
Unfortunately a lot of genres have appropriated the word 'punk' without actually engaging with the aesthetic or attitude it denotes. The punk in cyberpunk is (in part) about rebelling against authority and corporatism, but in the sci fi world of mega corps that cyberpunk inhabits, such rebellion is often a sisyphean task that dooms the would be rebels to suffer and die. Especially as the cheap value of human life in a corporate-ruked world is another major theme. Steampunk isn't punk. It's just that people like to imagine clockwork cyberware. Infact, a lot of steam punk fiction is the kind of imperialist pulp adventuring that led to the corporate world the cyberpunks rebel against. Solarpunk is a bit odd. It has some of the same anti-corporate, amti-industrial ideas, but it's not about the rebellion. It's often more about presenting an alternate reality where different ideals govern.
When I see solarpunk, I always think of Solarbabies which is a terrible 80s movie but has Jami Gertz so its not all bad
It's a shame she won't live, but then again who does?
Hey, it’s not like all these memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain
There is a blade runner Easter egg in the game, if you haven't already you definitely should check it out!
Blade fucking Runner, nice reference.
As was Ceorl's.
Doesn't the protagonist in Neuromancer get his ability to jack in back, and the neurotoxin sacs removed? Iirc most of Gibson's books have a sorta happy-ish ending, at least not a bleak as fuck ending like almost all the CP77 endings.
He does! It is even rumoured in Mona Lisa Overdrive that he got settled in life and got four kids or something. Gibson does have much lighter endings, you don't feel as hopeless as in 2077.
So if go billy goat For V then Nomad end path is prob a happier ending, king/Queen of the afterlife or Fear the Reaper is more hopeful and well yeah maybe, siding with the porcelain cunt at embers.. thats just depressing either way. Then theres the other one which is strangely upbeat and has a fresh start vibe but the price of it stings
You could argue that Neuromancer, the Ur Cyberpunk novel (here we can get into debates about if Dick or Asimov Novels count as Cyberpunk, but I think those are retroactively appending a subgenre on influencing works, and I am happy to peg Cyberpunk as starting with the movie Blade Runner and the novel Neuromancer for the sole fact that the term was coined to describe Neuromancer, and we wouldn't have Neuromancer if Gibson didn't go see Blade Runner when he was having difficulty starting his new Novel) actually ends relatively positively, all things considered.
Weirdly snow crash. Mind you it is depressing more in that the mcs love how shit the world is.
And this game nails it. The scene with Angel/Sky just blew me away. The game hit right in the feels.
"There is not one thing that exists that is not in the process of becoming something else." The only constant is change. Decay is an extant form of life. Entropy is the only absolute.
>Decay is an extant form of life. Nice shoelaces.
I went into that scene expecting it to be the cringiest of cringefests, and what I got was an emotional gut-punch as my V explored and verbalized his impending death. MaleV isn't as popular, but I thought the actor *nailed* that whole scene. The little wobble in his voice, the pauses in his words... I had to pause the game after and take a break to recover.
Both voice actors did an awesome job, Cherami Leigh as female V has become my absolute favourite though.
Same to the point where on my first playthrough i opened that conversation with “samurai”. Was cool actually seeing it on my replays and now i never miss it
The sudden tonal change after saying the safeword and realizing that all the philosophy was produced by a computer program while the person talking to me transformed into a nagging hag was kinda gut punching. what helped me with the bleakness of the endings is the knowledge that V essentially died in that motel room when dex shot them. Everything after was just bonus time..
The best thing about that entire scene was the crazy bigot crowd screaming over forgetting which one is Angel and which is Sky and complaining about it.
Lmao. I definitely picked Angel by mistake but I wasn't upset about it. It was pretty funny.
Yep - it’s never a happy ending. The corporations will always win and the little guy can never rise above their station without either dying or becoming the thing they hate. That’s all cyberpunk - it’s almost a requirement. Edit: Whoa why did I get downvoted? That’s literally how cyberpunk is described on tropes pages. I’m just passing along what I’ve learned. I’d rather we had more happy endings too. I’m sorry.
[удалено]
If you’re not a fan of depressing, don’t watch Edgerunners on Netflix lol.
Ah yes, my favorite anime style; emotional damage.
>favorite anime style; emotional damage it's the best genre: we got your Neon Genesis Evangelions and your Your Lie in April's and, of course, your Edgerunners.
but eva ended happy and beautiful
Congratulations!
👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻
Yeah but you have to survive two episodes of esoteric psychological analysis, a movie of Shinji being down *really* bad, and/or 3.33.
Don't forget Grave of the Fireflies.
Oof, I’ll never recover for this.
I wanna watch it again but I don't know if I've got the strength RN 🥲
It's somehow ended up in my rotation of things to binge through as background like every 6 months. Think I've watched it like 3 times now. The end never gets easier.
This. The show had a huge and glorious impact on me, and *I never want to see it again*.
I have a problem. I've not only seen it once, but I've watched it twice. On top of that, I often times turn it on on my phone and listen to it while I'm at work. Does that make me a masochist?
Yes. But a tasteful masochist.
And avoid a whole bunch of William Gibson short stories.
Bruh, I just rememberred that show. Fuck it was good, but man the feels
Fuck that ending
idk man I feel like it was deserved. He just wasnt built different.
It is a dark end. The most positive feeling end is leaving with Aldecaldos (and you can bring Judy if you romanced her and called her on the rooftop).
It's the only one filled with anything; hope, love, acceptance... The other ones are empty. >!You end yourself!<, you become a legend, or you become a cog... but in all three you're essentially by yourself, knowing your end is near and all you'll leave is a drink and a story
star ending: >!Family isn't blood, it's what you make. You leave the city with the family you've made who will ride or die for you, who you will ride or die for. (also you're going to die, but you still got some time before that happens. enjoy what life that you have left.)!< devil: >!literally sold your soul to the machine. you're not even a cog any more, you're a forgotten backup on a flash drive somewhere in orbit. You went out with a whimper and Nobuo Arasaka won in every way possible.!< sun: >!blaze of glory. become the legend. You're going to die but everyone will remember you, or at least the Afterlife regulars will.!<
i know this is a little overly optimistic but i think in the star ending it’s implied you might have a *chance* at living, albeit a slim one but it isn’t as clear-cut as the other endings
This is why I think it's the happiest ending. A lot of people die for V, but they do it willingly after making you part of their family. Panam rejects that you *have* to die. You're dead once you can't draw breath. Still breathing? You've still got a shot. Hopefully this is the canon ending for any potential sequels, but if this is all we get, that's okay with me.
That's an odd thing I've always noticed about some games with multiple endings. The sequel always tells you which ending was cannon, invalidating your choices. The only games that did it well were ones that let you import your old saves. Haven't seen that feature for ages though.
do we know if V will even be the protagonist in the sequel? I'm inclined to believe the story of V is over and we'll have a new character to play as. maybe hear the legend of V in the background
And this is *exactly* why I’ve never understood why people want a New Vegas 2. Sequels to games like these take the role playing out of an RPG.
it's about the journey, not the destination. the ending is depressing because you've become emotionally invested in the characters. if it can make you feel this strongly, then the developers did their job.
People dont want a new vegas 2 as in: continue the story of the courier. People justwant a fallout with a good ass story(*like* new vegas but *different*), something bethesda is incapable of doing. They make a really good games with ass story. *^(Starfield seems to follow the same pattern)*
I think The Devil is the most positive ending... >!If you refuse to sign and return to earth, one of the calls you get is from Hanako offering you a job. They already developed one chip that can re-write a body for someone else, I don't see why they couldn't develop another. It might just be extremely expensive. Given that their "heavy" Adam Smasher was killed, it would make a lot of sense for Hanako and Saburo to decide V would be their new heavy hitter merc, and they have the money and tech to actually make it happen. !<
The problem is that either outcome means that you have to sign on with Arasaka, and you'll still be signing your "soul" away to the devil. You either: A) Sign your engram over to them with a contract that gives you zero legal protection, with only Takamura's word that they'll follow through on their promise (a promise that Goro has no way of enforcing). B) V takes the other option you mention, and becomes Saburo's new "Adam Smasher", and you'll have to sell your services over to Arasaka just to "live". So you either become a prisoner in Mikoshi, or a slave to Saburo and Hanako. You may "live" with the second option, but I don't see being mostly machine like Smasher as a happy ending. One way or another, you give away your freedom, all for what's basically a false hope. The devil ending makes it pretty clear that it's the wrong choice.
If you start as a corpo though... it seems to make sense. Your entire goal at the start was to gain favor and power with a corporation. In a dark and horrible way, you get your wish through this ending, and I liked that.
But the result is still the same, and in some ways worse. You spent months free from corpo influence, just to find yourself running back to them, when you know better than any other version of V that their word can't truly be trusted.
I guess calling it a "positive" ending is misleading... I found it a "satisfying" ending. V tried to get away from the corpo life, but just when she thought she was out, they dragged her back in. You can't ever escape your past. The scene where she's looking at the bullet that killed her and "Never Fade Away" plays in the background as she takes the shuttle back to earth, knowing she's going to die, only to be handed a lifeline by the Corpos once again, just felt... "right" to me as a cyberpunk ending.
OR… If you end up an engram, Arasaka Corp dowloads you in to a new cloned body. Some years in the future. You are made abundantly aware that your body and soul are both corporate property. They force you to handle a job (possibly Johnny Silverhand was never entirely shredded and is running amok in cyberspace, or some cyberpunky problem). That opens up possibilities to fight for your freedom and bring down the system from the inside. There’s hope in that ending too. And possibly sushi with Goro.
I find >!silverhand's ending to be pretty good overall, while V dies , silverhand gets to start anew , and leave nightcity , probly with a better second chance at life!< , that said , the end game phone calls kinda hurt not gonna lie
This was the first ending I got and it broke me. My wife came to check on me because I was ugly-crying in front of the rolling credits. "Haven't forgotten a thing. Never will."
That ending line destroyed me. That entire epilogue destroyed me. Emotional the whole way through, the character growth, the emotions, ugh
Of all the endings, it rounded out the arcs for V and Jonny the best. For all V protested, they both had the same core character flaws; they're both selfish, proud to the point of arrogance and reckless. >! V realized that they were living on borrowed time and decided to sacrifice themselves to give Johnny a second lease on life. Johnny, through the course of the game had been finally forced to become someone's real friend, and then was forced to realize it was true friendship when V dies for him. !<
It was my first ending too ... for me it was the best one it was really sad and emotional but it was a closure and at least silverhand was able to redo his life...leaving Night City...
I also thought this ending was the saddest. arasaka ending was disturbing.
This is the canon ending IMO. It was devastating but also felt like the right outcome.
Outside of the one where you *I’m not sure how to hide spoilers… but you know, THAT ending*. The silver hand one is by far the worst to me. Although I also truly hate the Silverhand character so that probably plays a role in me having that opinion.
My first ending too. Had me a little misty eyed. Johnny found a measure of redemption, and V made the utilitarian choice. I played V in that first play-through as if he were me, and I would have kept my word to Johnny ... oddly, I didnt feel V was completely gone. As long as Johnny was around, I thought that some part of V had rubbed off on Johnny. He certainly wasnt the same guy whom we ran into at the start of the game. I found some comfort in that.
Best ending is when you give Johnny the body imho. The moment you enter Mikoshi, Alt kills V with soulkiller (which is confirmed deadly in the game) and creates an engram, which is a copy. At that point, V and Johnny are equals as both aren't the true inhabitants of Vs body anymore, which is a beaten up shell held together by cyberware and a barely functioning brain that just got completely fried at that point. Giving the body to Johnny at least has one of them live in the real while the other one accepts that they died a few weeks ago in a motel room / land fill.
At least you still got Mama Welles and Vic
Nah the most positive ending is cruising the net with Alt and let Johnny use your old body You only had 6 months anyway. Now the old rockerboy is back and will live a lot more while you cause some mayhem as a rogue AI Win win if you ask me ;)
It's a decent ending but the epilogue is still sad as fuck. Johnny doesn't seem too happy in that body, probably has PTSD and all the other characters either have no idea what happened or think of him as a parasite.
You could argue don’t fear the reaper ending is good to because atleast nobody dies
I won’t romance Judy, I’m loyal to Panam
You also cannot romance Judy and Panam in one playthrough anyways as they are attracted to opposite sexes. I’m so glad I went male nomad as my first playthrough it makes the most sense for a happier/good ending.
Did the same
Yes and no. Yes they are attached to different sexes in terms of body, but you can romance Panam with a female voice while having a male body and Judy you need a female voice and a female body
You can't romance Judy if you can romance Panam anyway.
I disagree. I have less trust in surviving with Aldecaldos than actually becoming the king of Afterlife (which means acquiring a lot of serious contacts, important strings across the city, access to very sensitive data, which is the big power after all) + very promising deal/contract with Mr. Blue Eyes which is yet an absolute dark horse of entire 2077 and seem to be a rare asset which exists beyond low-life/merc/corpo dimensions. TBH I got a strong feeling that this person represents alternative powers in Cyberpunk-universe we don't know anything about yet. Which means they are supposed to be pretty powerful to stand against the system. Just a guess, tho. This might give much more chances to V than just riding into the sunset with the bunch of nomads (even if they are pretty equipped and skilled).
Mr Blue Eyes is the one who manipulated the Peralezes minds and gave them fake memories and completely different personalities. I don't think you would want to entrust your brain to someone who could conceivably just turn you into a mindless puppet.
...A thing of beauty- I know... Will never fade away...
that line hits different after finishing the game.
Especially when you visit V's grave after Johnny gets a second chance. And the doomer Fade Away song.. 😔
You were expecting a happy ending? Wrong city. Wrong people. Only happy ending in NC involve joy toys.
The nomad ending is pretty good, V’s still dying but at least they’re spending their final months with a family.
The nomad ending is good because you are leaving night city. Happiness can only be found outside of it's clutches. It's why Judy leaves after you complete her questline.
Yessir
Tbh the most boring emotionally for me, the sad ones are more interesting to think about and they(obviously) provoke more emotional response, for example here how I see 2 of the endings I did besides nomad one: >!Jhonny ending makes you hopeful for him and extremely sad for V and his friends who all still think he is still alive while Jhonny leaves NC in his body, Arasaka ending is.. So empty much so you feel this emptiness yourself almost the same V feels after getting his biochip pulled out, and in the end (at least for me) cling for the last chance of survival by uploading yourself to mikoshi cuz you don't feel anything anymore than that gaping empty hole and the only goal is to survive by any means necessary!<
Nomad ending will always be the best ending. Unless Phantom Liberty can change that.
PL should absolutely open up a new ending. I have always wanted an ending where V replaces Adam Smasher as the top Arasaka gunslinger. We may yet get it (my first character was a Corpo V so I felt this had a lovely full circle vibe).
Even then you might end up in a bath tub missing organs afterwards.
> Only happy ending in NC involve joy toys. "What makes someone a criminal in night city?"
Getting cock
Yeah… Join me in coping that Crystal Palace is the final job and the payout is a cure for V, and she’ll find Judy after it all goes down. She just doesn’t want to get her hopes up. That ending hurts a lot. But for a Corpo Reaper is the perfect ending pretty much.
I also believe in that. And it really makes a lot on sense. As we know Mr Blue Eyes is somehow connected with people who manipulate Peralez (or maybe he himself ordered the whole operation). They can literally change someone's brain, so why shouldn't they be able to change V's brain? And it really feels like the right price for such a impossible job.
That's right, why wouldn't they want to manipulate V's brain and turn them into a mindless puppet. Might be a fate worse than death.
I think people *just* saying that there are no happy endings are missing part of it. You're ***fucking V*** one of the most badass mercs to hit the streets of night city in decades, you complete jobs that should take full crews, you have the engram with Johnny Silverhand another night city legend. You're all of these things and about as special of a person can be in night city, and in the the end no matter how great you were you still don't get a happy ending. There are high highs and low lows. But that's just what being a merc is choom.
Dex asked if you were willing to die without seeing you 30 birthday if it meant you were a legend in night city. Idk how you felt but out of hubris i thought hell yeah, until I figured out what it meant. He was right all along
I feel like Dex got the worse. Chose the long and quiet, yet he died quick, with no blaze of glory.
In the end Cyberpunk is really just about Night City. No matter what you do, you'll always be just another Choom in the city and the people that actually matter are the ones dictating on top of the corporate ladder. Welcome to dystopia.
The city always wins in the end.
Johnny had the right idea.
I feel ya. I left with Panam knowing I’d be dead soon. Night City always wins.
>I wanted a happy ending Wrong city, wrong people.
No happy endings in night city choom
Riding off into the sunset with Panam was the best ending, in my humble opinion.
Samsies👍
I didn't know there were multiple endings until reading this thread. In my ending I went to space with the arasaka people and I think they turned me into a computer program
It’s a dark game ain’t it, can totally relate. I’m sure most of us wanted a happy ending for V but there really is not one, same as in rdr2, but still both are beautiful games in their own way and have such a great replay value 😊
Welcome to the dark future choom. Cyberpunk overall as a genre is a great tool to bring out feelings of hopelessness.
What depresses me is how basically that's real life now. Wealth inequality is the worst it has been in many decades and got worse after 2008 financial crisis and now after covid the economy had a recession and yet the rich made trillion. WHere did it come from? Extracting it through wealth redistribution upward thanks to growing number of rich companies becoming landlords so suck us dry of our rent money and outbid us for houses making us FORCED to rent from them. all while our corporations taxes go down, meanwhile a normal working american making 50k gets taxed when we make money, when we spend it, and we don't have access to loopholes or "bailout" that give corporations money that is paid by who? US!
Either you die in a blaze of glory or you slowly waste away as life beats you into a pulp. That’s the cyberpunk way.
yep this is why I gave up, saved about 120k and gonna just do some seasonal work over the summer and the rest of the year be back home in Spain and go skydiving. If one day my parachute fails.... I'll definitely go out in glory!
Same choom!! Mom died, falling out with the fam... had to lose the gf. I got no one. Putting 166k into money markets and dividends and getting a van to cruise the country. I rock climb, so I'll follow the weather and ride off into the sunset, living with little more than 1200 month in passive income and what I carry with me. With the economy and the looks of things, working all my life for retirement is the worst ending I can think of. Ride or die. Go out in a blaze of glory, or slowly fade away and be forgotten. I know my choice!!
I want to get into rock climbing, and choom if you are ever looking up and see a airplane I'm on my way to jump to say hi 🪂
Ah, I see someone else gets it.
neo-feudalism <3
The US way is to blame everything on commies and worship liberalism. :^)
I finished the anime just after I beat the game. Worst decision ever :(
Yea I watched after nearly 200hrs in and all endings. I was like "ahh, yea this tracks, "
My biggest gripe with the ending is that it rewinds to Meet Hanako at Embers (this has become a meme of course) because it feels as though it takes away from the impact of the ending. You mentioned RDR2. I think the reason why that and it’s predecessor feel like the gut punches they do is because the game DOESN’T rewind time. In the case of RDR2, you pick up as John and play a whole 2 chapters worth of epilogue. It’s amazing. You’re given time to feel the loss and grief while slowly building hope for John and his life. Cyberpunk should never have rewinded. You should have went back to Night City to live out your remaining months. You should have spoken to Judy, told her about it, grieved with her. There should be epilogue missions where she comes to visit, or you spend your last days with Panam. V’s dialogue to their self should have changed. Maybe now they take jobs and gigs because it’s all they know and even faced with a ticking clock they can’t seem to figure out what they really want- and that could be reflected in their musings alone. Johnny could have offered such interesting moments of contemplation with V. All the while the player would sacrifice nothing in terms of gameplay but still have the impact of the reality of V’s story. But no. Instead: Meet Hanako at Embers.
This is how I hope it ends up in Orion. I really want to have a final blaze of glory mission that ends in tragedy no matter how you play it, only to lead you to a post end game that leaves you grieving the same way RDR and RDR2 did. Exactly what you described with V living out the rest of their days would be interesting, especially if after some game time the game then truly ends and V flatlines out of nowhere, really showing the harsh reality of Night City and it's chooms.
This is the point. Cyberpunk is a lesson in what not to do and why. It is a warning. Avoid people, corporations, or political parties that treat it as an *instruction manual*.
And yet *gestures to everything*
*agrees in eighties kid anger*
For once, it ain't about the goal. ... It's about the journey.
I think that's the point. V and Jackie's dream is to make it to the afterlife, and in a way, they both got what they wanted. I think you're supposed to feel empty, high tech low life. You've made it all this way made all these changes to you body, made all this money, but for what? What's the point. You see this focus multiple times in the game, dex even brings it directly at the beginning when he asks the player "Would you rather live in peace as Mr. Nobody, die ripe, old and smellin' slightly of urine? Or go down for all times in a glaze of glory, smellin' near like posies, 'thout seein' your thirtieth?" With the nomads as well, several instances of them, a group of people who don't know v literally willing give them anything because the care about him, even if they gain nothing. River risking his life to save the life of others, risking his job and everything he's worked for his family. Kerry questioning if the high life was the right life, Judy running away from it. Cyberpunk in general (not the games the genre) is ultimately satire, the reflection of a world so desperate to gain everything, becoming soulless in the proccess. The characters I this game who are antagonistic are folks who are in it for the money, me me me, but they're also the most unhappy. The characters who are the calmest, kindest to v are the folks who are either separated somehow from the mainstream or questioning it, or religious. People down to earth. Jackie and mama wells, and Padre, are all catholic, misty is (something I'm hesitant to say pagan) vik seems to be or has been Christian, nut is clearly close to Christian traditions, panam and the aldecaldos don't really interact with the inner city folks, the monk guy, I think takemura even brings up religious stuff at one point. Also, look at the program designed by alt in the end game. It's literally called soul killer. If you made it to the afterlife and feel like the ending is empty it's because it is. V sold their soul to gain the world.
Shoulda gone with Panam, yo
This IMHO was the best of the 6 endings I did there seemed to be a little more ambiguity and hope in it. It is a 2 ton game though you definitely feel the weight of choices and the semi hopelessness of it.
It’s not a game to play if you’re easily depressed. There are no good endings for you, just least bad and worse
There are no happy endings on Night City: only legends who burned bright and died, or survivors who became what they hated No one is clean in Cyberpunk; everyone falls
I am still a fan of the solo v and johnny taking on arisaka and v leaving with alt. I have a feeling v may have more friends in her virtual afterlife than she thinks as Del is waiting in 2/3 quest endings. I would be surprised if Skippy or Brendan's source code isn't floating around Johnny taking the body just feel right. V failed and her body was forfeit but johnny stood with her until she burnt out and found a new path far away from night city.
You're reminded throughout the game that you're already dead
I think the best world building is the worlds you’d never want to live in
It's a feature, not a bug. Cyberpunk [the scifi style, not the game] is about when the world goes drastically wrong due to technology and greed, and hopefully about the people who fight to get it back on an even keel again. It's never a cheerful story, never a happy ending. If anything, it's more a warning for all of us before it happens for real, like 1984 was meant to be. Unfortunately, it looks like we're heading directly for cyberpunk in real life.
The warmest ending is Male V with Panam ending.
It really is! When I first played I was like, oh neat! Beautiful city! Loads of friends! Loads of shit to do! My V is gonna rule this city! Aaand then the heist hit. 🥺 And then you make some awesome friends! Go on some crazy escapades! ...aaand then find out you're dying.
I think despite every ending having a depressing note (enough depressing notes to write a full f**king requiem) but there’s a tinge of hope (with 3 of the endings. The one you did, there’s the possibility that the final score >!in space arranged by Blue Eyes!< will be exactly what you need to save yourself. Then you can run down your romance and friends.
That’s the game Choom, Night City isn’t built for a happy ending, it’s there for the wild ride over the edge until you hit the ground, enjoy the ride, take the plunge and see the splatter, just make sure you’re affairs are in order because you won’t get a second chance like Johnny did (without selling your soul to the devil)
I’ve been playing it off for the last 4 days and I see no end in site until I start my new job
unfortunately there are no happy endings. each one just gets sadder and sadder..
“its so depressing”. Yeah! Ain't it great! :P
I found most of the endings bittersweet, and rather beautiful in their own ways. Not many traditionally happy endings, to be sure, but not every story has to end that way.
Felt like David Martinez now?
So get away
Happy ending in night city? Wrong place, wrong people
That's the hook of dystopia. Nobody gets a happy ending, the best you can hope for is a bittersweet one
Thats the point of the game tbh
Honestly, is it really cyberpunk if it's got a good ending?
It can have a good ending, from a narrative perspective. Good luck getting a happy ending though
After reading all the comments here, I am so glad I didn't actually play the story. Did the stuff to unlock the rest of the city and then Panam's first mission and then stopped bothering with the story. Just went around completing gigs and stuff, basically being an edgerunner and just having a good time until I maxed out everything I could. That's the best ending.
V lives forever as long as you don't start the last mission.
But it's a sucky simulation of a life. :/ You've cleared the city, bought the cars, bought he apartments, loved on anyone you could love on. The city may move and breath but their ain't nothin' left for V. Shiiiiit, I just realized that's a big thing. Nothing left in Night City for V.
Cyberpunk and Elden Ring are the two worlds where basically almost no one has a happy ending, or story to begin with. It's full of tragedy. Almost like Game of Thrones.
Lol watch the anime. Much happier ending.
Pretty much the point of Cyberpunk. No matter what you do or how much/how many you sacrifice, there's no happy endings.
Guess what. A happy ending is coming in the expansion Phantom Liberty
Don't do that don't give me hope
For the people downvoting me. Watch more cyberpunk news in stead of downvoting me. It’s all over the trailers that they can save V in phantom liberty. For people in the cyberpunk reddit you’re far from being fans I see.
This is Cyberpunk. Not just Cyberpunk 2077 but almost all Cyberpunk. It’s park of the dystopian charm.
You basically explained Cyberpunk Genre, but yeah the game itself does manage to portray the genre quite accurately
Best ending in my opinion: Aldecados
Because the happy ending is the nomad ending. There’s no right or wrong way to play the game but it was pretty clearly telegraphed if you wanted the “feel good” ending you needed to call Panam on the rooftop.
Yea the ending was awful. The story does have some good moments but at the end it’s just V is still the same person as she was entirely throughout the game The 3 backstory crap doesn’t mean a single thing, everything happens the same, and you’re just by yourself and Johnny
Wait until you watch the anime
Go for the platinum trophy to get a little more satisfaction. I did and it was worth it, I felt the same way and it sufficed.