This text will include top-level spoilers for all of Cyberpunk 2077’s varied endings, together with the brand new ending that may be unlocked through the Phantom Liberty DLC. You’ve gotten been warned.

In Night time Metropolis, there aren’t any glad endings. Early on, that is posited as an absolute fact on this universe. All the things has a value – and rarely is that price low-cost. Within the menus of Cyberpunk 2077, certainly one of three intentionally mysterious ‘completion percentages’ ticks up in direction of protagonist V’s purpose of turning into a legend. However that purpose is, in some ways, incompatible with life. From the earliest moments of this narrative, the selection is printed plainly: for pleasure, there should be demise.

Fixer Dexter DeShawn even says this out loud in the course of the build-up to the heist that serves because the climax of Cyberpunk’s glorious, protracted prologue. “Would you fairly dwell in peace as Miss No one – die ripe, outdated, and smellin’ barely of urine? Or go down for all instances in a blaze of glory, smellin’ close to like posies, ’thout seein’ your thirtieth?”

This thread runs proper by Cyberpunk 2077. It’s its lifeblood, in truth. Many main and facet quests give attention to the idea that in Night time Metropolis you may be any individual for a short while, or a no person without end. For V, with the persona of certainly one of Night time Metropolis’s most notorious somebodies consuming away at their mind, there isn’t a lot selection. Loss of life is coming anyway. Which is all effectively and good – stalking the streets as a no person wouldn’t make an excellent online game. However, there’s a superb contradiction in V’s needs.

For the lion’s share of Cyberpunk 2077’s run-time, V is pushed by two needs. The primary is as talked about: to change into a metropolis legend by fanciful feats in its underworld. The second is a baser need: to discover a technique to merely survive the inexorable march of Johnny Silverhand’s identification into their psyche. It received’t kill V’s bodily kind – however ultimately Johnny will overtake them, erasing the particular person they as soon as have been, supplanting their thoughts – and even perhaps their soul, if such a factor exists – with that of the terrorist rocker.

This paradigm is arguably the factor that makes V one of the crucial compelling and profitable choice-driven audience-insert characters in gaming historical past. Their needs are easier than, say, Mass Impact’s Shepard, who needs to avoid wasting the galaxy however can even make some actually boneheaded choices that work in opposition to their targets to be able to make sure the participant generally is a house asshole. The stakes in Cyberpunk are extra private; will V be collaborative with Johnny as the 2 share a headspace, or combative? Each make sense, relying on the way you envision the mindset of your V, and there’s subsequent to none of that odd choice-related cognitive dissonance.

The contradiction, after all, is that V is repeatedly instructed that turning into a legend entails burning out. Blaze of Glory, identical to Dexter mentioned. The person of their head even wrote about this in certainly one of his songs, a observe that repeats on Night time Metropolis’s radio stations and is strummed by guitarists on its backstreets: ‘By no means Fade Away’. Burn out, as a substitute.

Come the climax of Cyberpunk 2077’s story, V might be confronted with last selections about what to do about their predicament – or, as you’ll have doubtless come to consider it, their and Johnny’s shared predicament. They sit on a rooftop collectively overlooking the neon metropolis in a fantastic scene and run down the alternatives.

The precise choices you’ve gotten will rely on the way you’ve spent your time in Night time Metropolis. V may’ve actually touched the cusp of that desired legendary standing. They could’ve fallen in love. Different relationships will nearly inevitably have shattered aside. You may name lovers to say goodbye; allies to request support. If you happen to’ve made sure selections in Phantom Liberty, a DLC-exclusive good friend can supply game-changing help. Even your relationship with Johnny comes into it – the place for those who’ve been sort and sympathetic to the voice in your head, he may supply up a suggestion of his personal.

These completely different pathways end in a variety of attainable last missions and endings for each V and Johnny. That is the place Cyberpunk 2077 is especially good, and Phantom Liberty courageous: none of them are strictly glad endings.

For a begin, V and Johnny can merely select to finish their conjoined life there on that rooftop, leaving enterprise unfinished and associates devastated. Both by sheer brute power or by partnering with the dangerous guys V can excise Johnny from their psyche – however then is simply given months to dwell, and dwell with the information that they finally killed the final vestige of a person they – and the participant – have doubtless come to fairly like. V can give up their physique to Johnny – basically dying, leaving a bittersweet Johnny to start out a brand new life whereas V’s acquaintances are left shattered by their loss.

There are a number of pretty variations of those endings relying on who you’ve befriended and the way you attain the tip, however that is the last word selection: V can dwell on for a restricted time with out Johnny, or die so Johnny can dwell. There is no such thing as a situation the place everyone wins.

The simple, low-cost, shitty factor for Phantom Liberty to do would’ve been to provide a contented ending there; to lock the cheeriest finale behind the DLC enlargement. However the sport properly sticks to its weapons, its theme, and its subtext. On this darkish future, there aren’t any glad endings. Right here, V can rip Johnny from their head and carry on residing – however the associated fee is brutal.

Firstly, V and Johnny are denied their triumphant last revenge on the sinister company accountable for their dilemma. The legend of Johnny and V simply abruptly stops, in truth – disappeared from town to endure a miracle remedy. Waking up two years later from a coma, V’s associates have both moved on, or received’t forgive them for disappearing. Worse, rebuilding their life might be unattainable. A facet impact of the remedy signifies that V can now not tolerate cyberware – the futuristic tech that makes high-flying life in Night time Metropolis attainable. If you happen to make the selection that’ll enable V to maintain residing… they may, in a depressing existence as one other of Night time Metropolis’s faceless drones. The ultimate photographs of this new ending are of a damaged V – stripped of every thing that made them V – disappearing into the bustle of town. Simply one other face within the crowd. Dexter’s selection comes again round: V can dwell out their days… as Miss-or-Mr No one.

I actually recognize this about Cyberpunk 2077. Now, make no mistake: unhappy instances and dangerous endings are one thing of a style staple. However in a giant, loud, brash triple-A online game like this, it’d be straightforward to hen out.

To return again round to Mass Impact as a counterpoint, it’s one thing I at all times discovered vaguely irritating about these video games – I want they’d have made me make extra arduous selections. However In Mass Impact, there was at all times a method out – you simply wanted sufficient struggle belongings, or paragon factors, or the appropriate get together members on the proper time. Up till actually the final second, Shepard can have all of it. The last word energy fantasy.

Cyberpunk places forth a unique argument: that energy comes with a value. V always has energy – over others, over elements of their very own future, and even over the better geopolitical state of Night time Metropolis itself. However finally, that energy results in a life beset with unattainable selections, punctuated quest after quest – after which pushed dwelling with a set of endings which might be at all times a beautiful, damning intestine punch.

It additionally bravely leaves us with out the plain sequel bait: a method or one other, V’s story is over. However the attract of Night time Metropolis and Cyberpunk’s darkish future stays, potent as ever. There are extra tales to inform – however with recent faces, untainted by the horrible realization of what this world does to folks.

That is all the results of some courageous selections – but additionally of actually treating the supply materials with respect and reverence. The tabletop sport can be infused with the identical soulful-yet-nihilistic vitality, summed up within the phrases of its creator, Mike Pondsmith. “Cyberpunk isn’t about saving humanity – it’s about saving your self.”

The deft method through which Cyberpunk 2077 handles its endings is certainly one of a number of parts of the sport that flew unceremoniously underneath the radar upon its preliminary launch, as discourse centered on the title’s myriad troubles. However because it undergoes a rejuvenation and reevaluation, the endings now should be appraised as they’re: as good, sturdy, and uncompromising – one thing video games and big-budget mainstream leisure now accomplishes far too sometimes.