Yo, I'm just going to pin this here for all the people who either haven't watched the full video or have skipped in-game text. Writing walls of text I'm never going to read trying to explain why I'm wrong isn't a good use of your time my friends. Vik literally says "Until you died" when he is giving you the "full details" version about what happened. He explains about Dex cheaping out with a low caliber bullets made the job for the nanites easier, and they were able to kick into gear to repair the damage and take you off the path from the light. The Relic brought V back from the dead. Simple. V says people don't just die and rise from the dead, and Vik says, used to be the case. So it is what it is chooms. I'm just working with the in game facts here and entertaining interesting and challenging thoughts..
Idk. I'd say that assessment is fair. But I'd also say that Johnny's time walking around ended 50 years prior. While our coming back was just a stroke of luck, so was Johnny's. And in the end, who is to say which existence is more deserving of continuance? Does Johnny really deserve V's body? Or is his existence as much of an abomination as V's is? Johnny died. What's on the chip isn't the real Johnny. Just as you pointed out that what came back wasn't the real V. So, the real crux is what does the player feel by the end of the story? I believe this is why the game has multiple endings. Because the morality of V and Johnny as characters is ultimately up to the player to decide.
For any discussion about death, even philosophical, it's important to note that death is final. The definition of death has changed throughout the years as we become more technologically advances. Previously there was no need to distinguish between circulatory death and brain death - there was only death. In this scenario, the relic does not bring V back from death - it prevented it. Doesn't matter what kind of damage it left behind or did itself (resuscitation tends to also cause damage). V was not dead.
@@KenneyPedersen One of the functions of the relic was to map and recreate the engram of the person using it, the engram of Johnny was never supposed to be on it so I assume it was in some sort of backup function or additional memory. The way the chip was supposed to work would be installed into the user, copy the engram and upon death installed in another fully functional body and remap the brain. As it had Johnnys engram on it clearly went wrong, it also copied Vs engram and then the death probably tripped the "rebuild" the brain but had to start with the basic structure, then engram mode but Viks medical attention delayed the arsehole.exe install. We see most rippers are pretty competent neuro surgeons and fit all kinds of cyberware into brains, I can see Vik patching the damaged brain up too.
Going through my second play through and I ran into something that really confused me, and I think it fits in well here with the talk of “death”. Johnny had soul killer used on him and his engram placed on the relic chip which activates once V dies. But if after the heist if you send Jackie’s body to Vic’s after he dies we find out that Arasaka used soul killer on Jackie and did the same to him. How did they use soul killer on someone who is already dead? And also how come Jackie’s engram just a list of his previous saying and not a full engram like Johnny is? This is really confusing for me….is it an oops in the lore or something else?
@@aaronrankin1092 I'm guessing by death they mean brain death rather than end of cardiac and pulmonary function, which can be several mins after for brain stem death and up to 10 for all electrical activity to end. This is why near death experiences are a thing, someone can be bleeding out and heart stopped but the brain is still functioning to a degree. The Soul Killer process only affects the brain too, as seen with Alt when she still had vital signs but no brain activity. Jackies brain was dying at that point but they tried to grab any intel they could from him.
The tragedy is that V goes through the whole story thinking it’s about survival. It’s not. It’s about having a second chance to face death with open eyes and choose what meaning to assign to your end. That’s why the worst endings are the ones where V clings blindly to survival and winds up empty in both body and soul. And the ones where V lets go of trying to go on living and uses what brief time they have left to do something meaningful are the ones that feel like V truly does ascend to legend.
@@gehtoodachoppa8603 this comment messed with my head, and makes me ponder my choices through the game much more than I thought I would Well played Choom
Any choices you make throughout the game are "meaningful" to various people. Helping Pan Am is meaningful to her and the Aldecaldos. Helping Judy is meaningful to her, and you can go down the list of side quests. Heck, chatting with Misty about Jackie is meaningful to Misty. Pretty much just playing the game is V helping a bunch of people.
That’s what that the star ending felt like to me. It was about letting go of clinging desperately to survival and empty dreams, and more about spending your final months with the people you love and care about, bringing true fulfilment and giving V that feeling of “I don’t know what the future holds, hell, I don’t even know if I’ll be alive next year, but I’m going to live my life to the fullest and do it with the people I most care about”. In the beginning, my V was a nomad who lost her family and chased the glamourised dream of becoming a night city legend to fill that void left by losing her family. In the end, V found a new family and let go of a dream that would ultimately take everything that she ever truly loved and cared about away from her. Yes, V is dying, but she’s truly happy.
Until you realize in cyberpunk lore that most people have two nero-ports in their head and V literally could have used a shard to backup his mind then "self deleted" in a nonviolent way thus ending Johnny and getting re-uploaded to his own brain
Consider the fact that if V's body was braindead, no amount of "rebooting" from the Engram can fix that. The only reason V was "ressurrected" is because he is not fully dead and his brain was still intact. The proof of this is his consciousness, which is very different from his spirit fighting to exist. If we assume that V's body is completely dead, then Johnny would be dead too. Throughout the game, Johnny made this one clear. So, great video but the premise is flawed.
the neurons in the brain are created and pathways weaved together. we are nothing more than our brains. if you break a computer it wont work. if you put all the atoms back where they were, it will.
That's incorrect. Read the relic documents. The engram can only take root in a "neuroligically indifferent body" and "a body that has undergone completely irreversible brain death". The V that wakes up in the landfill is actually Johnny's engram undergoing a split personality disorder because the brain mass still exists even if it can't sustain V's life.
from what i understand, chip literally replaces the neurons of the host with its own material essentially using engram as the cpu. Eventually entirety of host's brain is replaced by engram. That is why V is getting blackouts, formerly functioning parts are getting deleted faster than brain can rerout itself. If V stays inside the body, without the Engram, body will attack the new engram made neurons, which are literally essential for V's brain to function at that point. Remember at that point, V probably has only half a brain.
Its funny how at my 1st playthrough by a netrunner my V left beyond the blackwall cause it seemed like the only logical choice for him to save both Johny and him since it seemed fine for him as a netrunner. The ending should suit the character. I would love to see V as an AI acting from beyond the blackwall in the Cyberpunk 2 since we already have so many references to rogue AIs influencing the real world.
@@skrunklyOwO When she absorbs all of Mikoshi is more so she can take them all to her Net domain over the Ocean she uses them to improve but her intent is to take them to her Territory. Least ot my interpretation of the story so far.
@@RavenTheBlackheart the Alt AI also says it's not actually Alt cunningham but that it is an AI that is using her memories and image for it's own agenda
@@zambekiller i think its more hinting that she does not look at herself as human alt anymore and is mereley using the image but thats just me, most Human AIs kinda turn robotic after a while again thats just my interpretation.
Oddly enough my first playthrough I played nomad and came to the conclusion that I was dead already and let Johnny stay. Riding off on the bus was an odd thing to watch him ride off into the sunset in my body. But it felt like the best decision for us both.
I picked this too, it was so bittersweet. Even though V is just an idea we're spending time with in a game I felt so much anxiety at what was lying beyond the bridge. Excited to see the person Johnny was becoming with a new life. I love the concept of what it means to exist as an engram/beyond the blackwall. OG Johnny may be dead but he's the only version that exists at this time, doesn't that make him "the" Johnny? Same with V if he/she is beyond the Blackwall. The only copy but then also altered (as Alt was). What about when there are multiple copies of a person running around (like supposedly Alt is), that maybe have the same starting point/memories but are collecting different experiences and memories as they go? So much to think about!
My first run was a corpo netrunner. I gave Johnny the body because my character was already close to the net to his core and Johnny was close to the world of the living. Felt right that we both went to our "home" and got to live our existences how we wanted.
@@WrathOfBlades I hate to break it to you but leaving beyond the Blackwall means you will cease to be, if Alt doesn't consume and/or destroy V another rogue AI will. Slider spoke the truth when he said beyond the Blackwall you are little more than a cockroach, a piece of outdated code with no meaning. It would be like cutting yourself and then jumping into shark infested waters and thinking nothing will ever happen to you because you're a good swimmer.
I've had a lot of the same thoughts, but came to a different conclusion based on a few elements that struck me as significant: 1) The relic is damaged and there's lots of corrupted data...SoMi purges some of the data to make room for mods, by these details, we can understand that the version of Silverhand we encounter in the game itself an incomplete engram. The fact that he exists doesn't preclude the fact that he's incomplete, V's own psyche forms a structure that allows Johnny to emerge, just like the relic reboots V. The brain damage should have damaged parts of his mind no matter what...but in spite of this mutual damage they exist. 2) During the conversations with Hellman he mentions that they both exist simultaneously and that eventually the balance will shift from V to Johnny, but doesn't indicate that V will ever truly be gone. V and Johnny are a merging of two beings with the Relic's systems effectively choosing a winning side through the reconfiguration of the mind, but it can't stop the two personalities from influencing each other. 3) There are also indications that the engram is itself modified, with some of the memories we see and experience are not accurate based on the known Canon history. For example, some of the events we see Johnny accomplish, such as the fight with Smasher...Johnny mentions a few times about how they can edit engrams...likely having an idea that his memories were edited and that even before his emergence he was not quite himself. In terms of Yorinobu's goals having and "optimized" version of Johnny makes sense as building up his skills and suppressing the more problematic aspects of his personality would only serve to enhance his effectiveness. It's interesting that Johnny keeps talking about how he always had a smoke, but it was actually Morgan Blackhand who is most often pictured with a cigarette. There's a lot of people who claim that Johnny is not genuine in his dealings with V and that he's messing with the memories...but I think that the reality is that Johnny's personality was edited for Yorinobu's purpose...and that V's integration with Johnny further amplified this...but also brought balance to the damaged construct. Johnny isn't really Johnny, even Alt alludes to this...but certainly feels like he's close enough...or at least "a version of Johnny" that's close enough in her current state as an AI herself significantly different from her time as a human. Even with the "split" that occurs, the "cross contamination" is irreversible, this is especially apparent in the playthroughs where V remains at odds with Johnny where they feel the "infection" of Silverhand in their psyche. Although in the situations where V bonds with Silverhand, the evolution of Silverhand is much more apparent where V is more intrinsically "corrupting" Silverhand. Any version that "survives" remains a different person than the one they were previously. Looking at it phylosophically, they start on the same page as they're both dead and brought back to life, but are both damaged by the experience. The character that we play is as Hellman implies a hybrid personality where V's core personality is dominant, but will eventually become subsumed by Silverhand. The longer they stay together, the more the two personalities mesh together...even if two engrams are created, it's a picture of the personalities as they are rather than copies of the personalities as they were. There's no going back, but in terms of Night City...you never get out alive anyways. In the end, I don't think that one ending with V being "dead" was necessarily the goal...but rather that V is dead in all endings...that whoever continues whether that ends up being V or Johnny is only relevant in the way that they interact with those he leaves behind. Just like how in the ending where V is "healed" at the end of Phantom Liberty V remains fundamentally changed by the experience, no longer the person they used to be...dead again...in another way. There's a multiplicity of ways to bring V back in a sequel, although I don't think that's necessarily the goal here. V's story is complete, as is Smasher's and Johnny's...at least this version of him. They could all come back, or we could encounter a new set of legends. I think that would be more fitting as in my mind, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game about death...and how in this setting, death is the only thing you can expect. It comes for everyone in the end...to titans, to legends and to countless peons...it's the only way you matter in this world. V's dead even if he survives because that's the price of existing in this world. The religious symbolism you refer to very much points to this fact. It's not IMO insignificant that the place you're encouraged to revisit most often is the Columbarium. That it's really the only place in the world that takes accounting of your actions. The people who die either from your hand or through the series all get memorialized there. They're both dead...and they're also alive...a version of V survives in every ending where he doesn't outright die...the same can be said about Johnny as well. That IMO is where the religious imagery comes into play...they're not just dead, but reborn...and will die again. In one version V is reborn as an Aldecaldo, in another reborn as a normie, in another as a legendary Merc going after continuation...another as an AI or an engram, waiting to be reborn to serve Arasaka or to continue their own path, each time it's the ending of One V, one Johnny and the birth of another. There's not one true ending, and as long as V doesn't give up...they're all the same. Death and rebirth...what changes is the cost of continuing to exist. There may end up being a canon ending that we come across in the next game...but personally I prefer never really finding out...The afterlife remains the one mystery we can't solve.
Choom! Thank you for such a comprehensive and well thought comment, you raise some very interesting points and arguments that shed a whole new dimension on things. Love it!
In support of your theory may I offer that Misty opines that V and Johnny form "a harmonious whole, at the moment..." and although she seems to accept that V's (soul) will die, that this increasing disharmony and eventual dissolution of V as a separate entity may take some time and can be made as painless as possible. To me, this suggest more of a merger than a takeover, and though my V has only once given up the fight and let Johnny live on, I do like to think that he has been forever changed by his merger with V (and more than can be accounted for by watching V make honourable decisions and standing by his/her friends, and changing as a person because of that, but because maybe a few fragments of the code that was V remain, like a recessive gene in an organic body (( that's probably wrong, biologists forgive me. )) A sort of a "ghost in the machine" if I may be so shamelessly punny. I love your theory about Yorinobu, though have to disagree on two minor points. I posit that it would have been Saburo himself who ordered any edits to the engram, as wasn't Yorinobu still with the Steel Dragons until Kai commits ritual suicide a week or so after the tower falls? Also about the edits themselves, while Johnny and Alt both mention edits (with Alt alluding to the fact that these are the memories Johnny would have if the raid had gone a little better and mostly because he was just... so... damned... heroic ( I'm paraphrasing 😉). The only time editing an engram is mentioned by anyone connected to Arasaka is when Liam Northam's guest at the Riot club mentions them, but implies that the edits could not be very significant. I suggest that AI's can manipulate engrams, and engrams can ( in effect ) corrupt their own data, but that when humans try to replicate this editing process it's unpredictable at best ( they do a pretty poor job on Jackie's engram ).
This is why I always thought there should have been a merge ending. It even feels at one point like the writers had that in mind but edited it out for whatever reason (the game feels like a lot was cut from the story).
@@droe2570 That's not just a feeling, it's been confirmed by the dev team. About 30% of the initial game was left on the cutting room floor...including a more fleshed out friendship with Jackie, which was turned into the opening cinematics, and several side-stories and alternative plot points. A merge option would have been interesting...but if I were to guess as to why it was cut; it would be far too close to a happy ending for V. Everybody wins....but also everyone loses...but from the player perspective, it feels like there's not really a whole lot of consequences for the choice. I kinda feel like that's what the "Don't fear the Reaper" ending was supposed to be...but they chose to go with V going to the moon as an alternative instead. Which does leave the door open for V living on another day.
Did not expect this today. If you follow the logic, the only "canon" ending is Don't Fear The Reaper and Temperance, since it's the one where nobody else dies so V can live-then chooses to give Johnny their body. I don't know. But I do know that you left me with a lot to think about, which was your purpose, so you succeeded
@@arthuralford This assumes a short life isn't worth living. Johnny already lived his life, and was a worse person than V. Johnny even feels guilty living as V and has to see his/her face every time he looks in the mirror, as a reminder of his only true friend who undeservingly gave their life for his. Johnny doesn't tie up V's loose ends. All V's friends still think V is alive, and only Rogue knows it's Johnny, and even Rogue is mad at Johnny for it and hates him for taking V's body.
In my mind, there's only one canonical life path and ending; Nomad. The Nomad life path is the most fleshed out. You start off the game arriving in Night City, and only start "playing" after you raid Arasaka for the Relic. You then meet another Nomad clan and raid Arasaka, ending the game the same way you started. The tarot card reading by Misty for V in the Nomad ending heavily implies that V keeps his body and Johnny leaves with Alt, as she says that V's future is bright and hopeful, while Johnny's is unknown. My canonical ending for V is that he leaves with the Aldecados, gets a cure and has his happy ever after with Panam. It was already stated that Vic's meds post-Johnny were effective in lessening symptoms from the damage the Relic had already inflicted. Plus, given that the Relic is empty, the Relic would stop converting V's neurons to match Johnny's, halting any more progressive damage. The only thing V needed was a way to fix the damage the Relic already done. Once that was taken care of, V would no longer be dying and would return to full health.
@@PhrygianTurknot really, when v leaves with Panam she just says they’ll spend all the time trying to look for a cure but there is no way to cure v. When you raid the casino V (my V) argues with Judy about not wanting to talk about dying
@@joshuagraham4782 Nope. Mistys tarot card foreshadows it, in lore those nomads have the best chance of helping V and also the shard next to the basilisk basically confirms it
I think there's different endings to show what you actually think about the character V ,in a way you are also Johnny by being the player, if V is a character you like, you try to choose the path that keeps him/her alive "DLC", ..or the character V doesn't really exist and its actually you choosing your own ending in a way
@@HandsomeTez I really enjoyed you theory here it's fairly well thought out, and I certainly agree with you that journey is one of my favorite games.... And does a fairly good job of representing this cycle we call life and the fact that journey doesn't end just restarts... Supposes that we are a form of energy at the bare bones of it and that we just keep recycling.....
Really love this kind of deep dive into the symbology of this game! There's so much meat on the bones of Cyberpunk's story and setting that I don't see a ton of analysis on. The mapping of mountains and mythology onto Mikoshi and the Afterlife is so well thought out and might finally get me to try the Temperance ending after 4 playthroughs.
I love stories that challenge our belief of what the "best" ending is. I always took Dex's question as setting the goal of the story. Quiet life or blaze of glory....either way though V's story comes to an end.
I believe we, as players, weren't meant to get attached to V, but to NC. In the end, V was another cog in the machine. Yes, they did some good for some people and some bad, but the world keeps spinning. Also, we can't separate the fact that 2077 was supposed to have GTA style online play originally. We would have made our own characters to be attached to.
@@aolegion35 Edgerunners exemplifies this. David, like V has no chance of beating or conquering Night City, that is the point of NC. It's almost Lovecraft in nature, it's too vast and powerful to even have a real concerned to be altered in any meaningful way. The best anyone in NC can hope for is to leave on their own terms (usually by dying in infamy).
I don't think it's "usually" by death. Lots of world out there, I saw plenty of older people in NC. Just not a lot of old mercs. Eventually you become a corp or a fixer.
That's a bit of a weakness CDPR has, already in the witcher games. They give you all sorts of stuff to do, and pull you into a gripping story, but the main character never gets to LIVE in the world, to experience it as normal people experience life: a situation where you build towards lasting goals. My guess is the game was planned differently in the beginning: with all the gangs and corps and police there was probably the plan to let us actually play the part of the game that we only get to see in the montage that shows Jackie and V working together. Maybe with a reputation system, where you align yourself with a faction to specialise in a particular playstyle. I would have loved something like that, where we would have been allowed to put off starting into the ultimately deadly main story for as long as we like, but then get to play it without interruptions by weird events a person on a deathclock would never waste time on.
"The lane to the land of the dead. Where you are, my friend. Marie-France, my lady prepared this road but her lord choked her off before I could read the book of her days. Neuro from the nerves, the silver paths. Romancer. Neuromancer. I call up the dead. But no, my friend. " The boy avatar representation of the AI did a little dance, brown feet printing in the sand. " I am the dead and their land." -William Gibson's Neuromancer, the story which Cyberpunk and even Shadowrun are based upon. I hadn't realized how profoundly similar ideas in the main plot of Cyberpunk 2077 were to the book till this video. Marie Francie, creator of Neuromancer was choked to death. Soburo who created Mikoshi (meaning "divine palanquin", a transport for vessels for deities in Shinto culture) suffered the same fate. Both were like an AI based afterlife. The main characters had a degraded neurological condition that at a certain point in the story creates a ticking bomb that they have to race to break into the AI based afterlife. Both are stories about an oncoming synthesis of two different minds, one of those minds desperately trying to fight off the synthesis. And ultimately... the attacked mind only has one true option to save itself, offer a digital afterlife alternative. Neuromancer offered case a way out of his condition, a whole new life, whatever life he wanted within itself. V was offered an alternative that would actually preserve her existence by Alt Cunningham. Escape to the net under her guidance. Possibly to be "devoured" by her, to join her. ("I am the dead, and their land.") The difference is which minds were fusing. V and Johnny's. Johnny hating the process because it meant Arasaka made him into what he hated most, someone who devours another's individuality. He of course took half the plot of the story to realize this is always what he had done. It always was who he was and death did not change that. But Neuromancer the merging mind was an AI made just to do that. He did it, yearned for it because it was part of his purpose and was incomplete without Neuromancer's knowledge of humanity.
Gibson laid out some really solid foundations for the genre that fueled Pondsmith , really deep and philosophical stuff. Its on another level to general sci-fi because of this. I actually hadn't made all the connections until you oultined them It was about 30 years ago I read it. Fascinating, thanks for the thought provoking input choom!
@@HandsomeTez One additional thought while pondering on this. Cyberpunk stories usually revolve around identity. I thought for years V was fighting for the right to choose who they are. If we look at Neuromancer (the inspiration for the TTRPG btw) the story is about a being, Wintermute who was struggling to become what they should be (and Case was doing the same thing thinking on it) vs Neuromancer resisting what they should not become. The ending feels so soft and weird because ultimately now that Wintermute has become who it's supposed to be it's struggling with what that even means. Wintermute is reaching out to other beings of it's type in the galaxy to understand who it is, what it's identity even is. Cyberpunk 2077 if you look at the endings this way has all equally solid endings. Take Jackie Wells example in the story to understand the V lives endings. Jackie learned of his own mortality, thereafter every job terrified him because he knew the bullet was coming one day. But he decided six months being who he wanted to be was better than a lifetime being someone he hated. If V chooses six months to live that's the choice they made. It's not a wasted choice, it's not a bad end for everyone. V chose to be who they wanted to be, even if that meant they only got six months to live doing it. Notice that V lives those six months as a legend? But if V gives over the body to Johnny? Johnny is forced to live a lifetime as the person he didn't want to be and working daily to forgive himself for it. That's why if V is in control to make the decision at the end Johnny gets so upset if V chooses to have him take the body. This is what it means. A lifetime being who he least wanted to be. V lives those six months is not necessarily the worst ending all things considered.
Kudos for the clip of Holly from Red Dwarf. Also I'd say even if V was V after the landfill, they were dead after "Not Alt" using soulkiller on them in Arasaka Tower. The engram is just a copy of the person's mind. But, similarly, Johnny isn't really Johnny either. So V is hit with Soulkiller, wiping their mind and making a copy of it. Then that copy is downloaded back into V's brain. So the V that wakes up from that is a copy of a copy. Or, if V gives Johnny the body, it's a copy of a copy of Johnny. Theoretically that could be accomplished while keeping the copy in cyberspace "alive" as well.
@@HandsomeTez Yeah, the whole scifi trope of uploading your brain to the internet or into a robot always has that one big problem. It's a copy, not a transfer. Similar problem also exists for Star Trek style transporters: You're being vaporized on one end then a clone of you is constructed on the other. The "you" on the origin end is dead. Kind of have to suspend disbelief on this kind of thing for the sake of the story, though.
I mean, V didn’t die though. The relic chip was always unable to work on previously deceased hosts. It might’ve kept him alive a little longer as a means of self-preservation but if he actually died the relic does as well.
I never feel comfortable with deep analyses of what story-creators 'meant' unless it comes from their own mouths. My slight acquaintance with such people has shown me that often these apparently complex and involved themes are simply a pattern we impose on something that originated deep in the subconscious creative chaos...just as in our own lives, we create our own meaning of what life, and art, actually _is_. All that being said, this is a pretty fascinating analysis. One thing I'd point out is that people with severe brain injuries _can_ survive at a vegetative level for rather a long time, so to say that 'V was dead' seems more a figure of speech than a flat reality. But there are a lot of connections here that I never bothered to make... I never noticed the sticker on the Nomad car, and I never even realized that the Heavy Hearts Club [weird name when you think about it] pyramid echoed the appearance of Mikoshi [guess I'm just not a deep thinker...I never look for things like this]. The cat being a Sphinx does seem a pretty solid nod to Egyptian afterlife symbolism...but what about the other cats we find in downtown Night City and by the Pacifica rollercoaster? Maybe _this_ is overthinking... [What did the rollercoaster sequence, where V repairs the rollercoaster and rides it with Johnny in a moment of unforced, innocent enjoyment _really mean_? Does it mean anything...or was it just an amusing little surprise for us? Now that I think about it, was the Lizzy Wizzy performance at the Black Sapphire just a fun little gift for us, or did it have some far deeper, more profound meaning? And down the rabbithole we go again. Or is the symbolism there really obvious and I'm just dumb?] Is the meaning of life, and art, the impulse to _search_ for meaning? Ohh....time for coffee... Good chat as always, Tez...you are an inspiration!
Yes, she had angel's wings and rose up during the song! I'm glad you spotted that. As always u bring some of the most interesting and insightful perspectives to these discussions! Awesome to read as always thanks buddy.
There's a scene in the movie Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield where he hires Kurt Vonnegut to write a review for his own book. He turns that review in as his own final paper to his literature class. The teacher then says to Rodney that whoever wrote that review knows nothing about Kurt Vonnegut. I always thought that was both hilarious and very true in that it shows how we push our own narrative into something based on what we want to see, finding meanings in the meaningless, magic in the mundane and vice versa, frequently missing the author's point altogether. It's always important to get the author's input in order to understand these things.
I mean some of this is definitely thought provoking. But V and Johnny are fundamentally different. Johnny is a recording of a person from 50 years ago . V is not dead because Dex used a low caliber round. This has actually happened in real life where people have survived such assassination attempts with lowly 20th century medicine. The relic just repaired some of the damage. But the questions about existence and the spiritual side of things are definitely some of the more interesting aspects of the game.
Did you not see the size of the bullet that they pulled out of your head?? The necklace you get from misty is that bullet they dug out of your skull. That bullet isn’t tiny.
It was stated by a few characters that V was actually killed by the bullet. Helman mentions the relic itself was programmed to activate on a dead host, which is why V's death triggered it. The relic immediately started it's repairs on his body to make room for the engram.
Uh Johnny is not a recording of a person from 50 years ago, anymore then you are a recording of your 5 year old self. People get confused about this because they believe continuity is required for existence, when nothing indicates that is actually the case.
Viktor explains this clearly in the game. The bullet that "killed" V was small caliber. So small caliber, in fact, that it didn't even leave her skull. As Vik then gifts it to V as a momento. The hard lapse in consciousness and temporary comatose state was enough to awaken the relic and cause it to reboot V, but it was V that crawled out of that trash heap. It was too late, though. The Relic continued to perform its intended function and began overwriting V's brain.
I dont think V died at the landfill or that'd defeat the purpose of that optional dialogue with Alt during V's first meeting with her in cyberspace, and would take away from the weight of getting killed by soulkiller later. Rather V died when they got fried at Mikoshi, and the V that came out of Arasaka after is no longer "alive" in a sense. Its just an Ai puppeted body much like if you let Johnny take it. So essentially no matter what choice was made whether V kept it or V lets Johnny take it, its all the same. The only outcome that would have let V "live" ironically was to let the relic do what it was supposed to do and let it change V's body and mind into Johnny's. Because although yes V would lose the core of what makes a person a person i.e their memories and self identity, it would've kept them "alive". Its pretty funny that V pre Phantom liberty was just fated to die no matter what they did and the whole game post waking up from the landfill was really just some sad attempt to reclaim something that fate dictated. Even in the face in the crowd ending V died as well, but in a more figurative sense. They lived, sure but who they were and who they were supposed to be died on that operating table.
The question if V got actually killed or not by Dex is irrelevant. What matters is that something got back to its feet that has a motivation to go on living as V, same as when you come out of Mikoshi. It may be wrong to think you can prolong your life by recording your personality and then letting that program run. The original human will still die. But the something that was created is also that human, because it sees itself as such.
@@Volkbrecht your understanding of physics and biology is very limited. there is no "original". make 1000 clones of you and they are all "you". there is no soul and there is nothing special with life, being alive, consciousness, or being human.
Bottom line, CDPR writing staff is amazing and the team implementing the writing to gameplay and cutscenes is magic. Forget about visual fidelity, its the story and writing that this game shines in. Thats why people keep replaying it, it hits you in the feels when you play it, so rarely that happens with games nowadays.
Facts my choom, cold hard facts! AND now graphics across the board are so good is hands down the most important part of gaming now. Great story characters AND performance.
Think of it like this the human brain is also just a piece of hardware as we're playing through the game V is perhaps the Ghost in the Shell. Because the chips protocol is to repair the brain in a manner that suits the new identity. Aka Johnny. Because in most cases at the end of the game it's lights out for V... V is the ghost in his own body, as the chip rewrites the brain to better suit Silverhand's personality... And turn silverhand is being reborn
had a thought this morning on the fact that everytime you finish the game it returns to the last save before the point of no return, makes me think that that you have been dead the whole game but just reliving the memories of your life though mikoshi
Very interesting watch, for sure. Kudos on the vid, choom! That said there are a couple of things I don't agree, and a different conclusion I came to, myself. I don't think V remained dead. But I also don't think they remained themselves for terribly long. I don't think V was brain dead for too long. As soon as V dies, I believe the chip already started working its magic and restarting it. That said... V and Johnny's situation loosely reminds me of DID(Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder). And one of the ways a "cure" of it could look like, is the merger of all alters(altered states of personality, people) into a singular personality. And this is precisely what is slowly happening throughout the game. (Keep in mind I'm not saying this is how the engram is supposed to work. But how it ends up working due to the unique situation of it being damaged and all.) The "best" ending, if the game had it, would be to just let the relic to its work. What came out of it would be a complete merger of V and Johnny(The one in the engram. We don't know the extent the engram was modified/damaged. But that is definitively not Silverhand as he was). This way, a new persona would result from that, a cured one. V but not quite V. Johnny but not quite Johnny, with memories from both. No deadly illness, no loss of anything. We see that every time they interact. Especially if they get along. Them becoming more like each other as time goes by. But thanks to the headstrong nature of both of them, we don't get what - to me - would be the true happy ending. But no matter which ending we choose, what we get is not the V or the Jonny we started with. The merger was incomplete but it did happen to almost completion. So neither the person that remained in the body, nor the construct that went away with alt, is who we think. They're already too different from who they used to be.
It always felt to me as if the writers had originally a notion of a merger ending. Maybe I'm wrong, but the way you can respond to Johnny throughout the game made it feel like you were making choices that would lead to some possible merge ending. I don't know, the story feels very cut and edited. I think they took out a lot.
An interesting philosophical approach with points I have not thought about, and I agree. There are a couple more fitting things coming to my mind now: - The Pacifica Delamain says something like "You´re still shuffling around a little, but your dead" - Brendan, our beloved friendly S.C.S.M. mentions, when it comes to V, that he "can´t speak ill of the dead" and that you´re "a glitch in the system" With over 1k hours in Night City I´ve seen and played all endings in various combinations (m and f Vs, different partners, etc.) and must say, that giving your body to Johnny and going with Alt is the ending that FELT most "right".
I think the reason videos on the game's endings/comparing endings etc are so popular isn't because people want to get the best ending on a first playthrough (Although I'm sure some people want to) but from people who've beaten the game once and are curious about the other endings.
Crazy theory! The more I play through the game & just take time to mess around & go off the beaten path I often wonder if the symbolism is intentional or just a by-product of the story changing so much in early development & those just being crumbs leftover from a part of the story they discarded. I really do think a ton of these questions were setup to be answered in a future dlc we'll never get. Like the answers were there but cut so they could plug in more ff06b5 style mysteries down the road. Cheers choombata!
I wish they would have made an ending where V just doesn't go to Mikoshi and lets the relic run it's course, I mean the construct was becoming V if you listened to their dialogues they were melding together as one person and you see it in "Johnny's" ending he has the body but he is missing a part of himself and it's bothering him, in that ending he's not still trying to stick it to Arasaka he's just done and leaves NC. If V were there they would have been a living legend from back when and in 2077. meanwhile if you purge the construct V is seen as a tumor in her own body that would not have happened if they had just let things play out continue being a merc and then V would not have noticed when she became he construct.
Well, you can argue about V being dead or alive after he got shot by Dex. I would say V is a walking dead but not dead yet. V surely dies in a moment he connects himself to Mikoshi. I think it's not consistent to make V "die" twice. I'm glad my first playthrough was with Nomad giving up body to Johnny, It was really tough for me to make right decision while Johnny convincing you to stick to the plan.
In my playthrhough I actually wrestled with the idea of this and even convinced Johnny to give up fighting and befriended him only to at last minute let him have the body for some reasons you said. Technically he died and was betrayed by Dex. Honestly I'm not even sure it's Johnny either but I think I recall him questioning that too in game. He and V imo are more a hybrid identity of a powerful a.i questioning existence and adapting in what was a camotose V body with last remnant desires and fears of both.
This second/last chance feeling is what drives me to make the side quests and act like a hero anytime I see yellow arrows above NPCs 😂 Cyberpunk 2077 is definitely a GTA-like but couldn't feel more different.
Great video! Personally, I've been under the belief that because there are multiple endings, especially because more were added after the DLC, none of them are canon. V is very special. He's able to load up on so much Cyberware and not go cyberpsycho. He's also able to go through the entire story without any cyberware except for the optics, and "able" to become the number 1 merc in history regardless of said cyberware. Proof being his canon victory against Smasher. The only things that are canon about V are the things that dont change regardless of your decisions. V dies, he's rebooted and has Johnny in his head. To me this means CDPR didn't give us a true ending to V's story, but instead an ending to 2077.
I was kind to Johnny the whole time, (I can’t be a D word in games) and HE made the decision to sacrifice himself for V. Johnny made the decision for me.
I have always thought that V was an engram and not the original V from the end of Act One. However engram V has just as much right to exist as engram Johnny.
@@HandsomeTez V's body suffered biological death. The human mind starts to fall apart immediately and the consciousness within it can be unrecoverable in less than five minutes. The time between V's death and revival by the Relic was more than enough to clean their grey matter completely. Whatever the Relic installed, it wasn't the original V.
My first play through I chose my own choices, sans any guides, and wound up somehow fully becoming Johnny Silverhand, without even being given an option. It felt appropriate, seeing as how V always sort of felt like the ghost in the machine. I had legit died, and it was was only because of Johnny Silverhand’s engram that I returned to life.
As for a "canon" ending, my personal idea is that "(Dont fear) the reaper" is the canon storming of Arasaka tower, and by the end of it V's body and mind is so tired and destroyed from the battle that Johnny kinda *has* to take the body for it to survive at all, let alone another few months leading to "New Dawn Fades" And for the V you play as, while I think it's maybe that V just partially survived the gunshot and was put into an incredibly dangerous coma, slowly dying, it could also be the relic itself that brought back V. It was shown that V and Johnny saw eachothers memories, and perhaps V's memories imprinted onto the relic and the V we play as is Johnny's and the relic's version of V rather than actual V. Simply put, post Konpeki V is possibly just the memory of V imprinted into the body by Johnny and the relic. This may shed a little more light on why V wouldn't be able to properly live if he was disentangled from Johnny. Because it technically isn't his mind to begin with. He isn't fully within the brain, leaving room for Johnny to start rewriting.
Interesting video. On the subject of the cats(or cat if it is indeed a bakeneko) I've made it a side mission to note as many as I've been able to find and think about what that could mean. It is of course possible it means nothing, but I personally think it's unlikely given not only what is said about the animals dying out and then to have one or more sphynxes appear before us at several points throughout our journey. Death walks in our wake after all. One bakeneko sighting I only recently noticed is during the first meeting with Oda, there in the background while talking to Takemura it sits in the shadows on top of a wrecked car if I remember it correctly. At that point I knew about the bakeneko conversation down the line, and thought; "huh, that could be a sign perhaps". If you then go to Misty to have her lay your tarot, and excuse me if part of this is difficult to replicate I simply do not know when the different triggers occur for the outcomes. If/when she draws the hierophant (which you find at the meeting place with Takemura and Oda) Misty will point out that this is a particularly dangerous card and caution us not to listen to it's human counterpart. And if Takemura is the hierophant, which I think is the likely symbolism then his promises are not to be trusted. The bakeneko could simply be there to warn us of the doom that awaits us if we put our trust in Takemura. If you want to look further still, in tarot apparently the sphinx represents duality and opposites and being pulled in different directions. Having to navigate that to find your own way or balance. This would potentially mean that Takemura might not be the focus here but rather just another pull for us to take into account when finding our way.
My first play through I got the "bad ending" signing away V to secure your soul. At the time I didn't think it was a bad ending and thought it was interesting as, as you said, it leaves it open for V to return as an engram like Johnny did some time in the future. People say it's the bad ending, but I still prefer that ending tbh rather than a simple story of living and getting the girl and disappearing.
after playing since launch, after tons of playthroughs, after ff06b5 brainroot and everything this game has to offer, I can say you made a great video about whole story and motives in the game
At the end of my first playthrough of Cyberpunk all the way back a month after the game came out, I went for the raid of Arasaka Tower with Rogue and then gave V's body to Johnny, It felt right after doing the reunion concert and other Johnny centric quests. V could only get 6 months while Johnny, or rather this engram of Johnny, gets to live a whole new life after having Saburo rip his away while fighting for revenge, consumed by rage. You as V have to ability to help Johnny mend his wrongs and start anew or cling on to V's dying body trying again to do a crazy heist or roam the wastes. To me at least Johnny keeping V's body is the canon ending, by the end of the game V is the engram in a foreign body.
I’m at 9:25 right now and I am hoping you will be the first creator (to my knowledge, that comments on how inside Arasaka tower looks like Mikoshi. With a black wall representation and everything.
An interesting concept but because the game has multiple starts I also see it as having multiple ending with specific endings being the best for each start to complete a narrative arc . The nomad that abandons his family to live in the big city only to find comfort in a new nomad clan, the street kid that goes on to commit the ultimate job and become a legend among legends, and the hotshot corpo that falls from grace and eventually stripped of every vestiges of power or influence in a city that has long forgotten them.
I agree with the commenters that say that V wasn't beyond repair. If he was, the Arasaka chip wouldn't have been able to fix him. What I do think is that Johnny and Alt are playing head-games with V in hopes that he/she will just shut up and die so Johnny can come back. Neural pathways are neutral as far as I know - they simply connect the pieces of the brain that regulate body function, thoughts, and emotions. I think what probably happened is the body started to lose connection with the brain because his brain was inactive for 4 minutes. I also remember that Arasaka implanted functions to actually fight the original body's owner so the new person could easily take over the body. It restores the function, but it also attempts to reprogram the brain. It's most likely hard for Viktor to help because the nanomachines (think 1 millionth of a meter) are constantly attacking the brain as the person regains function, similar to how lupus attacks the healthy cells in the body. Human willpower is way stronger than we give it credit for. It would take a genius engineer of that Swedish doctor's caliber, and dozens of counter-nanites to make the problem go away. The main reason nobody wants to try counter-nanites is because they don't wanna piss off Arasaka. Soulkiller is probably the cruelest thing you can do to a human being. Dr. Mengele and Himmler, as cruel as they were, don't even match up to that level of evil. The original purpose of the public version was so instead of just killing their opposition, they could study their way of thinking and form new strategies.
Absolutely deep, insightful commentary. This game is brilliant and so re-playable. CDPR really cooked up a masterpiece; DLC included. And thanks for the tip about Journey. Never heard of it, but downloading now.
"Brilliant" would be too much said. It's actually pretty bad from the story design, and the world is rather inconsistent, too. It's just that CDPR throws so much stuff at the player that one only realises that at a second or third playthrough. When you start to think like a person to which this stuff has happened, it's unclear how V would ever waste so much time. Some of the best sidequests are also the ones I'd never do if I had to live through the situation for real, like the whole Peralez affair.
I'm one of those people who didn't know what is typical of the 'punk' story type, was ultimately dbummed out at the vanilla game's ending and so wonder if I should ever touch a 'punk' game again, including the sequel because I don't like being depressed. Phantom Liberty seems like a response to people like me (though I didn't do this personally) complaining about V's inevitable death, and given how we can complete it and cure her before finishing the main plot, what would be the point with the main plot? It would make more sense to me if they had Broken Steel'd the post-credits so we continued the save file and THEN got access to the DLC - one last mission where you finally find what you need. One thing I spun in my head when starting a new save to try what happens when you side with Dex, was that HE wouldn't kill you, but you had to die on your own for the reboot to happen and Takemura would come pick you up wherever you died and the game would contin ue as normal. Ergo, I thought, Dex shot you because he thought you'd screw him over by working with Emily, whether you told him before the heist or not, and not because he traitorous scum himself. May not be the grandest choice ever but I like that mixes things up ever so slightly, and that reactions were made to a previous choice. What was the point of going to the space station, again? You can't really "unresurrect" after resurrecting. Had Jesus only ascended his spirit, like he did on the cross, people likely would've commented that he'd died again because of his limp corpse on the ground, and they'd just as likely be right. I much prefer this theory that V died at Dexter DeShawn's hand in the hotel, and whatever we play as for the rest is the shell in which two things are fighting for control, except V doesn't really exist anymore. Makes the game much less personable, though.
Good video, I never noticed that sticker. One interesting thing is that Mikoshi isn't a pyramid, it is a ziggurat. Similar looking structures, but ziggurats have a platform at the top accessed from the outside and usually house a shrine at the top in a place that connects us to the domain of the gods. Mesopotamian ziggurats held a shrine to the god at the top where they were supposed to physically dwell, attended by their priests. South American ziggurats held a shrine at the summit where worshippers would offer sacrifices to their gods, though I know a lot less about these in all honesty. Pyramids also have a different purpose in that they are the resting place for a pharaoh's body, and contain all the things needed to guide their soul back to their body alongside things they may need in the 'afterlife' as they believed they would rise again and their body would be inhabited by their spirit once more. Either interpretation could be relevant imo, not saying the pyramid is incorrect, but they definitely have different and interesting connotations.
Great existential video, excellent coverage on the various themes & I love the historical/mythos referenced. This is almost like M Night Shyamalan Cyberpunk... with a twist! V is dead to begin with. Love it! 😅 As Judy puts it, "walking talking corpses" aka "I see dead people" To answer the question 15:36 I believe V has as much right to their body as before the heist, if not for this J-O-B as Jackie says (essentially Relic Johnny), they'd both be alive still. Doing business with DexSUS Christ is a deal with the devil after all, as with the Voodoo Boys, you're more likely to end up dead as a matter of business practice. This brings up a thought I've had in the past, "who was Yorinobu intending on using this Relic on?" and "did he secretly plan the heist to get a pawn?" 🤔 Who's really to blame here? Johnny the nefarious engram, Yorinobu the secretive hero, DexSUS the greedy trigger finger who likely wouldn't have paid them expecting their demise. Or really is V to blame? Ambition, greed, hubris... are we truly in control of our lives? As the Oracle says in the Matrix, our path is predefined, we only see roadblocks, the choices we've already made, which strands we follow down the rabbit hole... are we defined by our nature? Cyberpunk was a very well written story, with few plot holes... either due to limitations from crunch time/changes in development, or they player choosing a path which is 'optional' yet not canon. You brought up a lot of interesting points, and raised some questions I'm sure many of us have thought or maybe never considered.
sooooo many holes, but will point out the first most glaring one. many people have survived being shot point blank in the head, some with deformities, some with memory issues and/or nerve damages, some of them without ANY problems. and this does include some that were knocked out for many many hours or days. it would require a certain amount of luck. attributing any injury to the head as being lethal means brain surgery would be impossible. not saying that this theory isnt possible, but one would have to make assumptions and leaps of faith on almost all "theories" in a game unless from direct acknowledgement by the creative developers. but even that can be tricky as game companies, TV/Movie producers, and book writers leaned into theories in order to hype sales and then later to find out it wasnt true or the intention. this also makes the game best to be filled in by the individual playing it, let them experience the story with just enough holes for them to let their imagination create their best world. there are sooo many theories to this whole game, and I think its great. but they cant all be co-existing even tho most of them have evidence (note: NOT PROOF) of their probability.
I think you have it right Tez. I think everything after the heist goes sideways is a the last bit of V's consciousness trying to come to terms with the end of not only their live but Jackie's life. It always struck me that if the Relic had the ability to do what it did for V, it should have done it for Jackie. It did not. So in my mind, as V lays on the floor of the No Tell Motel dying from being shot in the head, everything that comes afterwards is their life flashing before their eyes.
I guess Jackie took it out just before he died, he'd been in the same boat as V otherwise. His actions saved us from instant death and gave us a period of time to redeem ourselves.
The relic overriding the brain was a glitch and not intended. It was a result of hardware damage. This is why the Relic causes V to glitch out. The chip is damaged beyond repair and is dumping all available information into V's head.
The game should of had more options, one where V and Johnny were separated, one where Johnny takes over and V would be the ghost in Johnny’s head, or even using the delemain ai and the black wall ai to help Johnny and V hide in the network to be able to go back out probably years later
I guess they had to draw a line somewhere. Even if they added all of those, many people would still say it's not enough if an option they wanted wasn't catered for. Sometimes you gotta put down your brush and call it a day.
It wouldn't be bad writing for V to get cured. The technomancers Panam wanted to go to for help are so good they even have Arasaka coming to them for help, so it's very believable they can cure V. You could argue it would take away from the themes, but actually it would just shoft to be more focused on hope and faith. V is running on faith the whole time. That final decision to go back to her body is just as much an act of faith as leaving with Alt. V is only 23. Johnny died at 34. Even Johnny gives props to V for being a much better person despite having 10 years less experience. Although it might not be the right ending, it is the more hopeful ending. V and Mr Blue Eyes stand more vhance of making the world a better place. Arasaka is left in shambles and the girl who did that to them is still alive and ready to tango. With the support of Mr Blue Eyes, V could potentially be a positive change for the entire world within those last 6 months. But since this is the cyberpunk genre, that's might actually be too happy and ending to be canon
Bad is possibly unfair. Lazy is more what I mean like the old Dallas trope of "It was all a dream". It's just a cop out to do that. It takes the weight and gravitas out of the original dilemma.
cyberpunk 2 should be about a new up and coming street kid stuck with a mental copy of V in their head after V had cemented themselves as a legend. it should also add 3 more lifepaths to the starter character creation screen to mirror the six original cyberpunk TTRPG classes, solo, copper, punk, reporter, enforcer and fixer. this would allow the multiple endings, aswell as other rpg mechanics to flourish and be more acceptable to the player when they get to decide exactly who the new protag is from the start. alternatively for cp2, id also take a story about johnny using Vs body, with V being the dying engram inside johnnys new body.
I'm posting this mid video before I forget my thoughts. I personally subscribe to the theory that V actually did die, but the relic accidentally brought us back to life. From what it looks like, the relic, when inserted, was intended to override one's consciousness with a copy of someone else's. Hence, why soul killer exists, to kill/wipe the previous host. Making a brain-dead vegetable to which you can imagine as a pc with no os. The relic uploads a copy of someone's ghost, and the pc eventually accepts the new os. When v died with the relic inside of him, it fried the relic, prompting it to try a corrupted system restore, which brought V back. The resulting game is the relic trying to install a new os on top of a broken os. We can see this when both Johnny and Vi realize they're controlling the same body when Johnny first appears. Furthermore , even if we get rid of Johnny, we're only getting a couple of months to half a year. You can't trick a body that still has memories of its death.
3:20 I enjoy doing it that way the most. In fact I make a point to play my first run through an RPG (Skyrim, this, Deus Ex, what have you) making all the decisions I as a player would make. Then I'll get goofy with it in subsequent playthroughs.
Thanks for sharing - I had no idea. But this is definitely the reference Mikoshi is alluding to with its name, being the repository of all the engrams.
Just looking trough the tech stuff in cyberpunk. Im a 100% sure how the time of the brain is at least 6 or 8 times longer than at a normal pearcon now. Like come on they have personal link and basic tech sht installed in them already. But thats a posibility too how actualy. its not even rebooted her/his brain. Just scraped the last avilable memories of both to create a new porsen(more like a comfortable body) for the new host. Jhony even tell us when we wisit his "grave" how its getting kinda comfortable to him to be in our head. Plus from the things we get to know about the relics. Its rebuilding the brain and the intact cells looks like cancer to it. I think the nanites started to work as soon as V got the shot and started to prepaer the brain for the construct change. That could be even the reason why they cant just yoink it out. (at this next one im maybe wrong but) but in the new dlc if i recal correctly the have to do neuro surgery to disconnect the relic and be able to remove it and this makes me asume and gives me a some sort of steady placement how V is truly dead and the reason he/she came back is to make the constract full and preapre the body fully to it. Plus if i recall correctly im not sure about the canon ending becouse originaly V's persone would have faded by itself anyway at least according to Vik at the start. But please dont judge me. Im just guessing as well and cant wait for the 2nd game to be anounced and reveald hoping to get some awnsers to all this.
I've played this game once. ONLY once. Made a Corpo stealth hacker, taking nonlethal KOs where I could, otherwise using my hacking skills to get through a mission without anyone ever seeing me. Killed when I had to, but not an assassin -- meaning I passed on certain fixer jobs because they wanted me to do things that MY V wouldn't do. If I messed up a job, if an NPC got killed or I got a "bad" ending to something, oh well, that's the result of the choices I made. And I got THIS ending, the one where Johnny takes over. I found out AFTERWARD that it was the super secret ending that requires very specific actions. I didn't even KNOW it was secret, I just made the choices that made sense for my mental image of V. So unlike 90% of players, I got that ending organically. And I have no intention of chasing after alternate endings, that was my story and I'm not asking for a rewrite.
I think the entire game is a brain dance within the Cyberpunk world that we are experiencing. A brain dance that is the story of V, a Night City Legend.
I am really glad im not the only one! I picked up on a huge metaphor of a multicultural and multi-religion form of weighing ones soul at the point of passing. The universe has characters that require some labels and i see them. The creator. Bartmoss. He gave existance to afterlife within the net. A god. Treated as such by runners. His closest followers. Lucy, alt cunningham? Arch-angels. Alt more so and in the game, the only entity to take that title. Johnny. A human soul trapped in hell(mikoshi) he literally possesses your body as a demon would. He is meant to deceive and does but given a chance to remember humanity meaning a second chance to be freed of the evil purpose of soul killer. The end game decision could free him from his evil purpose or be consumed back into afterlife but free. Alt guides souls to guide conscience into ascension into a collective peace. Saburo is the dominant engram with hell(mikoshi) which is his kingdom by design. He is the devil(ending?) so mi is interesting. Serves as a jesus figure before resurrection. sacrificed everything for peace away from a false king(meyers) bent on war. Her death or escape saves humanity. As she crosses over into the blackwall as a final sacrifice, what stands ine way of humanity reclaiming so mi? Cerberus! Who are the solos but heroes like hrrcules and achilles. A consequential decision is made to entrap a rabid ai onto a wespon. A means to feed souls through malice intent. A decision criticized by your guide, alt. This leaves v. I believe a version of a jv during revelations. Reed is judas. After ur trials, you are rewarded a choice. Take the afterlife(not the bar) life. Let johnny go to earn his place q you.. thats the conclusion i camevup with
we are all "temporary visitors" while V does die, it is still V's body, the chip is a tool, jhonny doesn't bring you back, the chip does by fixing the damages. V's body wasn't beyond saving because the chip clearly does with its advanced technology. Jhonny is just a digital copy of what used to be a real person, his mind didn't get transferred, it got copied. V is still a real person not just a copy and has a claim over their own body. Jhonny is as much a prisoner to the chip as V is since none of the two control it or understand it. The only moment where I am willing to say V is dead is in the ending where his concioness is copied into mikoshi, at that point both V and jhonny are copies but still the body did used to belong to someone and it sure as hell wasn't any version of Jhonny's. Realistically both jhonny and V should've crossed the digital wall together as friends into the unknown and maybe get put into bodies in the future. Both should've let go, but still the only options available to you is some version of one of them clinging to the body or being forced into it.
I think this is quite the theory, and I could honestly agree with most of if not all of your points in this video. Cats in general were essentially worshipped as gods and supposed to act as guardians and such if I remember correctly, so that was interesting to hear about and see in SP 2077 but since when was there a spinx? I swear more stuff is constantly being added....Anyways, I can totally believe that V wasn't a person but simply a spirit clinging to its body. And I'm totally going to share this video with my best friend.
Oh no, I get that. There wasn't any confusion about the cats, I just brought up cats since you brought up the ancient Egyptian beliefs. All cats were worshipped and held in highest of esteem. But Hairless cats were probably the most superior of them all. Over all I loved your video man, it was a great theory and I only skipped over the part about Journey since I've never played that. But otherwise I watched through until the end and you had some great points. I hope I can see more like this, I'll totally subscribe to you.
Great video! For me, the story of Cyberpunk wasn't about V surviving, but Johnny getting a chance to revisit this life, try to correct pass wrongs, come to terms with his death and finally move on; while V stay behind to continue fighting for his own life and hopefully make right his own wrongs.
Great point, and I agree, it had a lot to do with that. EDIT: By the way I like your MAX avatar. The original Sam & Max game was one of my favourite LucasArts games as a teenager. Right up there with Grim Fandango and Day of The Tentacle.
@StuGamePlus yeah there is so there is one more that wasn't covered so in my opinion the two best endings are Johnny gets v's body and the other one is v gets cured and gets to live a full life, even if it is as a common nobody.
Just like there are multiple deaths, multiple Vs male and female with different life paths, there are multiple ways V could return. From beyond the blackwall, or by surviving a bit longer than Alt expected, or by some new experimental tech that repairs the damage that keeps V from using cyberware. Johnny is still out there in some form as well. No telling how or if some or most of the principals could return, or if we'll start next game as "Z." But how is Johnny any different than V, who after Mikoshi is also an engram? You could say she's also reborn in her own body, and going back doesn't kill Johnny. He continues on with Alt. In that ending he doesn't take any sympathy from you, tells you to shut up and go back. I don't think he was exactly "born" in V's body, he's already in the relic, and says something like he's already been in cyberspace from before they met, so he can survive behind the blackwall better than V. Anyway, especially if you were a female V, would you really trust the guy having free run of your body? Kind of gross to think about. 😂 And I find his ending kind of lame anyway... not just because V goes away, his existence is kind of sad and boring, unlike the ones where V gets their second chance for a short time, to live out an existence with a new family, or go out in a blaze of glory.
4:09 personally I think when people search “what is the best ending for xyz game” they really just want to know what all the endings are and then they pick the one they think is best. I know I got the really depressing space station ending on accident in my first play through.
I actually thought that V was dead at the very beginning when they get shot, everything after that was a death moment dream as the chip overwrites her brain.
V gets to experience a buddhist awakening with the Zen Master, When the Zen Master leaves, V gets a shard on the teachings of the temple and a wildly weird/interesting real book called Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. Teachings stands out to me: "The welcome truth that Sleep and Death are Twin Sisters, beneficent, healing and vivifying, is gradually making its way through the scientific as well as the religious world, bearing on its winos faith and trust in the fundamental lays of life which underlie all phenomena, and casting down forever the great Moloch of fear which stands at the gate of all men's minds, ready to devour each child of hope which has been conceived and born in the joy of life. -------------------- Time and Space are annihilated in dream life because of the rapid action of the energy of mind when freed from bonds of matter ; and life in a state of dream is a foretaste of what life may be when the coarser grades of matter which now hold the embryonic God-man in bondage are refined ; and the energy which now must act under all the difficulties man has ignorantly thrown up by unnatural, unwise methods and practices, through countless incarnations, will then be guided and controlled by the higher or Spiritual will of man, for the perfecting of a body as much superior to the bodies of the present races of mankind as the latter are superior to those of the animal creation. " Death of V was a healing moment for V, a chance to cast out fear and live their life to their ultimate brightest. I think the 2nd stanza is advocating for V to shed the mortal coil and be free from the bonds of matter. So perhaps more evidence for your suppositions.
Journey...that is a vary special game to anyone should try at least once. Hopefully having it never spoiled. I had to play the game 3 times before I was satisfied. One I was blind like everyone else. Just blindly going with the flow. Twice I traveled to seek all that the journey had to offer Third I acted like a guide and showed a new player all that journey had to offer and being them to my level. That was the last time I played and in my end my hope was one I guided would also journey again and show someone else all there was
I've noticed people doing that, my son played it when he was about 7, and on one run I noticed he had a companion in the white outfit guiding him and bringing. At one point my son said "friend" he was still pre-verbal (he's severely autistic) at that time so it was a special moment for us all. That person will never know what a gift their couple of hours of companionship gave him and us. Tearing up just thinking about it. Who knows, maybe it was you. Either way I agree, it's an absolute play. Thanks for sharing.
I do believe handing over your body to Johnny is canon. V’s whole arc is coming to terms with the fact that he died and making use of his time prior to Mikoshi, and then moving on.
I am willing to bet I am one of the few that chose my particular ending as their first ending, and even more, I bet most people never chose this option. This body may not be mine any longer, but it is not Johnny's AI body either, so believing that neither of us deserved the body, I committed suicide so I could go out on my own terms. I then replayed before I saw one of the "true endings" Also remember the meaning of life is 42 or a mistake!
When i finished the game I had the same feeling, but i don't think it is completely there. I think the devs probably had more planned for endings and what we got is lacking a clear vision. Cuz leaving the aldecados hanging is kind of a dick move, and if jonny raids arasaka, him taking the body is also one. So the only ending that is more appropriate to temperance is when you raid arasaka alone, and it's an ending most won't encounter. There's an ending that i always found weird it's missing, and it's just letting go and letting the relic overwrite you with jonny. Guess it would be even less anti climatic than suicide, and that's why it's not in the game.
i reeeally appreciate the Red Dwarf appearance, Stu, lol. anyway, i myself was hoping for a more "chappie" ending of a sorts. like, have Alt copy V as they currently are, new smoking habits and all, let Johnny take the body, and V gets moved onto a chip that johnny can just plug in and play mind-swap as much as they want.
Reaching a bit for me. It is a role playing game, hence the multiple endings. If you want to believe you are dead from the beginning, go for it. The Relic is partly organic though and could have kept our brain functioning till Takemura finds us. Hellman also mentions that Johnny may be influencing our thinking and decisions, but this is moot since we are playing and can choose his way or our way. To many options to be specific about whats happening in the game. Alt would also know if we were already dead, yet she still makes the effort to split Johnny and V apart. Yes I'm babbling.....
i actually came to a similar conclusion on my last playthrough, whatever awakon after V got shot in the head isn't really V, its more like a zombie that has both memories from V and jhonny, with the engram slowly but surely converting the zombie into jhonny
The more you play, the more it makes sense right? I'm not completely sold on it either way, but it's an interesting concept. I still think NDF is the right ending though. So many people are vehemently against this concept and trying to get all snotty about it, it's genuinely refreshing to dig up a pleasant comment like this among the walls of text explaining how V survived the gunshot and how it couldn't possibly be this and how V has to ride off into the sunset with his or her main squeeze. People get very defensive when their set-in-stone ideas and parasitical attachments are challenged. So. In short, thanks.
@@HandsomeTez i find it more tragic and romantic that V's pretty much gone and we are playing as something else not entirely human but also not jhonny at least in the beginning, also V gets hit way too hard with the EMP on panam mission, somehow manages to survive several deadly braindances so its clear V's no longer human
You seem to link soul and memories and they are 2 seperate things! Also, due to the implants, it is possible that the brain don't start to die within 3 minutes. Some people were ressurected after hours of CPR without any memory loss. Some people are maintained in life with CPR and stabilize within 10 to 30 min, and have some memory losses. Also, some people survive a shot in the head without any loss of ability or memory, it has happened. With that known, it is possible that V's brain is almost fine. Some implants extend some body part life, then the relic kick back the heart in some ways and boost the coagulant function of the blood. V is only still alive after Viktor's surgeries. The relic without outside help wouldn't have save V's body. That's some medical's "miracles" that happened IRL "everyday". (seems a miracle but it's not, don't put any form of faith in it // it's not everyday that somebody is hurt this bad and yet not enough to be able to survive with the correct care and surgeries) The fact that the relic reform some body parts is unclear. Does some broken part of the relic reconnect to itself through the nervous system and allow johnny to "come out", therefore protect in some way form cyberpsychosis (especially in v1.6, didn't play much after the DLC in v2.0, I didn't like the change of gameplay), and allow V to sync with johnny body mouvement and gain extra knowledge and sense, as johnny look elsewere, listen to another thing than V and alert V about, a more direct sixth sense of sort. Without takamura and Delamain (don't forget him), V was going to die, it's a fact, Relic or not, form exhaustion, blood loss and heat stroke, or crush by another deposit of trash. It was weeks of care in vik's clinic that stabilize and save V. The car's chase with takamura: adrenaline rush. And that's only the technical part of it. the philosophical part ot it: As long as we have YOURS memories, you are you. V is still V, and the engram of johnny is the edited version of silverhand, what he wanted to be, but was not for some reasons, some more obvious than others.
Misty reads V's tarot cards after going with Alt, and Misty says V's cards show he's had a fate WORSE than death. It's surprising you didn't mention that.
I'm totally on board with your theory, but then I started wondering. Counting phantom liberty, we have 3 endings to go with 3 starts. What if we only have that sticker in the nomad start because for that start, giving the body to John is the cannon ending and we just have to connect the dots for the other two starts to the other two endings?
The only real issue is asking such things that could lead to a deep search of many things, for the YT comments section that's censored to hell and back.
about the multiple endings part: people looking for best ending is a whole other can of worms on par with questions of existence multiple endings in itself is not a problem, as you said, you just play and get the ending that is consequences of your choices people want to get the best ending due to fear of doing something- anything- wrong
it's tricky to know what people are looking for without projecting unless you're in their heads or ask them directly. I'm actually going by evidence of comments from my "Best ending" videos.
Yo, I'm just going to pin this here for all the people who either haven't watched the full video or have skipped in-game text. Writing walls of text I'm never going to read trying to explain why I'm wrong isn't a good use of your time my friends. Vik literally says "Until you died" when he is giving you the "full details" version about what happened. He explains about Dex cheaping out with a low caliber bullets made the job for the nanites easier, and they were able to kick into gear to repair the damage and take you off the path from the light. The Relic brought V back from the dead. Simple. V says people don't just die and rise from the dead, and Vik says, used to be the case. So it is what it is chooms.
I'm just working with the in game facts here and entertaining interesting and challenging thoughts..
Idk. I'd say that assessment is fair. But I'd also say that Johnny's time walking around ended 50 years prior. While our coming back was just a stroke of luck, so was Johnny's. And in the end, who is to say which existence is more deserving of continuance? Does Johnny really deserve V's body? Or is his existence as much of an abomination as V's is?
Johnny died. What's on the chip isn't the real Johnny. Just as you pointed out that what came back wasn't the real V. So, the real crux is what does the player feel by the end of the story? I believe this is why the game has multiple endings. Because the morality of V and Johnny as characters is ultimately up to the player to decide.
For any discussion about death, even philosophical, it's important to note that death is final. The definition of death has changed throughout the years as we become more technologically advances. Previously there was no need to distinguish between circulatory death and brain death - there was only death. In this scenario, the relic does not bring V back from death - it prevented it. Doesn't matter what kind of damage it left behind or did itself (resuscitation tends to also cause damage). V was not dead.
@@KenneyPedersen One of the functions of the relic was to map and recreate the engram of the person using it, the engram of Johnny was never supposed to be on it so I assume it was in some sort of backup function or additional memory. The way the chip was supposed to work would be installed into the user, copy the engram and upon death installed in another fully functional body and remap the brain. As it had Johnnys engram on it clearly went wrong, it also copied Vs engram and then the death probably tripped the "rebuild" the brain but had to start with the basic structure, then engram mode but Viks medical attention delayed the arsehole.exe install. We see most rippers are pretty competent neuro surgeons and fit all kinds of cyberware into brains, I can see Vik patching the damaged brain up too.
Going through my second play through and I ran into something that really confused me, and I think it fits in well here with the talk of “death”. Johnny had soul killer used on him and his engram placed on the relic chip which activates once V dies. But if after the heist if you send Jackie’s body to Vic’s after he dies we find out that Arasaka used soul killer on Jackie and did the same to him. How did they use soul killer on someone who is already dead? And also how come Jackie’s engram just a list of his previous saying and not a full engram like Johnny is? This is really confusing for me….is it an oops in the lore or something else?
@@aaronrankin1092 I'm guessing by death they mean brain death rather than end of cardiac and pulmonary function, which can be several mins after for brain stem death and up to 10 for all electrical activity to end. This is why near death experiences are a thing, someone can be bleeding out and heart stopped but the brain is still functioning to a degree. The Soul Killer process only affects the brain too, as seen with Alt when she still had vital signs but no brain activity. Jackies brain was dying at that point but they tried to grab any intel they could from him.
The tragedy is that V goes through the whole story thinking it’s about survival. It’s not. It’s about having a second chance to face death with open eyes and choose what meaning to assign to your end. That’s why the worst endings are the ones where V clings blindly to survival and winds up empty in both body and soul. And the ones where V lets go of trying to go on living and uses what brief time they have left to do something meaningful are the ones that feel like V truly does ascend to legend.
@@gehtoodachoppa8603 this comment messed with my head, and makes me ponder my choices through the game much more than I thought I would
Well played Choom
Any choices you make throughout the game are "meaningful" to various people. Helping Pan Am is meaningful to her and the Aldecaldos. Helping Judy is meaningful to her, and you can go down the list of side quests. Heck, chatting with Misty about Jackie is meaningful to Misty. Pretty much just playing the game is V helping a bunch of people.
That’s what that the star ending felt like to me. It was about letting go of clinging desperately to survival and empty dreams, and more about spending your final months with the people you love and care about, bringing true fulfilment and giving V that feeling of “I don’t know what the future holds, hell, I don’t even know if I’ll be alive next year, but I’m going to live my life to the fullest and do it with the people I most care about”. In the beginning, my V was a nomad who lost her family and chased the glamourised dream of becoming a night city legend to fill that void left by losing her family. In the end, V found a new family and let go of a dream that would ultimately take everything that she ever truly loved and cared about away from her. Yes, V is dying, but she’s truly happy.
Until you realize in cyberpunk lore that most people have two nero-ports in their head and V literally could have used a shard to backup his mind then "self deleted" in a nonviolent way thus ending Johnny and getting re-uploaded to his own brain
@@zambekiller Yep. The game's story leaves a lot to be desired. It's a fun game to play, but the story was largely nonsensical.
Consider the fact that if V's body was braindead, no amount of "rebooting" from the Engram can fix that. The only reason V was "ressurrected" is because he is not fully dead and his brain was still intact. The proof of this is his consciousness, which is very different from his spirit fighting to exist. If we assume that V's body is completely dead, then Johnny would be dead too. Throughout the game, Johnny made this one clear. So, great video but the premise is flawed.
This is a very good argument choom, gives me something to think about.
the neurons in the brain are created and pathways weaved together. we are nothing more than our brains.
if you break a computer it wont work. if you put all the atoms back where they were, it will.
Exactly. The chip repaired the damage to V's brain. I think this is even implied in the game; but I'm not sure, been a while since I played it.
That's incorrect. Read the relic documents. The engram can only take root in a "neuroligically indifferent body" and "a body that has undergone completely irreversible brain death". The V that wakes up in the landfill is actually Johnny's engram undergoing a split personality disorder because the brain mass still exists even if it can't sustain V's life.
from what i understand, chip literally replaces the neurons of the host with its own material essentially using engram as the cpu. Eventually entirety of host's brain is replaced by engram. That is why V is getting blackouts, formerly functioning parts are getting deleted faster than brain can rerout itself. If V stays inside the body, without the Engram, body will attack the new engram made neurons, which are literally essential for V's brain to function at that point. Remember at that point, V probably has only half a brain.
Its funny how at my 1st playthrough by a netrunner my V left beyond the blackwall cause it seemed like the only logical choice for him to save both Johny and him since it seemed fine for him as a netrunner. The ending should suit the character.
I would love to see V as an AI acting from beyond the blackwall in the Cyberpunk 2 since we already have so many references to rogue AIs influencing the real world.
I agree, that It would be so cool, choom!
I thought V got assimilated into alts AI when you go with her. V is basically just a part of alts data or code, right? Or am I thinking wrong?
@@skrunklyOwO When she absorbs all of Mikoshi is more so she can take them all to her Net domain over the Ocean she uses them to improve but her intent is to take them to her Territory. Least ot my interpretation of the story so far.
@@RavenTheBlackheart the Alt AI also says it's not actually Alt cunningham but that it is an AI that is using her memories and image for it's own agenda
@@zambekiller i think its more hinting that she does not look at herself as human alt anymore and is mereley using the image but thats just me, most Human AIs kinda turn robotic after a while
again thats just my interpretation.
On my 14th play through
Congrats, choom?
17th for me. I’m chasing the “perfect run” for each life path and gender.
Best fucking game ever, no?
Daaaayum 17!
@@angel8fingers Absolutely. I'm about 12 playthroughs in with 1100 hours 😀
@@The_Rickest_Rick that’s what I’m talking about choom!
Oddly enough my first playthrough I played nomad and came to the conclusion that I was dead already and let Johnny stay. Riding off on the bus was an odd thing to watch him ride off into the sunset in my body. But it felt like the best decision for us both.
Indeed. It feels right but it sucks!
I picked this too, it was so bittersweet. Even though V is just an idea we're spending time with in a game I felt so much anxiety at what was lying beyond the bridge. Excited to see the person Johnny was becoming with a new life.
I love the concept of what it means to exist as an engram/beyond the blackwall. OG Johnny may be dead but he's the only version that exists at this time, doesn't that make him "the" Johnny? Same with V if he/she is beyond the Blackwall. The only copy but then also altered (as Alt was). What about when there are multiple copies of a person running around (like supposedly Alt is), that maybe have the same starting point/memories but are collecting different experiences and memories as they go? So much to think about!
Nah Johnny is cool and all but him just hijacking V's body doesnt feel deserved. Not a good ending imo
My first run was a corpo netrunner. I gave Johnny the body because my character was already close to the net to his core and Johnny was close to the world of the living. Felt right that we both went to our "home" and got to live our existences how we wanted.
@@WrathOfBlades I hate to break it to you but leaving beyond the Blackwall means you will cease to be, if Alt doesn't consume and/or destroy V another rogue AI will. Slider spoke the truth when he said beyond the Blackwall you are little more than a cockroach, a piece of outdated code with no meaning.
It would be like cutting yourself and then jumping into shark infested waters and thinking nothing will ever happen to you because you're a good swimmer.
I've had a lot of the same thoughts, but came to a different conclusion based on a few elements that struck me as significant:
1) The relic is damaged and there's lots of corrupted data...SoMi purges some of the data to make room for mods, by these details, we can understand that the version of Silverhand we encounter in the game itself an incomplete engram. The fact that he exists doesn't preclude the fact that he's incomplete, V's own psyche forms a structure that allows Johnny to emerge, just like the relic reboots V. The brain damage should have damaged parts of his mind no matter what...but in spite of this mutual damage they exist.
2) During the conversations with Hellman he mentions that they both exist simultaneously and that eventually the balance will shift from V to Johnny, but doesn't indicate that V will ever truly be gone. V and Johnny are a merging of two beings with the Relic's systems effectively choosing a winning side through the reconfiguration of the mind, but it can't stop the two personalities from influencing each other.
3) There are also indications that the engram is itself modified, with some of the memories we see and experience are not accurate based on the known Canon history. For example, some of the events we see Johnny accomplish, such as the fight with Smasher...Johnny mentions a few times about how they can edit engrams...likely having an idea that his memories were edited and that even before his emergence he was not quite himself. In terms of Yorinobu's goals having and "optimized" version of Johnny makes sense as building up his skills and suppressing the more problematic aspects of his personality would only serve to enhance his effectiveness. It's interesting that Johnny keeps talking about how he always had a smoke, but it was actually Morgan Blackhand who is most often pictured with a cigarette.
There's a lot of people who claim that Johnny is not genuine in his dealings with V and that he's messing with the memories...but I think that the reality is that Johnny's personality was edited for Yorinobu's purpose...and that V's integration with Johnny further amplified this...but also brought balance to the damaged construct. Johnny isn't really Johnny, even Alt alludes to this...but certainly feels like he's close enough...or at least "a version of Johnny" that's close enough in her current state as an AI herself significantly different from her time as a human.
Even with the "split" that occurs, the "cross contamination" is irreversible, this is especially apparent in the playthroughs where V remains at odds with Johnny where they feel the "infection" of Silverhand in their psyche. Although in the situations where V bonds with Silverhand, the evolution of Silverhand is much more apparent where V is more intrinsically "corrupting" Silverhand. Any version that "survives" remains a different person than the one they were previously.
Looking at it phylosophically, they start on the same page as they're both dead and brought back to life, but are both damaged by the experience. The character that we play is as Hellman implies a hybrid personality where V's core personality is dominant, but will eventually become subsumed by Silverhand. The longer they stay together, the more the two personalities mesh together...even if two engrams are created, it's a picture of the personalities as they are rather than copies of the personalities as they were. There's no going back, but in terms of Night City...you never get out alive anyways.
In the end, I don't think that one ending with V being "dead" was necessarily the goal...but rather that V is dead in all endings...that whoever continues whether that ends up being V or Johnny is only relevant in the way that they interact with those he leaves behind. Just like how in the ending where V is "healed" at the end of Phantom Liberty V remains fundamentally changed by the experience, no longer the person they used to be...dead again...in another way.
There's a multiplicity of ways to bring V back in a sequel, although I don't think that's necessarily the goal here. V's story is complete, as is Smasher's and Johnny's...at least this version of him. They could all come back, or we could encounter a new set of legends. I think that would be more fitting as in my mind, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game about death...and how in this setting, death is the only thing you can expect. It comes for everyone in the end...to titans, to legends and to countless peons...it's the only way you matter in this world. V's dead even if he survives because that's the price of existing in this world. The religious symbolism you refer to very much points to this fact. It's not IMO insignificant that the place you're encouraged to revisit most often is the Columbarium. That it's really the only place in the world that takes accounting of your actions. The people who die either from your hand or through the series all get memorialized there.
They're both dead...and they're also alive...a version of V survives in every ending where he doesn't outright die...the same can be said about Johnny as well. That IMO is where the religious imagery comes into play...they're not just dead, but reborn...and will die again. In one version V is reborn as an Aldecaldo, in another reborn as a normie, in another as a legendary Merc going after continuation...another as an AI or an engram, waiting to be reborn to serve Arasaka or to continue their own path, each time it's the ending of One V, one Johnny and the birth of another.
There's not one true ending, and as long as V doesn't give up...they're all the same. Death and rebirth...what changes is the cost of continuing to exist.
There may end up being a canon ending that we come across in the next game...but personally I prefer never really finding out...The afterlife remains the one mystery we can't solve.
Choom! Thank you for such a comprehensive and well thought comment, you raise some very interesting points and arguments that shed a whole new dimension on things. Love it!
In support of your theory may I offer that Misty opines that V and Johnny form "a harmonious whole, at the moment..." and although she seems to accept that V's (soul) will die, that this increasing disharmony and eventual dissolution of V as a separate entity may take some time and can be made as painless as possible. To me, this suggest more of a merger than a takeover, and though my V has only once given up the fight and let Johnny live on, I do like to think that he has been forever changed by his merger with V (and more than can be accounted for by watching V make honourable decisions and standing by his/her friends, and changing as a person because of that, but because maybe a few fragments of the code that was V remain, like a recessive gene in an organic body (( that's probably wrong, biologists forgive me. )) A sort of a "ghost in the machine" if I may be so shamelessly punny.
I love your theory about Yorinobu, though have to disagree on two minor points. I posit that it would have been Saburo himself who ordered any edits to the engram, as wasn't Yorinobu still with the Steel Dragons until Kai commits ritual suicide a week or so after the tower falls? Also about the edits themselves, while Johnny and Alt both mention edits (with Alt alluding to the fact that these are the memories Johnny would have if the raid had gone a little better and mostly because he was just... so... damned... heroic ( I'm paraphrasing 😉). The only time editing an engram is mentioned by anyone connected to Arasaka is when Liam Northam's guest at the Riot club mentions them, but implies that the edits could not be very significant. I suggest that AI's can manipulate engrams, and engrams can ( in effect ) corrupt their own data, but that when humans try to replicate this editing process it's unpredictable at best ( they do a pretty poor job on Jackie's engram ).
@@michaelcondron1304 I agree, the engram and relic system is, to us, too unknown to be sure.
This is why I always thought there should have been a merge ending. It even feels at one point like the writers had that in mind but edited it out for whatever reason (the game feels like a lot was cut from the story).
@@droe2570 That's not just a feeling, it's been confirmed by the dev team. About 30% of the initial game was left on the cutting room floor...including a more fleshed out friendship with Jackie, which was turned into the opening cinematics, and several side-stories and alternative plot points.
A merge option would have been interesting...but if I were to guess as to why it was cut; it would be far too close to a happy ending for V. Everybody wins....but also everyone loses...but from the player perspective, it feels like there's not really a whole lot of consequences for the choice.
I kinda feel like that's what the "Don't fear the Reaper" ending was supposed to be...but they chose to go with V going to the moon as an alternative instead. Which does leave the door open for V living on another day.
4:40 is exactly why we deserve to keep the body and keep living, no matter how short that time is
wait, what happened at 4:40?
@@HandsomeTez What you said at 4:40
Did not expect this today. If you follow the logic, the only "canon" ending is Don't Fear The Reaper and Temperance, since it's the one where nobody else dies so V can live-then chooses to give Johnny their body.
I don't know. But I do know that you left me with a lot to think about, which was your purpose, so you succeeded
@@arthuralford This assumes a short life isn't worth living. Johnny already lived his life, and was a worse person than V. Johnny even feels guilty living as V and has to see his/her face every time he looks in the mirror, as a reminder of his only true friend who undeservingly gave their life for his. Johnny doesn't tie up V's loose ends. All V's friends still think V is alive, and only Rogue knows it's Johnny, and even Rogue is mad at Johnny for it and hates him for taking V's body.
In most endings its implied V gets cured
In my mind, there's only one canonical life path and ending; Nomad.
The Nomad life path is the most fleshed out. You start off the game arriving in Night City, and only start "playing" after you raid Arasaka for the Relic. You then meet another Nomad clan and raid Arasaka, ending the game the same way you started.
The tarot card reading by Misty for V in the Nomad ending heavily implies that V keeps his body and Johnny leaves with Alt, as she says that V's future is bright and hopeful, while Johnny's is unknown.
My canonical ending for V is that he leaves with the Aldecados, gets a cure and has his happy ever after with Panam. It was already stated that Vic's meds post-Johnny were effective in lessening symptoms from the damage the Relic had already inflicted. Plus, given that the Relic is empty, the Relic would stop converting V's neurons to match Johnny's, halting any more progressive damage. The only thing V needed was a way to fix the damage the Relic already done. Once that was taken care of, V would no longer be dying and would return to full health.
@@PhrygianTurknot really, when v leaves with Panam she just says they’ll spend all the time trying to look for a cure but there is no way to cure v. When you raid the casino V (my V) argues with Judy about not wanting to talk about dying
@@joshuagraham4782 Nope. Mistys tarot card foreshadows it, in lore those nomads have the best chance of helping V and also the shard next to the basilisk basically confirms it
I think there's different endings to show what you actually think about the character V ,in a way you are also Johnny by being the player, if V is a character you like, you try to choose the path that keeps him/her alive "DLC", ..or the character V doesn't really exist and its actually you choosing your own ending in a way
Great point, choom! Thanks
@@HandsomeTez I really enjoyed you theory here it's fairly well thought out, and I certainly agree with you that journey is one of my favorite games.... And does a fairly good job of representing this cycle we call life and the fact that journey doesn't end just restarts... Supposes that we are a form of energy at the bare bones of it and that we just keep recycling.....
Waking up in a landfill feeling like I've been shot in the head used to happen to me every weekend. Thanks Tez, now I'm questioning my reality.
Well... It's time we had a talk.
Ha hah ha haaaa😂😂😂😂😂
We musta been going to the same bars buddy!
Really love this kind of deep dive into the symbology of this game! There's so much meat on the bones of Cyberpunk's story and setting that I don't see a ton of analysis on. The mapping of mountains and mythology onto Mikoshi and the Afterlife is so well thought out and might finally get me to try the Temperance ending after 4 playthroughs.
I love stories that challenge our belief of what the "best" ending is. I always took Dex's question as setting the goal of the story. Quiet life or blaze of glory....either way though V's story comes to an end.
A dead end.
I'll get my coat.
I believe we, as players, weren't meant to get attached to V, but to NC. In the end, V was another cog in the machine. Yes, they did some good for some people and some bad, but the world keeps spinning. Also, we can't separate the fact that 2077 was supposed to have GTA style online play originally. We would have made our own characters to be attached to.
Choom. NC has my heart, what a magnificent game world.
@@aolegion35 Edgerunners exemplifies this. David, like V has no chance of beating or conquering Night City, that is the point of NC. It's almost Lovecraft in nature, it's too vast and powerful to even have a real concerned to be altered in any meaningful way. The best anyone in NC can hope for is to leave on their own terms (usually by dying in infamy).
I don't think it's "usually" by death. Lots of world out there, I saw plenty of older people in NC. Just not a lot of old mercs. Eventually you become a corp or a fixer.
@@RM_VFX Joining soulless Corpo "life" IS death !
That's a bit of a weakness CDPR has, already in the witcher games. They give you all sorts of stuff to do, and pull you into a gripping story, but the main character never gets to LIVE in the world, to experience it as normal people experience life: a situation where you build towards lasting goals. My guess is the game was planned differently in the beginning: with all the gangs and corps and police there was probably the plan to let us actually play the part of the game that we only get to see in the montage that shows Jackie and V working together. Maybe with a reputation system, where you align yourself with a faction to specialise in a particular playstyle. I would have loved something like that, where we would have been allowed to put off starting into the ultimately deadly main story for as long as we like, but then get to play it without interruptions by weird events a person on a deathclock would never waste time on.
After Dexter kills V, a real person (you) is playing an AI character.
This. 100% is what FF06B5 is all about.
"The lane to the land of the dead. Where you are, my friend. Marie-France, my lady prepared this road but her lord choked her off before I could read the book of her days. Neuro from the nerves, the silver paths. Romancer. Neuromancer. I call up the dead. But no, my friend. " The boy avatar representation of the AI did a little dance, brown feet printing in the sand. " I am the dead and their land." -William Gibson's Neuromancer, the story which Cyberpunk and even Shadowrun are based upon.
I hadn't realized how profoundly similar ideas in the main plot of Cyberpunk 2077 were to the book till this video. Marie Francie, creator of Neuromancer was choked to death. Soburo who created Mikoshi (meaning "divine palanquin", a transport for vessels for deities in Shinto culture) suffered the same fate. Both were like an AI based afterlife. The main characters had a degraded neurological condition that at a certain point in the story creates a ticking bomb that they have to race to break into the AI based afterlife. Both are stories about an oncoming synthesis of two different minds, one of those minds desperately trying to fight off the synthesis. And ultimately... the attacked mind only has one true option to save itself, offer a digital afterlife alternative. Neuromancer offered case a way out of his condition, a whole new life, whatever life he wanted within itself. V was offered an alternative that would actually preserve her existence by Alt Cunningham. Escape to the net under her guidance. Possibly to be "devoured" by her, to join her. ("I am the dead, and their land.")
The difference is which minds were fusing. V and Johnny's. Johnny hating the process because it meant Arasaka made him into what he hated most, someone who devours another's individuality. He of course took half the plot of the story to realize this is always what he had done. It always was who he was and death did not change that. But Neuromancer the merging mind was an AI made just to do that. He did it, yearned for it because it was part of his purpose and was incomplete without Neuromancer's knowledge of humanity.
Gibson laid out some really solid foundations for the genre that fueled Pondsmith , really deep and philosophical stuff. Its on another level to general sci-fi because of this.
I actually hadn't made all the connections until you oultined them It was about 30 years ago I read it. Fascinating, thanks for the thought provoking input choom!
@@HandsomeTez One additional thought while pondering on this. Cyberpunk stories usually revolve around identity. I thought for years V was fighting for the right to choose who they are.
If we look at Neuromancer (the inspiration for the TTRPG btw) the story is about a being, Wintermute who was struggling to become what they should be (and Case was doing the same thing thinking on it) vs Neuromancer resisting what they should not become. The ending feels so soft and weird because ultimately now that Wintermute has become who it's supposed to be it's struggling with what that even means. Wintermute is reaching out to other beings of it's type in the galaxy to understand who it is, what it's identity even is.
Cyberpunk 2077 if you look at the endings this way has all equally solid endings. Take Jackie Wells example in the story to understand the V lives endings. Jackie learned of his own mortality, thereafter every job terrified him because he knew the bullet was coming one day. But he decided six months being who he wanted to be was better than a lifetime being someone he hated.
If V chooses six months to live that's the choice they made. It's not a wasted choice, it's not a bad end for everyone. V chose to be who they wanted to be, even if that meant they only got six months to live doing it. Notice that V lives those six months as a legend?
But if V gives over the body to Johnny? Johnny is forced to live a lifetime as the person he didn't want to be and working daily to forgive himself for it. That's why if V is in control to make the decision at the end Johnny gets so upset if V chooses to have him take the body. This is what it means. A lifetime being who he least wanted to be. V lives those six months is not necessarily the worst ending all things considered.
@@colonel__klink7548 totally agree. I rethink my opinion on this ending. Thanks!
Kudos for the clip of Holly from Red Dwarf.
Also I'd say even if V was V after the landfill, they were dead after "Not Alt" using soulkiller on them in Arasaka Tower. The engram is just a copy of the person's mind. But, similarly, Johnny isn't really Johnny either. So V is hit with Soulkiller, wiping their mind and making a copy of it. Then that copy is downloaded back into V's brain. So the V that wakes up from that is a copy of a copy. Or, if V gives Johnny the body, it's a copy of a copy of Johnny. Theoretically that could be accomplished while keeping the copy in cyberspace "alive" as well.
I like that, "not Alt"! But yup Soulkiller makes a mockery of this whole thing by bringing a whole other level of complexity.
@@HandsomeTez Yeah, the whole scifi trope of uploading your brain to the internet or into a robot always has that one big problem. It's a copy, not a transfer.
Similar problem also exists for Star Trek style transporters: You're being vaporized on one end then a clone of you is constructed on the other. The "you" on the origin end is dead. Kind of have to suspend disbelief on this kind of thing for the sake of the story, though.
I think the sticker on the car is honestly just symbolism that all paths lead to Mikoshi like Johnny says
could be!
I mean, V didn’t die though. The relic chip was always unable to work on previously deceased hosts. It might’ve kept him alive a little longer as a means of self-preservation but if he actually died the relic does as well.
I never feel comfortable with deep analyses of what story-creators 'meant' unless it comes from their own mouths. My slight acquaintance with such people has shown me that often these apparently complex and involved themes are simply a pattern we impose on something that originated deep in the subconscious creative chaos...just as in our own lives, we create our own meaning of what life, and art, actually _is_.
All that being said, this is a pretty fascinating analysis. One thing I'd point out is that people with severe brain injuries _can_ survive at a vegetative level for rather a long time, so to say that 'V was dead' seems more a figure of speech than a flat reality. But there are a lot of connections here that I never bothered to make... I never noticed the sticker on the Nomad car, and I never even realized that the Heavy Hearts Club [weird name when you think about it] pyramid echoed the appearance of Mikoshi [guess I'm just not a deep thinker...I never look for things like this]. The cat being a Sphinx does seem a pretty solid nod to Egyptian afterlife symbolism...but what about the other cats we find in downtown Night City and by the Pacifica rollercoaster? Maybe _this_ is overthinking... [What did the rollercoaster sequence, where V repairs the rollercoaster and rides it with Johnny in a moment of unforced, innocent enjoyment _really mean_? Does it mean anything...or was it just an amusing little surprise for us? Now that I think about it, was the Lizzy Wizzy performance at the Black Sapphire just a fun little gift for us, or did it have some far deeper, more profound meaning? And down the rabbithole we go again. Or is the symbolism there really obvious and I'm just dumb?]
Is the meaning of life, and art, the impulse to _search_ for meaning? Ohh....time for coffee... Good chat as always, Tez...you are an inspiration!
Yes, she had angel's wings and rose up during the song! I'm glad you spotted that. As always u bring some of the most interesting and insightful perspectives to these discussions! Awesome to read as always thanks buddy.
Everything you said buddy. That’s what art is about. It’s subjective and objective and perspective.
There's a scene in the movie Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield where he hires Kurt Vonnegut to write a review for his own book. He turns that review in as his own final paper to his literature class. The teacher then says to Rodney that whoever wrote that review knows nothing about Kurt Vonnegut. I always thought that was both hilarious and very true in that it shows how we push our own narrative into something based on what we want to see, finding meanings in the meaningless, magic in the mundane and vice versa, frequently missing the author's point altogether.
It's always important to get the author's input in order to understand these things.
I mean some of this is definitely thought provoking. But V and Johnny are fundamentally different. Johnny is a recording of a person from 50 years ago . V is not dead because Dex used a low caliber round. This has actually happened in real life where people have survived such assassination attempts with lowly 20th century medicine. The relic just repaired some of the damage. But the questions about existence and the spiritual side of things are definitely some of the more interesting aspects of the game.
I've I've provoked thought enough for a discussion with my chooms, that's all good!
Did you not see the size of the bullet that they pulled out of your head?? The necklace you get from misty is that bullet they dug out of your skull. That bullet isn’t tiny.
It was stated by a few characters that V was actually killed by the bullet. Helman mentions the relic itself was programmed to activate on a dead host, which is why V's death triggered it. The relic immediately started it's repairs on his body to make room for the engram.
@@Seddy22 V asks Vic when they are still alive. He responds a low caliber round, "yet another bad decisions by Mister DeShawn"
Uh Johnny is not a recording of a person from 50 years ago, anymore then you are a recording of your 5 year old self. People get confused about this because they believe continuity is required for existence, when nothing indicates that is actually the case.
Viktor explains this clearly in the game.
The bullet that "killed" V was small caliber.
So small caliber, in fact, that it didn't even leave her skull.
As Vik then gifts it to V as a momento.
The hard lapse in consciousness and temporary comatose state was enough to awaken the relic and cause it to reboot V, but it was V that crawled out of that trash heap.
It was too late, though.
The Relic continued to perform its intended function and began overwriting V's brain.
I dont think V died at the landfill or that'd defeat the purpose of that optional dialogue with Alt during V's first meeting with her in cyberspace, and would take away from the weight of getting killed by soulkiller later. Rather V died when they got fried at Mikoshi, and the V that came out of Arasaka after is no longer "alive" in a sense. Its just an Ai puppeted body much like if you let Johnny take it. So essentially no matter what choice was made whether V kept it or V lets Johnny take it, its all the same. The only outcome that would have let V "live" ironically was to let the relic do what it was supposed to do and let it change V's body and mind into Johnny's. Because although yes V would lose the core of what makes a person a person i.e their memories and self identity, it would've kept them "alive".
Its pretty funny that V pre Phantom liberty was just fated to die no matter what they did and the whole game post waking up from the landfill was really just some sad attempt to reclaim something that fate dictated. Even in the face in the crowd ending V died as well, but in a more figurative sense. They lived, sure but who they were and who they were supposed to be died on that operating table.
100% V Definitely got killed a second time at Mikoshi! There is so much too this choom, it's a very interesting topic.
not true. our brains change all the time, so in essence we die every day. the person of yesterday no longer exists. but we dont consider that death
The question if V got actually killed or not by Dex is irrelevant. What matters is that something got back to its feet that has a motivation to go on living as V, same as when you come out of Mikoshi. It may be wrong to think you can prolong your life by recording your personality and then letting that program run. The original human will still die. But the something that was created is also that human, because it sees itself as such.
@@Volkbrecht your understanding of physics and biology is very limited. there is no "original". make 1000 clones of you and they are all "you".
there is no soul and there is nothing special with life, being alive, consciousness, or being human.
Bottom line, CDPR writing staff is amazing and the team implementing the writing to gameplay and cutscenes is magic. Forget about visual fidelity, its the story and writing that this game shines in. Thats why people keep replaying it, it hits you in the feels when you play it, so rarely that happens with games nowadays.
Facts my choom, cold hard facts! AND now graphics across the board are so good is hands down the most important part of gaming now. Great story characters AND performance.
Brilliant video, made me think even more about how deep Cyberpunk is.
Thanks buddy.
Think of it like this the human brain is also just a piece of hardware as we're playing through the game V is perhaps the Ghost in the Shell. Because the chips protocol is to repair the brain in a manner that suits the new identity. Aka Johnny. Because in most cases at the end of the game it's lights out for V... V is the ghost in his own body, as the chip rewrites the brain to better suit Silverhand's personality... And turn silverhand is being reborn
Very interesting!
I’ve always thought that V was dead and this is all his or hers dying dream.
That’s why I am chasing said perfect runs!
Perfection often sought never obtained!
@@HandsomeTez it is a rather pleasant chase to be fair!
had a thought this morning on the fact that everytime you finish the game it returns to the last save before the point of no return, makes me think that that you have been dead the whole game but just reliving the memories of your life though mikoshi
Very interesting watch, for sure. Kudos on the vid, choom!
That said there are a couple of things I don't agree, and a different conclusion I came to, myself.
I don't think V remained dead. But I also don't think they remained themselves for terribly long. I don't think V was brain dead for too long. As soon as V dies, I believe the chip already started working its magic and restarting it.
That said... V and Johnny's situation loosely reminds me of DID(Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder). And one of the ways a "cure" of it could look like, is the merger of all alters(altered states of personality, people) into a singular personality. And this is precisely what is slowly happening throughout the game. (Keep in mind I'm not saying this is how the engram is supposed to work. But how it ends up working due to the unique situation of it being damaged and all.)
The "best" ending, if the game had it, would be to just let the relic to its work. What came out of it would be a complete merger of V and Johnny(The one in the engram. We don't know the extent the engram was modified/damaged. But that is definitively not Silverhand as he was). This way, a new persona would result from that, a cured one. V but not quite V. Johnny but not quite Johnny, with memories from both. No deadly illness, no loss of anything.
We see that every time they interact. Especially if they get along. Them becoming more like each other as time goes by.
But thanks to the headstrong nature of both of them, we don't get what - to me - would be the true happy ending. But no matter which ending we choose, what we get is not the V or the Jonny we started with. The merger was incomplete but it did happen to almost completion. So neither the person that remained in the body, nor the construct that went away with alt, is who we think. They're already too different from who they used to be.
It always felt to me as if the writers had originally a notion of a merger ending. Maybe I'm wrong, but the way you can respond to Johnny throughout the game made it feel like you were making choices that would lead to some possible merge ending. I don't know, the story feels very cut and edited. I think they took out a lot.
Interesting points all around, thanks for sharing your take!
An interesting philosophical approach with points I have not thought about, and I agree.
There are a couple more fitting things coming to my mind now:
- The Pacifica Delamain says something like "You´re still shuffling around a little, but your dead"
- Brendan, our beloved friendly S.C.S.M. mentions, when it comes to V, that he "can´t speak ill of the dead" and that you´re "a glitch in the system"
With over 1k hours in Night City I´ve seen and played all endings in various combinations (m and f Vs, different partners, etc.) and must say, that giving your body to Johnny and going with Alt is the ending that FELT most "right".
Damn! I'd completely forgotten that Delamain quote, and what Brendan says! Wow, well remembered.
I think the reason videos on the game's endings/comparing endings etc are so popular isn't because people want to get the best ending on a first playthrough (Although I'm sure some people want to) but from people who've beaten the game once and are curious about the other endings.
I know it is based on several of my comments in best ending videos. It's not an opinion.
Crazy theory! The more I play through the game & just take time to mess around & go off the beaten path I often wonder if the symbolism is intentional or just a by-product of the story changing so much in early development & those just being crumbs leftover from a part of the story they discarded. I really do think a ton of these questions were setup to be answered in a future dlc we'll never get. Like the answers were there but cut so they could plug in more ff06b5 style mysteries down the road. Cheers choombata!
Thank you for watching! :)
I wish they would have made an ending where V just doesn't go to Mikoshi and lets the relic run it's course, I mean the construct was becoming V if you listened to their dialogues they were melding together as one person and you see it in "Johnny's" ending he has the body but he is missing a part of himself and it's bothering him, in that ending he's not still trying to stick it to Arasaka he's just done and leaves NC. If V were there they would have been a living legend from back when and in 2077.
meanwhile if you purge the construct V is seen as a tumor in her own body that would not have happened if they had just let things play out continue being a merc and then V would not have noticed when she became he construct.
Well, you can argue about V being dead or alive after he got shot by Dex. I would say V is a walking dead but not dead yet. V surely dies in a moment he connects himself to Mikoshi. I think it's not consistent to make V "die" twice. I'm glad my first playthrough was with Nomad giving up body to Johnny, It was really tough for me to make right decision while Johnny convincing you to stick to the plan.
Good point about V being killed the moment he connects to Mikoshi choom! Alt uses Soulkiller on him. And yeah, the right decisions are always hardest
In my playthrhough I actually wrestled with the idea of this and even convinced Johnny to give up fighting and befriended him only to at last minute let him have the body for some reasons you said. Technically he died and was betrayed by Dex. Honestly I'm not even sure it's Johnny either but I think I recall him questioning that too in game. He and V imo are more a hybrid identity of a powerful a.i questioning existence and adapting in what was a camotose V body with last remnant desires and fears of both.
Me too
This second/last chance feeling is what drives me to make the side quests and act like a hero anytime I see yellow arrows above NPCs 😂
Cyberpunk 2077 is definitely a GTA-like but couldn't feel more different.
Great video! Personally, I've been under the belief that because there are multiple endings, especially because more were added after the DLC, none of them are canon. V is very special. He's able to load up on so much Cyberware and not go cyberpsycho. He's also able to go through the entire story without any cyberware except for the optics, and "able" to become the number 1 merc in history regardless of said cyberware. Proof being his canon victory against Smasher. The only things that are canon about V are the things that dont change regardless of your decisions. V dies, he's rebooted and has Johnny in his head. To me this means CDPR didn't give us a true ending to V's story, but instead an ending to 2077.
None are or all are. And that's why there will be no V in the sequel I guess.
I was kind to Johnny the whole time, (I can’t be a D word in games) and HE made the decision to sacrifice himself for V. Johnny made the decision for me.
Interesting.
I have always thought that V was an engram and not the original V from the end of Act One. However engram V has just as much right to exist as engram Johnny.
Interesting
@@HandsomeTez V's body suffered biological death. The human mind starts to fall apart immediately and the consciousness within it can be unrecoverable in less than five minutes. The time between V's death and revival by the Relic was more than enough to clean their grey matter completely. Whatever the Relic installed, it wasn't the original V.
Holy shit. Can’t believe i haven’t thought of it this way. Great video man wow
It's just a theory, but one that makes you think!
I just enjoy and love your content
2077 is the action game version of SOMA
interesting! I never got through SOMA, I must retry it.
Soma is great, thought provoking.
My first play through I chose my own choices, sans any guides, and wound up somehow fully becoming Johnny Silverhand, without even being given an option. It felt appropriate, seeing as how V always sort of felt like the ghost in the machine. I had legit died, and it was was only because of Johnny Silverhand’s engram that I returned to life.
As punch used to say, That's the way to do it!
I chose to give Johnny my body the first time through and was very disappointed when he did not continue to blow up Arasaka property.
An interesting point is the cards that misty lays out for V in the end credits for the temparence ending: "not good, like death but not exactly".
Great observation.
As for a "canon" ending, my personal idea is that "(Dont fear) the reaper" is the canon storming of Arasaka tower, and by the end of it V's body and mind is so tired and destroyed from the battle that Johnny kinda *has* to take the body for it to survive at all, let alone another few months leading to "New Dawn Fades"
And for the V you play as, while I think it's maybe that V just partially survived the gunshot and was put into an incredibly dangerous coma, slowly dying, it could also be the relic itself that brought back V. It was shown that V and Johnny saw eachothers memories, and perhaps V's memories imprinted onto the relic and the V we play as is Johnny's and the relic's version of V rather than actual V. Simply put, post Konpeki V is possibly just the memory of V imprinted into the body by Johnny and the relic. This may shed a little more light on why V wouldn't be able to properly live if he was disentangled from Johnny. Because it technically isn't his mind to begin with. He isn't fully within the brain, leaving room for Johnny to start rewriting.
So yeah NDF.
I love the casual Red Dwarf meme drop lol
Interesting video. On the subject of the cats(or cat if it is indeed a bakeneko) I've made it a side mission to note as many as I've been able to find and think about what that could mean. It is of course possible it means nothing, but I personally think it's unlikely given not only what is said about the animals dying out and then to have one or more sphynxes appear before us at several points throughout our journey. Death walks in our wake after all.
One bakeneko sighting I only recently noticed is during the first meeting with Oda, there in the background while talking to Takemura it sits in the shadows on top of a wrecked car if I remember it correctly. At that point I knew about the bakeneko conversation down the line, and thought; "huh, that could be a sign perhaps". If you then go to Misty to have her lay your tarot, and excuse me if part of this is difficult to replicate I simply do not know when the different triggers occur for the outcomes. If/when she draws the hierophant (which you find at the meeting place with Takemura and Oda) Misty will point out that this is a particularly dangerous card and caution us not to listen to it's human counterpart. And if Takemura is the hierophant, which I think is the likely symbolism then his promises are not to be trusted. The bakeneko could simply be there to warn us of the doom that awaits us if we put our trust in Takemura.
If you want to look further still, in tarot apparently the sphinx represents duality and opposites and being pulled in different directions. Having to navigate that to find your own way or balance. This would potentially mean that Takemura might not be the focus here but rather just another pull for us to take into account when finding our way.
very interesting choom!
My first play through I got the "bad ending" signing away V to secure your soul. At the time I didn't think it was a bad ending and thought it was interesting as, as you said, it leaves it open for V to return as an engram like Johnny did some time in the future. People say it's the bad ending, but I still prefer that ending tbh rather than a simple story of living and getting the girl and disappearing.
Isn't the bad ending eating a Bllt?
after playing since launch, after tons of playthroughs, after ff06b5 brainroot and everything this game has to offer, I can say you made a great video about whole story and motives in the game
The FF06B5 Brainrot is real! Thnaks buddy.
At the end of my first playthrough of Cyberpunk all the way back a month after the game came out, I went for the raid of Arasaka Tower with Rogue and then gave V's body to Johnny, It felt right after doing the reunion concert and other Johnny centric quests. V could only get 6 months while Johnny, or rather this engram of Johnny, gets to live a whole new life after having Saburo rip his away while fighting for revenge, consumed by rage. You as V have to ability to help Johnny mend his wrongs and start anew or cling on to V's dying body trying again to do a crazy heist or roam the wastes. To me at least Johnny keeping V's body is the canon ending, by the end of the game V is the engram in a foreign body.
Raiding that tower is something else right?! Awesome run.
I’m at 9:25 right now and I am hoping you will be the first creator (to my knowledge, that comments on how inside Arasaka tower looks like Mikoshi. With a black wall representation and everything.
Buckle up buddy, there's a freight train of disappointment heading straight for you and the breaks are out.
@@HandsomeTez I mean, I thought the video was great. No disappointment here!
An interesting concept but because the game has multiple starts I also see it as having multiple ending with specific endings being the best for each start to complete a narrative arc . The nomad that abandons his family to live in the big city only to find comfort in a new nomad clan, the street kid that goes on to commit the ultimate job and become a legend among legends, and the hotshot corpo that falls from grace and eventually stripped of every vestiges of power or influence in a city that has long forgotten them.
I love this alignment, I think it makes perfect sense!
I agree with the commenters that say that V wasn't beyond repair. If he was, the Arasaka chip wouldn't have been able to fix him. What I do think is that Johnny and Alt are playing head-games with V in hopes that he/she will just shut up and die so Johnny can come back. Neural pathways are neutral as far as I know - they simply connect the pieces of the brain that regulate body function, thoughts, and emotions. I think what probably happened is the body started to lose connection with the brain because his brain was inactive for 4 minutes.
I also remember that Arasaka implanted functions to actually fight the original body's owner so the new person could easily take over the body. It restores the function, but it also attempts to reprogram the brain. It's most likely hard for Viktor to help because the nanomachines (think 1 millionth of a meter) are constantly attacking the brain as the person regains function, similar to how lupus attacks the healthy cells in the body. Human willpower is way stronger than we give it credit for. It would take a genius engineer of that Swedish doctor's caliber, and dozens of counter-nanites to make the problem go away. The main reason nobody wants to try counter-nanites is because they don't wanna piss off Arasaka.
Soulkiller is probably the cruelest thing you can do to a human being. Dr. Mengele and Himmler, as cruel as they were, don't even match up to that level of evil. The original purpose of the public version was so instead of just killing their opposition, they could study their way of thinking and form new strategies.
, 💯
Absolutely deep, insightful commentary. This game is brilliant and so re-playable. CDPR really cooked up a masterpiece; DLC included. And thanks for the tip about Journey. Never heard of it, but downloading now.
Hell yeah, it's peak! as the kids say. I'm probably using that incorrectly though knowing me...
"Brilliant" would be too much said. It's actually pretty bad from the story design, and the world is rather inconsistent, too. It's just that CDPR throws so much stuff at the player that one only realises that at a second or third playthrough. When you start to think like a person to which this stuff has happened, it's unclear how V would ever waste so much time. Some of the best sidequests are also the ones I'd never do if I had to live through the situation for real, like the whole Peralez affair.
I'm one of those people who didn't know what is typical of the 'punk' story type, was ultimately dbummed out at the vanilla game's ending and so wonder if I should ever touch a 'punk' game again, including the sequel because I don't like being depressed.
Phantom Liberty seems like a response to people like me (though I didn't do this personally) complaining about V's inevitable death, and given how we can complete it and cure her before finishing the main plot, what would be the point with the main plot? It would make more sense to me if they had Broken Steel'd the post-credits so we continued the save file and THEN got access to the DLC - one last mission where you finally find what you need.
One thing I spun in my head when starting a new save to try what happens when you side with Dex, was that HE wouldn't kill you, but you had to die on your own for the reboot to happen and Takemura would come pick you up wherever you died and the game would contin ue as normal. Ergo, I thought, Dex shot you because he thought you'd screw him over by working with Emily, whether you told him before the heist or not, and not because he traitorous scum himself. May not be the grandest choice ever but I like that mixes things up ever so slightly, and that reactions were made to a previous choice.
What was the point of going to the space station, again?
You can't really "unresurrect" after resurrecting. Had Jesus only ascended his spirit, like he did on the cross, people likely would've commented that he'd died again because of his limp corpse on the ground, and they'd just as likely be right.
I much prefer this theory that V died at Dexter DeShawn's hand in the hotel, and whatever we play as for the rest is the shell in which two things are fighting for control, except V doesn't really exist anymore. Makes the game much less personable, though.
You're one of them huh!? :D
Good video, I never noticed that sticker. One interesting thing is that Mikoshi isn't a pyramid, it is a ziggurat. Similar looking structures, but ziggurats have a platform at the top accessed from the outside and usually house a shrine at the top in a place that connects us to the domain of the gods. Mesopotamian ziggurats held a shrine to the god at the top where they were supposed to physically dwell, attended by their priests. South American ziggurats held a shrine at the summit where worshippers would offer sacrifices to their gods, though I know a lot less about these in all honesty. Pyramids also have a different purpose in that they are the resting place for a pharaoh's body, and contain all the things needed to guide their soul back to their body alongside things they may need in the 'afterlife' as they believed they would rise again and their body would be inhabited by their spirit once more. Either interpretation could be relevant imo, not saying the pyramid is incorrect, but they definitely have different and interesting connotations.
Really good point about the ziggurat! Shoulda known that considering my favourite online Quake map was Ziggurat Vetigo!
Great existential video, excellent coverage on the various themes & I love the historical/mythos referenced.
This is almost like M Night Shyamalan Cyberpunk... with a twist! V is dead to begin with. Love it! 😅 As Judy puts it, "walking talking corpses" aka "I see dead people"
To answer the question 15:36 I believe V has as much right to their body as before the heist, if not for this J-O-B as Jackie says (essentially Relic Johnny), they'd both be alive still.
Doing business with DexSUS Christ is a deal with the devil after all, as with the Voodoo Boys, you're more likely to end up dead as a matter of business practice.
This brings up a thought I've had in the past, "who was Yorinobu intending on using this Relic on?" and "did he secretly plan the heist to get a pawn?" 🤔
Who's really to blame here? Johnny the nefarious engram, Yorinobu the secretive hero, DexSUS the greedy trigger finger who likely wouldn't have paid them expecting their demise.
Or really is V to blame? Ambition, greed, hubris... are we truly in control of our lives?
As the Oracle says in the Matrix, our path is predefined, we only see roadblocks, the choices we've already made, which strands we follow down the rabbit hole... are we defined by our nature?
Cyberpunk was a very well written story, with few plot holes... either due to limitations from crunch time/changes in development, or they player choosing a path which is 'optional' yet not canon.
You brought up a lot of interesting points, and raised some questions I'm sure many of us have thought or maybe never considered.
This reply was much longer than I intended or thought I'd write as I didn't give any of this as much thought as your wonderful video has. 😅
Plot twist. There is no game, you're all just figments of my imagination!
Love that oracle dialogue in the Matrix.
Kudos for the Holly reference you earned my "like"'...
sooooo many holes, but will point out the first most glaring one. many people have survived being shot point blank in the head, some with deformities, some with memory issues and/or nerve damages, some of them without ANY problems. and this does include some that were knocked out for many many hours or days. it would require a certain amount of luck. attributing any injury to the head as being lethal means brain surgery would be impossible.
not saying that this theory isnt possible, but one would have to make assumptions and leaps of faith on almost all "theories" in a game unless from direct acknowledgement by the creative developers. but even that can be tricky as game companies, TV/Movie producers, and book writers leaned into theories in order to hype sales and then later to find out it wasnt true or the intention.
this also makes the game best to be filled in by the individual playing it, let them experience the story with just enough holes for them to let their imagination create their best world. there are sooo many theories to this whole game, and I think its great. but they cant all be co-existing even tho most of them have evidence (note: NOT PROOF) of their probability.
So many holes? Yeah in V's head.
I think you have it right Tez. I think everything after the heist goes sideways is a the last bit of V's consciousness trying to come to terms with the end of not only their live but Jackie's life. It always struck me that if the Relic had the ability to do what it did for V, it should have done it for Jackie. It did not. So in my mind, as V lays on the floor of the No Tell Motel dying from being shot in the head, everything that comes afterwards is their life flashing before their eyes.
I guess Jackie took it out just before he died, he'd been in the same boat as V otherwise. His actions saved us from instant death and gave us a period of time to redeem ourselves.
The relic overriding the brain was a glitch and not intended. It was a result of hardware damage. This is why the Relic causes V to glitch out. The chip is damaged beyond repair and is dumping all available information into V's head.
The game should of had more options, one where V and Johnny were separated, one where Johnny takes over and V would be the ghost in Johnny’s head, or even using the delemain ai and the black wall ai to help Johnny and V hide in the network to be able to go back out probably years later
I guess they had to draw a line somewhere. Even if they added all of those, many people would still say it's not enough if an option they wanted wasn't catered for. Sometimes you gotta put down your brush and call it a day.
It wouldn't be bad writing for V to get cured. The technomancers Panam wanted to go to for help are so good they even have Arasaka coming to them for help, so it's very believable they can cure V.
You could argue it would take away from the themes, but actually it would just shoft to be more focused on hope and faith. V is running on faith the whole time. That final decision to go back to her body is just as much an act of faith as leaving with Alt. V is only 23. Johnny died at 34. Even Johnny gives props to V for being a much better person despite having 10 years less experience.
Although it might not be the right ending, it is the more hopeful ending. V and Mr Blue Eyes stand more vhance of making the world a better place. Arasaka is left in shambles and the girl who did that to them is still alive and ready to tango. With the support of Mr Blue Eyes, V could potentially be a positive change for the entire world within those last 6 months. But since this is the cyberpunk genre, that's might actually be too happy and ending to be canon
Bad is possibly unfair. Lazy is more what I mean like the old Dallas trope of "It was all a dream". It's just a cop out to do that. It takes the weight and gravitas out of the original dilemma.
cyberpunk 2 should be about a new up and coming street kid stuck with a mental copy of V in their head after V had cemented themselves as a legend. it should also add 3 more lifepaths to the starter character creation screen to mirror the six original cyberpunk TTRPG classes, solo, copper, punk, reporter, enforcer and fixer. this would allow the multiple endings, aswell as other rpg mechanics to flourish and be more acceptable to the player when they get to decide exactly who the new protag is from the start. alternatively for cp2, id also take a story about johnny using Vs body, with V being the dying engram inside johnnys new body.
Interesting
I'm posting this mid video before I forget my thoughts.
I personally subscribe to the theory that V actually did die, but the relic accidentally brought us back to life.
From what it looks like, the relic, when inserted, was intended to override one's consciousness with a copy of someone else's. Hence, why soul killer exists, to kill/wipe the previous host. Making a brain-dead vegetable to which you can imagine as a pc with no os. The relic uploads a copy of someone's ghost, and the pc eventually accepts the new os. When v died with the relic inside of him, it fried the relic, prompting it to try a corrupted system restore, which brought V back. The resulting game is the relic trying to install a new os on top of a broken os. We can see this when both Johnny and Vi realize they're controlling the same body when Johnny first appears. Furthermore , even if we get rid of Johnny, we're only getting a couple of months to half a year. You can't trick a body that still has memories of its death.
Interesting.
3:20 I enjoy doing it that way the most. In fact I make a point to play my first run through an RPG (Skyrim, this, Deus Ex, what have you) making all the decisions I as a player would make. Then I'll get goofy with it in subsequent playthroughs.
you do you!
In shintoism a mikoshi is like a spirit box used to transport spirits so that's another thing to think about
Thanks for sharing - I had no idea. But this is definitely the reference Mikoshi is alluding to with its name, being the repository of all the engrams.
@voxbury i love the voice actors for V, I think what'd be cool if they just came outta mikoshi and start over in a new body, new implants
Great addition, interesting!
best clip in yt 2024-2077
Aw thanks!
Just looking trough the tech stuff in cyberpunk. Im a 100% sure how the time of the brain is at least 6 or 8 times longer than at a normal pearcon now. Like come on they have personal link and basic tech sht installed in them already. But thats a posibility too how actualy. its not even rebooted her/his brain. Just scraped the last avilable memories of both to create a new porsen(more like a comfortable body) for the new host. Jhony even tell us when we wisit his "grave" how its getting kinda comfortable to him to be in our head. Plus from the things we get to know about the relics. Its rebuilding the brain and the intact cells looks like cancer to it. I think the nanites started to work as soon as V got the shot and started to prepaer the brain for the construct change. That could be even the reason why they cant just yoink it out. (at this next one im maybe wrong but) but in the new dlc if i recal correctly the have to do neuro surgery to disconnect the relic and be able to remove it and this makes me asume and gives me a some sort of steady placement how V is truly dead and the reason he/she came back is to make the constract full and preapre the body fully to it. Plus if i recall correctly im not sure about the canon ending becouse originaly V's persone would have faded by itself anyway at least according to Vik at the start. But please dont judge me. Im just guessing as well and cant wait for the 2nd game to be anounced and reveald hoping to get some awnsers to all this.
Memento Mori.. Remember that you (must) die.. it's a reminder of the inevitability of death..
I've played this game once. ONLY once. Made a Corpo stealth hacker, taking nonlethal KOs where I could, otherwise using my hacking skills to get through a mission without anyone ever seeing me. Killed when I had to, but not an assassin -- meaning I passed on certain fixer jobs because they wanted me to do things that MY V wouldn't do. If I messed up a job, if an NPC got killed or I got a "bad" ending to something, oh well, that's the result of the choices I made.
And I got THIS ending, the one where Johnny takes over. I found out AFTERWARD that it was the super secret ending that requires very specific actions. I didn't even KNOW it was secret, I just made the choices that made sense for my mental image of V. So unlike 90% of players, I got that ending organically. And I have no intention of chasing after alternate endings, that was my story and I'm not asking for a rewrite.
Just once? Me too. lol j/k
I think the entire game is a brain dance within the Cyberpunk world that we are experiencing. A brain dance that is the story of V, a Night City Legend.
Love this theory
@@HandsomeTez Yeah, a buddy of mine (who got me into Cyber Punk) came up with this theory, based on how the user interface and stuff operates in game.
I am really glad im not the only one! I picked up on a huge metaphor of a multicultural and multi-religion form of weighing ones soul at the point of passing. The universe has characters that require some labels and i see them. The creator. Bartmoss. He gave existance to afterlife within the net. A god. Treated as such by runners. His closest followers. Lucy, alt cunningham? Arch-angels. Alt more so and in the game, the only entity to take that title. Johnny. A human soul trapped in hell(mikoshi) he literally possesses your body as a demon would. He is meant to deceive and does but given a chance to remember humanity meaning a second chance to be freed of the evil purpose of soul killer. The end game decision could free him from his evil purpose or be consumed back into afterlife but free. Alt guides souls to guide conscience into ascension into a collective peace. Saburo is the dominant engram with hell(mikoshi) which is his kingdom by design. He is the devil(ending?) so mi is interesting. Serves as a jesus figure before resurrection. sacrificed everything for peace away from a false king(meyers) bent on war. Her death or escape saves humanity. As she crosses over into the blackwall as a final sacrifice, what stands ine way of humanity reclaiming so mi? Cerberus!
Who are the solos but heroes like hrrcules and achilles.
A consequential decision is made to entrap a rabid ai onto a wespon. A means to feed souls through malice intent. A decision criticized by your guide, alt.
This leaves v. I believe a version of a jv during revelations. Reed is judas.
After ur trials, you are rewarded a choice. Take the afterlife(not the bar) life. Let johnny go to earn his place q you.. thats the conclusion i camevup with
Well, I never thought of it like this!
we are all "temporary visitors" while V does die, it is still V's body, the chip is a tool, jhonny doesn't bring you back, the chip does by fixing the damages. V's body wasn't beyond saving because the chip clearly does with its advanced technology. Jhonny is just a digital copy of what used to be a real person, his mind didn't get transferred, it got copied. V is still a real person not just a copy and has a claim over their own body.
Jhonny is as much a prisoner to the chip as V is since none of the two control it or understand it.
The only moment where I am willing to say V is dead is in the ending where his concioness is copied into mikoshi, at that point both V and jhonny are copies but still the body did used to belong to someone and it sure as hell wasn't any version of Jhonny's. Realistically both jhonny and V should've crossed the digital wall together as friends into the unknown and maybe get put into bodies in the future. Both should've let go, but still the only options available to you is some version of one of them clinging to the body or being forced into it.
We are indeed all temporary visitors. Until they build the Matrix.
I think this is quite the theory, and I could honestly agree with most of if not all of your points in this video. Cats in general were essentially worshipped as gods and supposed to act as guardians and such if I remember correctly, so that was interesting to hear about and see in SP 2077 but since when was there a spinx? I swear more stuff is constantly being added....Anyways, I can totally believe that V wasn't a person but simply a spirit clinging to its body. And I'm totally going to share this video with my best friend.
Thank you, and sorry for causing confusion, the cat you see repeatedly in the game (including nibbles) is a Sphynx also known as a Canadian Sphynx.
Oh no, I get that. There wasn't any confusion about the cats, I just brought up cats since you brought up the ancient Egyptian beliefs. All cats were worshipped and held in highest of esteem. But Hairless cats were probably the most superior of them all. Over all I loved your video man, it was a great theory and I only skipped over the part about Journey since I've never played that. But otherwise I watched through until the end and you had some great points. I hope I can see more like this, I'll totally subscribe to you.
Great video! For me, the story of Cyberpunk wasn't about V surviving, but Johnny getting a chance to revisit this life, try to correct pass wrongs, come to terms with his death and finally move on; while V stay behind to continue fighting for his own life and hopefully make right his own wrongs.
Great point, and I agree, it had a lot to do with that. EDIT: By the way I like your MAX avatar. The original Sam & Max game was one of my favourite LucasArts games as a teenager. Right up there with Grim Fandango and Day of The Tentacle.
@@HandsomeTez Thank you for the kind words. Those were fantastic games, from a bygone era, one I'm still nostalgic for :)
I gave Johnny my body on my first playthrough 💜 honestly, my best playthrough.
theres an ending at the end of phantom liberty that allows v a cure and a 2 year coma but loses the ability to use most cyber wear.
Is there?
@StuGamePlus yeah there is so there is one more that wasn't covered so in my opinion the two best endings are Johnny gets v's body and the other one is v gets cured and gets to live a full life, even if it is as a common nobody.
Just like there are multiple deaths, multiple Vs male and female with different life paths, there are multiple ways V could return. From beyond the blackwall, or by surviving a bit longer than Alt expected, or by some new experimental tech that repairs the damage that keeps V from using cyberware. Johnny is still out there in some form as well. No telling how or if some or most of the principals could return, or if we'll start next game as "Z."
But how is Johnny any different than V, who after Mikoshi is also an engram? You could say she's also reborn in her own body, and going back doesn't kill Johnny. He continues on with Alt. In that ending he doesn't take any sympathy from you, tells you to shut up and go back. I don't think he was exactly "born" in V's body, he's already in the relic, and says something like he's already been in cyberspace from before they met, so he can survive behind the blackwall better than V. Anyway, especially if you were a female V, would you really trust the guy having free run of your body? Kind of gross to think about. 😂 And I find his ending kind of lame anyway... not just because V goes away, his existence is kind of sad and boring, unlike the ones where V gets their second chance for a short time, to live out an existence with a new family, or go out in a blaze of glory.
Thanks!
4:09 personally I think when people search “what is the best ending for xyz game” they really just want to know what all the endings are and then they pick the one they think is best. I know I got the really depressing space station ending on accident in my first play through.
That's an assumption.
I actually thought that V was dead at the very beginning when they get shot, everything after that was a death moment dream as the chip overwrites her brain.
Could be!
V gets to experience a buddhist awakening with the Zen Master, When the Zen Master leaves, V gets a shard on the teachings of the temple and a wildly weird/interesting real book called Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson.
Teachings stands out to me:
"The welcome truth that Sleep and Death are Twin Sisters, beneficent, healing and vivifying, is gradually making its way through the scientific as well as the religious world, bearing on its winos faith and trust in the fundamental lays of life which underlie all phenomena, and casting down forever the great Moloch of fear which stands at the gate of all men's minds, ready to devour each child of hope which has been conceived and born in the joy of life.
--------------------
Time and Space are annihilated in dream life because of the rapid action of the energy of mind when freed from bonds of matter ; and life in a state of dream is a foretaste of what life may be when the coarser grades of matter which now hold the embryonic God-man in bondage are refined ; and the energy which now must act under all the difficulties man has ignorantly thrown up by unnatural, unwise methods and practices, through countless incarnations, will then be guided and controlled by the higher or Spiritual will of man, for the perfecting of a body as much superior to the bodies of the present races of mankind as the latter are superior to those of the animal creation.
"
Death of V was a healing moment for V, a chance to cast out fear and live their life to their ultimate brightest. I think the 2nd stanza is advocating for V to shed the mortal coil and be free from the bonds of matter.
So perhaps more evidence for your suppositions.
Interesting touch on the matter.
thx for a little food for thought.
I like a little light mental snack too!
Don't Fear the Reaper into Temperance is the best outcome anyone can hope for.
Journey...that is a vary special game to anyone should try at least once. Hopefully having it never spoiled.
I had to play the game 3 times before I was satisfied.
One I was blind like everyone else. Just blindly going with the flow.
Twice I traveled to seek all that the journey had to offer
Third I acted like a guide and showed a new player all that journey had to offer and being them to my level.
That was the last time I played and in my end my hope was one I guided would also journey again and show someone else all there was
I've noticed people doing that, my son played it when he was about 7, and on one run I noticed he had a companion in the white outfit guiding him and bringing. At one point my son said "friend" he was still pre-verbal (he's severely autistic) at that time so it was a special moment for us all. That person will never know what a gift their couple of hours of companionship gave him and us. Tearing up just thinking about it. Who knows, maybe it was you. Either way I agree, it's an absolute play. Thanks for sharing.
I do believe handing over your body to Johnny is canon. V’s whole arc is coming to terms with the fact that he died and making use of his time prior to Mikoshi, and then moving on.
Gotta be.
I am willing to bet I am one of the few that chose my particular ending as their first ending, and even more, I bet most people never chose this option.
This body may not be mine any longer, but it is not Johnny's AI body either, so believing that neither of us deserved the body, I committed suicide so I could go out on my own terms. I then replayed before I saw one of the "true endings"
Also remember the meaning of life is 42 or a mistake!
My very first playthrough... Ended it on the roof. Seemed like the lease option for collateral damage. Damn it felt bad.
When i finished the game I had the same feeling, but i don't think it is completely there. I think the devs probably had more planned for endings and what we got is lacking a clear vision.
Cuz leaving the aldecados hanging is kind of a dick move, and if jonny raids arasaka, him taking the body is also one. So the only ending that is more appropriate to temperance is when you raid arasaka alone, and it's an ending most won't encounter.
There's an ending that i always found weird it's missing, and it's just letting go and letting the relic overwrite you with jonny. Guess it would be even less anti climatic than suicide, and that's why it's not in the game.
"You think you have cheated death? No. It is death who has cheated you. You will come to understand this inside Mikoshi"
-Alt Cunningham
Alt with the bangers.
Well she would know wouldn't she, the exact same thing happened to her and it was also as a result of Johnny.
i reeeally appreciate the Red Dwarf appearance, Stu, lol.
anyway, i myself was hoping for a more "chappie" ending of a sorts. like, have Alt copy V as they currently are, new smoking habits and all, let Johnny take the body, and V gets moved onto a chip that johnny can just plug in and play mind-swap as much as they want.
That would be awesome!
I chose the sun ending because I liked the thought of Johnny combining with Alt at the end so they can be together.
I like this viewpoint!
Reaching a bit for me. It is a role playing game, hence the multiple endings. If you want to believe you are dead from the beginning, go for it. The Relic is partly organic though and could have kept our brain functioning till Takemura finds us. Hellman also mentions that Johnny may be influencing our thinking and decisions, but this is moot since we are playing and can choose his way or our way. To many options to be specific about whats happening in the game. Alt would also know if we were already dead, yet she still makes the effort to split Johnny and V apart. Yes I'm babbling.....
That's cool choom!
i actually came to a similar conclusion on my last playthrough, whatever awakon after V got shot in the head isn't really V, its more like a zombie that has both memories from V and jhonny, with the engram slowly but surely converting the zombie into jhonny
The more you play, the more it makes sense right? I'm not completely sold on it either way, but it's an interesting concept. I still think NDF is the right ending though. So many people are vehemently against this concept and trying to get all snotty about it, it's genuinely refreshing to dig up a pleasant comment like this among the walls of text explaining how V survived the gunshot and how it couldn't possibly be this and how V has to ride off into the sunset with his or her main squeeze. People get very defensive when their set-in-stone ideas and parasitical attachments are challenged. So. In short, thanks.
@@HandsomeTez i find it more tragic and romantic that V's pretty much gone and we are playing as something else not entirely human but also not jhonny at least in the beginning, also V gets hit way too hard with the EMP on panam mission, somehow manages to survive several deadly braindances so its clear V's no longer human
You seem to link soul and memories and they are 2 seperate things! Also, due to the implants, it is possible that the brain don't start to die within 3 minutes.
Some people were ressurected after hours of CPR without any memory loss. Some people are maintained in life with CPR and stabilize within 10 to 30 min, and have some memory losses. Also, some people survive a shot in the head without any loss of ability or memory, it has happened. With that known, it is possible that V's brain is almost fine. Some implants extend some body part life, then the relic kick back the heart in some ways and boost the coagulant function of the blood. V is only still alive after Viktor's surgeries. The relic without outside help wouldn't have save V's body.
That's some medical's "miracles" that happened IRL "everyday". (seems a miracle but it's not, don't put any form of faith in it // it's not everyday that somebody is hurt this bad and yet not enough to be able to survive with the correct care and surgeries)
The fact that the relic reform some body parts is unclear.
Does some broken part of the relic reconnect to itself through the nervous system and allow johnny to "come out", therefore protect in some way form cyberpsychosis (especially in v1.6, didn't play much after the DLC in v2.0, I didn't like the change of gameplay), and allow V to sync with johnny body mouvement and gain extra knowledge and sense, as johnny look elsewere, listen to another thing than V and alert V about, a more direct sixth sense of sort.
Without takamura and Delamain (don't forget him), V was going to die, it's a fact, Relic or not, form exhaustion, blood loss and heat stroke, or crush by another deposit of trash.
It was weeks of care in vik's clinic that stabilize and save V.
The car's chase with takamura: adrenaline rush.
And that's only the technical part of it.
the philosophical part ot it:
As long as we have YOURS memories, you are you. V is still V, and the engram of johnny is the edited version of silverhand, what he wanted to be, but was not for some reasons, some more obvious than others.
I think CDPR had the egyptian theme because of Misty and the tarot cards, to allow philosophical discussion, which is a part of the cyberpunk genre.
I do? What made you draw that conclusion. Also I believe I said 6 minutes...
Misty reads V's tarot cards after going with Alt, and Misty says V's cards show he's had a fate WORSE than death. It's surprising you didn't mention that.
Interesting point!
I've done multiple playthroughs and have explored every path. But not once have I met Jackie on the roof. How does that happen?
Give his body to Vik. Arasaka nab his body and the rest is history.
@@HandsomeTez I'm not enough of a monster to ever not send the body to Mama Welles. But nice ti know. 🙂
I'm totally on board with your theory, but then I started wondering. Counting phantom liberty, we have 3 endings to go with 3 starts. What if we only have that sticker in the nomad start because for that start, giving the body to John is the cannon ending and we just have to connect the dots for the other two starts to the other two endings?
I've been informed it's in other places too. But I like your theory.
The only real issue is asking such things that could lead to a deep search of many things, for the YT comments section that's censored to hell and back.
I hear ya. Sometimes a little soul searching is fine but look too deep and the abyss will stare back.
about the multiple endings part:
people looking for best ending is a whole other can of worms on par with questions of existence
multiple endings in itself is not a problem, as you said, you just play and get the ending that is consequences of your choices
people want to get the best ending due to fear of doing something- anything- wrong
it's tricky to know what people are looking for without projecting unless you're in their heads or ask them directly. I'm actually going by evidence of comments from my "Best ending" videos.