Endings left me feeling bad

[Mathalis]

Man, I know the Cyberpunk theme tends to be most people die, so even surviving is a win, but all my friends abandoning me or changing, Panam completely ignoring you, and being left so weak you might as well be an NPC is just brutal for an ending.

I think I prefer the vanilla ending where I rode off into the sunset with the nomads and Panam and the hope that I might find a cure over being cured and loosing everything.

I wish they would have at least acknowledged more of your accomplishments. I mean I had 800k credits, all the apartments, tons of resources. You'd think some of that would at least leave you not quite so helpless.

If the devs keep making these games, they need to understand most gamers want a truly good ending.

[UnlivingEnd]

That’s just how the cyberpunk franchise is. It likes to hammer home that no matter how successful or powerful you are, the player is still just a person like any other. They’re just one small part of an infinitely bigger world. No matter how high they rise, that fact never changes.

[Keith 'Blood' Hanson]

Yuuuup. I know that narratively this ending fits perfectly into the cyberpunk style, but...Honestly maybe flesh out or tweak one of the base game endings...?

Okay, let me try and boil my issue with the ending: For a three hour show? Sure, 100% go for this kinda ending. Or a shorter game. For me, this is a long game, where you spend a lot of time with the characters, they take up a lot more...space in your brain. The NPCs were a *huge* part of the main game, and to release most likely your final DLC/story content for *years* is an ending that goes 'Oh, all those people didn't matter!' ...Sucks.

But I *understand* the new ending, and it does fit. I'm not saying 'this should've been in the base game!' because that undermines all the work that went into this DLC, but...It would've felt more 'proper' if it had happened in a game that wasn't three years old. Mass Effect got a Citadel DLC, we want *that* at this juncture. Not...uhh...This one.

[CorwynCorey]

Then maybe you are playing the wrong type of games?
This is Cyberpunk... where even when you win, you lose. Your "successes" do get acknowledged on most endings... you are the top dog of the entire runner ecology. Lots of money, fame, and yeah, you are dying with nothing to save you.

So one ending is about going away with your love... but still, 6 months to live, dying and deteriorating the whole time.. The rest are about staying put... and still, 6 months.

Keep in mind, you already died. You blew it. Entered the big leagues, and had your head ventilated. The entire game is a denouement... there is never a happily ever after for walking corpses.

And, while none of us loved how the game first launched, it was never a problem with the story that people had. The story was loved. Makes you definitely in the minority here, because the entire theme of the game revolves around style over substance. How do you choose to fall? Do you go out with a flash and an explosion that no one ever forgets... or whimpering and begging for life?

You are asked that, directly and indirectly several times.

Maybe you missed the actual point of it all?

[Cowskier]

Apartments? Eddies? Cars? Even while the pharaohs were buried in enormous pyramids in chambers filled with gold, they still went to the afterlife just the same as their slaves. V's fate is death, as is everyone's, the question is not if V can live forever, it is how well they spent their remaining time and what their legacy is

[Perditus Paradisus]

To be honest, I like it better with no good endings in the game. That is too overseen.

CDPR did a fantastic job writing CP2077's story... no matter your choice, you'll always have a bitter taste and that's what makes the CP2077 story unique compared to any other.

[Keith 'Blood' Hanson]

To anyone saying 'That's the point' of the Cyberpunk style of storyline, let me tweak it with this: If Songbird can get to go live on the Moon, why can't I? Moon Ending, give it to us.

x;D Seriously though, I think I'm fine with the base games endings...I just wish the DLC had more...follow through? Was peppered in more interactions (We CHOSE the people, give us more of them then). It does give more context with the Sun ending, at least. The man with blue eyes probably does indeed have a way to cure you in that ending.

[Zero McDol]

The point is to make you feel bad. And weak. And powerless.

I can't say that I care much about Cyberpunk stories, but I do like this one's world, so i play it. Will I ever play to an ending? Maybe once eventually, but that'll be about it in all 800+ hours of play that I've put in.

[Callirgos]

"You're gunna carry that weight." - Cowboy Bebop

[Cenotaph]

Originally posted by UnlivingEnd:

That’s just how the cyberpunk franchise is. It likes to hammer home that no matter how successful or powerful you are, the player is still just a person like any other. They’re just one small part of an infinitely bigger world. No matter how high they rise, that fact never changes.

crime doesn't pay, like any mob movie ever made this has always been the general theme. In the end, after all the wealth and "power", you're left with nothing but pain and misery if you survive

[Zero McDol]

Originally posted by Cenotaph:

Originally posted by UnlivingEnd:

That’s just how the cyberpunk franchise is. It likes to hammer home that no matter how successful or powerful you are, the player is still just a person like any other. They’re just one small part of an infinitely bigger world. No matter how high they rise, that fact never changes.

crime doesn't pay, like any mob movie ever made this has always been the general theme. In the end, after all the wealth and "power", you're left with nothing but pain and misery if you survive

Unfortunately for V, V picked the wrong fixer to do a job for heh.

Had I a choice in the matter, I would've directed V to completely ignore Dex and walk away from Jackie if he didn't let the Dex job go. Stuck with being a merc and doing jobs for the other fixers and went from there, but well, it's not my choice to make, so here we are.

Clear trap, clear red flag that V already knew was gonna potentially happen, yet V did it anyways lol. Funny really. I mean, if the game is expecting me to feel bad about this story, then CDPR are barking up the wrong tree.

[4†h Wåll]

Well, according to Cyberpunk lore, there is no happy ending in Night city.
"For folks like us? Wrong city, wrong people." - Johnny
The City always win.

[Proxykon]

Originally posted by Mathalis:

[...]
If the devs keep making these games, they need to understand most gamers want a truly good ending.

Disagree. I dislike Hollywood ride-happily-ever-after-into-the-sunset endings. Those things don't happen in real life and they shouldn't happen as often as they do in videogames. It's a tiresome cliché. Bittersweet endings are better as they are closer to reality, making you painfully aware how much you had after it is already gone. All the regret and hindsight coming with it, all the choices that made your character yours, all the relationships you built... they won't play out the way you expect them to once you're gone.

The game does acknowledge what you've achieved. You just won't be around to notice it. I'd love to ask how Nikola Tesla feels about his impact on the world. Can't do that though because... well... he ain't around anymore.

[Zero McDol]

Originally posted by Proxykon:

Originally posted by Mathalis:

[...]
If the devs keep making these games, they need to understand most gamers want a truly good ending.

Disagree. I dislike Hollywood ride-happily-ever-after-into-the-sunset endings. Those things don't happen in real life and they shouldn't happen as often as they do in videogames. It's a tiresome cliché. Bittersweet endings are better as they are closer to reality, making you painfully aware how much you had after it is already gone. All the regret and hindsight coming with it, all the choices that made your character yours, all the relationships you built... they won't play out the way you expect them to once you're gone.

The game does acknowledge what you've achieved. You just won't be around to notice it. I'd love to ask how Nikola Tesla feels about his impact on the world. Can't do that though because... well... he ain't around anymore.

There's a reason for that imo. Money, plain and simple. Now Hollywood doesn't only do good endings, nor bad, nor grey; movies are varied, however the bulk of them have good endings.

It's really a question of just how much that bad ending movies make in general. If they were massively popular, then I'm sure that there'd be more of them. Not to say that there aren't many bad or grey ending movies, mind you. At the very least, the Cyberpunk genre stays in the grey or bad area, and sometimes leaning towards but not quite a good end.

[Zeno]

As I see it, any possibility of a happy ending vanished as soon as Dex pulled the trigger at the end of Act I. V's brain was damaged irreversibly, first by the bullet, then by the prototype Relic.

Any ending that left V alive was always going to be a salvage operation, and it's a matter of choosing which flavor of imperfection you find least terrible. For me, it's the nomad ending - one version of the "quiet life" - while for others it's one or another version of the blaze of glory.

(I can see the appeal of soloing Arasaka Tower, though I have not yet tried it myself.)

But none of the endings was ever going to be perfect; none of them would restore V to the time before the Konpeki Plaza heist.

[Mathalis]

Originally posted by Keith 'Blood' Hanson:

Yuuuup. I know that narratively this ending fits perfectly into the cyberpunk style, but...Honestly maybe flesh out or tweak one of the base game endings...?

Okay, let me try and boil my issue with the ending: For a three hour show? Sure, 100% go for this kinda ending. Or a shorter game. For me, this is a long game, where you spend a lot of time with the characters, they take up a lot more...space in your brain. The NPCs were a *huge* part of the main game, and to release most likely your final DLC/story content for *years* is an ending that goes 'Oh, all those people didn't matter!' ...Sucks.

But I *understand* the new ending, and it does fit. I'm not saying 'this should've been in the base game!' because that undermines all the work that went into this DLC, but...It would've felt more 'proper' if it had happened in a game that wasn't three years old. Mass Effect got a Citadel DLC, we want *that* at this juncture. Not...uhh...This one.

EXACTLY. I have 240 hours into this world and that's my reward!!! You can't do that in a giant open world RPG. You have to make some of what I did relevant or I've wasted all that time. At this point , I cant ever see myself playing a Cyberpunk game from CD Project Red.