Do side quest choices matter?

[C'mon man]

Just finished the game in ~20 hours, never really felt like there was a point in doing side missions. Is it worth replaying the game and actually doing side missions? I got the impression that nothing you pick in the game really matters since you just select what ending you wanna go for before the final mission (aside from finishing certain things like Panams story).

[Jouchebag]

Nope.

Yep.

Mostly, anyway.

[Protoman]

No. You only need to finish 2 side quest chains to get more ending choices: Panam and Rogue. You'll always have the option to help Hanako, even if you never did any side quests.

[Slim Brady]

They matter to obtain Iconic weapons and other items. So do some of the NCPD quests to obtain Iconics. The overall main story quests, to me, are the most boring part of the game.

[valium]

A lot of the side stuff have inter-connected story and lore beats with each other, and is mostly just for world building and... you know, killing stuff for rewards.

[Midas]

It's just for more content. You don't need to do it anymore than you need to play the game in the first place. To me it'd feel kinda pointless to just blast through the game in a few hours and skip all the side stuff.

[Marcus Butthurticus]

Originally posted by Midas:

It's just for more content. You don't need to do it anymore than you need to play the game in the first place. To me it'd feel kinda pointless to just blast through the game in a few hours and skip all the side stuff.

Yeah, majority of games is like this. So not sure whats the complaining is.

[valium]

Beats how Ubisoft does their open world, go to map marker, grind out whatever puzzle thing they want you to do, go to next map marker. At least the busy work in this game has story context and lore spattered in it for those who want that sort of thing.

[Bjørn]

I think the side jobs and gigs are very well written in this game, just as the main stories, and adds much to the atmosphere and feel of the city. I'm a kind of savouring every written tidbit you can do, hoping to make it last as long as possible, and doing a lot of 'useless' things like exploring and driving around and in between to not run out of content and new experiences.

So it's how much you like the game that decides how much of it you want to play, I guess, If it feels like a chore to play, best to get it over with, or play something else

[crypticmetaphor]

rushing the "main" quest is a waste

[V]

They matter if you care how certain things will be in your save state....just play every quest as if the choices will matter its much more simpler.

For me i don't like certain things in my world states i like my saves exactly how i like them so the choices matter to me for certain quests that add or change things in the game's world story.

[wesnef]

It's an open-world game with a big city. Wandering around and doing the side quests is the point. There's a main story? I suppose. . . :D


Seriously, I play a game like Skyrim or Fallout, I get caught up wandering and sidequesting, and 20 hours later remember that I should probably wander over to the main quest again. Before I get distracted by another sidequest.

My latest Cyberpunk playthrough, I had more than 10 hours in the game before getting to the Heist. Don't you want to see what all is out there, explore the corners and alleys, find interesting things? Why even bother getting a game like this if you're just going to laser-focus the main story and then say "ok, done" ?

[C'mon man]

Originally posted by wesnef:

It's an open-world game with a big city. Wandering around and doing the side quests is the point. There's a main story? I suppose. . . :D


Seriously, I play a game like Skyrim or Fallout, I get caught up wandering and sidequesting, and 20 hours later remember that I should probably wander over to the main quest again. Before I get distracted by another sidequest.

My latest Cyberpunk playthrough, I had more than 10 hours in the game before getting to the Heist. Don't you want to see what all is out there, explore the corners and alleys, find interesting things? Why even bother getting a game like this if you're just going to laser-focus the main story and then say "ok, done" ?

Well yes normally I take my time and do some side quests as well. But the whole narrative in Cyberpunk is is that you are going to die very soon unless you do something about it, and it feels wrong to me to run around doing random side quests in that scenario. I guess my plan was to finish up the main story and then go about side content like you can do in other CDPR games like The Witcher 3 Blood and Wine. But after seeing all the not so happy endings in Cyberpunk and there being no New Game+ I was a little disappointed.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by C'mon man:

but the whole narrative in Cyberpunk is is that you are going to die very soon unless you do something about it and it feels wrong to me running around doing random side quests in that scenario,

That's true. I guess I'm just enough of a jaded gamer at this point that "OMG, YOU MUST DO THIS NAO!" doesn't usually bother me unless they stick a timer on the screen. :D

I've played enough games with Imminent Threat Of Doom that you can ignore at will, that it doesn't really cause me pressure. (heck, even playing Final Fantasy 7 back in '97 - you get near the end, the Giant Evil Meteor is hanging huge in the sky, about to Destroy Everything!. . . and you run around for dozens of hours finding all the remaining secrets, raising chocobos so you can win races at the casino, etc.)

Obligatory TVTropes link ;)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeYourTime


It also probably helps that I don't suffer from "immersion", so nothing can 'break' it for me.
/meh

[Bogmore]

20 hours is less than a tenth of the game, I think you have missed so much.

Did you meet river? Or deal with Kerry?

[Swanky]

A request from Johnny leads to 2 new ending possibilities (one of which requires specific behaviour towards Johnny and some specific dialogue choices in one very particular dialogue in the quest "Chippin In").
There are a couple of side quests that change some dialogue in the credits. The Peralez job is one such side quest. Both things mentioned also unlock quest chains of their own, with romance options (gay male and straight female v respectively) and a couple of memorable side quests and interesting stories.
It depends on your choices and if you have a romance on what impression you have left them with, and how they will remember you in the ending. It also depends on the ending you chose I think. The new DLC ending I think has them tell you different things.
Others are simply there for flavor, but as pointed out many of these have readable logs or mails that build the world and tell their own little stories, some of them disturbing, some of them funny. Same goes for the gigs and NCPD scenes, but those won't have an impact on your ending.