It make sense now.

[LeftPaw]

I read this great post that explained the story, and it has changed the way I go about playing Cyberpunk.
In a nutshell the post talked about how this is not V's story, it's Johnny's. V died by dex's hand, Johnny took over a dead person.
So in a way it's about Johnny getting what is rightfully his and your struggle with V to get it.

As soon as this little gem dawned on me the whole game now make's sense, as does the endings.
It even changes the way I play it. I am Johnny but V has taken control away from me. It's also nice in a way that V died that day with his/her only true friend.

[id795078477]

After thinking about endings I'm convinced Johny is the protagonist of this game. So I agree on everything here apart from "it feels nice to play as Johny". To me - it doesn't. Hey, no hate on Johny, but look - why then even have Act 1? Why let players customize the character, build anything around him/her? Why bother with anything if in the end no matter what player (not in-game character) does, everything is outside of that player's control and everything is predetermined? So again - to me this doesn't feel nice.

[Vault Traveler]

Yeah I too think thats the goal, I mean if not why hide Blackhand at all? Because if they wouldn't Johnny would kinda look bleak and more like an addon.

Thats also why my favorite ending is V going with Alt and Johnny take V body for a second chance

[EricHVela]

In several interviews, CDPR people specify that the player is playing V and that V is the protagonist. (Quick search is all it'll take.)

That doesn't mean you can't make your own canon. It's your gameplay.

[Zak]

Johnny is the biggest douchebag I have seen in any game in a long time. As far as I'm concerned he is a parasite. This is V's story.

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

V died by dex's hand, Johnny took over a dead person.

Johnny also died. He has no rights to take over V's or anyone else's mind and body. I don't want to spoil the game, playing for the first time, but I hope I will be able to erase that prick.

[LeftPaw]

It changes everything for me.
Before I could never get into the game knowing that it was all for nothing. Now I am going to play the game as Johnny, knowing that with the right ending I get to live.
Just this simple realisation highlighted by a fan has changed the game measurably. It will even change the way I interact with Johnny and I will be looking at Nights city through Johnny's eyes. This warrants a complete new game.

[Vault Traveler]

Originally posted by Zak:

Johnny is the biggest douchebag I have seen in any game in a long time. As far as I'm concerned he is a parasite. This is V's story.

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

V died by dex's hand, Johnny took over a dead person.

Johnny also died. He has no rights to take over V's or anyone else's mind and body. I don't want to spoil the game, playing for the first time, but I hope I will be able to erase that prick.

Johnny did not die they transfered him to an object, he has been taking hostage.

Just because YOU dont like him doesn't make his life less valuable.

[EricHVela]

Now, we're getting into philosophy!

During his "birth?" rants, Johnny mentions that he's not the real one and that the real Johnny must be out there somewhere.

To be fair, the engram isn't yet aware that it's the only version of Johnny that exists.

We also have to consider that the engram doesn't balk one blink at being called a tumor.

...but an engram that's able to compare the values of life and living and itself in that equation... that takes it out of the realm of technology into something more.

The engram sees itself as lesser... at least at first... and seems to become something more.

So, we're still stuck with the same conundrum. Is the engram a person or a photocopied image ready to be transferred from the image drum onto a blank page before fusing? Does soulkiller kill a soul and make a copy, or does it transfer a soul causing death by that process?

Seems to me that it comes back to opinion, which everyone's got one, and I can't find fault in the idea of Johnny being the protagonist (aside from developer comments, but that's truly neither here nor there as we are playing the game).

[Silverbane7]

Originally, Soulkiller did not destroy the body. Just moved the mind via an engram, to a digital existence.

If you talk with Thompson back in 'never fade away' he speaks of people bring found dead with no damage to them. And Alts body has no damage when you find her, unlike the smoking remains of many other Netrunners around NightCity you find.

Alt's versions of the Program were never designed to render the body unfit to return to.
Soulkiller mrk1 (taken by her old bosses) and Soulkiller mrk2 (what Arasaka used on her) only did the basic (ok, so not basic, but ya get what I mean) removal and transfer of consciousness.

Kei Arasaka modified the version 2 type I think, after realising that Alt could have (and WOULD have, if the C4 used on the door had not knocked out com's and stopped her transfer) returned herself to her own body.
(I think she had another Program she could use, I call it 'Phoenix' after the YouTube fan vid 'Phoenix Program')

Arasaka would not want troublesome netrunners they had kicked out of their servers getting back into their meatspace bodies again lol
They were forcing Alt to build version 3 of Soulkiller back in 2023, it would have not only been mobile (able to hunt you down outside its own server space) but able to handle multiple targets (right now, mrk 2.1 can hunt one Netrunner at a time only)

Thankfully, they were stopped. Kei Arasaka was their leading know it all far as I know, when it came to Soulkiller. Hanako is a hobbyist when it comes to netrunning so it may take fer decades to catch up to where Alt left off.

Also, if you talk to the monks (the two from the quest, one of which is chromed) you can talk philosophy with them about engrams and nirvana and so on.
Even Johnny has something to say (his usual style tho lol)

[EricHVela]

Full disclosure: I find the Temperance ending to be the most appropriate with the game's bitter "best of a bad situation" tone, but I also find the Sun ending to be the most teased throughout the game.

(I also like taking one last look at the evidence of V's actions during the course of the game. Little knickknacks, but they mean a lot to my version of V. It only happens with the Sun ending. I also learn that Nibbles will be taken care of in V's absence. ...but the repeated references to it throughout the game does not make it the canon ending. The game's rife with teases that turn out differently.)

People claim that the Star ending is the most "fleshed out", but I don't see it.

To me, it feels like the longest one (Devil) is the least fleshed out... though there is that artifact in the mirror that seems like it could be a bug but is makes a very poignant statement by being there. If it's a bug, it's the least fleshed out in my opinion. If it's not, that adjusts my feelings about it a little bit—still the worst (outside of the Easy Way Out that gets no title in the game and strong, negative opinions in the credits, so I'm considering that a non-ending for my ranking).

EDIT: I can't give an opinion about the new Tower ending (I think it's called?). I haven't done that one, yet.

[Vault Traveler]

Is it mentioned if you can copy engrams?

[Dantounet]

Originally posted by EricHVela:

EDIT: I can't give an opinion about the new Tower ending (I think it's called?). I haven't done that one, yet.

I did not really think about the story being about johnny but not V before. But I also felt temperance was the most satisfying (with the "secret" ending).

IMHO "The tower" ending (and phantom liberty as a whole) is cementing the idea OP is talking about. V is not supposed to be alive, at least not in the form we play.

Taking the game as "must save private johnny" changes things quite a bit.

Originally posted by EricHVela:

In several interviews, CDPR people specify that the player is playing V and that V is the protagonist. (Quick search is all it'll take.)

That doesn't mean you can't make your own canon. It's your gameplay.

True that, however the endings they provided work better with johnny being the main character than V. They might not have wanted that, but that's my feeling.

[LeftPaw]

I started a new game with the intention of making a Johnny look alike, but I am stuck when it comes to the hair. Johnny's hair is not in the selection of styles. I have everything else near spot on. Anyone know if there is a way to rip Johnny's hair somehow?

I'm pretty excited about this new game. I have a whole new outlook on how I want to play it. I am starting as a corpo rat whish adds to the irony.
I was thinking of being a big Samurai fan so when I find Johnny is in my head I can scream like a little girl and ask for his autograph.

[Vault Traveler]

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

I started a new game with the intention of making a Johnny look alike, but I am stuck when it comes to the hair. Johnny's hair is not in the selection of styles. I have everything else near spot on. Anyone know if there is a way to rip Johnny's hair somehow?

I'm pretty excited about this new game. I have a whole new outlook on how I want to play it. I am starting as a corpo rat whish adds to the irony.
I was thinking of being a big Samurai fan so when I find Johnny is in my head I can scream like a little girl and ask for his autograph.

https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/2853

[LeftPaw]

Originally posted by Vault Traveler:

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

I started a new game with the intention of making a Johnny look alike, but I am stuck when it comes to the hair. Johnny's hair is not in the selection of styles. I have everything else near spot on. Anyone know if there is a way to rip Johnny's hair somehow?

I'm pretty excited about this new game. I have a whole new outlook on how I want to play it. I am starting as a corpo rat whish adds to the irony.
I was thinking of being a big Samurai fan so when I find Johnny is in my head I can scream like a little girl and ask for his autograph.

https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/2853

Wow, thanks. I didn't expect that. Someone else has already had the same idea I bet. Here comes Johnny,..... 2

[king_of_jamaica]

Originally posted by Vault Traveler:

Is it mentioned if you can copy engrams?

If you can copy an engram from a person to a storage device, it makes absolutely no sense to not be able to make infinite copies of it to other storage devices.

It's not like they shuttled every single engram on a relic to their orbital servers for storage.