{"id":3032,"date":"2021-02-18T22:00:58","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/?p=3032"},"modified":"2021-02-15T13:11:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T04:11:19","slug":"cyberpunk-2077s-endings-are-an-exercise-in-nihilism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/18\/cyberpunk-2077s-endings-are-an-exercise-in-nihilism\/","title":{"rendered":"<i>Cyberpunk 2077<\/i>\u2019s Endings are an Exercise in Nihilism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Cyberpunk 2077<\/em> is the story of V, a small-time criminal who, during her (or his) attempt to hit the big time, ends up with a chip containing the mind of rocker\/terrorist Johnny Silverhand slowly taking over her body. The main plot of the game is trying to find out how to stop and reverse the process\u2014all while making a name for herself in the cyberpunk dystopia of Night City.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[This article contains major spoilers for <em>Cyberpunk 2077<\/em>.]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are ups and downs in her journey as the game continues on but there are six possible outcomes to the game.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>V sides with Arasaka and Johnny is surgically removed. After discovering she will still die in six months even with Johnny gone, V heads from an orbital medical facility back to earth to die on her own terms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>V sides with Arasaka and Johnny is surgically removed. After discovering she will still die in six months even with Johnny gone, V decides to have her mind copied over into a chip with Arasaka\u2019s promise that it shall be put into a new body when a suitable one is found.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>V assaults Arasaka Tower. After discovering she will still die in six months even with Johnny gone, V is absorbed into Alt\u2019s collective consciousness, losing her individual identity alongside the rest of the Mikoshi engrams. Johnny gets her body but is plagued with guilt and doesn\u2019t know what to do with his new life other than run away from Night City.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>V assaults Arasaka Tower. After discovering she will still die in six months even with Johnny gone, Johnny is nonetheless absorbed into Alt\u2019s collective consciousness, losing his individual identity alongside the rest of the Mikoshi engrams. V works hard to become the Queen of Night City in the time she has left\u2014eventually embarking on a suicidal heist on an orbital casino.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>V assaults Arasaka tower. After discovering she will still die in six months even with Johnny removed, Johnny is nonetheless absorbed into Alt\u2019s collective consciousness, losing his individual identity alongside the rest of the Mikoshi engrams. V decides to spend her remaining time with her new family, the Aldecaldos, and search for a solution outside of Night City.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Having lost all hope, V puts a bullet in her brain and ends it all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Cyberpunk 2077 - ALL 7 ENDINGS (Good, Bad &amp; Secret Ending)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/48-AY6Wz-7A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Looking at the endings, one thing becomes obvious. It doesn\u2019t matter which path you walk\u2014no matter how many side quests you do, V dies in the end. She cannot be saved.<\/p>\n<p>Now, this isn\u2019t a bad thing in a general sense. Watching a character come to terms with their impending death\u2014and finding meaning in it\u2014is the basis for some of the most amazing narratives of all time. The problem with <em>Cyberpunk 2077,<\/em> is that this revelation comes at the very end of the game\u2014mere moments before the ending cutscenes begin.<\/p>\n<p>Due to this, there is no personal journey for V\u2014no scenes of her learning to accept her terminal condition. Instead, one moment, she\u2019s thinking she will be saved, the next, it\u2019s weeks later and she\u2019s either come to terms with her certain doom or is already dead.<\/p>\n<p>This makes the whole game seem pointless. V driving goal in the game is to cure her condition. There is no ending at which she succeeds in this goal. No matter how you play the game, it\u2019s a meaningless endeavor. You cannot win.<\/p>\n<p>Honestly, it might be the most nihilistic game I\u2019ve ever played. Even <em>Neir: Automata<\/em>, the previous holder of that title, finishes with a note of hope for our heroes in it\u2019s true ending\u2014that this time, thanks to the players helping each other and refusing to give up, A2, 2B, and 9S might be able to break their eternal cycle of suffering. <em>Cyberpunk 2077<\/em> doesn\u2019t even offer that amount of hope.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Cyberpunk \u25ba THE BEST ENDING \u2014 Leave Night City with Panam. Panam Romance. &quot;The Star&quot; Ending\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6dO6Hp1BthI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Even in the least tragic ending, the one where V joins the Aldecaldos and leaves Night City to search for a cure, it\u2019s obvious that it is a fools quest. If Arasaka\u2019s unlimitedly funded doctors\u2014including the man who designed the chip that\u2019s killing V\u2014are unable to save her in other endings, a tribe of scavenging nomads isn\u2019t going to stumble on the answer. V\u2019s \u201cwin\u201d in this ending is that she gets to die surrounded by friends and family.<\/p>\n<p>The only other ending with any kind of hope for V\u2019s continued existence is the one where she allows Arasaka to make a copy of her mind and put it on a chip to be put in a new body at an indeterminate time in the future. However, the game has shown that the corporations are anything but trustworthy and it\u2019s likely that once V is out of sight, she is out of mind as well\u2014likely to be permanently forgotten in what Johnny described as a half-awake hell.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, there are too many holes in Arasaka\u2019s story to be trustworthy. They claim they could only put Saburo backup in his son\u2019s body because of similar DNA but Johnny was able to take over V\u2019s body despite this. Then there is the possibility that, even if they find someone compatible, V will end up slowly taking over their body like Johnny did with hers\u2014which is likewise depressing and horrible.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3052\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biggestinjapan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ElGKfWtXYAETM_t.jpg?resize=1920%2C1080\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biggestinjapan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ElGKfWtXYAETM_t.jpg?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biggestinjapan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ElGKfWtXYAETM_t.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biggestinjapan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ElGKfWtXYAETM_t.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biggestinjapan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ElGKfWtXYAETM_t.jpg?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biggestinjapan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ElGKfWtXYAETM_t.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&amp;ssl=1 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Honestly, having experienced all the endings of <em>Cyberpunk 2077<\/em>, I just felt empty inside. Being unable to save V, I tried to find some meaning to her existence. Yet, V\u2019s time in Night City rarely changed anything for the better. The best resolution I can remember is saving River\u2019s nephew from a serial killer\u2014serving to mend fences with his family and giving him a better path in life. But for the most part, V\u2019s interference ended things in a mixed bag fashion\u2014if not in outright tragedy\u2014for those involved.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, all this nihilism makes me wonder if there was a point to playing the game at all.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I just wanted to give out a big thanks to Joshua Ott for sponsoring this review with his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/biggestinjapan\">Patreon<\/a>\u00a0donation. (At the $60 a month tier, you are allowed to pick anything up to an including a 13ish episode series to be reviewed\u2013which is released in addition to the one article a week I normally put out here on BiggestinJapan.com.) So thanks again!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/18\/cyberpunk-2077s-endings-are-an-exercise-in-nihilism\/\">Click to Read<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&lt;i&gt;Cyberpunk 2077&lt;\/i&gt;\u2019s Endings are an Exercise in Nihilism<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-3032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cyberpunk-2077","excerpt","zoom","full-without-featured","even","excerpt-0"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biggestinjapan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Eo05x7mW4AE2Tn-.jpg?fit=960%2C540&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3032"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3054,"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions\/3054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biggestinjapan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}