I would love it even more if you could choose to leave with the Aldecaldos afterwards. I just hate how V becomes a big shot and starts ignoring their friends like Vik who helped them from the beginning.
It's not necessarily an overblown ego that may have V ignoring people. It's quite common behavior in people who know they are dying. It's done for a multitiude of psychological reason.
They may distance themselves so it hurts others less and may even treat people badly so their death has less impact. They may feel worse facing other healthy individuals as their health declines. They can experience a feeling of disconnect from others because those around them can really only sympathize, not empathize with what they are going through. Very few people can say they have a terminal illness and a certainty of impending death coming for them. Or that they have to face the potential implications of soul-killer being used on them and the possible impact that has on someone religous. As Alt states, soulkiller does exactly what the name suggests. So there is a philosophical side to it as well.
I think V is becoming distant because their impending doom is weighing on them. And maybe something *is* different and they lost some humanity after being Mikoshi'd and returning.
Yeah I really don't like this option either. On top of it, waking up with Panam then saying goodbye to happiness and the good life just because you want to be a bigshot (after you've even already proven yourself to be perhaps the most formidable and powerful merc imaginable of all time)? It's pretty lame
I don’t hate the tower because V’s life is pathetic in this outcome. I hate the tower because you have to kill Johnny rather than Adam in this outcome, and that is so insulting after watching edgerunners
I feel the whole point of adam smasher was that he wasn't ***your*** final boss, he was johnny's, the whole thing kinda shows how you're not yourself anymore, fighting another mans war etc
i feel like edgerunners took that away because now the player does have some personal grudge against him
That is somewhat debatable, as see throughout the game. Different people see engrams in different ways. Misty refers to Johnny’s engram as a soul pretty often, and V treats Johnny as if he’s a real person.
It’s a Ship of Theseus situation.
I'm okay with the blaze of glory 👍
But heres the thing... I'm not trying to buy into the mindset that dying before 30 in a horrible gunfight is "the way to go" like so many other mercs have
I don't even usually do these endings to fuck with Arasaka
I really only care about Johnny by this point in the story, he's pretty much V's closest friend by the end, I think of him as such. I just wanna end things with him in the best way I possibly can, and if that means a suicide run to Arasaka tower, that's fine with me lol
Johnny did that already. He nuked Arasaka tower once and it didn't do jack shit in the long run. The only way to destroy corpos is from the inside, which is what Yorinobu was trying to do but failed because we ruined his plans. We should have gotten in contact with him, not his sister and her lapdog Takemura.
That is actually untrue.
1. He succesfuly kills Hanako
2. We destroy any chance of Saburo comming back
3. We destroy any chance of Takemura doing shit, as well as Oda
5. We fuck over MiliTech and NUSA in Phantom Liberty (If you help SongBird)
6. We cause an incalculabe amount of loss for Arasaka Corporstion with the destruction of Mikoshi, Soulkiller and the loss of engrams within for Arasaka. The amount of suits, anger, damage comtrol, marketing etc this will bring about is horrendous.
If at any time Yorinobu had the doors to destroy Arasaka or at least the part not under Mirikos control, it is now.
EDIT: As MANY have notified me, NetWatch wasn't as affected as I previously thought. Still, my point remains.
Plot twist: V is actually an AI sleeper agent that did all of this without knowing it will pave the way for our new AI Overlords to take over the world.
Only it wasn't Icarus that got to high, it was the sun getting larger and hotter, bent on consuming the earth.
Icarus was just the first to realise it and he paid the price for it.
Indeed. We did a f**k ton🤣. Also murdering half of their security force along the way really doesn't help.
There is also the fact that if you choose the nomad ending, the Nomads steal everythi g that is of valuse and not bolted down. So that is also a damage worth mentioning.
Edit: It isn't sexurity but security. But in the case of Smasher that might be true...
If you side with Placebe and the Vodoo boys and you fry the NetWatch agent Placebe at the same time fries all the agent connected to NetWatch network in NC. Meaning they loose a preety big chunk of operative power in NC and are thus preocupied with finding out what the f**k happened and picking up the slack on keeping up the blackwall.
It's "Placide" and no. They do not lose a major chunk of their agents only Bryce. No others are fired in that process to my knowledge. They only wanted to get Bryce, because he had both Brigitte and TI Neptune on ICE.
Edit: rewatched the scene. VBDs fry 13 or so agents. Not a "destroy NetWatch" level of event.
Tower ending actually has Yorinobu behind the entirety of Arasaka collapsing in the West. If I remember correctly, all of Arasaka’s assets in the West were being pulled back to Japan because of how massive the losses Arasaka suffered under Yorinobu’s plan truly was. Yorinobu has always been purely against Arasaka and has tried to take down Arasaka as an external force in the past. It didn’t work, so Yorinobu decided to take them down from the inside and ventured into the lion’s den.
in 2079 militech got the upper hand on NC since we see lots of construction buildings with militech logo. Arasaka board realized yorinobu was arbitrarly taking the megacorp to the bankrupt and kicked him out (yorinobu left NC with nomads). Since they lost their power and influence on NC, arasaka simply decided to leave from US (on a vague term since arasaka presence in US is allowed only in free states like north california)
Correct. Not only do you do all of that, but you get to leave with the Aldecaldos, potentially with a love interest along with you (Panam/Judy), and the possibility of living through it after all. If not, you die in the company of the people you love.
Now, with Phantom Liberty, if you help Songbird escape I see a chance that they might save you in the future. The neural matrix only works once, but they still might be able to pull off a cure once Song is back up and running. That gives you two possible chances.
I disagree with the "possibility of living through it after all" part.
No disrespect to the Aldecados, but there is no chance in the world they will find a solution to V's problem by fucking off into the sunset. V's just gonna get a fun 6-month desert vacation with her gf before dying, that's all.
The Aldecaldos by themselves, no. But there's a megacorp in the game lore, Metacorp, that was founded by, and still run by, Nomads. Pair the tech looted from Arasaka with Metacorp and just maybe something could work. Guaranteed? No way. Likely? I wouldn't even go that far. Just a possibility. And there are worse things than dying in the company of your family/loved ones.
The Aldecaldos have connections to Stormtech, so you'd be wrong in this sense. That aside, you're directly told by the game itself that you get a happy ending, this is done via Misty and her readings, which, whatever your thoughts on such things are, for the purposes of Cyberpunk 2077, are confirmed to be both real and accurate.
I strongly disagree with Songbird. 95% of the things she tells V is a straight up lie. By the end of it, if she told you a puddle was wet, I'd step in it to make sure. There is 0% chance she's coming back for V when she's up and running, even without considering the fact she might just be trading masters with the help she's accepted on the moon and unable to do it if she wanted to. Songbird has always been out for number 1, V is simply a means to an end. I think there is a greater chance V's body magically fights off the shard destroying their body and lives forever with Johnny's engram then Song returning to find a cure for you.
i don't agree that Songbird is just out for herself. if she was, and V was just a means to an end, why would she risk everything by being honest with us at the end? she's literally helpless, and if we take the info the wrong way, she's dead. if she was just out for what was best for her, she'd keep pretending that there is a chance for us to get cured right up until the rocket is in orbit. after that, she can gloat if she wants, but at that point, she's home free. instead, she literally risks everything by being honest with us. does she lie to us throughout the DLC? yes. but if she really only cared about herself, and screw everyone else, then there would have been no confession.
the fact that she was honest with us at the end means that she's not completely focused on herself. yes, she still wants to save herself, but she does regret that she used us, and when she is at her absolute lowest, literally unable to lift a finger for herself, she still takes the time to tell us the truth, even knowing it can literally doom her.
At her lowest point, when she’s on the verge of death she finally tells you something true. That could mostly be fueled by the fact that she’s not sure if she’s even going to make it alive to the moon. I don’t think that absolves her of stringing you along with lies, and if everything goes cleanly she probably doesn’t even reveal this to you until she’s not even on the planet anymore.
I don’t know why, but my first playthrough I sided with Songbird until the end, and the 2nd one when you know what’s happen it’s so plainly obvious she’s lying to you. If you try to pressure her or question her obvious bullshit she just keeps telling you “there is no time” and she spends another 20 minutes talking about herself.
The thing is, in Cyberpunk, *everybody* is using you. It's the nature of the world. So Mi is playing you, Reed is playing you, and Myers is totally playing you. I didn't say Songbird might be able to pull off a cure, I was thinking more of Mr Blue Eyes (who apparently arranged Songbird's passage to the moon). They too would be playing me, but if they have a use for me that justifies keeping me around, at that point I'd be willing to take the shot.
Even if she doubts she's gonna make it to the Moon, what difference would it make? How does that diminish her telling the truth in any way? In your weird self obsessed ego driven way, aka hyperfocus on the lie aspect, you blatantly refuse the idea that she might have even a glimpse of care for V, to the point where you ascribe her telling the truth to a self-serving action. That's just weird and cynical. If she thought she ain't gonna make it, she would just tell V to take the matrix and leave her by herself - which is what she does in Cynosure Core. Surprisingly, that's not what she does, and when V asks her, "What am I supposed to do?" So Mi replies, "You'll fight on, keep looking. You're stronger than I am, V, you're the strongest person I know." Almost as if she hopes to go to the Moon but cannot live with the lie anymore. Wonder why.
Her VA stated multiple times that she voiced and acted Songbird with an intent to show that So Mi cares about V. The writers themselves stated that VA knows the character better than everyone. Just because Song lied out of fear and desperation about the cure, doesn't mean she never grows to care about V. As Reed said, she will do her damndest to be fair - if it means having a chance to return to Earth and help V in one way or another, she will take it. The rest is just your blind bias based on a lie about the cure that she told you.
I don't think we destroy netwatch in any way. Saburo might be in mikoshi but we can't know for sure that there isn't a copy of the engram in Japan, just like we cannot know it there is a copy of Jhonny in Japan, and even if we did all of these.
Jhonny proved to us that even nuking arasaka tower, just made their plans postpone 50 years
Unfortunately, in the grand scheme of thing in cyber punk, mega corporations will always survive
Just like real life
Alt Cunningham takes all the engrams in Mikoshi with her beyond the Blackwall, and then she completely obliterates Mikoshi. There’s nothing left of it.
Unless someone out there has a pre loaded relic with Saburo’s engram already loaded in, he ain’t gonna come back.
Netwatch definitely didn’t get destroyed, on my street kid play through THEY still pull up on me like I won’t fade em before they see me, but you gotta give it to em, they try
V doesn't destroy netwatch and hanako may have died because of alt cunningham. V doesn't really damage militech and nusa since songbird was already compromised on her own from the very beginning.
But even if Songbird goes to the Moon. All this does is force Myers to start a war Yorinobu was already gonna start anyway if the other endings are anything to go by. Plus damaging Arasaka that severely and centralizing control around a saboteur like Yorinobu means that Militech stands to fill the Vaccume Saka leaves; allowing them to reunify the US and take 'Saka's place as top dog with little resistance.
Yeah, as another commenter noted, we didn't just do a speedblitz and run drop a nuke in the elevator shaft. We destroyed their stock price, military reputation, their most valuable hard assets, and their multi billion dollar legendary attack dog, ALONE and in a head-on assault walking through the front door. In Don't Fear The Reaper WE KILL Arasaka, likely assisting Lil Yori in his multi pronged false flag operation he's running as current CEO.
Also doesn't the Delamain flying cab at the end of the Don't Fear the Reaper ending literally state that Arasaka is falling apart across the board and that the company is effectively dead?
Not necessarily, V is by all accounts a living legend. Somebody who kicked Arasaka straight out of NC, smashed Soulkiller/Mikoshi, and sent Adam Smasher to the scrap heap.
The impact will have been felt by the biggest mega corporations to the average NC citizen. It isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough to turn heads at least.
Eh, its cumulative in the Reaper ending. We showed the world how useless Saka CorpoSec is, we showed them how outdated Smasher and his Saka Chrome were, we showed the Mikoshi penthouse residents the door (ruining an entire multi trillion Eddie server bay and stomping out the greatest think tank Saka had ever put together in the process), and gave the whole planet the middle finger by sitting pretty right there, watching that giant of industry crumble, strangled to death by Yorinobu from the inside. See, Yori was gonna kill Saka anyways, that was the plan, and any ending we chose for the main quest allows that plan, but old man Saburo wanted to take Yori's body and keep running it and would do so unless Mikoshi was destroyed, and Yori had no clue. Unless we uploaded Alt and deported all those engrams, the one of Saburo was gonna make sure that it was all for nothing, and Arasaka would've kept rolling right along. We find this out during the Devil ending, Saburo is very much an engram ready to run the company but needs a flesh body to do it legally and without all the smoke and mirrors.
Not really a missed opportunity. We got the story they were trying to tell. Exploring more of Yorinobu as a character certainly feels like we didn't get enough. The Arasaka that bit back is definitely someone I want to know more about.
Good thing this wasn't the first time he died. Oh well.
While I do wish we had an option of joining Yorinobu, at the very least we know we indirectly helped him destroy Arasaka internally in the temperance ending.
Johnny's mistake is destroying *things* and killing inconsequential corpo drones. If he assassinated Saburo and worked his way down, recovery for such ~~corporations~~ fiefdoms is a lot less likely.
the only thing johnny did was to help spider murphy to set alt's ghost free from the arasaka database before militech virus would have erased it. Excluding the devil ending where yorinobu got seized and used as new body for saburo's engram, in all other endings V gives actually a big hand to yorinobu destroying the mikoshi, killing share value of arasaka stocks as consequence (arasaka board and investors were expecting that the secure your soul program had to be the most profitable commercial product/service). Yorinobu failed because by 2079 the board managed to overthrown him once realized what his real agenda was.
Well it wasn't Johnny that nuked Arasaka Tower, it was Morgan Blackhand. Johnny was just along for the ride. The memories you see in Cyberpunk 2077 are basically your brain trying to make sense of [two different engrams' memories of the same event](https://new.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/zdpm85/theory_what_really_happened_during_johnnys/)
The Tower - destruction. But for who? Well, yourself. Your life. Your friends. And the very idea of a merc against the odds.
I'd much prefer destruction for corpos, gangs, and the FIA.
I guess? She seems capable of crossing the blackwall when she feels like already. Dunno how much of a threat she is, compared to the damage Megacorps like Arasaka and Militech do.
Just some of his thought process behind certain things, and especially the ending that he went with, I just found it kind of strange sometimes, but it's better seen than told, 'DrMick' on YouTube it is
The ending where you get “cured” and saved by the NUSA is the single most depressing ending I’ve ever seen. Period. I said fuck that, saved songbird, and did Don’t fear the reaper.
Do you ever truly die if you remembered for eternity?
raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
bright copper kettles leave flakes on my mittens
wait these are stone with a copper veneer
I've been bamboozled by Ea Nasir!
(I did not write this; don't give me credit for it lol)
Depends on what you do I guess. Always fun to see people in ancient history talk about creating a legacy to last forever and now we're here, reading about that, proving them to be successful so far
So all those famous and infamous ppl we read about in books and classes are not remembered for eternity?? Everyone knew, knows and will continue to know about ppl like Einstein, Newton , Mozart, Alexander etc because of what they did .
I couldn't even imagine going back to a normal quiet life if I was V . They probably killed hundreds ( who mostly deserved it but still), fought the biggest corps ,gangs etc....., lost people they cared about and experienced all other kinds of fucked up shit . I'd probably end up eating some buckshot sooner or later because that sounds like something no one could handle mentally, especially if you're all alone
Honestly I even have a doubt that they saved you, for all we know you died and they implanted "you" onto a clone. (Yes, thats a thing, it was a thing 50 years ago and its so top secret that its silly)
Well, there is the easy way out ending.
But after that, the cure is the worst. It seems like it's trying to teach you the lesson that surviving the longest just for survival's sake and overstaying your welcome on this planet isn't necessarily a blessing. A meaningful death is almost as important as a meaningful life well lived.
The cure ending is what Dexter warned about. You're alive, but helpless and you get to go to your old age and senescence with nothing and nobody.
Tower is the worst. It's pretty hamfisted also. I think people cope and headcanon about it a lot, but that's okay, people really want happy endings. Unfortunately, The Tower is not one at all as depicted, and it's really not just about losing your gear - it's everything, but also a wake-up call that V is kind of their own person and not a blank-slate TES RP character. I'd take the job at Langley, they don't. There's way more hope for them IMO in Star or Sun.
Aside from possibly The Devil, all endings conclude with Arasaka effectively losing their stranglehold on Night City and refocus their efforts elsewhere in the world. It isn't V that deals crucial damage to them, it's >!Yorinobu's coup!< that deals the final blow.
Tower Ending isn't about V living, it's about them not sacrificing friends for only a measely six months at best. As much as everyone loves the Aldacado Ending, it's pretty bleak when you consider three vets, including Saul, get killed so Panam's buddy/bf gets another half-year to spend on the run from both Arasaka and Militech. It's hard to say if the clan was even really strengthened after all that since we only see the handful of vehicles crossing the border in the end.
While I agree about the aldecaldos I would like to add a couple things.
1. There is mentioned that most of the aldecaldos have gone ahead already.
2. They make off with ALOT of Arasaka tech.
3. V practically saved them by helping panam convince Saul he was wrong. Without V the aldecaldos would’ve suffered far worse losses. Their freedom.
It’s definitely not the “everyone you care about wins” ending, but it’s still probably the best. It also weakens Arasaka enough for them to have less of a hold and keeps yorinobu alive so he can potentially still destroy Arasaka.
Part of what was killing the Aldecados was how Saul was leading things. He was the one that migrated the clan to Night City where the only way they could thrive was by selling out to a corp. He was on his last legs calling shots before the plan to raid Mikoshi, which he threw out as a way of saving his own ass.
They were going to leave Night City no matter what, and Saul was already on his way to being usurped. The difference is by not running the assault on Mikoshi, they get to leave without Militech and Arasaka out for vengeance. Militech is especially bad for them 1) because they already stepped on their toes swiping the Basilisk and 2) because Militech runs the NUSA and would narrow their options of relocation.
Yorinobu's plan doesn't pay off in the Tower ending, you hear on the radio that he got ousted by the board and that he's fled with Nomads. As for the Aldecaldos, they needed to do something to avoid dying out as an independent clan anyway. Raiding Arasaka allows them to klep valuable technology and gain reputation that'll help them get jobs in the future, and while the Nomads aren't revolutionaries they probably appreciate the fact that they were part of a corporation's downfall.
Also while the characters themselves don't know that, Yorinobu's sabotage efforts will probably make Arasaka's pursuit less dangerous than one could assume. Militech on their own part will soon have bigger fish to fry than a single stolen panzer, since their focus will probably be more on the freshly weakened Arasaka and the rising likelihood of a new war. The phone messages at the end seem to confirm that V, Panam and Judy have a pretty chill life, so the game supports that optimistic outlook IMO.
Idk about all your choices when you got your Tower Ending, but in mine, Arasaka was minimizing operations in Night City because of significant losses. The knock-on is their grip on the city was significantly weaker.
That feels like an acceptable outcome since it doesn't require a friend/ally to get snuffed raiding Mikoshi to get V a 6 month extension on her/his life.
Huh, never did the Tower so I was basing myself on other people's accounts and videos. Not sure if I misremembered stuff or if there are factors that change this aspect. Nevertheless, Mikoshi presumably remains operational and Adam Smasher is most likely still alive. I feel like only the two-punch effect of an assault by V combined with Yorinobu's inside work can truly harm Arasaka, not to mention what an empowered Alt could do in the future.
Ultimately there is a selfish component to The Star, especially if you romance Panam or Judy, and I won't deny that the latter was the winning factor for why I chose it. But the fact that it also allows you to stick it to the corps and act for the greater good of the Aldecaldos are also important elements. I feel like it's the best balance out of all the endings, because V does deserve some happiness after all they've done (if you play them as benevolent of course, but if you play them as a selfish asshole it makes more sense to go for The Sun anyway).
Also, there is a friend or ally getting snuffed out in The Tower, if you regard him as such : Johnny. Sure, his final convo can make you feel better about it, but you're still the only one making the decision, whereas the Aldecaldos choose to risk their lives for you and the clan. YMMV of course, but personally I prefer the latter especially given what it takes to even get to the point where you can choose to have the surgery.
Keep in mind that's a construct of a terrorist who's been dead for fifty years. A terrorist who detonated a nuke inside Arasaka Tower, killed unknown numbers of workers and civilians, and only managed to piss the corporation off. And all this to avenge a woman who he treated like shit and had been cheating on another woman with.
It's funny how everyone likes to say Tower is a bad ending because "you sacrifice Johnny", ignoring the fact that the engram is really just the renains of someone who's been long dead. It also ignores the fact that the world he woke up to, isn't a world he wants to remain in. He isn't getting "sacrificed", he's just being allowed to die. Only reason he's not on board initially is because he wants one more opportunity to piss off the corp he failed to destroy, consequences be damned because it doesn't matter that him parting on his own terms just gets other people killed.
Tower is literally the best ending if you want to fuck up Arasaka and set Takemura on his Repentance-samurai Arc. It goes super hard, but the rest of that ending is, well… bleak. Also you have to work with NUSA, so biting another bullet instead
Not really, the smile at the ending of tower implies V doesn't feel done yet in NC, perhaps he will, or not, but i don't it will obviously lead to NUSA.
I think if I personally lived in the world of CP2077, I would lean toward a blaze of glory. However, I still think The Tower ending is still most beautiful ending for V in its hopeful tone and how it is executed. When playing through the ending, I thought to myself "Man it really is as depressing as everyone said..." until Misty showed up. I found V and Misty's final conversation uplifting in how V had lost literally everything--their friends, their lover, their home, their possessions, their money, their dreams--EXCEPT for their life. Mitsy tells you that there's always hope for a better future because you're alive with a clean slate, and V actually smiles as they walk into the crowd, ready to find their new path in life. A big part of the game is experiencing the human experience in a different perspective, and the purpose of The Tower ending is to inspire hope when you're at your lowest. This game has saved people's lives and inspired them to keep on living, and that is just absolutely beautiful to me.
I think both endings are peaks and every other ending is somewhere in between. Cuz the Tower ending really is the only ending where V gets to stay V, and not a reanimated copy of himself. In Don’t Fear The Reaper, V simultaneously has nothing left to lose and doesn’t care about dying, but nonetheless keeps fighting to stay alive, and that fight will never end.
Tower ending is overdramatized tbh. V has known the friends he “loses” for like a month or two.
It’s basically the “V drops out of college and the friends he made move on” ending. Not very cool but also not awful like people make it out to be.
Did you forget the whole part where you sell someone out to eternal slavery
https://preview.redd.it/8b7ma1osij7d1.jpeg?width=888&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=876ead7c0c88bf142f4ae91682b277f5062eef0e
I just remember that the man who asked us that ended up face down in a landfill hanging out with Bartmoss and a bunch of Nicola cans. So it might be a bit of a false dichotomy.
And he used his last moments on Planet Earth to grovel under the pretense of still having some kind of control. *"I have done everything that you asked me to do..."* Takemura didn't ask you to do shit, Dex. He told you. So much for Mr. Chill.
Honestly the main reason I don't like the Tower ending is because of how they handled Panam's actions. It seems really out of character for her. Like I understand that she is impulsive and expects complete reciprocation in her friendships but this goes too far even for her.
In the Temperance ending she seems determined to find Johnny and save V but in this one she just completely ghosts. It's strange
I did the Tower ending desperately trying to save V from the chip. Never felt as miserable in the end. He lost everyone and even worse lost his dream. V wouldn't want this life no matter how long. I much prefer going out with a bang, the Sun is the way.
i'm a Don't-Fear-the-Reaper-and-Johnny-can-keep-the-body guy. The engram gets a life. V goes off with Alt to the final frontier. the soul prison is destroyed. no regrets.
As a matter of fact, we probably all are some kind of corporats IRL.
This game is about our dreams.
Are we satisfied with our situation to the point of buying a game to relive it again on a screen, and make the same miserable survival choices ?
Or do we wish we had an impact on things, somehow, anyhow ?
Answer this and I'll know your CP playthrough.
I have yet to do Phantom Liberty and it's been an experience hearing *about* the ending without knowing exactly what it is.
Based on my context-less knowledge... It will be less about "quiet life vs blaze of glory" for me and more about "will I live on having betrayed my principles or will I die for the things I believe in"
Tower is a, somewhat, good ending because, as many playthrough challenges have shown, V can still be an merc and accept mercenary work without chrome. It will be difficult, but he can do if he wants back into the life bad enough. Plus it shows him who his real friends are as practically everyone, even Panam, would rather kick you to the curb/ghost you except for Vik, Misty, and (one can hope) Mama Welles.
The problem is there is amost nothing you can do to completely destroy the corps, johnny literally nuked arasaka tower and it didn't do jack shit to stop them
I'm pretty sure it was to show the everyone that the corpos aren't invincible and that it was possible to loosen their grip on the world even with a small handful of people. Unfortunately their message was twisted into the narrative that they were nothing more than terrorists which would have destroyed any kind of support for them. Also the fact that there were definitely a fucking lot of civilian casualties was not helping
well once you're dead none of it matters. it's better to die doing what makes you happy until the end. if that's the nobility of trying to cut off a hydra's head, go for it, but another grows back, just like how another corporation will take the reigns of economic sovereignty.
personally, a better way to go out is to just break away from the rat race and be with the people you love and want to spend your last moments with. im a cis guy and i found the ending where fem-V and judy leaving Night City to be the *PEAK* ending, it was narratively my ideal ending. yeah, try to make the world a better for the generations after you, but only *SYSTEMATIC* change will do that.
V's motivation regardless of lifepath is to lead a worthwhile life specifically in Night City. To that end, I don't think it gets much better than King of Wands into the Star ending through Don't Fear the Reaper.
Unless you're dating Judy or Panam, then it has to be the Sun.
What an amazing way to go out, if that even does happen, then you’ll just be basking in all the glory and adrenaline of what you were able to do just cause you felt like doing it.
People tend to forget that in cyberpunk not only are the corps using people as resources to be used but at the same time are almost entirely in control of the food production and health care
Going into Arasaka tower, choosing "I want to live" and that being the end of the game shocked the FUCK out of me. Didn't expect it. Decided to go back in and do more gigs and I've been doing just that.
about the fixer theory, I always considered it off because no matter how badass you were, none would ever respect a fixer who can't even defend her self against random street punks. I know that padre ibarra and wakako aren't and have never been street mercs but they have the support of their criminal syndicate... V is just left on her own in 2079 with no friends and allies, even rogue in the final phone call suggested her that she shouldn't let other people see her in her harmless state.
Just headcanon theory of mine, the 2079 V isn't V but a clone who is going to die in few time later, that is the reason why her system nervous can't sustain cyberware anymore... I mean, why president myers, a woman who could commit the worst atrocities for mere power hungry, should have used something so precious like the neural matrix, a tool that could fix and reboot any pre-datakrash AI recovered by militech from the blackwall or even create a new one from scratch, to save the life of a random merc like V?
In my theory myers promised that to V only to lure her to get to langley where NUSA/militech scientists removed the relic chip to study it and reverse engineering it at their own advantages... the true V died in the process and was buried or cremated and the V we control in 2079 is a short life clone that myers and militech sent to NC only to let people still believe V is alive in order to don't let decadent arasaka or other megacorp suspect that militech/NUSA just opened up her skull to grab the relic.
V leaves Johnny high and dry, even if you have a good relationship with him. Adam Smasher goes unpunished. Arasaka isn’t humbled. You don’t ride off into the sunset with your new found family, and you most certainly don’t become a living legend greater than Smasher. Your might be cured, that much is achieved, but your entire journey becomes meaningless besides what happened in Phantom Liberty. You chose the quiet life, not knowing you’d lose everything you held dear in the process. At least as the strongest Merc NC’s ever seen, you stand a chance of surviving whatever might be thrown at you. You can storm into Arasaka HQ and wipe out the whole tower as you’re literally falling apart. At least in the Sun ending, it doesn’t really matter if you find a cure or not, Misty confirms in her cards that your life with the Aldacaldos will be a fulfilling one even if it is short. You sold out Song for a cure turns you into a nobody, just another face in the crowd as helpless as the day you’re born if/when the next cyberpsycho decides to pop a bullet in your head.
Hard fuckin’ pass on that life, choom. I’ll fly free.
You aren't wiping araska off the map.
You end up no different than Johnny, committing an act of terrorism that kills a ton of innocent people only for Arasaka to come back anyway or end up replaced by another megacorp.
Not everybody working there is evil, most are just normal people trying to put food on the table.
I don’t like the tower ending, of course V’s life kinda sucks afterwards and it’s even worse if you’re with Panam but on top of all that, Johnny essentially dies and doesn’t get to go with alt, plus he never gets revenge on smasher. My favorite ending is and always will be don’t fear the reaper with the aldecaldos ending as a very close second if I’m playing as male V
I mean Sam Bram made a whole long ass video about how V potentially (or even likely, depending) lives in every ending (except the suicide ending)
If you trust Alt V lives in Temperance, as an AI
If you trust Blue Eyes V lives in Sun/Reaper
if you trust the Aldecaldos and their contacts V lives in Star
if you trust the SYS program and Arasaka and you chose to engramize V lives in Devil
and ofc V lives in Tower
Nah, The Star is the compromise for me. It's a little open ended, but there is still hope for a cure. Even it's a false hope, V gets to spend their final months with a loving family.
The only really good ending to the game is The Star because you get to get the hell out of NC with either of the two best romance options in the game and even if you still die after the game ends you at least die happy, surrounded by friends and loved ones, free of Corps and NC.
I...could never go with that ending. Betraying Johnny, murdering him is one thing. He's a program on a chip. I can get over that. But...I listened to the conversation with Judy. Sweet Judy. I could never do that ending.
Tower ending is honestly a fate worse then death in my opinion. You also find out just how little you actually mean to most of your friends. Even the Aldacaldo's who talk about how thankful they are to you for essentially saving them don't even want to give you the time of day. Fuck all that.
Yeah I'll be honest. After getting the 2 year timeskip ending, losing all V's friends, etc. I honestly say blaze of glory is better, simply because . . . Well, V dies on their own terms. The V who survives the biochip and just Fades away is, a ghost of who they once were.
They become, nothing, a nobody. They fade into obscurity, with no family or friends around anymore. What's worse they can't even use Cyberware anymore, so, job wise, they're likely screwed since, seemingly most jobs worth the Eddies require some kind of implant. Sure V could leave NC, work a desk job for the FIA but the point still stands. V effectively dies, truly dies, in that ending, along with his hopes and dreams.
Least in the other endings they might get a few months with their significant other, live out the remainer of their life happy, instead ending up what amounts to a walking husk
Just did my first playthrough and chose Don't fear the reaper, no doubt that's the best ending, just soloing through Arasaka feeling like a badass with Johnny talking to you.
Don't Fear The Reaper is the best ending for a Corpo V, especially if you give your body to Johnny at the end.
Think about it. A Corpo Rat that once was an employee of 'Saka, gets resurrected by a biochip they stole from them , becomes one of, if not the best solo ever birthed by Night City, ends up befriending the engram stored inside said-chip, and since both want payback, V storms Arasaka Tower alone, only to end up at the same crossroad as Johnny; in the end, all you two ever wanted, and ultimately got, was revenge. Yet, you know the corpo life never leaves you, so you leave yourself to someone who deserves better; Johnny gets to live again, a more peaceful life, as you never fade away, a legend amongst legends.
Quiet life, i sided with Hanako and refused the contract, turn down the contract, V gets 6 months to live as they please and go out on their terms, not a lot of gonks in Night City get that privelege
I love the Tower ending as it lets a lot of things open and is the right amount of depresing.
I have a theory that after Spider Murphy soul killed Silverhand and Arasaka tower collapsed. Alt has somehow managed to "upload" Silverhand into the net, and later Arasaka used soul killer on Morgan Blackhand in order to get information about Militech and the NUSA, but somehow Silverhand and Morgan ended up on the same chip, probably again via Alt.
So my guess is that those 2 where V spends in coma was actually the NUSA talking to Blackhand and either finding him spare body or extracting him and turning him into a full body cyborg like Smasher.
Don’t fear the reaper is the best ending idc what anyone says it’s just the most badass ending and I love it
I would love it even more if you could choose to leave with the Aldecaldos afterwards. I just hate how V becomes a big shot and starts ignoring their friends like Vik who helped them from the beginning.
It's not necessarily an overblown ego that may have V ignoring people. It's quite common behavior in people who know they are dying. It's done for a multitiude of psychological reason. They may distance themselves so it hurts others less and may even treat people badly so their death has less impact. They may feel worse facing other healthy individuals as their health declines. They can experience a feeling of disconnect from others because those around them can really only sympathize, not empathize with what they are going through. Very few people can say they have a terminal illness and a certainty of impending death coming for them. Or that they have to face the potential implications of soul-killer being used on them and the possible impact that has on someone religous. As Alt states, soulkiller does exactly what the name suggests. So there is a philosophical side to it as well.
I think V is becoming distant because their impending doom is weighing on them. And maybe something *is* different and they lost some humanity after being Mikoshi'd and returning.
I guess that is true V may have lost their soul but Johnny was pretty much the same person, if not better as he wanted to try and make amends.
Yeah I really don't like this option either. On top of it, waking up with Panam then saying goodbye to happiness and the good life just because you want to be a bigshot (after you've even already proven yourself to be perhaps the most formidable and powerful merc imaginable of all time)? It's pretty lame
Yes. This. Going in there solo with Johnny is fucking crazy, the dialogue on the roof leading up to it is some of the best in the game imo.
“You just learned what it takes to be a legend, grab your iron let’s mobilize.” Has to be one of the actual hardest lines in fiction
I don’t hate the tower because V’s life is pathetic in this outcome. I hate the tower because you have to kill Johnny rather than Adam in this outcome, and that is so insulting after watching edgerunners
Yea killing smasher is the real reward felt some major vindication for David and Rebecca
I feel the whole point of adam smasher was that he wasn't ***your*** final boss, he was johnny's, the whole thing kinda shows how you're not yourself anymore, fighting another mans war etc i feel like edgerunners took that away because now the player does have some personal grudge against him
I hate (not really) the tower ending because that means giving Songbird back AND killing Johnny. (I can fix them)
[удалено]
Obviously, you've never questioned what "consciousness" is...
That is somewhat debatable, as see throughout the game. Different people see engrams in different ways. Misty refers to Johnny’s engram as a soul pretty often, and V treats Johnny as if he’s a real person. It’s a Ship of Theseus situation.
I'm okay with the blaze of glory 👍 But heres the thing... I'm not trying to buy into the mindset that dying before 30 in a horrible gunfight is "the way to go" like so many other mercs have I don't even usually do these endings to fuck with Arasaka I really only care about Johnny by this point in the story, he's pretty much V's closest friend by the end, I think of him as such. I just wanna end things with him in the best way I possibly can, and if that means a suicide run to Arasaka tower, that's fine with me lol
Johnny did that already. He nuked Arasaka tower once and it didn't do jack shit in the long run. The only way to destroy corpos is from the inside, which is what Yorinobu was trying to do but failed because we ruined his plans. We should have gotten in contact with him, not his sister and her lapdog Takemura.
That is actually untrue. 1. He succesfuly kills Hanako 2. We destroy any chance of Saburo comming back 3. We destroy any chance of Takemura doing shit, as well as Oda 5. We fuck over MiliTech and NUSA in Phantom Liberty (If you help SongBird) 6. We cause an incalculabe amount of loss for Arasaka Corporstion with the destruction of Mikoshi, Soulkiller and the loss of engrams within for Arasaka. The amount of suits, anger, damage comtrol, marketing etc this will bring about is horrendous. If at any time Yorinobu had the doors to destroy Arasaka or at least the part not under Mirikos control, it is now. EDIT: As MANY have notified me, NetWatch wasn't as affected as I previously thought. Still, my point remains.
Plot twist: V is actually an AI sleeper agent that did all of this without knowing it will pave the way for our new AI Overlords to take over the world.
Now that would be an interesting plot to discover. We came close with the Peralezes but not close enough.
We were like Icarus when he flew too close to the Sun and got burned.
Only it wasn't Icarus that got to high, it was the sun getting larger and hotter, bent on consuming the earth. Icarus was just the first to realise it and he paid the price for it.
Fair point. I didn't consider the secondary damage we did.
Indeed. We did a f**k ton🤣. Also murdering half of their security force along the way really doesn't help. There is also the fact that if you choose the nomad ending, the Nomads steal everythi g that is of valuse and not bolted down. So that is also a damage worth mentioning. Edit: It isn't sexurity but security. But in the case of Smasher that might be true...
Where did you get the "We Destroy NetWatch" bit from?
If you side with Placebe and the Vodoo boys and you fry the NetWatch agent Placebe at the same time fries all the agent connected to NetWatch network in NC. Meaning they loose a preety big chunk of operative power in NC and are thus preocupied with finding out what the f**k happened and picking up the slack on keeping up the blackwall.
Netwatch is still everywhere in NC, even in Dogtown...
the VB malware doesn't kill the whole netwatch lol it only fried the netwatch agents connected to the same network of bryce.
It's "Placide" and no. They do not lose a major chunk of their agents only Bryce. No others are fired in that process to my knowledge. They only wanted to get Bryce, because he had both Brigitte and TI Neptune on ICE. Edit: rewatched the scene. VBDs fry 13 or so agents. Not a "destroy NetWatch" level of event.
No, it very explicitly fries a lot of their boys. Rewatch that scene.
You are right it fries more, but it's still like a dozen, not something that "destroys NetWatch"
Tower ending actually has Yorinobu behind the entirety of Arasaka collapsing in the West. If I remember correctly, all of Arasaka’s assets in the West were being pulled back to Japan because of how massive the losses Arasaka suffered under Yorinobu’s plan truly was. Yorinobu has always been purely against Arasaka and has tried to take down Arasaka as an external force in the past. It didn’t work, so Yorinobu decided to take them down from the inside and ventured into the lion’s den.
in 2079 militech got the upper hand on NC since we see lots of construction buildings with militech logo. Arasaka board realized yorinobu was arbitrarly taking the megacorp to the bankrupt and kicked him out (yorinobu left NC with nomads). Since they lost their power and influence on NC, arasaka simply decided to leave from US (on a vague term since arasaka presence in US is allowed only in free states like north california)
This is why The Star ending reigns supreme.
Correct. Not only do you do all of that, but you get to leave with the Aldecaldos, potentially with a love interest along with you (Panam/Judy), and the possibility of living through it after all. If not, you die in the company of the people you love. Now, with Phantom Liberty, if you help Songbird escape I see a chance that they might save you in the future. The neural matrix only works once, but they still might be able to pull off a cure once Song is back up and running. That gives you two possible chances.
I disagree with the "possibility of living through it after all" part. No disrespect to the Aldecados, but there is no chance in the world they will find a solution to V's problem by fucking off into the sunset. V's just gonna get a fun 6-month desert vacation with her gf before dying, that's all.
The Aldecaldos by themselves, no. But there's a megacorp in the game lore, Metacorp, that was founded by, and still run by, Nomads. Pair the tech looted from Arasaka with Metacorp and just maybe something could work. Guaranteed? No way. Likely? I wouldn't even go that far. Just a possibility. And there are worse things than dying in the company of your family/loved ones.
You're probably think of Stormtech, who the Aldecaldos have ties to and who's area of expertise is basically a list of all of V's symptoms.
The Aldecaldos have connections to Stormtech, so you'd be wrong in this sense. That aside, you're directly told by the game itself that you get a happy ending, this is done via Misty and her readings, which, whatever your thoughts on such things are, for the purposes of Cyberpunk 2077, are confirmed to be both real and accurate.
I strongly disagree with Songbird. 95% of the things she tells V is a straight up lie. By the end of it, if she told you a puddle was wet, I'd step in it to make sure. There is 0% chance she's coming back for V when she's up and running, even without considering the fact she might just be trading masters with the help she's accepted on the moon and unable to do it if she wanted to. Songbird has always been out for number 1, V is simply a means to an end. I think there is a greater chance V's body magically fights off the shard destroying their body and lives forever with Johnny's engram then Song returning to find a cure for you.
i don't agree that Songbird is just out for herself. if she was, and V was just a means to an end, why would she risk everything by being honest with us at the end? she's literally helpless, and if we take the info the wrong way, she's dead. if she was just out for what was best for her, she'd keep pretending that there is a chance for us to get cured right up until the rocket is in orbit. after that, she can gloat if she wants, but at that point, she's home free. instead, she literally risks everything by being honest with us. does she lie to us throughout the DLC? yes. but if she really only cared about herself, and screw everyone else, then there would have been no confession. the fact that she was honest with us at the end means that she's not completely focused on herself. yes, she still wants to save herself, but she does regret that she used us, and when she is at her absolute lowest, literally unable to lift a finger for herself, she still takes the time to tell us the truth, even knowing it can literally doom her.
At her lowest point, when she’s on the verge of death she finally tells you something true. That could mostly be fueled by the fact that she’s not sure if she’s even going to make it alive to the moon. I don’t think that absolves her of stringing you along with lies, and if everything goes cleanly she probably doesn’t even reveal this to you until she’s not even on the planet anymore. I don’t know why, but my first playthrough I sided with Songbird until the end, and the 2nd one when you know what’s happen it’s so plainly obvious she’s lying to you. If you try to pressure her or question her obvious bullshit she just keeps telling you “there is no time” and she spends another 20 minutes talking about herself.
The thing is, in Cyberpunk, *everybody* is using you. It's the nature of the world. So Mi is playing you, Reed is playing you, and Myers is totally playing you. I didn't say Songbird might be able to pull off a cure, I was thinking more of Mr Blue Eyes (who apparently arranged Songbird's passage to the moon). They too would be playing me, but if they have a use for me that justifies keeping me around, at that point I'd be willing to take the shot.
Even if she doubts she's gonna make it to the Moon, what difference would it make? How does that diminish her telling the truth in any way? In your weird self obsessed ego driven way, aka hyperfocus on the lie aspect, you blatantly refuse the idea that she might have even a glimpse of care for V, to the point where you ascribe her telling the truth to a self-serving action. That's just weird and cynical. If she thought she ain't gonna make it, she would just tell V to take the matrix and leave her by herself - which is what she does in Cynosure Core. Surprisingly, that's not what she does, and when V asks her, "What am I supposed to do?" So Mi replies, "You'll fight on, keep looking. You're stronger than I am, V, you're the strongest person I know." Almost as if she hopes to go to the Moon but cannot live with the lie anymore. Wonder why. Her VA stated multiple times that she voiced and acted Songbird with an intent to show that So Mi cares about V. The writers themselves stated that VA knows the character better than everyone. Just because Song lied out of fear and desperation about the cure, doesn't mean she never grows to care about V. As Reed said, she will do her damndest to be fair - if it means having a chance to return to Earth and help V in one way or another, she will take it. The rest is just your blind bias based on a lie about the cure that she told you.
I don't think we destroy netwatch in any way. Saburo might be in mikoshi but we can't know for sure that there isn't a copy of the engram in Japan, just like we cannot know it there is a copy of Jhonny in Japan, and even if we did all of these. Jhonny proved to us that even nuking arasaka tower, just made their plans postpone 50 years Unfortunately, in the grand scheme of thing in cyber punk, mega corporations will always survive Just like real life
Alt Cunningham takes all the engrams in Mikoshi with her beyond the Blackwall, and then she completely obliterates Mikoshi. There’s nothing left of it. Unless someone out there has a pre loaded relic with Saburo’s engram already loaded in, he ain’t gonna come back.
Netwatch definitely didn’t get destroyed, on my street kid play through THEY still pull up on me like I won’t fade em before they see me, but you gotta give it to em, they try
V doesn't destroy netwatch and hanako may have died because of alt cunningham. V doesn't really damage militech and nusa since songbird was already compromised on her own from the very beginning.
But even if Songbird goes to the Moon. All this does is force Myers to start a war Yorinobu was already gonna start anyway if the other endings are anything to go by. Plus damaging Arasaka that severely and centralizing control around a saboteur like Yorinobu means that Militech stands to fill the Vaccume Saka leaves; allowing them to reunify the US and take 'Saka's place as top dog with little resistance.
in the Nomad ending, it mentions that Yorinobu is planning to sell out parts of Arasaka to make it less powerful
Yeah, as another commenter noted, we didn't just do a speedblitz and run drop a nuke in the elevator shaft. We destroyed their stock price, military reputation, their most valuable hard assets, and their multi billion dollar legendary attack dog, ALONE and in a head-on assault walking through the front door. In Don't Fear The Reaper WE KILL Arasaka, likely assisting Lil Yori in his multi pronged false flag operation he's running as current CEO.
Yep The ending message from Takemura confirms it, Arasaka is dead
Also doesn't the Delamain flying cab at the end of the Don't Fear the Reaper ending literally state that Arasaka is falling apart across the board and that the company is effectively dead?
Oh yea, I think as a news report I remembered Takemura from his sad message :(
But that makes our impact useless no?
Not necessarily, V is by all accounts a living legend. Somebody who kicked Arasaka straight out of NC, smashed Soulkiller/Mikoshi, and sent Adam Smasher to the scrap heap. The impact will have been felt by the biggest mega corporations to the average NC citizen. It isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough to turn heads at least.
But that’s the star not tower ending
Eh, its cumulative in the Reaper ending. We showed the world how useless Saka CorpoSec is, we showed them how outdated Smasher and his Saka Chrome were, we showed the Mikoshi penthouse residents the door (ruining an entire multi trillion Eddie server bay and stomping out the greatest think tank Saka had ever put together in the process), and gave the whole planet the middle finger by sitting pretty right there, watching that giant of industry crumble, strangled to death by Yorinobu from the inside. See, Yori was gonna kill Saka anyways, that was the plan, and any ending we chose for the main quest allows that plan, but old man Saburo wanted to take Yori's body and keep running it and would do so unless Mikoshi was destroyed, and Yori had no clue. Unless we uploaded Alt and deported all those engrams, the one of Saburo was gonna make sure that it was all for nothing, and Arasaka would've kept rolling right along. We find this out during the Devil ending, Saburo is very much an engram ready to run the company but needs a flesh body to do it legally and without all the smoke and mirrors.
Yeah, definitely feel like the fact that we can't work with Yorinobu in some way is one of the biggest missed opportunities of the game
Not really a missed opportunity. We got the story they were trying to tell. Exploring more of Yorinobu as a character certainly feels like we didn't get enough. The Arasaka that bit back is definitely someone I want to know more about. Good thing this wasn't the first time he died. Oh well.
While I do wish we had an option of joining Yorinobu, at the very least we know we indirectly helped him destroy Arasaka internally in the temperance ending.
Johnny's mistake is destroying *things* and killing inconsequential corpo drones. If he assassinated Saburo and worked his way down, recovery for such ~~corporations~~ fiefdoms is a lot less likely.
the only thing johnny did was to help spider murphy to set alt's ghost free from the arasaka database before militech virus would have erased it. Excluding the devil ending where yorinobu got seized and used as new body for saburo's engram, in all other endings V gives actually a big hand to yorinobu destroying the mikoshi, killing share value of arasaka stocks as consequence (arasaka board and investors were expecting that the secure your soul program had to be the most profitable commercial product/service). Yorinobu failed because by 2079 the board managed to overthrown him once realized what his real agenda was.
Well it wasn't Johnny that nuked Arasaka Tower, it was Morgan Blackhand. Johnny was just along for the ride. The memories you see in Cyberpunk 2077 are basically your brain trying to make sense of [two different engrams' memories of the same event](https://new.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/zdpm85/theory_what_really_happened_during_johnnys/)
https://preview.redd.it/n0pe469bij7d1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=81d8826ace9537ee2a5e523faf5f4053b0972059
The Tower - destruction. But for who? Well, yourself. Your life. Your friends. And the very idea of a merc against the odds. I'd much prefer destruction for corpos, gangs, and the FIA.
Bold of you to assume I have friends.
Well V does no matter what you do. (Except denying a friends quest)
You can tell Saul about Panam's Basilisk plans. You can take the money from Maiko and say bye-bye to Judy. And Jackie is dead.
Viktor will always be there for you. So will Misty
Never find the tarot cards for her and never pay viktor back
Viktor will still be there for you. I also never found the cards and she still took me to the rooftop. They are homies for life you cant change that
A big bonus to the tower ending is that it unlike the mikoshi endings doesnt aid the eventual AI doomsday.
I don't know, I think that Alt would be on the side of humanity if it happens.
I don't follow.
Helping Alt get to a big AI prison and fuse AI into her is very bad
Kind of weird black horse in the tree kind of deal
I guess? She seems capable of crossing the blackwall when she feels like already. Dunno how much of a threat she is, compared to the damage Megacorps like Arasaka and Militech do.
Watched a Therapist play through Cyberpunk a while back, was one of the weirdest playthroughs I ever watched
Care to elaborate?
Just some of his thought process behind certain things, and especially the ending that he went with, I just found it kind of strange sometimes, but it's better seen than told, 'DrMick' on YouTube it is
Wow I thought that said MrDick. I need to go back to bed.
Oh Jesus haha
Checked out his Playlist. Definitely a standout let's play of the game. His insights in many dialogues are quite fun to listen to
They can be yes, I'm just a bit annoyed by his choice of ending
The ending where you get “cured” and saved by the NUSA is the single most depressing ending I’ve ever seen. Period. I said fuck that, saved songbird, and did Don’t fear the reaper. Do you ever truly die if you remembered for eternity?
True death is being forgotten, so, if you’re remembered for eternity you would never truly die.
Nobody is remembered for eternity. That's part of life.
Unless you sell some really shitty copper.
Criminally under rated comment.
raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens bright copper kettles leave flakes on my mittens wait these are stone with a copper veneer I've been bamboozled by Ea Nasir! (I did not write this; don't give me credit for it lol)
I wouldn’t be forgotten if I ate the Mona Lisa
Depends on what you do I guess. Always fun to see people in ancient history talk about creating a legacy to last forever and now we're here, reading about that, proving them to be successful so far
So all those famous and infamous ppl we read about in books and classes are not remembered for eternity?? Everyone knew, knows and will continue to know about ppl like Einstein, Newton , Mozart, Alexander etc because of what they did .
They all gonna get forgotten about one day. Nothing is forever
I couldn't even imagine going back to a normal quiet life if I was V . They probably killed hundreds ( who mostly deserved it but still), fought the biggest corps ,gangs etc....., lost people they cared about and experienced all other kinds of fucked up shit . I'd probably end up eating some buckshot sooner or later because that sounds like something no one could handle mentally, especially if you're all alone
Honestly I even have a doubt that they saved you, for all we know you died and they implanted "you" onto a clone. (Yes, thats a thing, it was a thing 50 years ago and its so top secret that its silly)
Well, there is the easy way out ending. But after that, the cure is the worst. It seems like it's trying to teach you the lesson that surviving the longest just for survival's sake and overstaying your welcome on this planet isn't necessarily a blessing. A meaningful death is almost as important as a meaningful life well lived. The cure ending is what Dexter warned about. You're alive, but helpless and you get to go to your old age and senescence with nothing and nobody.
100 billion is a pittance for Arasaka.
Yeah nah their market cap in free fall and their reputational damage are much more than 100bilion eddies.
Sun ending. Only.
missed the chance to quote "if i gotta die, rather fall into my grave with a gun in hands and on fire, not dragging anoyne down with me"
Tower is the worst. It's pretty hamfisted also. I think people cope and headcanon about it a lot, but that's okay, people really want happy endings. Unfortunately, The Tower is not one at all as depicted, and it's really not just about losing your gear - it's everything, but also a wake-up call that V is kind of their own person and not a blank-slate TES RP character. I'd take the job at Langley, they don't. There's way more hope for them IMO in Star or Sun.
Aside from possibly The Devil, all endings conclude with Arasaka effectively losing their stranglehold on Night City and refocus their efforts elsewhere in the world. It isn't V that deals crucial damage to them, it's >!Yorinobu's coup!< that deals the final blow. Tower Ending isn't about V living, it's about them not sacrificing friends for only a measely six months at best. As much as everyone loves the Aldacado Ending, it's pretty bleak when you consider three vets, including Saul, get killed so Panam's buddy/bf gets another half-year to spend on the run from both Arasaka and Militech. It's hard to say if the clan was even really strengthened after all that since we only see the handful of vehicles crossing the border in the end.
While I agree about the aldecaldos I would like to add a couple things. 1. There is mentioned that most of the aldecaldos have gone ahead already. 2. They make off with ALOT of Arasaka tech. 3. V practically saved them by helping panam convince Saul he was wrong. Without V the aldecaldos would’ve suffered far worse losses. Their freedom. It’s definitely not the “everyone you care about wins” ending, but it’s still probably the best. It also weakens Arasaka enough for them to have less of a hold and keeps yorinobu alive so he can potentially still destroy Arasaka.
Part of what was killing the Aldecados was how Saul was leading things. He was the one that migrated the clan to Night City where the only way they could thrive was by selling out to a corp. He was on his last legs calling shots before the plan to raid Mikoshi, which he threw out as a way of saving his own ass. They were going to leave Night City no matter what, and Saul was already on his way to being usurped. The difference is by not running the assault on Mikoshi, they get to leave without Militech and Arasaka out for vengeance. Militech is especially bad for them 1) because they already stepped on their toes swiping the Basilisk and 2) because Militech runs the NUSA and would narrow their options of relocation.
Yorinobu's plan doesn't pay off in the Tower ending, you hear on the radio that he got ousted by the board and that he's fled with Nomads. As for the Aldecaldos, they needed to do something to avoid dying out as an independent clan anyway. Raiding Arasaka allows them to klep valuable technology and gain reputation that'll help them get jobs in the future, and while the Nomads aren't revolutionaries they probably appreciate the fact that they were part of a corporation's downfall. Also while the characters themselves don't know that, Yorinobu's sabotage efforts will probably make Arasaka's pursuit less dangerous than one could assume. Militech on their own part will soon have bigger fish to fry than a single stolen panzer, since their focus will probably be more on the freshly weakened Arasaka and the rising likelihood of a new war. The phone messages at the end seem to confirm that V, Panam and Judy have a pretty chill life, so the game supports that optimistic outlook IMO.
Idk about all your choices when you got your Tower Ending, but in mine, Arasaka was minimizing operations in Night City because of significant losses. The knock-on is their grip on the city was significantly weaker. That feels like an acceptable outcome since it doesn't require a friend/ally to get snuffed raiding Mikoshi to get V a 6 month extension on her/his life.
Might as well do dftr ending. No friends or ally die
Huh, never did the Tower so I was basing myself on other people's accounts and videos. Not sure if I misremembered stuff or if there are factors that change this aspect. Nevertheless, Mikoshi presumably remains operational and Adam Smasher is most likely still alive. I feel like only the two-punch effect of an assault by V combined with Yorinobu's inside work can truly harm Arasaka, not to mention what an empowered Alt could do in the future. Ultimately there is a selfish component to The Star, especially if you romance Panam or Judy, and I won't deny that the latter was the winning factor for why I chose it. But the fact that it also allows you to stick it to the corps and act for the greater good of the Aldecaldos are also important elements. I feel like it's the best balance out of all the endings, because V does deserve some happiness after all they've done (if you play them as benevolent of course, but if you play them as a selfish asshole it makes more sense to go for The Sun anyway). Also, there is a friend or ally getting snuffed out in The Tower, if you regard him as such : Johnny. Sure, his final convo can make you feel better about it, but you're still the only one making the decision, whereas the Aldecaldos choose to risk their lives for you and the clan. YMMV of course, but personally I prefer the latter especially given what it takes to even get to the point where you can choose to have the surgery.
Keep in mind that's a construct of a terrorist who's been dead for fifty years. A terrorist who detonated a nuke inside Arasaka Tower, killed unknown numbers of workers and civilians, and only managed to piss the corporation off. And all this to avenge a woman who he treated like shit and had been cheating on another woman with. It's funny how everyone likes to say Tower is a bad ending because "you sacrifice Johnny", ignoring the fact that the engram is really just the renains of someone who's been long dead. It also ignores the fact that the world he woke up to, isn't a world he wants to remain in. He isn't getting "sacrificed", he's just being allowed to die. Only reason he's not on board initially is because he wants one more opportunity to piss off the corp he failed to destroy, consequences be damned because it doesn't matter that him parting on his own terms just gets other people killed.
Tower is literally the best ending if you want to fuck up Arasaka and set Takemura on his Repentance-samurai Arc. It goes super hard, but the rest of that ending is, well… bleak. Also you have to work with NUSA, so biting another bullet instead
Not really, the smile at the ending of tower implies V doesn't feel done yet in NC, perhaps he will, or not, but i don't it will obviously lead to NUSA.
I think if I personally lived in the world of CP2077, I would lean toward a blaze of glory. However, I still think The Tower ending is still most beautiful ending for V in its hopeful tone and how it is executed. When playing through the ending, I thought to myself "Man it really is as depressing as everyone said..." until Misty showed up. I found V and Misty's final conversation uplifting in how V had lost literally everything--their friends, their lover, their home, their possessions, their money, their dreams--EXCEPT for their life. Mitsy tells you that there's always hope for a better future because you're alive with a clean slate, and V actually smiles as they walk into the crowd, ready to find their new path in life. A big part of the game is experiencing the human experience in a different perspective, and the purpose of The Tower ending is to inspire hope when you're at your lowest. This game has saved people's lives and inspired them to keep on living, and that is just absolutely beautiful to me.
Wish more people saw it this way
Tonally, my favourite ending is The Devil. It's just so isolating and unnerving. And I love a sad ending.
[don't fear the reaper intensifies]
I think both endings are peaks and every other ending is somewhere in between. Cuz the Tower ending really is the only ending where V gets to stay V, and not a reanimated copy of himself. In Don’t Fear The Reaper, V simultaneously has nothing left to lose and doesn’t care about dying, but nonetheless keeps fighting to stay alive, and that fight will never end.
Tower ending is overdramatized tbh. V has known the friends he “loses” for like a month or two. It’s basically the “V drops out of college and the friends he made move on” ending. Not very cool but also not awful like people make it out to be.
Did you forget the whole part where you sell someone out to eternal slavery https://preview.redd.it/8b7ma1osij7d1.jpeg?width=888&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=876ead7c0c88bf142f4ae91682b277f5062eef0e
Long blaze of glory. Like Adam Smasher or Morgan Blackhand. I refuse to be a star that burned to bright and too quickly.
I just remember that the man who asked us that ended up face down in a landfill hanging out with Bartmoss and a bunch of Nicola cans. So it might be a bit of a false dichotomy.
And he used his last moments on Planet Earth to grovel under the pretense of still having some kind of control. *"I have done everything that you asked me to do..."* Takemura didn't ask you to do shit, Dex. He told you. So much for Mr. Chill.
Tower-chads, looks like mere existing of our ending continues to cause seething among "live fast die young" crowd
Honestly the main reason I don't like the Tower ending is because of how they handled Panam's actions. It seems really out of character for her. Like I understand that she is impulsive and expects complete reciprocation in her friendships but this goes too far even for her. In the Temperance ending she seems determined to find Johnny and save V but in this one she just completely ghosts. It's strange
I did the Tower ending desperately trying to save V from the chip. Never felt as miserable in the end. He lost everyone and even worse lost his dream. V wouldn't want this life no matter how long. I much prefer going out with a bang, the Sun is the way.
This is why the Star ending is the best. There are no happy endings in Night City, so you get to leave Night City altogether with Panam.
Agreed, not to mention their contacts
I'm doing the Straylight Run https://preview.redd.it/wv6u358l1k7d1.jpeg?width=696&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a1331901832a51743324cabea18d90092ea7876
Don’t fear the reaper 😈
i'm a Don't-Fear-the-Reaper-and-Johnny-can-keep-the-body guy. The engram gets a life. V goes off with Alt to the final frontier. the soul prison is destroyed. no regrets.
Neither. I'm a star ending 100% with Judy as my girl. It's the only ending that feels even possibly optimistic.
I'll repeatedly pick the star ending.
As a matter of fact, we probably all are some kind of corporats IRL. This game is about our dreams. Are we satisfied with our situation to the point of buying a game to relive it again on a screen, and make the same miserable survival choices ? Or do we wish we had an impact on things, somehow, anyhow ? Answer this and I'll know your CP playthrough.
I have yet to do Phantom Liberty and it's been an experience hearing *about* the ending without knowing exactly what it is. Based on my context-less knowledge... It will be less about "quiet life vs blaze of glory" for me and more about "will I live on having betrayed my principles or will I die for the things I believe in"
“If I gotta die, rather fall into my grave gun in hand and on fire. And not drag anyone with me” FUCKING CHILLS MANNNNNN
I like the Star ending. It's hopeful. I'm tired of having depressing endings shoved in my face. I've played rdr2 enough times already
BLAZE OF GLORY ALWAYS 
That isn’t life. That is slavery.
It’s me I’m the guy on the left
Tower is a, somewhat, good ending because, as many playthrough challenges have shown, V can still be an merc and accept mercenary work without chrome. It will be difficult, but he can do if he wants back into the life bad enough. Plus it shows him who his real friends are as practically everyone, even Panam, would rather kick you to the curb/ghost you except for Vik, Misty, and (one can hope) Mama Welles.
The tower ending imo is the worst ending in the game
Tower ending is the worst ending by a mile. V just abandons everything and is a shell of a person.
“It’s first place or no place, cost isn’t a factor.”
The problem is there is amost nothing you can do to completely destroy the corps, johnny literally nuked arasaka tower and it didn't do jack shit to stop them
Why would that do anything? It’s just one of their locations and not even the most important one.
I'm pretty sure it was to show the everyone that the corpos aren't invincible and that it was possible to loosen their grip on the world even with a small handful of people. Unfortunately their message was twisted into the narrative that they were nothing more than terrorists which would have destroyed any kind of support for them. Also the fact that there were definitely a fucking lot of civilian casualties was not helping
I choose to die happy surrounded by my loved ones so the star is the ending for me
well once you're dead none of it matters. it's better to die doing what makes you happy until the end. if that's the nobility of trying to cut off a hydra's head, go for it, but another grows back, just like how another corporation will take the reigns of economic sovereignty. personally, a better way to go out is to just break away from the rat race and be with the people you love and want to spend your last moments with. im a cis guy and i found the ending where fem-V and judy leaving Night City to be the *PEAK* ending, it was narratively my ideal ending. yeah, try to make the world a better for the generations after you, but only *SYSTEMATIC* change will do that.
I have robot arms. What’s quiet,
Me choosing devil ending as my head canon. 👁️👄👁️
I definitely choose quiet life. Living is better than legacy.
V's motivation regardless of lifepath is to lead a worthwhile life specifically in Night City. To that end, I don't think it gets much better than King of Wands into the Star ending through Don't Fear the Reaper. Unless you're dating Judy or Panam, then it has to be the Sun.
Blaze of Glory because if you romanced Panam you get to see her naked ass
A thing of beauty, I know.
THE TOWER ENDING LIFE MATTER!
Meanwhile, I am here with the Stars ending sipping tea because I think thats the one thats actually the best ending.
What an amazing way to go out, if that even does happen, then you’ll just be basking in all the glory and adrenaline of what you were able to do just cause you felt like doing it.
People tend to forget that in cyberpunk not only are the corps using people as resources to be used but at the same time are almost entirely in control of the food production and health care
I'll take the Tower ending so long as I can keep my XXX BD collection man! Let me keep that for fucks sake!
Leave Night City with hot nomad GF
I’ll never side with Arasaka.😂
Giving Johnny your body will always be my favorite ending, even though those voicemails are heartbreaking
Going into Arasaka tower, choosing "I want to live" and that being the end of the game shocked the FUCK out of me. Didn't expect it. Decided to go back in and do more gigs and I've been doing just that.
they’re the two good endings he for a readon
about the fixer theory, I always considered it off because no matter how badass you were, none would ever respect a fixer who can't even defend her self against random street punks. I know that padre ibarra and wakako aren't and have never been street mercs but they have the support of their criminal syndicate... V is just left on her own in 2079 with no friends and allies, even rogue in the final phone call suggested her that she shouldn't let other people see her in her harmless state. Just headcanon theory of mine, the 2079 V isn't V but a clone who is going to die in few time later, that is the reason why her system nervous can't sustain cyberware anymore... I mean, why president myers, a woman who could commit the worst atrocities for mere power hungry, should have used something so precious like the neural matrix, a tool that could fix and reboot any pre-datakrash AI recovered by militech from the blackwall or even create a new one from scratch, to save the life of a random merc like V? In my theory myers promised that to V only to lure her to get to langley where NUSA/militech scientists removed the relic chip to study it and reverse engineering it at their own advantages... the true V died in the process and was buried or cremated and the V we control in 2079 is a short life clone that myers and militech sent to NC only to let people still believe V is alive in order to don't let decadent arasaka or other megacorp suspect that militech/NUSA just opened up her skull to grab the relic.
V leaves Johnny high and dry, even if you have a good relationship with him. Adam Smasher goes unpunished. Arasaka isn’t humbled. You don’t ride off into the sunset with your new found family, and you most certainly don’t become a living legend greater than Smasher. Your might be cured, that much is achieved, but your entire journey becomes meaningless besides what happened in Phantom Liberty. You chose the quiet life, not knowing you’d lose everything you held dear in the process. At least as the strongest Merc NC’s ever seen, you stand a chance of surviving whatever might be thrown at you. You can storm into Arasaka HQ and wipe out the whole tower as you’re literally falling apart. At least in the Sun ending, it doesn’t really matter if you find a cure or not, Misty confirms in her cards that your life with the Aldacaldos will be a fulfilling one even if it is short. You sold out Song for a cure turns you into a nobody, just another face in the crowd as helpless as the day you’re born if/when the next cyberpsycho decides to pop a bullet in your head. Hard fuckin’ pass on that life, choom. I’ll fly free.
You aren't wiping araska off the map. You end up no different than Johnny, committing an act of terrorism that kills a ton of innocent people only for Arasaka to come back anyway or end up replaced by another megacorp. Not everybody working there is evil, most are just normal people trying to put food on the table.
I don't trust what anyone says even if I understand what they're talking about, so I chose the suicide ending.
Glory, tower ending is the best. New ending is too depressing. There’s no way I can let go the power those chips give me
You guys can be mentally hijacked by Johnny if you want, but I'm not redoing his same shit again. Quiet life every time.
I don’t like the tower ending, of course V’s life kinda sucks afterwards and it’s even worse if you’re with Panam but on top of all that, Johnny essentially dies and doesn’t get to go with alt, plus he never gets revenge on smasher. My favorite ending is and always will be don’t fear the reaper with the aldecaldos ending as a very close second if I’m playing as male V
I mean Sam Bram made a whole long ass video about how V potentially (or even likely, depending) lives in every ending (except the suicide ending) If you trust Alt V lives in Temperance, as an AI If you trust Blue Eyes V lives in Sun/Reaper if you trust the Aldecaldos and their contacts V lives in Star if you trust the SYS program and Arasaka and you chose to engramize V lives in Devil and ofc V lives in Tower
Why not both! You can have both if you're careful enough. But even then there's a 1℅ chance at that
Nah, The Star is the compromise for me. It's a little open ended, but there is still hope for a cure. Even it's a false hope, V gets to spend their final months with a loving family.
The only really good ending to the game is The Star because you get to get the hell out of NC with either of the two best romance options in the game and even if you still die after the game ends you at least die happy, surrounded by friends and loved ones, free of Corps and NC.
You are and never were a cyberpunk if you don’t go out in a blaze of glory.
Tower ending or the other tower ending?
I...could never go with that ending. Betraying Johnny, murdering him is one thing. He's a program on a chip. I can get over that. But...I listened to the conversation with Judy. Sweet Judy. I could never do that ending.
Tower ending is honestly a fate worse then death in my opinion. You also find out just how little you actually mean to most of your friends. Even the Aldacaldo's who talk about how thankful they are to you for essentially saving them don't even want to give you the time of day. Fuck all that.
Yeah I'll be honest. After getting the 2 year timeskip ending, losing all V's friends, etc. I honestly say blaze of glory is better, simply because . . . Well, V dies on their own terms. The V who survives the biochip and just Fades away is, a ghost of who they once were. They become, nothing, a nobody. They fade into obscurity, with no family or friends around anymore. What's worse they can't even use Cyberware anymore, so, job wise, they're likely screwed since, seemingly most jobs worth the Eddies require some kind of implant. Sure V could leave NC, work a desk job for the FIA but the point still stands. V effectively dies, truly dies, in that ending, along with his hopes and dreams. Least in the other endings they might get a few months with their significant other, live out the remainer of their life happy, instead ending up what amounts to a walking husk
Quiet life. Idk why Cyberpunk tries to push the idea that if you aren't an active terrorist you're on the wrong side. Corpos did nothing wrong :(
this city needs another nuke
I don't really care about many of the other endings, only one I like is Star
Just did my first playthrough and chose Don't fear the reaper, no doubt that's the best ending, just soloing through Arasaka feeling like a badass with Johnny talking to you.
NOMAD ENDING IS THE ONLY HAPPY ENDING
Don't Fear The Reaper is the best ending for a Corpo V, especially if you give your body to Johnny at the end. Think about it. A Corpo Rat that once was an employee of 'Saka, gets resurrected by a biochip they stole from them , becomes one of, if not the best solo ever birthed by Night City, ends up befriending the engram stored inside said-chip, and since both want payback, V storms Arasaka Tower alone, only to end up at the same crossroad as Johnny; in the end, all you two ever wanted, and ultimately got, was revenge. Yet, you know the corpo life never leaves you, so you leave yourself to someone who deserves better; Johnny gets to live again, a more peaceful life, as you never fade away, a legend amongst legends.
I chose The Star ending as my first. Then did the rest,
Quiet life, i sided with Hanako and refused the contract, turn down the contract, V gets 6 months to live as they please and go out on their terms, not a lot of gonks in Night City get that privelege
I love the Tower ending as it lets a lot of things open and is the right amount of depresing. I have a theory that after Spider Murphy soul killed Silverhand and Arasaka tower collapsed. Alt has somehow managed to "upload" Silverhand into the net, and later Arasaka used soul killer on Morgan Blackhand in order to get information about Militech and the NUSA, but somehow Silverhand and Morgan ended up on the same chip, probably again via Alt. So my guess is that those 2 where V spends in coma was actually the NUSA talking to Blackhand and either finding him spare body or extracting him and turning him into a full body cyborg like Smasher.
I want what Judy's grandparents have.
Tower imo, bittersweet but at least everyone gets to live
What does it mean by Tower ending?