This is mainly a thread to rant about Cyberpunk story spoilers so if you're actually interested in this story don't bother looking at this thread. Even then though I think it's fair to post a lot of fellow cynics here are pretty fed up of the state of RPG storywriting these days.
I feel like Cyberpunk 2077 is Mass Effect 3 all over again and even on steam people are making comparisons to what Baldur's Gate 3 are doing with the story with Bioware. I took my own advice this time round and watched the no commentary gameplay and honestly yet again I was not impressed lol.
Even when you do your best to take the woke element out of the story, you quickly realise why they shove the woke elements of the games in so hard and it's to cover up the fact that ultimately the 'choices matter' marketing is pretty fraudulent in some cases. Allegedly Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't even have proper epilogues for the choices you make according to posters among other things though to be fair and not spread bullshit I don't know if they have plans to patch that in.
V's story is pretty self-fulfilling at the end of the day maybe or maybe I'm being unfair on the writers because perhaps their intention was to make some 'dark' ending for V no matter what. However if that's the case then really he's not the MC of this cyberpunk universe he's just some generic NPC who's going to die no matter what in this case and even the implied good endings seem to have him be miserable because he's a greedy fuck that wanted to have it all instead of live his life happily.
Perhaps I'm not giving the writers enough credit and this is supposed to be a social commentary on the consequences of greed in a cyberpunk universe however I don't think these woke writers are capable of that much subtlety. It feels like the choice matter games are all fake, at the end of the day you can't just say no and walk or fight out of a situation which would hugely impress me.
To posit a scenario that I would have written for a story like this. I would have given the player an entire option to ditch the chip and not insert it into your brain. That would have been really interesting, you could even make it the way more difficult option to survive through because of all the factions wanting you dead. However, you'd still have the chip generally on hand and you wouldn't need to worry about terminal illness. Carrying the chip around would be like having a live grenade in your pocket.
At the end of the day though it seems a lot of RPG writers don't want the PC having a happy ending or being all powerful for some bizarre reason. I'm going to always be checking for that shit now if I ever see an RPG pop up I like the look of and yes it does bother me a lot. Just another cautionary tail of don't buy a new game within a month of release.
Main Rant: If writers want to start killing off the protagonists of game stories, then they should have the balls to make new protagonists to continue the story overall rather than milking the same story endlessly that just isn't that interesting. Honestly fuck these people, if they want to go on strike I'll be thrilled, I could write better RPGs than they can and I realise that's very ballsy of me to post but I'm pretty confident in my writing skills. My only issue would be funding for voice actors but I wonder if I could make a multi-choice RPG with writing alone.
V put the chip in because it was the only way to protect it from rapid degeneration. Dying while having it in is what activated Silverhand. Without that chip, fat nigga kills V after the heist, no revival. Say what you want about the story, you're probably right, but don't skimp out on important facts.
Yes but my point is if it's a choices matter RPG you should be able to kill fatty in a boss battle rather than have some lame sequence play and force you into the main branch story even if you don't put the chip in. This would then open you up to more interesting story choices rather than 'muh terminal illness' depression simulator. Fallout New Vegas is something I always look to when it comes to story choices in gaming being able to say no to all the main factions is a wonderful idea that needs to be done more often.
There's a degree you have to accept that the main story will be forced on you, and in Cyberpunk's case, it's the chip. Now the real "choices matter" bullshit is morality. I believe that's something that has come up with Baldur's Gate 3 players. You want to absolutely loathe certain NPCs that enter your camp without permission, some even trying to kill others in your camp, and no matter how you feel about it, the game won't let you reject them.
That's the thing, I can throw that comment right back at you and go "But they need the insufferable woke characters to continue the main branch of the story" you see how it works and how they get you to accept sub-par writing? :D
Those two things are not at all comparable.
The only thing V knew about the chip is that he would get a huge payday if he delivered it intact, and that his best friend died to get it.
The only way he would ever make the choice to not slot it in is if he knew the end of the story, which he doesn't. If you want to talk about "muh immersion" then how would that make any sense at all?
It still seems at cross purposes that you demand better writing, but also want to completely branch away from the main narrative. I don't think there's anything wrong with a story element that's set in stone. Not every game wants a loose narrative, or is set up to accept it.