The Profound Tragedy Hidden Within Cyberpunk 2077

“Welcome to Night City!” A passing car’s radio blares out like a neon gunshot. Tumbleweed in the form of plastic bags, branded cans and paper scatters across the street, discarded like the city’s morality. Humanity is stripped from its inhabitants in favour of money, alcohol, dignity and, worst of all; chrome – NC slang for robotic and neural technology. A man with a robotic arm lurks in an alley, launching threatening glares at passing crowds. Spotlights dance around the crossing as a mother is pulled out of her car by police armed to the teeth. An explosion of music erupts from a nightclub and, somewhere above, the sharp-pressed suits barely stop to give the filthy scene below a second glance.

Tonight, I finished CD Projekt Red’s glance into the future that goes by the name of Cyberpunk 2077and it has left me feeling…odd. Empty? Sad? Fulfilled. All of these things and more. Being aware of Cyberpunk’s recent starlight, I am cautious of droning on too long about ‘my experience’ of a very well-documented and highly controversial game, so in light of that this is more for my own peace of mind and for those who have enjoyed/are enjoying the title and want to hear another player’s point of view. That in mind, this piece contains MAJOR SPOILERS and a lot of them so if you have not finished the game or simply don’t want the story spoiled for you TURN BACK NOW.

You have been warned.

Still here? Okay, cool. Hi.

Now, I obviously want to discuss the ending that I burdened my conscience with, but before we get to the climax of Cyberpunk’s story I must first revisit a moment that I experienced before embarking past the point of no return that the game throws at you when approaching the endgame.

Surprisingly, there have been a few occasions where I have felt upset or disturbed by the content in this game, but rarely 'hopeless'. In between stealing Militech tanks and hunting down disturbed man-children who turn young lads into cows (yes), I had decided to take Jackie’s Arch on an especially long tour around the city centre, visiting the bars, clothing stores, tarot card murals and various other points-of-interest that Cyberpunk provides a player with, before I arrived at my final destination. In real-world time it was about 2 or 3 in the morning and I was already beginning to feel the pull of my warm bed in fear of not catching the sun the following dreary winter day.

It was the hiss of an automatic door lead me onto a rooftop: Roxie’s Bar was the last POI that I ended up at, running around all the rooms to pick up various data-shards and drinking all of the alcohol that its patrons seemed to not be too keen to hold onto. The door shut behind me, cutting off the sound of pulsing music and chatter below and I was left alone on a fenced-off basketball court littered with, well, litter. This notion did an incredible job of sparking the nostalgia and memories of leaving a hot bar or club on a night out in Manchester to get a breath of fresh air and, doing just that, it gave me pause to ponder.

The whole game up to this point had been a rollercoaster of action, noise, gunfire and intense social warfare. However, suddenly I was isolated from all of it. Somewhere a siren wailed, the clap of a gunshot echoed off a distant wall and the megalopolis churned and beeped, but the night sky muted it all, reducing the pollution of my senses to a soft hum. Me and V were alone, on a rooftop, in a city built to break, subjugate and kill its occupants. V’s friends - who I had spent the past 30+ hours working for in order put right their wrongs – were all smiles on the phone, but behind their precision-animated dimples, could offer nothing more than simple repetitive dialogue to aid V’s anxiety about the upcoming war. The bustling of the city continued regardless of death or suffering. The world didn’t stop for the aging, the inflation didn’t stop for the businessmen, Night City wasn’t about to stop for a merc with an appetite for destruction and a mission to cure their decomposing brain, and it didn’t matter how many characters had to perish before this goal was reached. Sometimes, in a game all about action and violence and car-theft and sticking it to the man, the most powerful moments come when you stop and take a breath. This was the first time in Cyberpunk 2077 that I felt, for V’s sake, truly alone and hopeless.

I think it was this inspiring moment that made the ending that I got even more affective. For those who have finished the game, I got my soul taken by Arasaka.

To justify this decision I suppose we really have to delve into my V’s willingness to do anything for survival. Even for a setting plagued by mind-bending and peaceful-sleep-destroying trauma for its inhabitants, you have to wonder what lengths someone will go to to preserve their own natural sense of survival. From a Corporate Assistant, to a mercenary chasing lost wealth and hedonism, to a honed and toned cyborg killing machine trapped in a race with death, my V stole, cheated and killed her way to removing Johnny Silverhand’scancerous chip from her head.

After disregarding warnings from Vik, Misty, Johnny, and knowing that her other friends probably wouldn’t be too thrilled to know her last job was in favour of helping the corporation that had got her in this mess to start with, I gritted my teeth and accepted that there may be no coming back from this. But hell, as they say in NC: you could get killed by a stray bullet on the street any day, so this was still something more exciting. Collapsing out of the Limo and coughing up a hand of blood, V was going to fight till the bitter end whether she win or lose.

However, this bitter end did not come as expected. Accomplishing her goal of ransacking the Arasaka HQ, cutting Adam ‘f*cking’ Smasher into tiny exploding pieces and clearing the way for Hanako to teach her brother - the leader of the corporation – a lesson in family justice, V passed out and let the operation to save her life be taken into the hands of science’s best.

Except, yet again, this did not go as planned. V woke up on a bed in a very white room, drowned in an uncomfortable green hue. A short walk outside bestowed upon us an image few humans had actually had the experience of laying eyes upon: space. V had been transported to Arasaka’s orbital science facility.

In her words, we had truly been sentenced to hell, as the scientists continued to run repetitive un-specified tests on her motor and problem-solving skills. Losing all concept of time in the pristine prison, being offered no explanation of current results or her condition, and a short spell of interior design in the form of launching a chair across the room out of frustration. We were finally presented with an option.

V was told that despite the removal of the chip, her brain was still failing and that her DNA represented that of someone with radiation poisoning. With a six-month lifespan in one hand, or the chance of immortality in the other, the scientist Hellmann introduced to her the possibility of being preserved in digital form, inside the very data-centre she had originally set out to destroy. The same place that Silverhand had been locked away inside for half a century was now her only saving grace. V’s body would decay and die, but her soul could live on with the chance of being digitally endowed with a different body in the future.

One more time, hyper-capitalism had prevailed over body and spirit and, as Hellmann offered her the positive reviews left by the other ‘wealthy’ participants, I realised that we had no idea whether we could even trust Arasaka to withhold this agreement. She was stuck in space, far away from anything she held close or familiar, only a signature away from being either put on ice for a very long time or being right out killed having handed herself right to her enemy in handcuffs.

A further kick in the teeth harks back to the testing sessions when offered the chance to call friends back on Earth. After scrolling through V’s various contacts and having them each decline her the chance to talk due to their own personal business, I realised that V’s mindless trailblazing that had led up to this point had been colourful and fun and wild and explosive, but that it had left a character with an intense amount of emotional grief and irreversible property damage. I wondered what would have been different, where V would have been sat, if we had let Silverhand take the wheel, and I’m sure V would have been thinking the same.

With her friends left in the dust, her belongings reduced to a dirty hospital gown, and the one opposing voice in her head silenced, I knew that this couldn’t simply end here. V signed the Arasaka deal and, with no knowledge of whether she would come out of it, whether this was the last time she would have her consciousness intact, V approached the operating room with shaking hands.

I watched as the camera panned out and this character, who I had put through thick and thin, climbed into the chair. Her eyes struggled to remain composed. Her face couldn’t hide the contemplation and gravity of her decision. Without telling her friends, without clearing up all her loose ends and ambitions, and after all that fighting and grim determination that had led her to this point, V laid down to die.

I often play video games for quick release, immersion into a better life, or something in between. Cyberpunk 2077 offered a glimpse into a world that was created to deconstruct and abuse its inhabitants from the start in a way that blows our own understanding of reality up to a hundred, but equally doesn’t seem too far-fetched to imagine aligning our own need for technological advancement and capitalism with. Of all the characters in the game, CD Projekt Red’s cityscape was the most lethal, and V’s story is one of millions that could occur on a daily basis. Not only does this make me intrigued to see where their additional downloadable content takes us in the future, but it has made me consider my own importance and significance in the greater context of our world, and that my struggles and anxieties are no more important than anyone else’s.

Cyberpunk’s narrative teaches us many things, but perhaps the one that has stuck out to me the most is the futility of human life, the fragility of greed and capitalism, and the fact that if we want to change our world and societies for the better, we need to forsake these conditions and really start to appreciate day-to-day life and the positive things around us more, with the intention of leading happier, kinder and safer lives. For us, our environment, and the generations to come.

In other news, 2020 is now behind us and this is my first post of the New Year! I hope everyone had a good and safe (or at least manageable) Christmas and New Year's, and that 2021 will look up for many of us sooner rather than later. Thank you for continuing to read my work! If you would like to receive updates about when I post and what I am up to you can follow the blog on Instagram, Facebook, or follow me only personal Instagram and Twitter.