(spoilers inside for Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty; TW: dialogue of suicide)
Two fugitives are driving a monorail. They’ve escaped seize. They’re dwelling free. Each of them are drained, bloody, bruised, however hopeful. The monorail is about to take them to freedom, to a spot the place none of their immeasurable crimes matter, the place life can have worth once more, the place they will each begin anew.
Besides, no, they can not. One among them is a liar. The lie means solely one in all them will get to be free. They each deserve it, have skilled immense quantities of ache to get it. However just one. The liar has fallen unconscious. The opposite has a option to make.
And at that second, for the primary time, I really pause Cyberpunk 2077 throughout a dialogue choice, mere moments from Phantom Liberty’s ending, to noticeably contemplate the ramifications of what occurs subsequent. Some minutes later, I make a cellphone name. And because the last few hours of the sport play out, a monologue involves thoughts.
“The toughest factor for me was leaving the life. I nonetheless love the life. We have been handled like film stars with muscle. We had all of it only for the asking….Something I needed was a cellphone name away. Free vehicles. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all around the metropolis. I might wager 20, 30 grand over a weekend, after which I might both blow the winnings in per week or go to the sharks to pay again the bookies. Did not matter. It did not imply something. After I was broke, I might exit and rob some extra. We ran the whole lot. We paid off cops. We paid off legal professionals. We paid off judges. All people had their fingers out. All the pieces was for the taking. And now, it is throughout. And that is the toughest half. Immediately, the whole lot is completely different. There is no motion. I’ve to attend round like everybody else. Cannot even get respectable meals. Proper after I acquired right here, I ordered spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I acquired egg noodles and ketchup. I am a mean no person. I get to reside the remainder of my life like a schnook.”
![A scene from Phantom Liberty](https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/original/1179/11799911/4237296-phantomlarge.jpeg)
That monologue, for these unaware, is how Martin Scorsese’s crime drama masterpiece Goodfellas ends. Henry Hill, a high-ranking gangster, turns rat on his mates, goes into witness safety, and his final punishment is….dwelling a reasonably decent–if boring–life within the suburbs. It is really a reasonably frequent motif in Scorsese’s work, for normie life to really feel like consignment to limbo. Comparable fates await Ace Rothstein in On line casino, Jordan Belfort in Wolf of Wall Avenue, Frank Sheeran in The Irishman, hell, even Sebastião Rodrigues in Silence. Purgatory is the place the overwhelming majority of us reside our everyday lives, by no means to succeed in absurd, ecstatic highs or terrifying, bloody, brutal lows. It is not framed as a contented ending or a downer ending, sometimes. It is simply an ending, as ignominious as most of us will ever expertise, notable solely due to the distinction in the place these characters have been.
That is not an ending you usually see in a online game, for fairly apparent causes, actually. Particularly within the AAA house, it is a medium that tends to place a premium on participant energy and freedom, and only a few builders attempting to max out their viewers needs to wreck the enjoyable by making the participant really feel like a schnook. Even in FromSoftware titles, whereas they’re actually gonna make you earn it greater than most video games, by the point you are taking on Gwyn or Radagon and the like, all the participant’s progress counts for one thing in terms of feeling such as you’ve introduced some measure of the world to heel. It doesn’t matter what is perhaps occurring in cutscenes when the participant has no management, the final word level of video games so foundationally centered on the amassing of unimaginable energy and avenue cred is to unleash it on a hostile-but-vulnerable world.
When it got here to the ultimate notes of Cyberpunk 2077, nevertheless, CD Projekt RED thought completely different.
To recap: exterior of Phantom Liberty, none of Cyberpunk’s endings are notably glad, which is, to be honest, very a lot within the spirit of the style. The Relic caught in V’s head has resurrected Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Silverhand as a kind of digital ghost in idea, however in follow, he is extra of a digital tumor. His existence means our protagonist, V, will die. The “happiest” ending within the vanilla recreation includes leaving Night time Metropolis altogether with the rough-and-tumble nomad, Panam, who perhaps may know anyone who may also help with V’s Johnny Silverhand downside some day. It is hopeful, however in sort of a shallow method, until you have romanced Panam. Essentially the most narratively satisfying ending is the one the place V will get to go on a bloody rampage by way of Arasaka Tower. It ends with V nonetheless at demise’s door, however about to go do a wild heist out in house for fortune and glory. A minimum of you may depart an attractive corpse.
However now, there’s Phantom Liberty’s new ending, the one that really rolls credit for good when it is over. In Phantom Liberty, to maintain an extended and winding story brief as potential, V is given one other method out of their predicament by a authorities agent named Songbird: Assist save the president of the New United States after her aircraft goes down within the uber-Libertarian stronghold of Dogtown, recruit Idris Elba’s retired superspy Solomon Reed to assist, and take out its despotic chief, Hansen. Do that, and the NUSA’s high scientists is not going to solely wipe V’s prison slate clear, but in addition get V’s Relic taken care of.
Quick ahead after lots of people die, some jaw-dropping betrayals occur, and Hansen is lifeless. V and Songbird have fairly frequent objective in needing to avoid wasting themselves from a lifetime of servitude and impending doom. As such, the participant can select to double-deal behind Reed’s again, and make a run for it with Songbird to get a remedy for each their afflictions, and a recent begin within the last frontier. With all V’s talents, and Songbird’s large cyberware ace up her sleeve, it appears to be like fairly possible the 2 of them may make it.
That is when the sport throws the curveball. After V and Songbird have had one hell of a shootout at a spaceport, and hop a monorail in the direction of a one-way ticket off of Earth, Songbird confesses in her half-dead delirium that sure, there is a remedy ready on the Moon all proper. However just one. Songbird’s been utilizing V to get her to the house stretch. After she passes out, V’s given the selection: They’ll let Songbird go, discover their very own strategy to freedom in one of many vanilla endings, or they will name Solomon Reed, and switch Songbird in.
There aren’t too many moments of Telltale-style ethical selection in Cyberpunk 2077, however this one is especially ugly. Neither one feels nice within the aftermath, however finally, I selected to name Reed. There wasn’t even spite in that call, although spite can be comprehensible. There are so only a few legitimately good, reliable folks on this planet of Cyberpunk 2077, and for Songbird to have risked V’s life a number of occasions over simply to disclaim them salvation in the meanwhile of fact felt like a last straw. I wasn’t even indignant at Songbird for searching for herself. I used to be drained. A really particular taste of drained, one I hadn’t felt for a recreation’s protagonist for the reason that last days of 1 Commander Shepard. The exhaustion of watching a cycle of violence and avarice play out, time and again, and realizing it must be damaged.
Cyberpunk Director Breaks Down Phantom Liberty Endings
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However that is what video video games are, proper? That is what life is, by proxy. Repetition. Consistency. Acceptance. And at last, mastery. And when the circumstances change, repetition till the brand new turns into constant. However there is a battle when that mastery has to result in a second of revelation concerning the world exterior of the participant and protagonist. Mass Impact’s Commander Shepard can kill all of the Banshees and Geth that they need, however mastery of the sport’s Vanguard or Engineer courses does not imply a damned factor in terms of making a selection for the nice of the universe. That battle is an enormous a part of why many avid gamers rebelled in opposition to that ending within the second. Whether or not consciously or not, avid gamers needed their mastery over the sport’s fight to matter when it got here time to avoid wasting the galaxy. In the meantime, Bioware needed the participant’s emotional funding in mentioned galaxy to find out how greatest to reserve it. Ne’er the twain shall meet.
Naughty Canine, however, wielded that single-minded obsession with killing one’s method out of an issue in opposition to the participant within the Final of Us video games. For those who wanna kill so dangerous, you and Joel/Ellie are going to reside with the load of it. By the point TLOU 2has Ellie actually stranded on an empty purgatorial seaside with nobody left to homicide, it’s gone the time when the participant must be finished with attempting to turn into a greater killer to turn into a greater particular person. That time would hit more durable if the participant had extra management over the place Ellie goes from there–or even just a few hours earlier, when she really had the respectable choice of dwelling fortunately ever after. Nonetheless, the intention is obvious, and the lack to cease Ellie making the worst decisions nonetheless leaves an enduring impression.
And so, V sat throughout from Songbird with a option to make. I referred to as Reed. Reed, who nonetheless holds a deep affection and sympathy for Songbird, and who guarantees, if V turns her over, to maintain her alive, and to maintain Songbird’s promise of a remedy. That scene is the final time we see Songbird, although Reed later assures V she’s alive. Extra importantly, Reed retaining his phrase means Songbird’s the final particular person V will ever must kill for. Ever. Credit roll, with an finish credit sequence that might’ve been ripped out of a Daniel Craig Bond flick. It is a sturdy ending. Nevertheless it’s not the ending.
After taking a while to settle affairs–save Delamain’s AI, play one final gig with Kerry Eurodyne, spend the night time with V’s romance choice (Judy, in my V’s case)–Reed comes calling once more to settle up. The remedy’s prepared. However earlier than you get picked up, the 2 of you’ve a clumsy dialog at a gasoline station as he prepares to place Night time Metropolis within the rearview. Reed’s One Final Mission is over. He is drained too. And as he rides off, non-committal on what the following steps seem like, Johnny predicts his future: “He’ll dangle himself.”
Johnny’s monologue–and Keanu’s efficiency of it–is unimaginable, however haunting. Reed’s a person with out objective now, his closest relationships now non-starters. If he had emotional intelligence, he’d take his bartender good friend with him. However no. He’ll be alone. He’ll be empty. And on that day he realizes it, with nobody else to kill, Johnny says, he’ll kill himself.
I thought of this within the wake of Final of Us 2’sending as effectively. Simply what precisely does Ellie’s life seem like when she leaves her home on the finish of that recreation? That query is why it is some of the affecting and hole endings in all of video games. Ellie’s not suicidal no less than. She’s upright, she’s strolling, and she or he goes into the unknown prepared for something. However I do not envy Naughty Canine’s job, in the event that they resolve to deal with it, looking for Ellie objective now that revenge is not an choice, and dealing extra demise is exhausting. Quite a lot of people have urged that is the place The Final of Us wants to finish, and there is not way more that may be mentioned there. They are not unsuitable, although, many additionally mentioned this on the finish of the unique recreation, as effectively. What does a protagonist in a AAA online game do when energy is not the be-all, end-all of present?
And that’s what gamers get to seek out out when Phantom Liberty ends.
V ultimately will get picked up by the NUSA to get the Relic eliminated. Johnny is pissed about going again to being nothing, however on the very least, he understands. And so, V is anesthetized, and goes below the knife.
The operation is profitable, however with a reasonably gorgeous aspect impact. Eradicating the Relic apparently did everlasting and substantial injury to V’s cyberware, to the purpose that if V needed to put in a lot as a widget that confirmed them the time and climate, it’d shut their complete nervous system down. So away all of it went, and V wakes up in a sterile NUSA hospital, not simply utterly powerless, however two years later. All the main NPCs, together with V’s love curiosity, have moved on. Judy, specifically, is already a married skilled, dwelling method the hell away from Night time Metropolis.
When V can lastly stroll effectively sufficient to return to Night time Metropolis, their first cease is to see about getting their cyberware reactivated by Vic the ripperdoc. It is a no-go, and Vic’s store has been purchased by what appears to be Night time Metropolis’s model of Finest Purchase’s Geek Squad. When V steps exterior after, they’re stopped by two scumbags that, as soon as upon a time, V might’ve was pulled pork simply by taking a look at them. As an alternative, it ends with V catching a fist to the face, and getting thrown down a flight of stairs.
The whole lot of Cyberpunk 2077 has been in relentless, livid search of this precise second, the place V is not in peril of the Relic killing them lifeless on the drop of a dime. Mission achieved. Now, the world at giant can kill them lifeless on the drop of a dime. CDPR might’ve left the sport proper there, with V misplaced within the gutter in bitter irony. As an alternative, we get a grace notice, one of many strongest in latest reminiscence. V is saved by somebody you do not even actually contemplate within the grand scheme of Cyberpunk’s story: Misty, the late, nice Jackie Welles’ ex. The final time you see her, she’s nonetheless sort of a new-agey head-in-the-clouds sort of woman working the entrance workplace at Vic’s place. Now, two years later, she’s a bit of more durable, a bit of gothier, however she’s additionally one thing we do not see in any respect all through the complete recreation: merciful.
When V hits all-time low, Misty sits subsequent to them on the steps, dusts them off, they usually speak. About loads of issues. In regards to the lifeless people alongside the best way. About how tousled Night time Metropolis could be. About dwelling. Misty, who misplaced her job, her mates, and her lover, ought to’ve been a large number on the street two years later. Night time Metropolis ought to’ve destroyed her. As an alternative, she’s on her method out, decided to maintain shifting, preserve strolling, preserve surviving. There are not any aspect missions in Misty’s future. There are not any house heists. There is no climactic throwdown with Adam Smasher. There’s simply life. Misty will get to reside the remainder of her life as one in all Henry Hill’s common nobodies. Not like Henry Hill, when Misty says it–the method Erica Lindbeck performs it–it’s not a lament. It is a chance.
It has been urged by many who Phantom Liberty’s new ending is CDPR in direct dialog with itself, a lot in the best way that GTA V and Pink Lifeless Redemption 2 are conversations with Rockstar. All three are finally having the identical dialog, concerning the issues we’ve to kill in ourselves in pursuit of the abhorrent energy wanted to achieve these video games. Even whereas dwelling past the regulation, each protagonist in these video games is shackled to completely different, extra nebulous masters, a whip that both works its servants to demise, or bores them to tears. Incomes sufficient energy and cash and respect in the sort of recreation isn’t the aim, particularly in a recreation that by no means stops.
![Phantom Liberty](https://www.gamespot.com/a/uploads/original/1179/11799911/4237304-cyber1large.jpeg)
All of them are conscious of simply how a lot enjoyable that course of could be for gamers, however there’s something extremely numbing about it that may depart gamers blind to all the opposite issues that video games and life could be, the tales that may be advised. It is unimaginable energy that stops feeling like energy after some time as a result of there’s nothing in distinction. If all of your issues could be solved with the nuclear choice, what sympathy or empathy is there with those that must make a dwelling within the blast radius? That does not simply make for a play expertise the place not possible firepower stops which means something, however one which units the bar for pleasure so excessive that fundamental humanity cannot attain.
There is a consolation in that, particularly to these for whom video video games are purely for escape, not storytelling. Energy fantasy, by nature, requires nuance to die screaming. And that makes a conclusion like Phantom Liberty really feel all of the extra particular, one thing that feels loads nearer in tone to a Nier Automata than some other open world crime saga. Nier Automata, for individuals who do not know, really ends on a collection of sacrifices: first of the lives of its android protagonists in-narrative, then of the participant’s personal hard-earned save knowledge, to assist future gamers whose names you’ll by no means know, however whose sacrifices and encouragement empower you to face the not possible activity of the sport’s finish credit sequence as a group. It posits the pursuit of pure firepower as an act of willful psychological neglect, and that there is a entire different echelon of energy and functionality over one’s self and the world at giant that this type of recreation ignores.
A part of the brilliance of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, in actual fact, comes from the tacit information that David and his crew should more and more jettison humanity to turn into Night time Metropolis legends. Phantom Liberty’s magnificence is in V needing to go the opposite path to outlive, to go in quest of one thing new and maintain onto it so long as potential with out mendacity, dishonest, betraying, or killing to get it. That is energy that video video games do not usually worth. Within the very finish, Phantom Liberty prizes it like no different perk within the recreation.
Essentially the most fascinating components of Cyberpunk 2077 have V attempting to kindle one thing resembling group amongst their mates and colleagues. The circumstances of being an Edgerunner always strip that away. Ultimately, after their dialog on the finish of Phantom Liberty, V says goodbye to Misty, she drives off, and after an unsure pause, V walks off into the din of humanity, as one other face within the crowd, a member of a group that should and completely will discover a strategy to survive in purgatory. And that is the simplest half. Now, the whole lot is completely different. There is no motion. V has to attend round like everybody else. V is a mean no person. They get the privilege of dwelling the remainder of their life like a schnook.