Not your character: Frustrations with Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion

January 1, 2024

(WARNING: Major spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077, including very detailed spoilers for the ending of Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion. You have been warned.)

I want to preface this by saying that I actually really like Cyberpunk 2077. The gameplay is very well-made, the cast does a fantastic job, and as someone who's been around since 1.0, the amount of improvement and commitment the team at CDPR has shown is remarkable. I really like the game and have spent a significant chunk of time in it, which is why I feel strongly enough about this to write about it.

I recently finished chasing down all of the endings in Phantom Liberty, and I found myself feeling...frustrated. Frustrated because I found myself experiencing a feeling that I tend to be very annoyed by in a video game: A story telling me how I'm supposed to feel.

To a certain extent, that's normal in media. Stories try to evoke specific emotions all the time; horror movies don't use jumpscares to tug at your heartstrings, romance novels don't detail a character's sincere affection to rile up your disgust. Video games are unique though, because of how interactive they are. The player isn't just a passive observer, they're an active participant. On-rails to a certain extent, constrained by the developer's imagination, but nonetheless making decisions that impact the story. Seeing a child crying over her dad dying in a war is sad in a movie, but it hits different when you, the viewer, actively chose to shoot him, pointed the gun and pulled the trigger, even if it was just a mouse click.

This isn't a big deal in some games that present a very linear, A-to-B story path, but it is a big deal in a game like Cyberpunk, which sells itself as “A storydriven, open-world RPG of the dark future.” Player choice and the type of character that the player chooses to make the protagonist are essential to any RPG. V may be the one pulling the trigger, but you and I, the player, are the ones who chose “Attack” from a list that also included talking someone down. V is the one hacking the mainframe, but the player is the one whose point investments decided that V is an expert hacker with a supercharged cyberdeck. Time and again, from what dialog V speaks to what weapons V uses to how V approaches problems and what characters they have good relationships with, the arc of V's story is your choice.

Everyone plays as V, but no two Vs feel the same; my stealthy netrunner from the launch version is a totally different character from my revolver-slinging cowboy, and they're both totally different from my friend's shotgun-loving queen of carnage. Not just in weapons of choice, but in dialog and personality: A conversation with a guard that the gore gal would threaten and/or shoot her way through, the cowboy tries to talk down, and the hacker avoids it entirely, unlocking the back door remotely and ignoring the guard in the first place. This is an aspect of the game that CDPR did a great job on; all of the different builds genuinely feel different, the same character feels like someone completely different based on what you put points into, what unlocks as a result, what things you can say as a result, and how you approach a given problem. That's really good! That's good game design! Player choice and character build have real impact on what you can do and how you can play! That's a really, really good thing!

And yet at the most crucial moment, the finale where everything pays off, I find myself frustrated that all that choice and individuality and freedom seems to go away, because the writers had a very specific identity in-mind for V, and as much room as the open-world part of the game gives your personal version of V to breathe and form, the endings put all of it back into a box.

V is a chromed-out glory-chasing solo who loves the hustle of NC. No matter how many decisions you make in your playthrough that run counter to that, that is who V is, because that is who the writers made V. And that is immensely frustrating in an RPG that tries to put so much emphasis in choice and freedom.

This was always a bit of a problem for Cyberpunk; it doesn't matter how many red flags and bad vibes the Konpeki Plaza mission gives you, you have to take it. It doesn't matter how insane and ill-advised Takemura's plan seems, you can't get to Nocturne Op55N1 without doing it, and prior to Phantom Liberty, you couldn't access any endings without that mission. Despite how wide-open the game can feel during the open-world segments, when it comes to the main story, it always felt like you were handcuffed to the version of V the writers envisioned, even when every decision you've made when you had the freedom to do so would go in a totally different direction. Why would a streetkid who's been screwed by corporations every time they've interacted with them follow through with a company man blinded by loyalty on a plan that boils down to hoping a sheltered corporate princess takes pity on them? Why would an ex-nomad who's constantly expressing regret at coming to Night City wait to see how Takemura's plan works out instead of taking the nomad ending the very instant that Panam and Saul put it on the table? Because the writers didn't want that to be what you did.

In the past, I've been able to forgive and rationalize that. By all accounts, the development for Cyberpunk oscillated between being frozen in development hell and being mired the most brutal crunch you can imagine. Given the amount of effort that clearly went into rewarding player choice in the game as a whole, it felt like they were just forced to take the path of least resistance on when you get access to the endings in order to hit their deadline.

The thing is that problem's still there in Phantom Liberty. And unlike the base game, that justification is much harder to square with an expansion that didn't have to develop the game from the ground-up. Phantom Liberty had years to just focus on hitting its mark with its content. Now, it just feels like, again, V is a chromed-out glory-chasing solo who loves the hustle of NC, and no matter how many decisions you make that run counter to that, that is who V is, because that is who the writers made V.

There are so many things about the Things Done Changed ending that frustrate me. To start off, there is no choice to how V reacts to not being able to use cyberware anymore. I've run playthroughs that were low on cyberware by choice, either for the challenge or for RP reasons. I've run builds that just wound up low on cyberware because it was unnecessary to do what I wanted to do that time. It might be a minority of cases, but there are absolutely a decent number of playthroughs where “You can't use cyberware anymore” would be answered with “Well I'll miss the zoom eyes, but that's basically all I'll miss, and binoculars exist.” Instead, V invariably mourns losing their chrome as being one and the same with losing their very identity, even if that's not the case for your playthrough.

It just gets more frustrating from there; doesn't matter if your V would absolutely accept Reed's desk job offer, all options lead to turning the offer down to return to NC. Doesn't matter if your V has expressed how much they want to leave NC at every opportunity, they invariably want to go back. Doesn't matter if they've got a 20 in tech or intelligence, skill ranks that have no cyberware requirement to unlock and therefore are unaffected by losing your chrome, so they absolutely have the skills to be an elite programmer or mechanic without any cyberware, the only option they see on the table is becoming a fixer.

Sure none of those options-that-weren't are very punk, but isn't the point of a roleplaying game that the player gets to decide? It's not like non-punk endings aren't an option, the Arasaka ending is about as non-punk as it can get as you trust the giant corporation and restore the old guard to power. The game has had no issue letting you be conformist and status quo before, yet the one rule that they never break is who V aspires to be and what their means of reaching it are. On and on and on, no matter what role you played in the roleplaying game, your V is anguished they can't chrome up, hellbent on returning to NC, and sees no path other than getting back into the game. They're a chromed-out glory-chasing solo who loves the hustle of NC. No matter how many decisions you make in your playthrough that run counter to that, that is who V is, because that is who the writers made V.

I think the reason that this is bugging me so much is because it felt throughout Phantom Liberty like the devs got the message. There are so many times where your decisions do feel like they matter, more than most of the original game. They did a great job! There are a ton of great moments where you can choose different dialog options that establish totally different beliefs for V and change your relationships with other characters as a result. It's great! Yet once you reach that ending, none of it matters. The merc who told Reed and Alex and Songbird that they wanted out of NC? Demands a flight back to NC as soon as they're conscious. The netrunner who is repeatedly capable of keeping up with Songbird, a truly elite runner who's trusted by the world's most powerful people to interact with the AIs that are this setting's version of eldritch monsters? Has no idea what they can do with their life if they can't have gorilla arms anymore. None of those choices play into how V handles the ending, because the writers had a very clear and specific way V is supposed to react to everything.

Again, I'm not trying to hate. I really enjoy the game and I really loved the DLC! But the main emotion I have after finishing all the endings is frustration, because it feels like all that roleplay was tossed aside by this roleplaying game in favor of the demeanor the writers wanted V to have. I feel like I'm being told that this is an unfortunate set of circumstances for anyone, even though I've played characters who'd have no issues with this outcome. And while this was always an issue in the game, the base game had the explanation that the development process was a mess. The DLC has no such defense. It just sits there repeating one of the most frustrating gripes I had with the game, absent any of the reasonable defenses for why those gripes had to be done, and the most frustrating part was that all that needed to be done to make it happen was recording a couple extra lines of dialog and having a couple quick checks of your stats to see what makes sense or what additional voice lines were available for your character.

I think this is all part of why the Nomad ending has always been my favorite. Not just because I like the Nomad background and it's a fantastic bookend for that background, but also because it's the one that feels like it gives you the most agency. It doesn't matter how much the game tried to keep you tied into Night City, how badly the systems of its society pushed you to stay there. You left, because you found people more important than all that. You realized that the life of a Night City merc wasn't for you. You left. In a setting that's designed to suck you into either burning out under the heel of a corporation more powerful than the world's governments, or a violent death at the end of the barrel of a solo's gun, you chose a third option. You blew up the megacorp, packed up with your friends and newfound family, and left. It may not be a happy ending given the condition you're still afflicted with, but you took control, you had agency. You're not chasing a drink on the menu in the Afterlife, you're not signing your rights to yourself away to Arasaka, you're not struggling to fit into Night City as a fixer without any cyberware. You reclaimed power over your life, after story mission after story mission of taking orders and being strung along, you called the shots, you chose your pack, and you let them be your fate, even when Night City itself tried to keep you from doing so.

You left.

Maybe that doesn't fit your V. And if it doesn't, more power to you. The ending you pick should be the ending that fits who your character was. Not who my character was, not who my friend's character was, and not who the writer's character was. The whole point of roleplaying games is that your choices have meaning and relevance. In a lot of games, that means they impact both your character, the world, and how the two relate. In a setting like Cyberpunk, changing the world is a tall order, so all you have is your character and how they relate to it.

Good RPGs, if they decide to take on the burden of multiple endings, should have that in-mind. It's okay to have a linear story, for the player to get a single specific conclusion the plot is building towards, but once you don't, once you give that control to the player, you have to include it in the ending. Otherwise it just feels like it was window dressing. Unimportant. Like no matter how you played and what you chose to do, your character was always a chromed-out, glory-chasing solo who loves the hustle of NC, and no matter how many decisions you make that run counter to that, that is who V is, because that is who the writers made V.