PSA: There is one allows you do both. Fingers sells it. He is one of the ripperdocs in Japantown.

 

Oh I killed that guy immediately. If they didn't want me to do that, why did they give him that hand sanitiser on his hip and the click-click-click way he used it?

 

That's still better than me, who visited Fingers a dozen times looking for cyberware and never noticed lmao

 

Yeah, first time I've felt dirty enough that I needed to shower after talking to a video game character. Purification by shotgun, stat.

 

Yeah jesus. I was half expecting to be told to put the lotion on my skin, or get the hose again.

 

That's not hand sanitizer.

 

That quest frustrated me in a good way because it really reinforced that you’re just not solving anything with more death and violence.


It’s a really bleak game and it works.

 

I don't generally go for plots that don't have at least some light at the end of the tunnel, but the writing quality has been making it work for me.

Not really a spoiler:

Spoiler

What spoilers I haven't been able to avoid hint at fairly grim game endings, which I'm not really looking forward to though. I'm hoping there's at least one ending, difficult to get as it could be, where things end on a more hopeful note.

 

Spoiler

I won't give details unless folks ask for it, but I can confirm there is one ending that ends on truly positive note. One of the big drivers of the bleakness in the other endings still exists, but the game ends with "Yeah, this is a shitty situation, but things are getting better and we have good reason to expect that to continue".

It's hard to explain why/how without details, so I can't say much more than that there is most definitely a "good" ending, and I was very satisfied and happy with it.

 

Spoiler

Is it a finnicky one to get, or will playing as a 'good dude' get you there?

 

Spoiler

You get two out of 6 possible endings without doing anything outside of the main quest. The other 4 are locked behind doing two specific side quest chains. One of these side quest chains, if taken all the way to completion, will unlock the "good" ending that I was talking about above, and the other will unlock what I consider to be the "neutral" ending (and if you do this sidequest chain in a specific way, you unlock a secret, and extremely difficult, alternative route to get to the neutral ending). Both of these sidequests are unlocked simply by progressing through the main storyline, so it's not possible to miss them. However, they both have portions where you complete a quest, and nothing is in your quest log, but then the quest giver will call you an in-game day or two later to give you the next quest. They both have very clear arcs, so it shouldn't be hard to tell when you're fully done with it or not, but if you want to be safe, after you finish one step, use the menu to skip ahead a couple days to make sure you don't get any more phone calls from them.

And then either the "good end" or "neutral end" route can be rerouted into the 6th and final ending through a very obvious and deliberate choice that the game gives you right at the very end (don't worry, you can't possibly miss it). The 6th ending is bittersweet in some ways, but it's got its own charm.

It's hard to be fully clear, so I'm just gonna put some details about how to unlock the various endings in the spoiler below. I'll be trying to avoid spoiling anything about the endings themselves, but certain details about unlocking them will necessarily spoil at least some part of what happens at the climax. If you really wanna be sure you're on the path to a specific ending, read it, but I don't recommend it.

Spoiler: For reals, ending spoilers. Read at your own peril

So Cyberpunk's endings break down roughly as follows:

Spoiler: The Bad Ends

Arasaka's End - Accept Hanako's offer. This ending is unlocked by default.

Coward's End - When making your choice, look at the gun on the table to your left. This ending is unlocked by default.

Spoiler: The Neutral Ends

Legend's End - Let Johnny take the wheel. This ending is unlocked by completing Johnny's sidequest chain, starting with the quest Chippin' In

Banzai End - Accept Johnny's offer to storm the tower alone. This ending is unlocked by selecting specific dialogue options during Johnny's sidequest chain and establishing a bromance with him

Alt's End - Let Johnny take your body when given the option at the end of the not-bad endings. This ending is unlocked by default, assuming you unlock at least one of Legend, Banzai, or the Good End.

Spoiler: The Good End

Nomad's End - Call Panam and ask her for help. This ending is unlocked by completing Panam's sidequest chain, starting with the quest With a Little Help From My Friends

That should be everything you need to know to unlock the specific ending you're after. There's only one good end, but a couple of the neutral ends are fairly interesting as well.

 

I'm going to do my first run through without specifics and see where I end up. I've been doing literally everything before doing the main quests, so we'll see how I go. Avoided that last spoiler section.

 

Regarding endings:

Spoiler

I've given it a fair amount of thought after going through all of the endings, trying to see what makes me so aprehensive about this game as a whole, and I think I've got my finger on it.

It's that there is no good ending. Some endings are better than others, but even the so called 'good' endings are pretty terrible when looked from a distance.

To me, a good ending requires three things: A) For V to live, the primary motivator for most of the game. B) For V to remain himself and achieve his goals. C) For V to get the romanting interest.
There is an argument to be made that depending on how you view Silverhand, how he ends up should be another factor, but considering Johnny's sorta fucked on either of his endings, that doesn't change much.

So let's examine what these three factors mean. A is pretty straightforward in this setting; it means that V doesn't outright die, and V doesn't have the 6-month death sentence hanging over his head.
B is much more complicated, because it depends on how the player views V as a character. I think it's pretty clear though throughout the game that what V aims to do (aside from survive) was make it big in Night City. V's love for Night City is no secret, and will be flaunted at every opportunity. For that purpose, B means V achieving his goal of becoming a legend of Night City and the top dog around.

C means, at least in the case of male straight V, him staying with Panam.


So let's have a look at the endings now. Let's start with the bleakest. Arakasa ending. Where is my mind?
A is a no-go, because V's still dying. B is a no-go, because V is now a lab-rat with no prospects. Ditto for C.
If V becomes an Engram and lives on in stasis, he arguably achieves A, but I would not really think that that's any sort of life. Still, at least he doesn't die outright.
Definitely the bleakest ending.

All Along the Watchtower. Asking Panam for help and the Nomad ending that follows is touted by many as being the 'best' ending, and I can see why, in that it is presented as a positive and at least semi-optimistic ending, but here's the thing.
A: V is still dying. Yes, they say that they'll keep looking, but that means nothing, and the chances are so slim even the characters understand this.
B: V has not achieved his dreams. He gives up on Night City, on all his goals and ambition up to now and becomes a nomad. Perhaps this is fitting for a Nomad background, I don't know. But for anything else and for default V whose dialogue about Night City has always been fond, this is a surrender of the self.
But we do get the only ending where C happens, and he keeps the girl, if you're male V. Female V's are just shit out of luck I guess. Edit: Apparently it may be possible to bring Judy along on this nomad ending, which would put female lesbian V in the same boat as male straight V.

New Dawn Fades. The Johnny in V's body ending. In this Johnny is miserable, but at least he is alive, has a long life ahead of him, and is at least making steps towards being less miserable.
As for V, he's alive. Sort of. He's been assimilated by Alt as part of her AI code, whatever that means. I'll be generous and give this ending A, insofar as it's the only option that is touted as V's chance at continued existence. But definitely no go for B and C.

Path of Glory; my personal favorite. In this A is a no-go, as V is still dying. C is a no-go, as Panam leaves him, though in good terms and with plans to reunite. But this is the only ending where B is achieved. V becomes the top merc in the city, and has achieved all of his and Jackie's dreams, as well as about to pull the most daring heist in history, cementing his legacy.
I would argue that A and C are ambivalent, insofar as V is still in Night City with its technological marvels, and now has resources and abilities that he didn't before when it comes to finding a cure. Granted though, this is as theoretical as the nomad ending finding a cure for him.
Though Panam definitely seems to love V, she loves being a nomad more, and it always seems to come down to a choice between Panam and NC, which I translate to a choice between Panam and V being himself.
Interestingly, female V should, in theory, achieve both B and C in this ending, making this the best ending for female V. Unless you were into Judy. Tough luck there. Edit: Male gay V should also have both B and C here.

As for the Suicide ending, not much to say about that. A, B and C are all written off with a single bang.


Conclusions? The way I see it, regardless of which ending is your preferred and to which factor you give more weight, none of these are 'best' or 'good'. They're all different shades of fucked.
At least the Witcher 3 did have a difficult and arduous path towards a best ending. You had to work for it and more than likely you'd get a slightly less perfect, more bittersweet ending, but you knew that the perfect ending existed.

Here, knowing that all endings are fucked in different ways, makes it seem kind of pointless to me. No matter what you do, it won't change the outcome. V's fucked regardless.

I can forgive CDPR many issues, all the glitches and the technical stuff. But not this, tbh.

 

I do wonder how they'll do expansions for this game, given the way the endings can go. They'll have to be done way before the point of no return in the game, but even so, the game still tries to push you towards feeling some sense of urgency towards getting on with it.

 

There's a ton of unfinished story threads, so DLC should be relatively easy, though it seems an ending will have to be chosen as 'canon'.

 

Something I've seen as a big issue for a lot of players is that romance choices are locked behind what you choose for gender - not everyone swings both ways. I.e., you can't bang Panam if you're a femme-V.

 

That's true, but isn't that just how things work? Sexual preference is a thing that exists, so it seems really odd to me that people would get upset when seeing it exist in a game.

"Everybody will fuck anything" is the obvious solution, but as we saw with Dragon Age and the like, it generally makes the characters feel more like sex dolls with a speaker taped on than actual people. Not to mention the inherently degrading nature behind the idea that orientation is irrelevant to both romance and a person's character.

Edit:
As for expansion DLC, there's a number of possibilities, ranging from "This specific ending is canon, now here's some more of V's story set after the ending" to "At some point in the main story, V hears a rumor about something that could solve his problem and goes off to investigate" with a lot of room in-between.

Hell, it could even be "V gets kidnapped during the main game and now has to deal with wherever he's been dumped".

 

They're not called Bi-oware for nothing, you know.

 

Patch 1.06 is live and fixes the 8MB save file limit