Color me surprised.
I am about to enter Act 3 and it appears that ALL of Act 3 is the point-of-no-return?
The open world game only exists during Act 2? That seems very weird.
I thought it was weird too. The first time I played through and saw “point of no return” I just thought it meant I would be occupied for a while before being dumped back into the world. I didn’t know it was endgame.
There are hints of the game being trimmed down all over and I just did a sidequest that showed it. I had to look into a famous singer’s boyfriend to see if he was cheating on her. I found out he was planning to make a backup copy of her(like Johnny) and instead of going back and telling her and having a followup storyline, I just called her and she said, “Oh no!” and paid me. It clearly was a half-done sidequest.
There is a little more pay-off to that down the line although I agree it could have been the basis for considerably more. And no argument that there’s signs of trimming and capped ends all over the game.
There’s a number of side missions that seem like “Ok, so that’s it”, then three days later you get a text/call with either a follow-up mission or maybe just a small coda (like Sinnerman)
I don’t think the cut content includes those non-endings. I think those were very deliberate, because they used that same storytelling device quite often. In many, though not all, of these sideplots, V is the not the star, but the bit player. You have your entrance and, so to speak, exit.
The real cut content looks to be in the world. There’s a LOT that appears to have been skipped, like basically all the side missions in Pacifica. There’s a lot of real estate designed in the map, as well as the gigantic stadium, that isn’t used for anything. I’ve tried to clip over and get inside the boundaries a few times but no dice.
Not to mention how the entire top quarter of the map is just empty warehouses and oil fields. There’s hardly ever any reason to go there, and nothing to do once you’re there.
When I am done, I’ll be comparing this to Red Dead Redemption 2. A much vaster, more complete version of a game. Honesty, RDRD2 was as big and complete as Cyberpunk was supposed to be.
There’s mods that allow you to short-hop teleport and enter inaccessible buildings and other locations. As far as I know, nothing interesting has been found just a lot of (unsurprisingly) blank or one-sided textures in places no one was intended to see from the other side. This doesn’t mean that nothing better was intended for some locations and left out due to time constraints but you’re not missing out on any 90% finished secret zones.
As far as curiously unfinished stuff, I also suggest swimming. You have a whole lot of water and skills and consumables and item mods dedicated related to swimming and it comes up… once. Maybe. If you pursue the right side stories. And you don’t even need those mods and whatnot for it. And, if you do take an independant dip, it’s very obviously unfinished and you can easily clip through or under the map because no one ever tightened it up.
I am wrapping up some sidequests before the point of no return and I have never been in the water. Weird that it is mentioned in the game.
I’m re-uniting Samurai right now, or at least trying.
It’s part of Judy’s story. I romanced her (have to be a female V) and it leads into that but I assume you can do it as “just friends” as well. No idea if you can inadvertently wall it off with bad choices, not counting obvious “Get bent, I won’t help you” style picks.
As far as I could tell, there’s nothing interesting in the water aside from that one mission. You can swim around all of Night City and it’s just dirt and rocks. No loot boxes or weird skeletons to tell silent stories or anything else. Dirt, rocks and poor map boundaries that let you clip under the map (which isn’t interesting either)
Sometimes I see moments of greatness in the game. I can tell this was an all-time great game in concept.
I am doing the Panam sidequests now(I read it opens up the Nomad ending*) and there is some great stuff there. The Johnny sidequests are also great.
*I wanted to know my options on endings so I looked at some requirements. I’m only ending it once, but will watch youtube on the others.
What ending path for the final mission did you choose? I am going to watch the rest on Youtube. I’m at 28 hours, by the way and I think I have 30-ish minutes left of gameplay.
I chose:
Call Panam and go in as a Nomad team. It’s a pretty action-oriented ending. We fought our way into Arasaka to get to Mikoshi and attempt to get separated. I just defeated…a final boss, something I basically did not expect in a game like this. It was Smasher.
What path did you pursue in the end?
Same as you.
Thoughts
Panam is my bestie. I sort of felt as though the other “primary” side characters should have been available to do more – I dunno what Kerry could have accomplished but it wouldn’t be hard to see a place for Judy or River on your final run. I don’t know if that was never considered an option or if it just didn’t make it in. I suppose one answer could be that it’s not really the “Panam ending” but rather the “Nomad ending” and none of the others have that sort of resource to call upon.
When I started the ending, I considered replaying different paths. After I finished, I was Cyberpunk’d out for the time being and decided I’d shelve it until some DLC comes out and perhaps revisit a different ending then.
I finished it today and I have a very satisfied feeling now that I am done. It was a great game in many ways and it is a shame they did not fully finish everything. The scope was so big, they could not get it done.
My ending hinted at a sequel and while I think 5 years minimum is the amount of time it will take, it’d be great if they did it.
Unless they are actually going to go make Witcher 4 now. After they spend literally all of 2021 fixing Cyberpunk, that is.
I was a bit disappointed that the game didn’t live up to its own hype, but I was fairly satisfied when I finished. I beat the game three times actually.
I’ve gone through four different endings.
First ending: I sided with Arasaka and kicked Johnny out of my head. This was the worst ending.
Second Ending: I let Johnny take over my body and team up with Rogue. Johnny ended up taking V’s body.
Third Ending: I teamed up with the Nomads and Johnny bid me farewell when I left him in cyberspace and took my body.
Fourth Ending: I attacked Arasaka all by my lonesome. Knowing I’d die, I stayed in Cyberspace and let Johnny take my body.
I blew my own brains out first. Then redid a a few more. They’re all pretty decent and tie up the story in a nice little bow, I thought. But if there is a sequel, I doubt V will be in it because which ending is canon?
Eh…CDPR in the past has just gone the way they want to and ignore what came before.
In Witcher I went for Shani as my romantic interest. Come Witcher II and III they just ignored she ever existed (well, she is in a DLC in Witcher III for some fan service).
This was my ending. I kind of want to see it where I did the same ending, but chose the opposite path. I guess it is easy in this case as loading up right before the final moments and choosing the other way.
If they make a sequel, and I really hope they do, it should probably be a new story entirely. No V. No Johnny, Alt, Rogue, etc.
Just a Cyberpunk sequel with the same world, but all fresh story.
In the past year, the newly released games I’ve played are:
Immortals Fenyx Rising
Jedi Fallen Order
Cyberpunk 2077
Call of the Wild
Of that four, this was probably the one the had the biggest vision and attempted to achieve the most. It didn’t quite get there, but I like the game quite a bit and if they actually worked 2+ years on it to finish it, I’d shell out more to play the full version.
I looked around a bit and was BLOWN AWAY to learn you can save Takemura. Is that really true? He died in my game and I didn’t even consider that it could have gone another way.
Really?! Wow! It sure seemed so scripted to me that I also never even thought about going back to try.