Okay, so I finally finished Cyberpunk and very much enjoyed my time with it. I even mostly liked my ending. However, I've since been going through other endings online and I learned that almost the exact ending I wanted was essentially taken away from me because I made what I figured were the right choices. Which is super disappointing and highlights my issues with how the endgame choices were structured. Here's some context:

During the scene with Misty and Johnny on the rooftop, I chose to give Johnny control so he could go out in a blaze of glory, finally taking down Arasaka with Rogue and getting their revenge. As things were playing out in the tower, I just knew that Smasher was going to show up at some point. Glad he did. Aside from Rogue's unfortunate death, it felt good to have Johnny be the one to end him. I went through Johnny's quests and really came around to liking and trusting him. Eventually when he went on about wanting to save V, I believed him.

After the tower assault, as Johnny I chose to give V her body back. I was hoping that Alt would manage to save V, but after Johnny came through on his promise and made the sacrifice, I felt good about it either way. It fully realized his change into a better person. But I was disappointed to see V cough up blood immediately after. I know that Alt said V would still die, but I guess I just didn't believe it until then.

The other reason I chose the Johnny and Rogue path is because the alternative options were completely out of the question. After going through Panam's questline, I absolutely adored her at that point and was never in a million years going to risk her and the Aldecaldos' lives. Earlier in the game she proposed that I leave with them, and I wanted to. I really came to like that group of characters and wanted to ride off into the sunset with them. Literally haha. But here's the other big thing; I wanted to romance Judy before doing any of the endgame stuff.

So yeah a bit more context here. I'm a straight guy, but in Cyberpunk I wanted to play as a character that I wish I could be in a perfect world, but in reality probably couldn't be. A completely convincing transgender person. And I love that Cyberpunk allows this because it's great and I genuinely can't think of any other story-driven RPG that lets you. So yeah, I play as Female V.

Obviously I can't romance Panam as Female V, which REALLY sucks because I absolutely adore Panam like many other people haha. Completing her questline was great, I really felt the platonic love. But of course, it was ultimately disappointing because I wanted to romance her and with the game coming to a close, it didn't feel right that my character was left with nobody to fall in love with, after everything they went through.

So of all the actually available options for my V, I went with Judy who is such a sweet character. Seeing her go through her shit and still choose to confide in V despite not trusting people much was great. I enjoyed her questline and when the two of them got together, it was really nice. Although I still personally felt very torn over wanting Panam yet having my character get with Judy. I still think it was for the best, though. So I did all that and was hoping for a happy ending with my V riding off into the sunset with Panam, Judy and The Aldecaldos. While ensuring that Johnny sees out his promise to save V's life and showing that he really did change for the better and mitigating character deaths as much as I could.

Yet the ending I got was nothing like that at all. After waking up as V, Judy is unhappy and decides to leave the city. This didn't surprise me of course because she talked about it before. As a matter of fact, when Judy brings up the idea of leaving again after you romance her and go to her place, that's when it clicked for me that I should take Judy with me to the Aldecaldos. But as far as I'm aware, I wasn't given the option to have dialogue with her about that at all. I even tried calling Panam before the game made it clear that I no longer had any choice in the rest of the ending, yet she didn't pick up. This, the more I think about it, really drives me nuts and brings me back to what I said earlier in this big wall of text;

I chose to NOT risk Panam's or the Aldecaldos' lives. I know they're ride or die, but I, and I believe V, could never choose to put them in harm's way like that. I made sure they were going to be okay. I chose to give Johnny and Rogue their revenge, their blaze of glory, their final moments together in a way that they would always want most. I chose, as Johnny and for Johnny to prove that he was a good person and make the sacrifice for V, despite him being told by Alt that V would still die eventually.

So despite ALL OF THAT, which I feel so strongly are the best choices given what I was presented with in those two moments, I'm left with an ending that not only separates V from BOTH Panam AND Judy, but also has V end up in a situation that I didn't even want, and wouldn't have chosen had I actually been given a choice after V wakes up, despite it still being far from the worst ending. If you're curious, the ending I got was that after V wakes up, she's in a high end apartment with Judy and it becomes clear later that V essentially replaced Rogue at the Afterlife and became a Night City Legend, ensuring wealth and power for the rest of her numbered days.

She then went on to hit the Crystal Palace, which was really cool I have to say, but yeah. The more I think about the ending I got compared to what I could've had, ESPECIALLY considering the ending I wanted was actually possible, sorta sours the entire experience for me. Not to mention that in my desired ending, Panam says she has contacts that could save V. That really gives it a more hopeful feeling on top of everything else.

I still really enjoyed the game, and all of the other endings are quite interesting and definitely fuel deep discussion which is great, but my god do I really not like how these endings work. Look, I get that RPGs sometimes have you make these types of judgement calls and a lot of the time, we're going to get things wrong or simply not have things play out the way we want, but given my choices/path and ultimate outcome, I really do feel let down by the game.

I don't understand why the entire situation post-raid on Arasaka essentially locks you into pre-determined outcomes with characters that you've been with for the entire game, choosing how you interact with them along the way at almost every point. It's especially egregious to me that many, if not all of the outcomes have V just continuing to do her thing right after the Arasaka mission. Why not give me control of V again say, a day later? Allow me to get in touch with all of the characters I wanted to and choose how I wanted to wrap up V's story with them? Especially after I made sure to mitigate loss of life. I just don't get it.

Of all the available endings, the one I wanted is definitely canon to me. The only thing I would change is giving Johnny and Rogue that opportunity instead of taking in Panam and the Aldecaldos. I guess I'd also have Panam be romance-able for female V.

I'm not the only one who feels this way about how the endings work, right? I sorta feel like I'm complaining needlessly when I ultimately enjoyed the game a lot and maybe I got some things wrong along the way, but man.

When Judy hit me with "have a nice life, V" I literally cried. Seeing Panam's goodbye after that was just adding salt to the wound.