Post Script

Cyberpunk’s tale is a triumph of tone over consequence

Corporate stooge. Plucky urchin. Desert wanderer. No, not the descriptor on our Edge business cards, but the three life paths you choose between when building your V at Cyberpunk’s outset. This is followed by a bespoke prologue for each background that establishes your relationship with Night City. The Badlands Nomad has to break into it, the Street Kid banters their way through it and the Arasaka Corpo loses their place at the top of it. That last one is understandably necessary for any of the following story to work, but a brief penthouse reign does raise a tantalising ‘what if’ vision of Cyberpunk where you get to tackle the story from a position of power. If only for the better photo mode opportunities you find on the 97th floor.

In truth, these prologues are little more than movement tutorials and a quick blast of world building, though the Nomad does get to squeal a rumbustious jalopy around the desert outlands that aren’t available until much later in the others’ tales. It’s certainly not the first game to use biography as a hero building block. 2020 alone has seen the early access release of Baldur’s Gate 3, where tens of tags – racial, social and geographical – influence what can and can’t be said. It’s similar, if simplified, here, with some short throwaway missions that reference your roots and dialogue befitting your upbringing. The Nomad has a natural in with that community when encountered in the main storyline, for example.

In our main Corpo playthrough, V’s past results in insider knowledge of the company at the heart of the game’s central mystery, and has more opportunities to disgust Johnny Silverhand with an affinity for a world he’s keen to incinerate. It also lets you dress down bar staff, which actually feels like a Silverhand move. But given this dramatic schism – if you choose to lean into it, of course – it’s notable how little these inputs alter the tale. Your relationship with Silverhand seems destined to play out in a given way and you are merely putting inflections on that fate. Like voicing your disapproval at a board meeting and having it vanish as matter of record into the minutes. Sorry, that’s the Corpo in us talking.

Searching for consequences in Cyberpunk 2077, testing the elasticity with handy save files, reveals a tale that is largely fixed, with shifting cameos around the edges and nods to the actions that got them there. Reinstating a gang leader earns their warm welcome tens of hours later, say, while disrupting a politician’s reelection campaign gets you blocked on their phone. More wounding than some of the deaths, all told. The main divergence comes at the end, where time spent schmoozing side characters unlocks very different final hours. These scenarios are exciting and worth exploring, though none of the four we’ve witnessed feels totally complete. An expansive cast of likable allies is siphoned into separate branches in these finales, so you’re always left pondering someone’s fate. Small updates over the credits fill a few gaps, but are too curt considering what we’ve been through together.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a lot more successful when it uses roleplaying decisions to shift tone, rather than direction. Take V’s sparring with Johnny Silverhand. As mentioned, there’s a prescribed thawing naturally baked into the story, but the ride towards that can be more or less exhausting depending on the fight you put up. The Johnny in multiple players’ heads is no different in what he does or wants, but the vibe of your time with him can shift to something less coarse if you want it to. It helps that his presence is unknown to the outside world, casting him more as a paragon/renegade barometer in tight trousers, his ‘internal’ commentary giving voice to your standing in Night City – or at least his estimation of it, which is probably on the money.

A lot more than Johnny factors into the morphing mood of the city. Exclusive life-path dialogue unlocks lore and exposition that naturally alters your perception: the Corpo drawing out the more noble traditions of Arasaka corporation, the Street Kid revealing some harder truths in the city’s lower ranks. And which spokes of the story you opt to visit have a dramatic effect. When we first reached the point of no return, quite early in our playthrough, the tenor of the world was one of cold, unknowable conspiracy, more Blade Runner than anything else. But stepping away from the corporate shenanigans that dominate the central arc saw a clear softening. It can be a sunbleached romp out in the Badlands, or a sincere tale of do-gooders overcoming cynicism. There are even strains of romantic nostalgia: a scene where one hardened merc spots an old artefact from their past and breaks character for just a second is as human a moment as you’ll find in this brash din.

The key choice you’re afforded is the opportunity to miss these or play them in an order that’ll see the personality of Night City change from game to game. For us, what seemed brittle 30 hours ago now feels a lot more hopeful; others may tap into the fun much earlier only to see it sour as they rub shoulders with serial killers and the despondent law enforcers out to stop them. In Cyberpunk 2077 your past may shape who you are and your future may be set in stone, but the present is what you make of it. Johnny Silverhand would puke at such fortune-cookie philosophy, but you could always tell him to pipe down. The choice is yours.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a lot more successful when it uses roleplaying decisions to shift tone, rather than direction