Cyberpunk 2077

[KineticDiplomat]

V more or less has what I think of a Standard Anti-hero Morality.

Which is to say, yes, he does many bad things for largely selfish - at best tribal - reasons, but he generally keeps to a certain code that stops short of kicking the puppies. Basically, everyone he kills is a “combatant” for lack of a better word (ganger, Corp sec, cyber psycho gone nuts, only a tiny handful of cops and only then when they are actively demonstrating corrupt and malicious behavior l), usually those people are aligned with a Bad Guy Organization (granting that corporations fall under that in this world), generally fights against the outright twisted like in the hunt, and generally fighting for the little guy against the big oppressive powers that be. Generally doesn’t cross personal level moral event horizons - Doesn’t kill children, get jollies out of raping, that sort of thing.

And then he is mostly true to his own, whoever those happen to be.

So, all in all, I don’t think the game tries to paint V as “a good guy” in the same manner as “the raiders burnt your turnip farm, now pick up your father’s sword to save the world!”, it just tries to paint him as tolerable-within-the-context. Certain players I think try to pretend V is morally virtuous, but that speaks more to the player than anything demonstrated on screen.

[Yora]

All that being said, if you do the Arasaka Ending and do everything else like I outlined, you kill a grand total of less than 20 people - all in the Dorsett mission (again, assuming that they really die. I'd have to check everyone, because barring headshots or mantis/katana/monowire shenanigans, most of the enemies I remember were moving after I was done, even without the eye mod).

You can sneak up and stealth disable all of them. I am not entirely sure, but I think I used weapons only against the very last one because he was in a difficult spot to sneak up on.

I'm pretty sure you can do the entire game without killing anyone. Though that is of course an illusion, as lethal and nonlethal weapons behave identical, and the only difference between a lethal and nonlethal stealth takedown in the button you press.
You can tell yourself that you are playing as a ruthless killer of hundreds or not, but it doesn't actually change gameplay at all. You play exactly the same way, and all that the nonlethal options offer is to change your subjective interpretation of what V does,

As someone who really enjoys knocking out enemies silently, I'm always rather disappointed that it's always stupidly simplistic. Knocking real people unconscious always has a risk of killing them and they will wake up in 5 to 10 minutes, which is much sooner than it takes to get through game levels. I don't want to kill most police officers when I play a character who is wrongly framed for a crime. But not killing them should feel like the hard way to do things. Not simply identical to killing everyone but without blood textures.

[BRC]

I feel like V's level or morality, while being pretty standard for an action hero, especially one in an open world game, FEELS worse because Night City more or less resembles a functional modern society.

Like, compare V to the Courier in Fallout New Vegas, where the human enemies you fight are generally either Bandits (Who exist outside a structured society), or members of an organization you are deliberately at war with (Such as Caesar's Legion).

It's pretty hard to map the Courier gunning down a group of Raiders onto anything we would recognize from our society today. There's no real parallel to the Raiders of the Mojave that you're likely to encounter.


V, however, walks down a bustling city street, sees a group of Tyger Claws standing around a dead body (Or just standing around in large numbers) and guns them down. This isn't really any different than the Courier killing some raiders, but it more easily maps onto our modern understanding of the world, so it feels more egregious.


It doesn't help that the Gangs themselves don't seem to really exist as factions? You gun down a bunch of Gangers, and then later you do a job, implied to be for that same Gang. The Scavs are explicitly NOT a unified organization, but all the others are generally presented as such. However, you don't really get a sense of them as anything but different flavors of enemies who shout different things when you shoot at them.

The consistent narratives you see are

1) The Animals, who are generally portrayed as mercenary muscle hired by somebody, which at least gives you a sense of who they are and what they're doing. When you fight The Animals, you're usually fighting whoever hired them to be there (Also, I dont' think they show up in the NCPD missions that much).

2) The Wraiths, who are pretty consistently The Bad Guys. Unlike the other gangs, they don't seem to really fit into the overarching social structure anywhere? Any "Good" Outlaws are usually Aldecados. They're basically just Fallout style raiders.

3) One could argue that Maelstrom is portrayed as unhinged and unstable enough to fall into similar territory to the Wraiths or Scavs. They seem to hold down some territory and people deal with them, but they also consider kidnapping people to fill them full of untested cyberware a fun group activity.

The other gangs, the Voodoo Boys, Tygers, Valentinos, and 6th Street, all seem to be pretty standard flavors of organized crime, and fit into Night City society about as well as V does. Since there's no real narratives built around the gangs as organizations, it feels weird to just, like, fight a bunch of Valentino members for the crime of standing around being Valentinos. If there was a larger narrative about the Valentinos, that would be one thing, but they just kind of exist, and the game gives you plenty of opportunities to fight them without really building much reasoning behind it.

I don't think it impacts the game too much. But if you want to get into the Diagetic Morality of it, it's a thing.

[druid91]

I feel like V's level or morality, while being pretty standard for an action hero, especially one in an open world game, FEELS worse because Night City more or less resembles a functional modern society.

Like, compare V to the Courier in Fallout New Vegas, where the human enemies you fight are generally either Bandits (Who exist outside a structured society), or members of an organization you are deliberately at war with (Such as Caesar's Legion).

It's pretty hard to map the Courier gunning down a group of Raiders onto anything we would recognize from our society today. There's no real parallel to the Raiders of the Mojave that you're likely to encounter.


V, however, walks down a bustling city street, sees a group of Tyger Claws standing around a dead body (Or just standing around in large numbers) and guns them down. This isn't really any different than the Courier killing some raiders, but it more easily maps onto our modern understanding of the world, so it feels more egregious.


It doesn't help that the Gangs themselves don't seem to really exist as factions? You gun down a bunch of Gangers, and then later you do a job, implied to be for that same Gang. The Scavs are explicitly NOT a unified organization, but all the others are generally presented as such. However, you don't really get a sense of them as anything but different flavors of enemies who shout different things when you shoot at them.

The consistent narratives you see are

1) The Animals, who are generally portrayed as mercenary muscle hired by somebody, which at least gives you a sense of who they are and what they're doing. When you fight The Animals, you're usually fighting whoever hired them to be there (Also, I dont' think they show up in the NCPD missions that much).

2) The Wraiths, who are pretty consistently The Bad Guys. Unlike the other gangs, they don't seem to really fit into the overarching social structure anywhere? Any "Good" Outlaws are usually Aldecados. They're basically just Fallout style raiders.

3) One could argue that Maelstrom is portrayed as unhinged and unstable enough to fall into similar territory to the Wraiths or Scavs. They seem to hold down some territory and people deal with them, but they also consider kidnapping people to fill them full of untested cyberware a fun group activity.

The other gangs, the Voodoo Boys, Tygers, Valentinos, and 6th Street, all seem to be pretty standard flavors of organized crime, and fit into Night City society about as well as V does. Since there's no real narratives built around the gangs as organizations, it feels weird to just, like, fight a bunch of Valentino members for the crime of standing around being Valentinos. If there was a larger narrative about the Valentinos, that would be one thing, but they just kind of exist, and the game gives you plenty of opportunities to fight them without really building much reasoning behind it.

I don't think it impacts the game too much. But if you want to get into the Diagetic Morality of it, it's a thing.

When it comes to #3 it's interesting but also weird.... because you can fight alongside Maelstrom and even earn their respect and make lasting ties.

And then the entire rest of the game you just treat them as always chaotic evil scumbags..... until super late in the game where it maybe comes back up again that you made buddies with them.

[BRC]

When it comes to #3 it's interesting but also weird.... because you can fight alongside Maelstrom and even earn their respect and make lasting ties.

And then the entire rest of the game you just treat them as always chaotic evil scumbags..... until super late in the game where it maybe comes back up again that you made buddies with them.

Yeah.... Not going to lie

Spoiler

Show

I kept waiting for saving Brick to be relevant, and was kind of disappointed when "Saving the leader of one of the biggest, most ruthless gangs in the city" turned out to be relevant because it made it easier to get a journalist out of a club.

Not even a journalist trying to uncover some criminal activity, just writing a culture piece about music.

Also, I just beat the game

Spoiler: Spoilers for Nomad Ending

Show

I've heard that this was the most optimistic of the endings, and I can see that. There's no talk of V's impending death, so it's technically ambiguous about whether or not V dies in six months, or if the Nomads find some way to save them, but I enjoyed that it was presented as a happily-ever-after of sorts. Maybe there was a disconnect in the writers room about that particular ending.

1) My V was a Nomad origin, and I feel like that should have come up more?
2) There is a line in there, as V and Panam are looking out over Night City for the last time, talking about how the city promised everything, but that those promises were empty. Considering how overhyped the game was, and how the Launch went, that particular line seemed...a little too fitting?

[Yora]

I'm currently working on a campaign of The Sprawl set in Night City in 73. And I think most of the gangs absolutely have a lot of potential to be quite distinguishable in the stuff they are involved in.
Valentinos and Tyger Claws are really quite generic ethnic gangs, but the others have all interesting concepts. 6th Street is basically a nationalist militia that could easily be obsessed with protecting the community against unpatriotic propaganda and foreign agents (like Arasaka). The Voodoo Boys are a shanty town street gang, but they defer to an inner circle of elite netrunners. And there's so much you can do with the Mox.

It's not that the core concepts of the gangs are bland. It's that the game doesn't have enough story-content to really make use of them.
There is a handful of gigs with actual stories, but from what I remember none of them really deal with gangs. (Sinnerman, Peralez, the neighbor, Delamain.)

[druid91]

There's plenty of gigs with stories, and flavor galore. The issue is that flavor is watered down like hell unless you play the game in a weird way.

Namely, do every side quest in a given district before moving on. If a quest requires you leave your district, do it, then immediately high tail it back.

If you do it that way, each district/gang has a fairly coherent character.

Otherwise, you get each quest piecemeal and it's harder to build up an overarching narrative.

[Yora]

I consider a gig to have a story if there is any dialog between getting the call and getting the cash. Reading a recorded conversation from the datashard on a corpse does not pass my standard for "story".
Of course, some games accomplish great things with visual storytelling. In Soulsborne games, there is a lot of story (though generally vague) that is being communicated by statues scattered around the background in environments. Cyberpunk 2077 has nothing of that kind outside of story missions. (Which is part of my assumption that the environment designers created the game world in isolation with no communication with the writers.)

[BRC]

Re: The Gangs

There's a weird thing that happens with the gangs and the fixers.

Specifically, Padre Ibarra, although somewhat with Wakako.
Ibarra is presented as pretty closely associated with the Valentinos, the Street Kid prologue has him being threatened by the 6th Street Gang, who are presented as the Valentino's enemies. The Valentinos are presented very much as a "Neighborhood gang" with heavy religious symbolism, so a Priest-turned-Fixer is a natural fit. Rather than having his own home base, he works off the street.

He's kind of presented as the Valentino's Fixer, except that since he gives you the jobs in Haywood, he's almost always sending you to kill the Valentinos.

They could make this work (As a Priest, Father Ibarra is able to operate in Heywood without fear of retribution by the Valentinos, since spilling the blood of a holy man, even one who coordinates mercenary contracts against them, is too far for the pious Valentinos). But the thinly-sketched flavor doesn't quite work

Similarly, Wakako at some point refers to the Tyger Claws as "My Boys" (IIRC, you hear half a phone call with Rogue, where she assures Rogue that the Claws wouldn't have gotten in the way of one of her jobs, since "My Boys know how to play nice"). But, mostly her jobs in Japantown have you going up against the Tygers. Although, unlike the Padre, Wakako is portrayed as a savvy enough operator that she could work as an Independent Fixer in the heart of Tyger territory, even if she is the person people go to if they want somebody to go against the Gang.

Like, seeing as all the Fixers contact you over the phone, it would be easy to have a bigger mix of things. Regina Jones calls you about a gig against the Tygers in Japantown. Wakako hires you to get revenge on the Sixth Street Gang on behalf of the Tygers, ect.

Or, you could do a bit more worldbuilding. The Padre knows he is above direct retribution from the Valentinos, and sees himself as a way for the people of Haywood to hold the Valentinos accountable. If you have a problem in Haywood, you talk to the Valentinos. If your problem is WITH the Valentinos, you talk to the Padre. Wakako as a mastermind, playing the various factions of the Tyger Claws for her own benefit.

There's plenty of gigs with stories, and flavor galore. The issue is that flavor is watered down like hell unless you play the game in a weird way.

Namely, do every side quest in a given district before moving on. If a quest requires you leave your district, do it, then immediately high tail it back.

I don't really see that? It would have been easy to build some sort of overarching story with the Gigs in a district, even if you only tie a handful of Gigs to each one, but that doesn't really happen? Most of the time the Gangs are mostly just obstacles.
"go to this place, get this thing. There are a bunch of Heavily Armed Valentinos in the area. They're not specifically PROTECTING the thing, they just happen to control the club/parking lot/funeral home where the Thing is".


Like, okay, imagine this.

The 6th Street Gang started as an overly enthusiastic hyperpatriotic Neighborhood Watch, largely made up of war veterans with military-grade cybernetics and training. However, as they've become more organized, they have gotten more ambitious and aggressive.
Use the Gigs to build a narrative around that, rather than another variant of "Go get this thing from a place that happens to be crawling with 6th Street".

"John Target has been riling up the Sixth Street gang to go to war with the Valentinos. Some more level heads within the gang would like him discreetly removed from the equation." "The Sixth Street Gang has been distributing bombmaking manuals. Wakako does not like the implications, break into their servers and upload a virus that will edit the manuals so all they build is duds". "The Sixth Street gang would like to hire you to take out a prominent leader in the Tyger Claws, weakening the Claws so 6th Street can take over territory".

This would all be the same types of Jobs as are in the game now, but built into an overarching narrative of The 6th Street Gang becoming more aggressive.

Give each neighborhood/gang a Narrative, especially for the 6th Street, Tyger Claws, and Valentinos. Maelstrom, Wraiths, and Animals I think can stay as they are.

This isn't without adding more writing or voice acting than we have now, the same types of jobs, just built with a little more sense of Narrative.

[KineticDiplomat]

I just kind of assume that the gangs aren’t actually monolithic blocks. If anyone recalls the famous Crips vs Bloods rivalry, use that as a reference: despite being two supposed mega gangs fighting each other, in average the single biggest killer of Crips was...wait for it...other Crips.

Because street gangs aren’t structured like a western army with all of them reacting to a single supreme executive, they’re more like franchise feudalism. If you ever played CK with low or no crown authority and your supposed vassals are mostly killing each other for their own advancement, only bother turning up to wars if they feel like it, and have a variable relation with if they owe you taxes...you get the idea.

Now, none of that explains why you can butcher gangs left and right without anyone ever caring, but at some point in a game about shoot/slice/hacking action you need targets.

[Cozzer]

I completed the game a few days ago (female streetkid V, no romances, saw the Sun and the Star endings for now).

Despite all the problems, which are there and pretty evident (both the technical ones and the gameplay/story disconnects, like with the gangs), I really loved it. The main story and the important questlines are all great, and the minor gigs are usually pretty fun and are exactly long enough for me to say "Oh well, guess I'll do another one before switching off". As a bonus, some of them have interesting premises and pretty good, if minor, story content.

So yeah, I can see how this game could be very disappointing if one was expecting a more open-ended, simulationist game. For a fan of mostly linear, story-focused experiences, though, it was a great ride. I'll probably do another run with a male corpo V and try the other endings too.

[alicecarter95]

I really wanted to love Cyberpunk 2077, despite all the issues with the bugs and crashes. During my initial playthrough, there was a few minor hickups here and there, granted that I was playing on a GTX 1660Ti (not exactly the horsepower the game needs). But there was moments where the characters started behaving in a way that practically broke the game. My first such encounter was when jackie did not got out of the crime scene with me (got stuck somewhere) and the door got closed. and there was no way i could progress further without interacting with him.. . After that i literally drove outside of the map because my car fell from the road, yes that is right. Fortunately, a lot of these are now fixed. and further updates are also coming.

[Calemyr]

Been a while since I thought about this game.

I have to say I was disappointed with Padre Ibarra. Street Kid or not, this dude knows you, but acts like you're meeting for the first time when you first stroll into his neighborhood. He should have responded with something like "Ah, the prodigal child has returned to the fold. It is good to see you on these streets again, my son/daughter. I will have work for you soon." At least Wakako acts like she knows you personally, albeit with the matriarchal smarm she can manage.

Wakako and Ibarra, however, never bothered me with their focus on their respective gangs. Their friendliness is just artifice, a facade to sweeten their all-business, rather ruthless, natures. They are friendly when they can be, but when pushed the smiles fade and they'll brutally crush anything that threatens their dominance. They want their respective gangs to revere them as parental figures, both loved and feared, and that means rewarding them when they're good and punishing them when they rebel. As an outside solo with a rep for getting hard tasks done, V makes a good enforcer when they need to remind the gangs who's at the top.

Of the fixers, Mr. Hands is the one that interests me. This is because he seems to be a Voodoo Boy, but it's never stated. The only indication you get is that, if you betray the VDB, you'll never hear from him again. This includes if you wipe them out, in which case there's not much reason to snub an effective solo for the sake of a gang that can no longer give him business.

I hear 1.2 has improved a lot of things, though it's also fixed the best exploits in the game, namely the duping and superspeed exploits. The optical camo cyberware now actually works, though I don't know if it's been added to any of the stores or it's going to just wait for the free DLC that updates ripperdocs. I'm looking forward to seeing that one in-game because it'd really be a nice touch when playing a cyberninja.

Spoiler: As for endings...

Show

The "Star" (Nomad) ending is the most optimistic. Vik worked out some medicine to slow down your decay and the Aldecados have friends in the east that might have better luck in curing you than you'd have in Night City. It's the most hope V has in any ending. Johnny gets a pretty good ending in "Temperence", but it's never good for V when they are the survivor.

That said, I still like the "Sun" ending, particularly the Fear the Reaper version. V burns through Arasaka and gets to Alt without sacrificing anyone, and lives what's left of their life as the undisputed ruler of the Afterlife, which is even more satisfying when Rogue is there to tell you that you earned it. Then you get to take a job for Mr. Blue Eyes himself and rob a space station. Jackie was right - if you gotta go out, go big.

[Disibii]

My opinion that the idea and the theme of the Cyberpunk are cool, but CDProjectRed couldn`t make it better because of the deadlines that`s why Cyberpunk seems to be a bad game, but it`s not. Yes, it has a lot of bugs, but i really loved its gameplay. As for me it is a big step in game industry

[Corsair14]

I haven't noticed any changes when I played recently except all the hidden items you could get early on are gone. I was going to play a mono-whip pistol hitman and the whip is nowhere to be seen. I have been told that the mantis blades are similarly gone. Kind of hard to play a stealthy character when you have to play a few hours without your namesake weapon.

[Calemyr]

I haven't noticed any changes when I played recently except all the hidden items you could get early on are gone. I was going to play a mono-whip pistol hitman and the whip is nowhere to be seen. I have been told that the mantis blades are similarly gone. Kind of hard to play a stealthy character when you have to play a few hours without your namesake weapon.

Given that the stats of cyberarms don't seem to improve as you level (the improvements due to better stats, yes, but not the base damage of the weapon), I think you're probably better off being without the monowhip. Seriously, it always annoyed the heck out of me that you couldn't upgrade the cyberarms. Get the legendary monowhip at level 1 and you've always got a level 1 monowhip, and the rare version you buy at level 20 will be much better than it, just with less upgrade slots.

That's why I tended to stick with the Projectile Launcher. Put tranq rounds on it and you've got a stealthy instant kill option that doesn't give a crap about the enemy power level, it doesn't lose relative power as you level up. Besides, the inability to customize your cyberarm appearances (beyond damage type and the visual effects stemming from that) makes a subtle option less frustrating.

[Corsair14]

Yeah, I ended up with my current build going tech sniper/pistol and a rarely used katana, still using Black Unicorn. I think my next one might be a grenade and subgun guy(kind of like Firefly from GI Joe)if I don't rotate games over to Bannerlord again now that there have been quite a few changes in that game. I tend to rotate on a monthly or so basis.

My biggest gripe on Cyberpunk continues to be no way to skip the tutorial. Would much prefer to start at Jackie's death and skip the monotonous early stuff that wastes hours.

I still want some gear that looks heavily armored and militaristic. Let me loot the gear off of those Arisaka tactical team guys. A cool armored helm shouldn't be too out of the question right?

[druid91]

Honestly, the Maelstrom vs Militech Fight is on its own one of the best things in the game, so I would never skip that.

Though agreed. The closest I've gotten to militarized look is kind of a weird Adam Jenson look with the sleeveless Arasaka bulletproof vest, Netrunner undersuit, and I forget what the pants were, some kind of military pants I looted off a Militech guy. Hat wise I just went for those scanner goggles.

[Corsair14]

HAHA I am wearing the same thing just with a motorcycle helmet.
I got around to the meetup with Stout last night when I had a free minute. I expected something but not to that degree after looking around the room. That girl is a freak. LOL I am really thinking of adding to Body now so I can use that "weapon" she leaves you in the hotel room. I have heard you have no more contact with her which is unfortunate. Maybe some of the new expansion stuff will have more content and missions with her, she is my favorite character so far.

Edit: 10 days later. Once again I have a new build I want to try and in any other game I would just do it. In Skyrim I actually found a mod that let me skip Bleakfalls Barrow. In Bannerlord there is no set play progression. Any other sandbox game you just start playing. But now I have to spend hours with any new build just to get to the game. Do the background path 10-15 minutes. Do the Sandra Dorsett rescue 15 minutes or so. 10 minutes of Deshawn blabbing away. I agree the militech/Maelstrom mission is pretty cool but that's still 30-45 minutes. Do the Evalyn BD mission which is the most boring 45 minutes in a game you can do. Then do the Arasaka tower run, minimum 30 minutes or so for the pre-op meetup and then the getting the flathead in. The tower battle is ok, my last subgun build tore through it like it was nothing. But there is another 25-30 minutes. Then you have 30 minutes of mostly cinematics dealing with Deshawn and Johnny Silverhands, not including his 25 minute or so interlude. This is all assuming you head straight from goal to goal and don't try to get better gear or cyberwear and [C] through the dialogue. First or second time, yeah its cool. Just an easy toggle in the character creation screen to get to the waking up after taking the red pill scene, level the character to level 5 with its 5 perk points and call it good. Its not like you have any real options in the pregame that make much of a difference.

The game is a blast but isn't for people who like to make multiple character builds and experiment. Also needs an option to label a description on manual save games so you can quickly look through the saved games and see this is my sniper, this is my ninja etc etc rather than loading each one and trying to remember.

[MCerberus]

The in-universe song that keeps getting referenced in the game, "Never Fade Away"... is that a reference to what I think it is?

[Corvus]

The in-universe song that keeps getting referenced in the game, "Never Fade Away"... is that a reference to what I think it is?

It's take from the original Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook.

[MCerberus]

It's take from the original Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook.

That makes sense, and I'm glad considering some of the endings it wasn't what I thought

[Spacewolf]

That makes sense, and I'm glad considering some of the endings it wasn't what I thought

I mean the rule and the quote are almost certainly a reference to My My, Hey Hey as well since the expression defines alot of Johnnys character, it's up to the player to decide if V buys into it or not.

[KineticDiplomat]

Specifically, it’s from the tutorial adventure in the CP 2020 (where’s my cyber headware dammit! They’re a year late!) where the idea is that the GM would have some one shot PCs ready for the group, and that you would have an instant story - Johnny Silverhand and Thompson (an intro to the game’s rockerboy and media, with a few lines of characterization) are offering cash on the barrel to go storm Arasaka, working through Rogue (Solo) and Diego (Nomad) each with a couple lines of character definition...and of course the PCs. All to retrieve Alt Cunningham (net runner who programmed Soulkiller, which at the time is just convenient plot for why Saka grabbed her). From the PCs point of view it starts with...you got it...a firefight in the Atlantis to learn the Combat rules, followed by a day to gear up and plan before using a Silverhand gig in front of Arasaka to both storm the building and let players experiment with other rules, kit, etc as well as giving any fixers, techs, and those types a moment to shine.

From there it’s all “make your way to Alt Cunningham” who, to emphasize that this isn’t D&D, is supposed to help you with the “boss” fight, but gets her mind sucked away into the machine by the very program she wrote...fade to black.

The GM gets a little note to use NPCs like Johnny, Rogue, and Diego to keep the plot moving and to help the players out of the going gets tough - they’re all statted out as pretty awesome - but otherwise make sure the PCs get their fun.

“It used to be you could just shout let’s go **** up Arasaka and a dozen mercs would cream their pants” indeed!

[MCerberus]

Well the issue at hand isn't really about the original usage, it's about how this one piece of culture circled back and became relevant in a different context.

It doesn't help that the narrative voice of Cyberpunk 2077 is really, really ambiguous about fading away, from characters in the game to the endings.

[druid91]

Well the issue at hand isn't really about the original usage, it's about how this one piece of culture circled back and became relevant in a different context.

It doesn't help that the narrative voice of Cyberpunk 2077 is really, really ambiguous about fading away, from characters in the game to the endings.

It's.... not really. Cyberpunk 2077 hits you over the head with it in the beginning. Fading away is getting old and irrelevant. Not the center of attention anymore. The alternative being living fast and dangerous and almost certainly dying young because of said dangerous life.