Cyberpunk 2077

[Calemyr]

I'm always terrified of outleveling everything, but considering that I've died in seconds from "Very Low Danger" missions when I was being an idiot, I'm less worried about things. It mostly means I can just one-shot people with pistols instead of having to headshot them.

Honestly, being overleveled means next to nil, at least for enjoyment's sake. Enemies are either bullet spongey as hell or one shot kills, and there's enough of them in most non NCPD encounters that one shot kills are a fun shooting gallery and sponges are the definition of tedium rather than challenge. Set the difficulty higher (not that it means much) or don't abuse the hell out of crafting armadillos if you want a challenge, as armadillo usage pretty much decides whether you're invincible or made of wet paper. Mines or certain sniper rifles and robots will instakill you at level 50 with 6000 armor and 20 Body and more than your body weight in chrome, so it's never a cake walk.

[KineticDiplomat]

Yeah there comes a point after 30 or so where everything can still kill you dead, it’s just a bit faster to get through the meat shields. And for some of the more engaging ones, the killing power is irrelevant (Sinnerman for a long arc, Brendan for the short non arc as example) and they don’t change regardless of level.

Crazily, I got to 47 so I could take the Path of Glory, and I still had full gig-arcs unplayed: the entire Delamain bit, most of the River arc, the Bartmoss arc with nance...not counting beat on the brat and some other minor gigs. I think you could make it to 50 before you ever go meet in Embers.

[BRC]

Apparently there is a bug where clothing stores won't sell blueprints or crafting materials after the first visit, which explains why I havn't been able to find high-end clothing blueprints.

Also, is there any reason to buy new cars? I'm only using cars I got for Free from doing quests, and I've hit basically every niche I could want. They all just seem to be huge moneysinks.

(Although admittedly, it helped that the Nomad can get their car for the prologue back, which is very useful for the Badlands, since it's pretty fast)

[KineticDiplomat]

From a pure utility function, no...especially

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After you recover Johnny’s 911 Porsche

But given by the end you’re buying 150k katanas, have half a mill of chrome packed in, and buy individual mods in the six digits to add that last bit of lethal, it’s not like you’ve got any shortage of cash to hand.

[Gecks]

I think cars are mostly money sinks; the "best" cars are all paid, but best only really matters as a minor QoL thing, unless you find driving around quickly really fun in and of itself. There are 4 or so racing missions where a good car helps a lot, but the NPC provided vehicle is just fine and good enough to win every race with reasonably decent driving.

It's not quite the fastest, but I think the "best" car overall is the Mizutani Shion “Coyote” (tops out near 200 MPH, and is relatively easy to control even at high speeds- not nearly as "tail happy" as a lot of the other sports cars, at least in my experience). Since my last playthrough was as a Nomad who rocked the Nomad look, I collected the Nomad cars once I had a good baseline of equipment, found out the Coyote was the car for me, and never bought anything else. Having a fast, reasonably controllable ride to zip around in between missions did improve QoL and the game experience, but not a huge amount.

In my new playthrough, I am playing a Corpo who is rocking a punk-in-a-suit look, so I am trying to avoid my beloved Coyote and going with mission cars + a purchased Herrera Outlaw GTS for a decent all-rounder which looks at home in the city. I miss my Coyote a little bit, but really not enough that I feel the need to break out of "character" in order to buy it.

[Chen]

The bikes are cheap (or free for Jackie's) and are WAY better than any of the cars for anything except maybe off-roading.

The Coyote and Javelin are the two best closed cars in my opinion though if you do want a car though. The free supercar in the cave is fast but holy crap does it handle badly.

[Whoracle]

For Inner City travel I found the Caliburn to be OK, and you can get it free. Best car for me personally goes to the Type-66 "Cthulhu", though - Reasonably fast, handles well enough and looks like a BEAST. Still prefer the Kusanagi Bike, though, but when I'm in a car mood, the Cthulhu just tickles my fancy.

As for leveling: On my 100% run (All secondary missions, all gigs, all NCPD missions) with a fair bit of crafting I hit Level 50 about 2 hours before OP55N1/Embers. Street Cred maxed out way before that - at around level 36ish or so, IIRC?

Still putting off my 3rd run (male V going for the male romances, also Melee for the last 6 or so Achievements that I'm missing) to avoid burnout, but it's getting harder to keep it off day by day. I love the game, warts and all.

[sihnfahl]

Mines or certain sniper rifles and robots will instakill you at level 50 with 6000 armor and 20 Body and more than your body weight in chrome, so it's never a cake walk.

Using a sneaky tech / quickhack spec, they're a cakewalk. You can stay out of view and, between Shock quickhacks, snipe with Breakthrough.

I didn't use a single Armadillo. Deadeyes when I can, then a mix of Fortuna and Bully.

[druid91]

Honestly, the best cars are theft only unfortunately. I want a purchasable Kaukaz Zeya.

[KineticDiplomat]

I will say that fem-Vs voice actor does a better job. Especially in the more emotional moments.

[Rynjin]

I will say that fem-Vs voice actor does a better job. Especially in the more emotional moments.

Yeah. Cheramie Leigh is an industry professional with decades of experience under her belt.

Male V's actor is...some guy they grabbed off the street I guess? As far as I can tell he's never had a voice acting role, and also never been a lead actor in anything.

[BRC]

Yeah. Cheramie Leigh is an industry professional with decades of experience under her belt.

Male V's actor is...some guy they grabbed off the street I guess? As far as I can tell he's never had a voice acting role, and also never been a lead actor in anything.

Isn't that basically the same thing that happened with Mass Effect? Jennifer Hale was an experienced professional vs the male VA who was originally the guy they brought in as a placeholder for early demos, but decided they liked enough to keep around.


Also, speaking of Voice ACting

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I love Keanu Reeves, but he's not much of a voice actor. It doesn't help that Johnny Silverhand is basically laser designed to be the least likable character I've ever seen.

[Rynjin]

The funny thing is, I DON'T really like Keanu Reeves, but thought he did a great job playing the ghost of a washed up douchebag.

[sihnfahl]

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I love Keanu Reeves, but he's not much of a voice actor. It doesn't help that Johnny Silverhand is basically laser designed to be the least likable character I've ever seen.

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Well, that's the intent. That's why Yorinobu considered it a threat to his Dad to force the biochip in him. At least, that was the intent until Dad showed up at an inopportune time and Y felt no other option but to strangle him.

It also gives the player a good reason to not listen to Johnny's suggested courses of action. Cause he's a ****. You have to work at turning him into a somewhat repentant ****.

[Calemyr]

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Well, that's the intent. That's why Yorinobu considered it a threat to his Dad to force the biochip in him. At least, that was the intent until Dad showed up at an inopportune time and Y felt no other option but to strangle him.

It also gives the player a good reason to not listen to Johnny's suggested courses of action. Cause he's a ****. You have to work at turning him into a somewhat repentant ****.

Spoiler: That's what you took from that?

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Gotta say, I read the Yorinobu thing differently. The Steel Dragon was supposedly trying to sell it to the Netwatch, very likely for the same exact reason Parker was hired to klep it for the Voodoo Boys. Alt Cunningham is the unchallenged goddess beyond the Blackwall and the last vestige of Silverhand was the only bargaining chip anyone on the meat side of the wall has if they want to talk to her. Making a deal with Alt means you unconditionally rule cyberspace on this side of the wall, using knowledge and code nothing ganic ever touched. Netwatch becomes the the perfect police, able to truly force the corps to behave (or, alternately, they'd have the ability to simply own the corps at a whim). The Boys get to remove all pretenders to their thrones as the kings of cyberspace, with the ability to destroy anything that looks at them funny. Not that it would have ever worked - the first mistake everyone makes is the assumption that Alt would bargain for the chip. The second is assuming the AIs beyond the wall would ever accept a living mind to guide them. No, they have more interesting plans...

Yorinobu's game seems to be simple. He's got a solid third of the company backing him, as well as a raging case of hatred for his father simply due to a failed intimidation check on the part of the old man. If he had his own money and the might the Alt-empowered Netwatch could give him, he could easily carry out a relatively bloodless coup. No more shackles, no more subtle terror, exactly as he explains in the Devil ending. Unfortunately, his primary informant on the Relic project sold him out to his father, and the emperor of Arasaka comes down with a unique case of "poisoning".

Of course, in the Devil ending, Yorinobu's worst fears are realized. The Relic's bugs are fixed because of lessons learned from two bumbling thieves and a panicky fixer. Kill someone who has a Relic equipped and the construct in the Relic takes over. The son who feared nothing more than becoming his father ends up becoming his old man in a way more real than his worst nightmares ever suggested.

[KineticDiplomat]

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You know, for all Yorinobu’s personal antagonism towards the player and his goals, I’m coming around to thinking that he is probably the the most “Good” of the Araska leaders. He’s offering up Johnny to Netwatch as a weapon that might help head off the coming war of the AIs vs humanity, and the price he’s asking is that he be put in control of the corporation - ostensibly to help reform the corp, but even if it was just for power and ousting the old guard, hard to say that’s a horrible issue considering the protagonists are people who do contract killing for power, wealth, and status. For a further parallel, he may know that daddy is keeping him around as a special relic recopient. In many ways he is basically the player, just on the other side.

All of which makes the corporate ending even more grim. You killed the one Arasaka who might have in some way been most like the “good guys”

[sihnfahl]

And it looks like HelloKitty ransomware group is having fun with CDPR.

[Calemyr]

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You know, for all Yorinobu’s personal antagonism towards the player and his goals, I’m coming around to thinking that he is probably the the most “Good” of the Araska leaders. He’s offering up Johnny to Netwatch as a weapon that might help head off the coming war of the AIs vs humanity, and the price he’s asking is that he be put in control of the corporation - ostensibly to help reform the corp, but even if it was just for power and ousting the old guard, hard to say that’s a horrible issue considering the protagonists are people who do contract killing for power, wealth, and status. For a further parallel, he may know that daddy is keeping him around as a special relic recopient. In many ways he is basically the player, just on the other side.

All of which makes the corporate ending even more grim. You killed the one Arasaka who might have in some way been most like the “good guys”

Spoiler: Yes and No

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As the founder of the Steel Dragons, I'd agree. If the assassination of Saburo didn't happen and things had gone according to plan, I'd agree. Unfortunately, killing his dad pretty much broke the man. He descended into paranoia, becoming increasingly unhinged as V continues to evade and combat him. This is just my interpretation, mind, but I think Yorinobu doesn't believe he deserves leadership after the patricide, like he's terrified of being caught out for being insufficient even when he can blatantly point at a strangled man with clear head trauma and call it poison and people just roll with it. By the end of the Devil path, he's so off his rocker that he's setting up what looks like an impending world war with his antics and Yoriburo is considered a breath of fresh air and a reinstatement of sanity. If Yorinobu had actually pulled it off and beaten his father at his own game, he would have stood tall and done well, but that path is shut down long before V snuck into the apartment.

[druid91]

Honestly, the whole games moral compass is a little bit out of whack by a major degree. Like the game seems to want to think that V is a good guy, but they're at best a heartless merc with a few morality pets.

[BRC]

Honestly, the whole games moral compass is a little bit out of whack by a major degree. Like the game seems to want to think that V is a good guy, but they're at best a heartless merc with a few morality pets.

Yeah, every time I was in a situation where somebody was contemplating murder for some reason, I would generally be like "V literally kills people for a living. V has killed people for FAR less than this. V has killed people for money, V has killed people as a favor to friends, V has killed people because she didn't feel like plugging in the magic 'Don't kill people" software that goes in her cybereyes"

[Spacewolf]

That is the problem with open worlds where the character has to act like they are a human being with some sort of stable personality and moral system as opposed to someone who gunned down 50 people while walking to the mission because they had a box I wanted to look in or that I wanted to test how effective cars are in combat.

[druid91]

That is the problem with open worlds where the character has to act like they are a human being with some sort of stable personality and moral system as opposed to someone who gunned down 50 people while walking to the mission because they had a box I wanted to look in or that I wanted to test how effective cars are in combat.

I mean even in story terms. Even discounting extra kills from wandering the city. You kill a *lot* of people.

[Lord Raziere]

I mean even in story terms. Even discounting extra kills from wandering the city. You kill a *lot* of people.

Its called "being an Action Hero". nerds like to rag on the archetype a lot and talk about how in reality such a person would be an unstable psychopath murderhobo or horribly traumatized, but there is a reason why it keeps staying an archetype: people want to experience action and awesome fight scenes without any of the horrible stuff that comes with it. A person doing that through a fake character in some fake world is a much healthier way to do than however you'd try to do that in real life. its an escape just as much as anything else fantastic is.

[Spacewolf]

Basically the Nathan Drake issue, someone who's supposed to be a hero but quips his way through murdering hundreds of people.

[Whoracle]

As far as I can tell, you don't need to kill anyone in the game, though?

- Start as Corpo or Streetrat
- Grab the non-lethal eye mod in the prologue
- Clean the Virus off the credchip for maelstrom (can't remember if Militech still attacks, but even then, Non-Lethal Eye mods goes brrrr)
- Go for non-lethal Quickhacks ASAP
- Don't do Skippy
- Do not complete Panams Questline (to skip the Tank section)
- Do Nocturne without the Nomads - Any other path will work, again due to the Tank
- Spare Smasher

The only person who dies is the NetWatch guy during the VDB Mission, and it's not you who kills him.

From memory, the secondary Missions (again, with the Exception of the Tank section with Panam) also don't force you to kill people.
Same goes for all Gigs that I can remember - All gigs that explicitly want you to off somebody, you can talk around that - "Go skip town, or else" - But I might not remember all of the Gigs here.

Really, the only way you HAVE to kill is running a Melee build. But if your V positively WANTS to pack Mantis Blades and Katanas, that's on you, the player, not on the character and the storyline.

Again, I might misremember the odd gig here or there, but at least during the main and most secondary Missions you don't need to kill. People might still die, but not by your hand. That might actually be a fun run - 100% as a pacifist. I might go for that once I pick the game up again.

[Calemyr]

As far as I can tell, you don't need to kill anyone in the game, though?

- Start as Corpo or Streetrat
- Grab the non-lethal eye mod in the prologue
- Clean the Virus off the credchip for maelstrom (can't remember if Militech still attacks, but even then, Non-Lethal Eye mods goes brrrr)
- Go for non-lethal Quickhacks ASAP
- Don't do Skippy
- Do not complete Panams Questline (to skip the Tank section)
- Do Nocturne without the Nomads - Any other path will work, again due to the Tank
- Spare Smasher

The only person who dies is the NetWatch guy during the VDB Mission, and it's not you who kills him.

From memory, the secondary Missions (again, with the Exception of the Tank section with Panam) also don't force you to kill people.
Same goes for all Gigs that I can remember - All gigs that explicitly want you to off somebody, you can talk around that - "Go skip town, or else" - But I might not remember all of the Gigs here.

Really, the only way you HAVE to kill is running a Melee build. But if your V positively WANTS to pack Mantis Blades and Katanas, that's on you, the player, not on the character and the storyline.

Again, I might misremember the odd gig here or there, but at least during the main and most secondary Missions you don't need to kill. People might still die, but not by your hand. That might actually be a fun run - 100% as a pacifist. I might go for that once I pick the game up again.

I think Militech still chases you down if you use even a cleaned chip. Doing some ncpd quests before the Maelstrom (use a blunt weapon and/or non-lethal mods) can easily net you the 10k needed to pay off the flathead without involving Militech. Things go very easy then. Of course, Merideth dies (you can find her body floating in the water tied to a cement block), but her prisoner (who actually is the mole, despite his claims*) will die if Merideth doesn't. You might, with luck (non-lethal methods can still be very lethal in cases of overkill or circumstance), manage not to kill anyone with your own hands, but people will die in impressive numbers by your action or your inaction.

Personally, I just make it a point to ensure that those who die are gang members - especially the scavs. There isn't a single gang that does only good, or even mostly good, or even a decent bit of good. Corp black-ops don't typically make the world better either. Honestly, looking at the city, I'm inclined to redirect a quote Johnny: "Before I wouldn't touch this place with a ten-foot pole. Now I think a lit match could make it shine."

*This is an in-game fact, by the way. If you choose to fight your way out, you can find a computer about half of the way through. Dumbass used a personal email account to organize the ambush, complete with LOA (smuggling) documentation. Our Militech contact has good instincts, at least, just not good enough to get her out of this mess without your help.

[Yora]

Honestly, the whole games moral compass is a little bit out of whack by a major degree. Like the game seems to want to think that V is a good guy.

Really? I completed the whole game except for the main story endgame, and I never got that impression. V talks reasonably politely to most people, but I don't remember anyone suggesting V is a hero or a good example. Not even V.
The only aspiration anyone ever mentions is to "become a legend", and everything that is heard about the established legends is that they were badass killers.
Good and evil never really come up, as it befits a cyberpunk setting. It genrally sways undecided between rebellion without a plan and outright nihilism.

If you see V as generally good and decent, helping to fight crime, or a gun for hire who will do anything that pays is mostly a personal interpretation of the player.

And yes, you can easily kill 1000 people and never stop to think a moment about it. But at least V doesn't have introspective moments of guilt to question if its right to use violence to stop a mustache twirling serial killer. See Max Paine 3, Tomb Raider (20something), or Last of Us 2.

[druid91]

As far as I can tell, you don't need to kill anyone in the game, though?

- Start as Corpo or Streetrat
- Grab the non-lethal eye mod in the prologue
- Clean the Virus off the credchip for maelstrom (can't remember if Militech still attacks, but even then, Non-Lethal Eye mods goes brrrr)
- Go for non-lethal Quickhacks ASAP
- Don't do Skippy
- Do not complete Panams Questline (to skip the Tank section)
- Do Nocturne without the Nomads - Any other path will work, again due to the Tank
- Spare Smasher

The only person who dies is the NetWatch guy during the VDB Mission, and it's not you who kills him.

From memory, the secondary Missions (again, with the Exception of the Tank section with Panam) also don't force you to kill people.
Same goes for all Gigs that I can remember - All gigs that explicitly want you to off somebody, you can talk around that - "Go skip town, or else" - But I might not remember all of the Gigs here.

Really, the only way you HAVE to kill is running a Melee build. But if your V positively WANTS to pack Mantis Blades and Katanas, that's on you, the player, not on the character and the storyline.

Again, I might misremember the odd gig here or there, but at least during the main and most secondary Missions you don't need to kill. People might still die, but not by your hand. That might actually be a fun run - 100% as a pacifist. I might go for that once I pick the game up again.

If you clean the Virus of the credchip, you've killed the Militech Chick. Her giving you that cash was a gamble, and if you double cross her, she ends up tied to a concrete block in the river. Also, that's the only situation in which Militech Attacks, in which case you've also engineered a situation where Maelstrom and Militech are fighting and you can bet that neither are using non-lethal rounds. The only way you can *entirely* dodge someone dying in that mission is if you find and pay the eddies yourself. Also, non-lethal eye mods aren't perfect, if somebody hucks a grenade at you, all those people you knocked out might get hurt. Not even counting the times where it kills the person anyway despite having the eye mod.

Also, no, you kinda do kill the NetWatch guy. They even make it fairly explicit that they want to kill the NetWatch guy, just not that they intend to kill you too. Also, if you do literally any ending but the corpo one you kill everyone in Mikoshi. Which for some might be a blessing, but a massive number of people pay a ton of money to get in there.

[Whoracle]

If you clean the Virus of the credchip, you've killed the Militech Chick. Her giving you that cash was a gamble, and if you double cross her, she ends up tied to a concrete block in the river. Also, that's the only situation in which Militech Attacks, in which case you've also engineered a situation where Maelstrom and Militech are fighting and you can bet that neither are using non-lethal rounds. The only way you can *entirely* dodge someone dying in that mission is if you find and pay the eddies yourself.

So, we're in agreement - you can do this mission without killing. I wouldn't find it out of character to just ditch the whole Militech angle on this mission either, because why mingle with the corpo types and their stupid games?

Also, non-lethal eye mods aren't perfect, if somebody hucks a grenade at you, all those people you knocked out might get hurt.

This might be me misremembering, or it might be a bug with my installations' AI, but I can't remember a single instance of anybody in the game chucking grenades. Maybe because of the collateral? Anyways, if the enemies chuck grenades into a bunch of their comrades, that's not on V. They happily accept collateral damage. It's not like I'm using the bodies of their comrades as human shields.

Not even counting the times where it kills the person anyway despite having the eye mod.

That may also be a bug. Can't testify for how good the mod works. Its description says it deals non-lethal, so that's the intent, and that's what I'm going with.

Also, no, you kinda do kill the NetWatch guy. They even make it fairly explicit that they want to kill the NetWatch guy, just not that they intend to kill you too.

a) No. My job was to get to the van. Getting locked in afterwards by the netwatch guy is on him, not me. Pressganging me into killing all of the netwatch agents without telling me beforehands is on the VDBs, not me.
b) Turns out that you can side with netwatch, in which case the Agent survives, but as of now I don't know what happens in the next mission, then. If the VDBs get aggressive because of that, non lethal still applies, either through quickhacks or the eye mod.

Also, if you do literally any ending but the corpo one you kill everyone in Mikoshi. Which for some might be a blessing, but a massive number of people pay a ton of money to get in there.

That is a diskussion for another day - are they dead after Alt gobbles them up? Is it different than being stored in Mikoshi? Are they alive when suspended? For this diskussion I say fine, you need the Arasaka Ending then.
Also, I think you don't get around killing in the Sandra Dorsett mission right at the start - maybe with targeted knee shots?

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). That's a far shot from "Thousands" or even "Hundreds", and given this:

[...]And yes, you can easily kill 1000 people and never stop to think a moment about it. But at least V doesn't have introspective moments of guilt to question if its right to use violence to stop a mustache twirling serial killer. See Max Paine 3, Tomb Raider (20something), or Last of Us 2.

I'm more or less fine with V's behaviour, morality wise. How you play the game is your prerogative, of course, and how you interpret your Vs actions is, too, but the game allows for a VERY low killcount playthrough and is consistent with that. Everybody else on top of the maybe 20 scavs from Dorsett (again, IF they are really dead. Need to check.) is on the player, not the character.

Interesting side note, since the "you kill either by action or inaction" has come up (Spoilered for those that didn't do the Arasaka Ending):

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In your opinion, is V responsible for the Death of Yorinobu, too? Is V responsible for Yorinobu offing most of the Arasaka CEOs? And, to go further into the meta, is V responsible for everything that happens in the game, by virtue of being the PC? I mean, taking that thought to extremis the whole storyline wouldn't happen if you didn't play the game, and thus no one died. But then, that would mean V was responsible (through inaction, because you can absolutely stop them) for each kill a random gang does on the map while driving through town...

Edit: And to put a capstone on this: I'd have liked the game to explore a bit more of the world and V even before the Dorsett mission, as far as lethality goes. Yes, you're running a rescue operation for a innocent person, but you're still forced to kill at least the guys chasing you with the cars afterwards. Would've been nice to have an alternative route here. Same goes for the intro to the nomad lifepath - Forced car-chase shootout. Meh.

[Calemyr]

Personally, I don't have any problem killing scavs, such as in the prologue. The Voodoo Boys keep to themselves for the most part, 6th Street is basically an overgrown neighborhood watch, Maelstrom innovates tech as much as it wreaks havoc with it, and the Animals frequently actually work for a living, but the Scavs are nothing but grotesque predators that kidnap and kill "innocent" people (honestly, I don't think even the cats are innocent in Night City). Them and the Tyger Claws. I cannot for the life of me think of any constructive service they provide beyond organizing crime that would exist with or without them, and even then badly. That said, to be honest, I have to side with Wrex from Mass Effect 1 on this kinda thing: Anyone that tangles with us is either on Yorinobu's payroll or stupid. Killing the former is just business. Killing the latter is a favor to the universe.

Non-lethal should (as in real life) instead be considered "less lethal". Grenades are a definite thing (though fairly rare), but that's not it. Wear the eye mod and a pacifist mod on your weapon, and a revolver shot to the head will still kill enemies on a regular basis. Blunt weapons also occasionally kill (except Tinkerbell, but that's a mid to late-game weapon and easy to miss). Incapacitated enemies can die by being stepped on, or by falling unconscious in bad places. You will be save scumming like never before if you think you can get through without killing anyone. Hell, even non-lethal approaches to Hired Gun gigs frequently have the Fixer tell you the target's gonna die anyway, and not as neatly as a bullet through they grey.

And don't get me wrong, my statement that action or inaction will get people killed, I don't mean the blood is always on your hands. A lot of characters who die because of your (in)actions do so because of their own choices. Merideth and Andrew are in a cut-throat game of winner-takes-all, you just decide the winner. Yorinobu descends into a paranoid mania that was either going to end with his death, the outright crippling of Arasaka, or a fifth corpo war that nobody would have walked away from. Your actions, either way, avoid the worst end Yorinobu was heading to. And can you save a fair number of lives through your actions, some of which are worth saving. But your choices will result in people dying, including choices that were never in the player's hands.

Ultimately, though, the definition of the game's name defines the morality of it. Cyberpunk means "High tech, low life". Life mean nothing in a cyberpunk setting. You're either a brain-dead consumer, an expendable cog in the corporate machine, a violent junkie with no morals, or a violent junkie who likes to think they have morals. The highest goal of a merc is to die spectacularly, while gangers and corpo's just see other people's lives as ephemera they can exploit or extinguish as their convenience and whims dictate and civilians just hope to live to see tomorrow and quench the existential dread via whatever the corps put in their commercials. Minimizing death can be an enjoyable challenge and an interesting play style, and it can be rewarding to try to roleplay as one of the few people in a city of the dead that actually wants to value life, but that's playing counter to the genre.

That said, I would love a mod that lets you play a... hmm... I think I'll call it a "Goblin Slayer" route. V never lets their aspirations outstrip their necessities, and never lets Jackie's need for the big time blind them to the obvious pitfalls. Make a fortune and a name for yourself in Watson, wait out the lockdown, and then return to the city to make your name the hard way, with the Arasaka crisis happening only through news broadcasts. By the end of the game, every Fixer in the city knows who you are and that you get things done, and the only threat to your life is the ever-present chance of a bullet that never cared who you were in the first place.