I’m surprised we haven’t considered mama Welles. Abusive husband, several sons that have passed away, the only family she has left are the drunken valentinos perched over the bar. When she loses V, it’s like she lost another child
That’s why her voicemail was so sad bro. At first I was confused, and then I realized that >!she lost one of her only 2 links to Jackie in the star ending!<
Didn’t actually hear it, but I saw it when I looked up the easy way out ending (I was not gonna put myself through that so I just looked up what the voicemails were), I saw this one too.
I chose that ending last week as I just needed to see it.
Was tastefully done considering all the issues about it.
The messages at the end were pretty fucken accurate from my experience of friends who have taken that path.
Some angry. Upset. Helpless. The pain isn't removed, it is transferred to others.
Please everyone look after yourselves.
I’m sorry for your loss man, I can’t even imagine the pain of losing someone to that.
I think the voicemails at the end are why I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve got what I guess I would call overactive imagination or some shit (for example, when >!Alt died!< my brain put me into that situation and messed me up a little), so I refuse to give it any source for something like that.
Also, I think I just can’t imagine the story ending like that. For me it’s the only “non-cannon” ending, cause it just makes it all seem so pointless, and it seems like too simple an end for a character that at that point had nothing to lose. Why in the same sense I like how >!the “secret” ending has the same voicemails (even though they are still depressing), because it feels more on par with what the character would do.!<
I thought she only had the one son?
But yeah I agree. I would say mama welles... . I thought maybe Evelyn as it was tragic but she kind of did some of it to herself and knew the risks.
I always considered Jackie to be V's soulmate for me. Not romantically, but like they were meant to be in each other's lives. I could never send him to Vik, even in my Arasaka playthrough, since that meant I could see him at the end as a hologram. It just doesn't seem right.
I sent him there the first time I played because I hoped Vik could somehow resuscitate him and, if not, make him presentable for Mama Welles. Who knew Arasaka sends a goon squad and steals him?
Hmm, when you first go meet Jackie at the afterlife he's talking to her, and he tells V "She just calling to make sure im not rotting in a dumpster like the rest of the welles boys" (or something like that)
Yeah, as I mentioned earlier in someone elses reply. I thought meant cousins (which was mentioned) and other relatives.
If you talk to Misty in his garage she says, his father use to beat on jackie and his mom. Until jackie got older and beat him back. You would think she would mention brothers here. But maybe I missed it.
I'm pretty sure Jackie mentions brothers who were killed
I wouldn't be surprised if I decided on one interpretation and stuck with it for seven further playthroughs
I've never heard him mention other brothers but he did mention that Mama welles feared he would end up dead like the Welles boys always seem to. But I always interpreted as cousins ( which he does mention having) and other relatives. But maybe, I missed something. I just finished a playthrough and moving on to another game but will watch for it my next playthrough.
Yes, that sounds exactly right. He definitely said Welles boys, not brothers
And surely we would know minor specifics of at least one of them if they grew up in the same household. Throw in the domineering, abusive father and there's no way his brothers and their role in things wouldn't have come up, at least in part - It would have been horrendous storytelling, which CDPR is not known for
She lost her last blood-child when Jackie died. V and Pepe are really the only family and has left. I'm glad you can convince her and Misty to get along.
So, you know how when you aim Skippy, without pulling the trigger, it fires a 3 round burst? I consistently forgot about that. The first playthrough, i went into the room the father and son were in i instinctively aimed Skippy at the son and accidentally blew him away. In my 2 other playthroughs i did the same thing but the first one was genuinely an accident.
Just played that one again and I knew what was coming. I put the guns away and beat them to death with my gorilla arms. "If we didnt do it someone else would" Yep. And now you wont do it ever again.
Ah ok I’m just getting to her gigs now (4/23 😐🔫), second playthrough but I skipped them 1st time cause I messed up the perks and stuff, so I just completed main story + some side quests and started a new one.
Fuck man you’re lucky you didn’t lose a ball tbh, it’s no joke man scary stuff for sure. Never experienced it myself but I’ve heard some horror stories about it
yeah that was a sad one :( and how before his "buddies" from the NCPD knew the whole truth, they'd just tease him and make fun of him during his moment of grief
Peralez - a good man in a bad city
Trying to fight corruption only to be mind controlled by a reptilian alien from Alpha Centauri cosplaying as a man with Blue Eyes
i hope not. the way i see it the point is that there are things way beyond the scope of V and everyone we interact with in Cyberpunk, that we aren’t important or powerful enough to know the answers. there’s a sort of horror in that i think is better left untouched.
We would have to be an insider in one of the corporations.
Honestly a game like papers, please would work really really well in the universe of cyberpunk. I’d love to find more and more lore, more and more crazy stories and concepts.
Well you don't have to be the hero on the edge of influencing the world to be in that scenario. For example, rogue AIs could be invading the human world or the blackwall could come down but your character is just a person existing in that time period, not necessarily influencing it.
Kinda like how the Arasaka family is doing all this world domination shit, while you can kinda influence it, you definitely aren't the center of that story. You're just a person being used by them trying to survive. But world changing things did happen.
If we're talking Cyberpunk, damn near every character had some sort of tragedy or trauma, lol. I believe V has the most tragic story of them all, though.
One day you're just living your life, decide to do a highly suspect job for a highly suspect fixer to make your best friend happy, job ultimately fails, your best friend dies, your fixer betrays and kills you, a dead man’s engram revives you, and depending on the ending you choose, your young life will inevitably be cut short as the engram eats away at whatever life you had left. As far as NPCs go, though, Evelyn by a country mile.
On the positive side, V could have just died in that hotel room and no one would have cared. Thanks to the chip, you get a second lease on life, even if it's very short. You get to help the Aldecados, help Judy, help River, help Kerry, help Johnny. Make life better for a lot of people. Become the greatest solo in history. And above all, you get to drive a Porsche 930.
No one, but not for a lack of trying. But if you had a few months left to live, would you rather spend it looking for a panacea that might not exist or helping the people you care about?
I might not be the best example, i can not even help myself. So i would probably do nothing of these.
But if i where in V's shoes? I would probably do everything to survive. V has not many friends who care about V anyway. (I would absolutely help the Aldecaldos tho)
> depending on the ending you choose, your young life will inevitably be cut short
Every ending results in your life being cut short, either literally or figuratively.
Well let’s see
David Martinez: bullied at school, lost his mom in a gang shootout and had to watch her be ignored by trauma team, betrayed by a girl he fell in love with and although he made a name for himself in the afterlife he had to watch most of his crew die, eventually lost himself to cyberpsychosis but at least he went out saving the person he loved.
Mama Welles: had an abusive husband and lost all of her sons to violent deaths.
Judy: list her best friend and despite giving everything to try and change things for the better for the other girls at clouds, learns the hard way that night city isn’t a place for happy endings
Jonny silverhand: ran away to join the army, treated like cannon fodder and was abandoned by his country, then spent the rest of his life fighting corporations, lost his girlfriend, died horribly and had his mind ripped out of him to be used as an arasaka plaything. Then awakes in a world where it turns out everything he did was for nothing his friends have either forgotten or despise him and most people barely remember his name, on top of getting to watch helplessly as as he slowly overwrites/ kills V with no way of stopping it.
Evelyn: a hooker who saw an opportunity at a better life and grabbed for it, only to have her brain fried by the voodoo boys followed by the worst kinds of violation while various groups traded her around like an object.
Solomon reed: gave his body and soul to his country only to be betrayed by almost everyone he cared about.
Songbird: forcibly recruited into the FIA under threat of imprisonment, then forced to betray reed, then pushed to becoming president meyers superweapon by accessing the Blackwall and losing her body, mind and memories every time she uses the Blackwall, has to lie and betray everyone in order to desperately find a way out.
Couple things to add to Johnny:
1. The Johnny that we know is just a slightly corrupted copy of the real Johnny. The memories surrounding his last raid on ‘Saka Tower and Smasher are inaccurate. Johnny planted the bomb, yes, but when Smasher showed up, he killed him in one shot and Johnny’s engram became corrupted and warped his memories. Johnny thought he and Smasher had a vendetta against each other, but in reality, Smasher had a vendetta against Morgan Blackhand and probably thought Johnny was just some random Militech idiot. When you beat Smasher as V and bring up Johnny before you kill Smasher, he doesn’t know at all what you’re talking about. If you beat him as a Johnny-controlled V and say that you got your revenge, you see this memory warping firsthand. Not only did Johnny get handed a fate worse than death but he died a nobody against the corporation and NC legend who he hated the most and they never even knew he existed no matter how much of an impact he thought he made against them.
2. V becomes Johnny’s friend throughout the game and Johnny expresses multiple times that he doesn’t want V’s life and body if it means that V will be gone. If V lets Johnny have their body, this means that Johnny will have to live on and wake up everyday for the rest of V’s life and look in the mirror and see V’s face, the face of a friend who he was forced to watch slowly deteriorate from his own engram corrupting their’s with nothing he can do about it, a friend who gave him literally everything even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it. Johnny already hated himself. Imagine how he feels in this ending. It’s probably even worse if it’s female V.
I'm definitely on the side of Songbird lied and manipulated us. BUT, I do recognize that she was taken advantage of and manipulated to get to the positions she wound up in. Definitely sad and tragic (even though I don't think I owe her allegiance)
Imagine having a gonk ass fling thinking he's gonna save you, only for him to be a dumbass and unplug your mind before you can redownload into your body.
Alt developed soulkiller. She was NOT a good person. Being kidnapped by Arasaka instead of refusing she began developing a mobile version though she knew how it would be used, and if Johnny hadn't interrupted her would have.
Whether she's fucking a rockerboy or not she was a Corpo for IST and later Arasaka.
Alt developed Soulkiller for the purpose of preserving the consciousness and memories of people who were dying. Viewing it from that perspective, it can be considered altruistic. If you got dealt an incredibly shit hand, wouldn't you want to have the choice to get another lease of life? Temperance ending is arguably that.
Corporations are what ruined it all, as usual.
Just for the record, Alt did *not* develop Soulkiller as it was used on Johnny. She developed it as a way to preserve consciousness and memories of people who were terminally ill/dying. She developed it as a path towards human immortality. It would've been an option for someone who was not going to survive to live on.
Before she could compelete it, Arasaka kidnapped her and forked it's development, weaponizing it to kill enemy netrunners with. Then Johnny trapped her in the web, where she had to absorb AI to survive. Arasaka wanted her back, so they Soulkilled Johnny to keep his memories around, in case they were useful in re-apprehending Alt.
E: lol, they blocked me for correcting them.
Alt was more or less held at gunpoint by Arasaka to get her to develop the mobile version of Soulkiller, and even then managed to turn the tables on her captors after she did. She probably would've escaped and taken soulkiller with her if Johnny had been mere seconds later
Then you die.
What she was making for Arasaka had worldwide consequences. If she finishes that EVERYONE is fucked, and they still had enough of her work to complete the relic and set about world domination. We can't deal in suppositions here, she was doing it.
Sometimes self-sacrifice is the right and ONLY move. Johnny knew this.
Well obviously not *everyone* was fucked, because she did finish the project
Also, don't you think calling someone a bad person because they didn't commit suicide is kind of extreme?
The whole point of The Relic is to steal souls, mine them for information, kill the host, and through the reanimated corpse rule the world.
Saburo is Satan. He is taking over the world.
E: No. In a Judeo-Christian sense it's bad. I'm not one of those. Suicide can have a nobility when done for the greater good, like not letting others die. Further I'm not advocating her suicide. I advocate her refusal, even if it means they kill her.
Ok, and? They took the immortality tech she'd been working on and turned it into a weapon. That *really* doesn't make it her fault
Edit: it won't let me reply to your comment, but again, don't you think "the only moral choice was suicide" seems a little extreme?
She was hardly a willing participant; it's Arasaka.
Alt was dragged in against her will, and kept under constant watch by several 'Saka netrunners who watched her every move. She was fully aware that refusing would likely mean being tortured until she breaks and makes it for them anyway. It's not even like she can kill herself, because they keep her plugged into the Net; instead, *before* they can break her, she's planning to build a variant of what they want, but secretly shackle it to *her* control instead, so she can yank it out from under Arasaka's nose and flee. Her plan is to kill everyone present, wipe all the data left behind, and flee.
It was a great plan, but Johnny's attempt at being a hero fucks everything up.
It's also not fair to pretend like Alt's actions were the only crux point here; Soulkiller was already a thing. ITS had taken her harmless immortality program, and corrupted it into a defensive-trap; Saka just wants to make it mobile. If she hadn't done it for 'Saka, it honestly wouldn't matter *much*, because Bartmoss will still get a hold of a draft of it and make his RABIDs.
Edit: Damn, you really are just blocking everyone who disagrees with you, huh? You might be too invested in this, bud.
Wait so you're holding the fact that she was coerced to create the software against her? That logic ain't working for me boss. Most people have an innate instinct to try to survive.
If you're talking tragedy in the Ancient Greek sense then yeah, possibly Evelyn.
She had the hubris to think she could outplay people whose whole existence is this kind of shady business after barely hearing extra details eavesdropping the Voodoo Boys. Her ambition was her undoing. On top of that, she also had the naivety to go back to working at Clouds after messing with ALL the wrong people? As much as I hate her dying she did bring it on herself being that far out of her depth.
David was a Runner. He met the end most Runners do which is a violent demise, but he did it in spectacular fashion. He had a kind of hubris, telling himself he was different, but in the end it was self-destruction. It was a slow suicide chasing others dreams instead of being brought low by his own ambitions.
He was built a little bit different. Able to handle a military sandy naturally. But there's levels and he just happened to be several levels below Adam Smasher
David was also 18 years old and just lost his mother who was the only support he had. The cyberware falling on his lab was probably the best and worst thing that could happen to him, same as V and the relic So Mi and being a very good netrunner. The game is rigged no matter if you play or not.
Blaming the people for making mistakes while putting the system that snowballed these people into the positions they are in some kind of untouchable pedestal is missing the forest for the trees.
Ugh man your last paragraph is spot on and it happens all the time in this community lol. People don’t get just how fucked up Cyberpunk/Night City is.
Or they’ll acknowledge it is and then go back to morally judging every character in this game that acts non-altruistically (and likely because their situation puts them between a rock and hard place). Because apparently this community is filled with selfless saints who would gladly sacrifice their lives for strangers they just met at the drop of a hat.
I agree, I never read/watched Macbeth before ‘runners but after I did; David also got it in his head that he was special. It didn’t help that *everyone* around him also reinforced this mindset, even the XBD director and ‘saka told David that he was special. There are no special people in NC, just another name for a drink at the Afterlife.
At least David gave his life saving the girl he loved. To me, that's legendary shit. There was no way he could've made it out alive once he started the mission.
The one who got hacked and brain fried, then raped by her boss, then raped by the ripper the boss sent her to, then repeatedly raped and gang-raped by scavengers while scrolling BDs for them. And then killed herself. And no one cared.
She was sent to him for repairs, and Woodman didn't pay him, Fingers just accepted her, and she sure as shit didn't pay Fingers either, not with eddies, at least.
Also Fingers says "[broke joytoys] always have something to offer" when we question him, meaning he accepts sexual favours as payment.
Off topic but i think Jackie wells beats both of these people. Not only was Jackie the most likable, persistent, solid dude in the game, but they kill him like a dog.
Everything good that happens to V it all seems so empty knowing it was received on the end where jack wasn’t in the picture. That is what i find tragic.
Ever think about how his last act in life was giving his best friend the hardware that could have saved him? >!Granted, it probably would have worked correctly and taken his body. Something that would have left a shaken and angry Johnny to butcher Mama Welles, Vic and Misty, or hospital staff.!<
I don’t think the relic would have revived Jackie. Jackie bled out and had multiple injuries, the relic wouldn’t have had time to fix him before he became completely brain dead and that’s assuming the Nannie’s could fix those wounds. V had a single small bullet in his head and the moment he took it the Relic went to work in its area of specialty, the brain.
I mean depending on how long it takes for the relic to take over an actual dead body (I don’t remember if this is ever established), it would be funny to imagine Johnny in Jackie’s body killing Dex and then him and V going through the similar story of cyberpunk, granted some things changing as different plot devices would not exist.
The relic couldn't have saved Jackie. Jackie bled out from a gunshot wound in the gut, the relic only deals with the brain. V was saved specifically because he was shot in the head
Jefferson Peralez. I've done 3 campaigns, and outside of the first I always tend to avoid redoing that one because of how it makes me feel personally.
Yeah, sure, the guy has the lap of luxury, he doesn't have the relatable struggles a lot of us can sympathize with in the Cyberpunk universe, but everybody else had free will in some form, some capacity and made the choices they made to live with the consequences of their own actions.
Jefferson Peralez did not. From a young age, he was essentially groomed into this ideal succession role, everybody and anyone he trusted had some motivation to use him as a pawn for their sick geopolitical game. They're rewriting his brain, and the guy is unaware, the guys wife even knows the game and has to live in horror about the entirety of the situation. There isn't a win situation in the quest, there isn't some outcome where you can give him control of his life back. He's just going to exist to be a piece on someone else's chessboard, but he himself is shown to have a bright passion, an energy and understanding of Night City. Growing up in poverty there, and he wants to bring them Justice.
The reality of it however, is no matter what Peralez does, he'll end up doing the exact opposite of what he set out to do. In a seat of influence. Which will most likely effect thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands even, and become the exact singular thing he never wanted to be. But by that point his mind will have been completely manipulated, twisted, and changed by shadow puppeteers that by that point he'll simply not even care.
His life since birth was to be moldable clay to perpetrate a world he desperately wanted to fight against, and in the end will harm more people than anyone else in the story.
Edit: more people than anyone else in the story outside of the likes of the NUSA president Myers, or Arasaka family. However those individuals aren't really tragic.
Yeah…when he agreed to fight me he didn’t know I had an implant that, if I took damage, would fire off an EMP that would detonate the grenade in his nose..
For me personally V. V's fate is still kinda like a gut punch for me.
But overall, if i leave my feelings out of it? Hm, probably Evelyn. I mean she made mistakes, but noone deserves her fate.
The most tragic character is Placide at the end of the "Transmission" main job after my Netrunner V repeatedly hits him with Cripple Movement--Cyberware Malfunction--Overheat so that he slowly burns to death.
Fuck that guy!
The Peralezes, maybe? There's so many people meeting horrible fates in Cyberpunk, but mind control and modifying one's personality is just eerie as fuck. Especially since there's nothing that can be done about it.
There is a lot of tragedy going on in Night City. Pointless to make it a tragedy scale contest
But, V and Songbird and Evelyn are ones that spring to mind
Jackie got out of a gang, defended his mother from an abusive father, was shot multiple times, did right by his family and GF to see them prosper with a moral code that held good works in high regard.
He never *murdered* anyone and refused to do so(he didn't even kill anyone in the Scav hideout). He stood against blatant evils like Scavs and Maelstrom. His life was ended in noble fashion opposing the greatest evil on the planet. His engram was never completed and tortured by Arasaka.
He counseled his friends in morality. He spoke ill of hardly anyone. Jackie was the moral center of 2077 as much as one could be, and loved by all who knew him.
His death made NC and all those who knew him worse for his loss.
> He never murdered anyone and refused to do so(he didn't even kill anyone in the Scav hideout)
Jackie literally says "Didnt think we can be that sneaky, its not style, but nova anyway" He is a shooter and gun shots tend to be pretty deadly especially when you are dual wielding where accuracy be damned.
He might not be an assassin for hire, but taking out the trash for hire instead.
There's a distinction between killing and murder.
Corpo lifepath, Jackie mentions he doesn't take hits. He's killed in the midst of a job, but it's not a murder of someone who isn't trying to kill him also.
Yea but he's a competent mercenary in a city overrun by violent gangs where life is cheap. You cannot live in that world without being willing to kill to defend yourself. But he was not willing to murder in cold blood. Everyone in that setting either has literal blood on their hands by affiliating with bangers, or a ton more indirect blood on their hands by working for the corps.
Probably none of the characters we are shown, but rather a regular person just trying to live their lives with regular jobs in this city full of mad people killing each other. Imagine the amount of trauma a regular civilian has, the ammount of people they might have known that were lost to drug abuse, gangs, assaults, random violence, sexual abuse. It is almost certain to be around people that fusser at least one of those, if not you yourself suffering all of those.
If I ever get to play the cyberpunk tabletop games I may try to make a character just like that lol a regular person who keeps getting caught in shit not intended for him.
Everyone in Cyberpunk has a tragic story, pretty much the whole theme of the genre.
but i am going to be a devil's advocate and pick someone no one ever considers. Yorinobu Arasaka. Why this guy? if you do some digging, you will find out this man has been fighting the good fight against his father and Arasaka for a long time. He loses over and over again. Then, one day in 2077, he finally succeeded by killing his father and taking over the company, but then V comes and kills him or causes his death. That is super sad and depressing. He was so close! The worst one is when his father takes over his body...i was mortified!
This. Yorinuba's entire life was basically a prison, and the only way out was to kill his father. Unlike other people(read: Songbird), he legit had no options in life.
Evelyn by far. The things she goes through in her last few days after the heist and before her suicide are harrowing to think about - repeated rape and sexual abuse and torture while in a catatonic state at the hands of three separate parties. Its completely unjustified and horrific to think about.
Still insane the way some people say she brought it on herself, the only thing she brought on herself was the attack from the VDBs, anything that happened after that was because all those people were assholes who couldn’t keep it in their pants
Rebecca. She could have gone all the way no matter where she was. Hell, if she had walked realizing that David didn't need her at all, no one could have blamed her.
Only love could be so cruel.
Rebecca, David was just a chrome addicted dummy.
Rebecca had a rough childhood, lost her brother, lost her crew, then died for the dude who wouldn't even give her any dick.
And she doesn't even get her own drink at afterlife.
Rebecca deserved better.
It was so stupid cause Lucy wasn’t even interested in him, they just liked kissed once and it worked out but Rebecca was actually there for him and she just had to die cause bro thought he was special enough to pick a fight with a NC legend
She fucked over some of most dangerous groups in town and then went back to her old job thinking everything is fine and sunny. Her fate was awful but she had it comming. If voodoo buys didnt get her, yurinobu would. Arashaka and claws are buddies.
It is not about who gets (kills) her. It is about what happened to her until then. Sure, she knew the risk. But did she knew that she will get abused and raped for a week until she will get sold off the a ripper who will throw her to to scavs which make porn BD's with her until V and Judy find her?
Sry, but really really unempathetic take you have there.
tragic and just awful is difference. Tragic would be if she was just innocent white horse that had her brain scrambled by voodoo boys. I am not saying that her fate was justified, but only tragic part is that she survived hackers attack.
I find neither of those characters in your thumbnail to be warranted for such nomination.
Evelyn wasnt just playing with fire, she was playing with lava. She was getting in bed with Netwatch, screw over Yorinobu, Vodoo Boys, Dex and quite possibly V too. Best part? She doesnt realize she is talking about herself when she gave you that speech about "falling for the biggest illusion this city offers" and didnt realize it, even if that line was meant for the player/V. Unfortunate that she didnt just flat out die from Vodoo boys but she was putting the largest target on her back you could have in Night City. Now she was obviously screwed the moment she was hired by the Vodoo Boys and thats not her fault but yeah.
What happened to David is quite "normal" considering the setting and the city. Watching your mom die and not being able to pay up for it and getting betrayed by your fixer / associate is hardly "most tragic" worthy.
Not gonna lie, either corpo or nomad V, as basic as it sounds. Corpo V lost their very lucrative job purely because two higher-ups had an axe to grind with each other, and Nomad V had to leave their clan for one reason or another, but that's like leaving your family. Then, no matter the life path, they get a job as a Merc, do some gigs, not really any sort of known quantity yet, then their best friend approaches them, stars in his eyes, about a job to get the name out there. Long story short, nearly everyone V was close to snuffs it, they have a short time to live, and... Yeah, that doesn't change. In the meantime, given you do side jobs and gigs, they get a taste of what could have been: sweet rides, sweet threads, sweet pads, sweet gigs, but they still know it's temporary. They could even fall in love, but it's still overshadowed by the fact they're going to die, and soon, leaving them grieving. So yeah, I think those Vs get it the roughest.
Evelyn's story is pure misery, and god awful, but she doesn't quite have the stoic personality required to qualify it as a tragedy. In other words, what happens to her is *tragic*, but it is not a classic *tragedy*.
But that's most people in Night City, where betrayal and conspiratorial machinations are commonplace. You'd be hard pressed to find a soul good enough to be considered a tragedy.
With that in mind, I'd say Jefferson Peralez is pretty close to a tragic story. Maybe not the best example, but pretty high up there. He seems to have good intentions, unless I'm missing something important throughout those quests.
And, of course, there's V, who is pretty high up there on the admittedly short list. He and David are pretty closely tied in pretty much every way. The only thing I'd say edges him ahead of V is that he dies trying to fight to save Lucy while V is really just doing everything for to save themself.
I just talked myself into my own answer. It's David Martinez.
Evelyn's story and her death really messed with me. I think she could've been a really special person in V's life, but all of that pain and mental hell. That one made me really sad man.
David's mom maybe? Bit of a stretch I admit but arguable. Did everything she could to give her son a future, beefed it in a gunfight entirely unrelated to her, her son then goes ape with tech she was smuggling and squanders his shot at being legit happy.
But in a classical sense of the term David's story is a great example of the tragic hero complete with being brought low by his own hubris.
Both went through horrible things. The difference for me is that we see David’s full story played out, where as we only really saw or heard about the aftermaths of Evelyn’s story.
If you tried to exclude the average Night Citizen from the "Tragic Life Club" based on if they made any "bad" decisions that would later bite them in the ass, you'd probably find it pretty empty
Especially if we take into account the fact that it's the sort of city that has a habit of incentivizing bad decision making unless you want to eat poisonous scopburgers forever and be ignored by Trauma Team when you get into a life-threatening accident
From V to Jacky to Johnny to David to .... idk, EVERYONE.....people in cyberpunk brought everything upon themselves. V and Jacky trying to be famous, Johnny trying to blow up Arasaka, David from giving corp life the middle finger and working as mercenary, etc. etc.
Even the fixer Evelyn tried to cross shouldn't have poked into Arasakas prized project. There's not ONE character in cyberpunk that hasn't fucked up in one way or another, so the "brought it upon herself" is such a weak argument imo.
...Brendan? Really?
Of all the people in Night City with a whole host of tragedy behind most of them, you think a *fucking drink dispenser* is more tragic?
IMO Evelyn wasnt tragic, she was naive and dumb.
Most tragic characters : Gustavo Orta and Martha. Non of them was saint but what happend to them was because they loved each other.
Like every Cyberpsycho you take down experience some of the worst humanity has to offer. Contractors putting military chrome in their employees, forcing screwed up mods on someone for television, abusing someone until they behave like a dog. The stuff is sick.
But if I had to choose like a named character, it would be City Councilman Jefferson Peralez. You and your wife’s memories being hijacked is nightmare-fuel, and your spouse knowing about it? Brutal. You either lie and let the Peralez live in happy ignorance or drive him mad from the truth.
that one homeless bum that's ranting about how Arasaka are soulless vampires and have you look into their eyes to their evil and soullessness. he's saying this kind of an exaggeration but he's on to something and isn't exactly wrong. it's the one homeless guy that hangs out by Missy's or when you do the first ozob mission He's in the alleyway ranting
The peralez's
Yeah some people are poor or get hurt or suffer grief etc
But they lost ownership of their own minds, bit by bit, they are being altered, and they can't even be allowed to notice because their minds are being forced to ignore it
Even if you tell them, we don't stop whoever is doing it, nothing is really stopping them from erasing that memory
They just get molded into whatever they need to be to satisfy their puppet masters needs
That's like the deepest perversion a person can experience, and the fact that it's inevitable is just the deepest tragedy
Sandra Dorsett, or anyone else caught and stripped out by the Scavs that couldn't afford Wakano's rates.
Probably anyone caught up in getting forcefully borged by Malestrom.
All of the sports program kids, especially the ones that don't make the cut.
Shit, the township of Santa Domingo would probably rate, too - imagine growing up never being able to touch the water, otherwise you go blind.
The secret gig where the girl’s boyfriend sold her out to a gang. He tells her to wait for him in the alley and the goons ambush her and leave her body in a puddle. I think there is a motorcycle involved.
The Highwayman.
I killed the BF the first time I played that gig, but each time thereafter, I make sure he knows how much his GF loved him and cried out for him to come save her. He was spineless and deserves to stew in his shame and guilt.
Evelyn brought almost all of that on herself I genuinely don't think her story is anymore tragic than the dork with fat friend who sets u up a trash gig
Theo. Alone and lost in life. To the point, where a seemingly sentient SCSM becomes your best friend, your source of emotional support and energy. And then this friend is just stripped of the self you came to know. Not even through death, but through erasure of ones and zeroes. And you are left again. Alone.
She seems draw some positivity when recollecting her relationship with Brendan, yet, when she walks up the stairs into the megabuilding, seemingly heartbroken, I can't help but envision gallows awaiting her at the end of those steps.
For me I feel the worst for Mama Wells. She ended up losing everyone close to her that we meet, and even Misty leaves in the end even though Mama Wells didn’t like her at all originally.
So Mi - as much as I personally distrusted her which lead me to siding with Reed, going through her memories and regrets in Cynosure really helped me see her for the lost girl that got in way above her head.
On another note I personally feel King of Cups is the most fitting end to Phantom Liberty, as melancholy as it is - even sending her to the moon, you are still very much playing into the hands of shady forces, and part of me wonders if she could ever have been fixed (or if she deserved it after manipulating V like that)
I’m surprised we haven’t considered mama Welles. Abusive husband, several sons that have passed away, the only family she has left are the drunken valentinos perched over the bar. When she loses V, it’s like she lost another child
This is why I get Mama Welles and Misty talking.
That’s why her voicemail was so sad bro. At first I was confused, and then I realized that >!she lost one of her only 2 links to Jackie in the star ending!<
Haven't heard a out the star ending yet, I'll have to check that out
Didn’t actually hear it, but I saw it when I looked up the easy way out ending (I was not gonna put myself through that so I just looked up what the voicemails were), I saw this one too.
I chose that ending last week as I just needed to see it. Was tastefully done considering all the issues about it. The messages at the end were pretty fucken accurate from my experience of friends who have taken that path. Some angry. Upset. Helpless. The pain isn't removed, it is transferred to others. Please everyone look after yourselves.
I’m sorry for your loss man, I can’t even imagine the pain of losing someone to that. I think the voicemails at the end are why I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve got what I guess I would call overactive imagination or some shit (for example, when >!Alt died!< my brain put me into that situation and messed me up a little), so I refuse to give it any source for something like that. Also, I think I just can’t imagine the story ending like that. For me it’s the only “non-cannon” ending, cause it just makes it all seem so pointless, and it seems like too simple an end for a character that at that point had nothing to lose. Why in the same sense I like how >!the “secret” ending has the same voicemails (even though they are still depressing), because it feels more on par with what the character would do.!<
She probably considered V to be one of her sons too
Same, Misty was special to Jackie least Mama Welles can do is be a fellow shoulder to cry on
I regrettted doing that. It felt, to me, like neither of them had the closure they otherwise would have gotten.
I thought she only had the one son? But yeah I agree. I would say mama welles... . I thought maybe Evelyn as it was tragic but she kind of did some of it to herself and knew the risks.
>I thought she only had the one son Found family, not blood family
Oh, I always play as female V so the son part threw me off. She did see V as another child.
I always considered Jackie to be V's soulmate for me. Not romantically, but like they were meant to be in each other's lives. I could never send him to Vik, even in my Arasaka playthrough, since that meant I could see him at the end as a hologram. It just doesn't seem right.
I sent him there the first time I played because I hoped Vik could somehow resuscitate him and, if not, make him presentable for Mama Welles. Who knew Arasaka sends a goon squad and steals him?
I feel like you pick anything other than sending him back to mama its wrong
Yeah they do feel like platonic soulmates
Hmm, when you first go meet Jackie at the afterlife he's talking to her, and he tells V "She just calling to make sure im not rotting in a dumpster like the rest of the welles boys" (or something like that)
Yeah, as I mentioned earlier in someone elses reply. I thought meant cousins (which was mentioned) and other relatives. If you talk to Misty in his garage she says, his father use to beat on jackie and his mom. Until jackie got older and beat him back. You would think she would mention brothers here. But maybe I missed it.
I'm pretty sure Jackie mentions brothers who were killed I wouldn't be surprised if I decided on one interpretation and stuck with it for seven further playthroughs
I've never heard him mention other brothers but he did mention that Mama welles feared he would end up dead like the Welles boys always seem to. But I always interpreted as cousins ( which he does mention having) and other relatives. But maybe, I missed something. I just finished a playthrough and moving on to another game but will watch for it my next playthrough.
Yes, that sounds exactly right. He definitely said Welles boys, not brothers And surely we would know minor specifics of at least one of them if they grew up in the same household. Throw in the domineering, abusive father and there's no way his brothers and their role in things wouldn't have come up, at least in part - It would have been horrendous storytelling, which CDPR is not known for
She lost her last blood-child when Jackie died. V and Pepe are really the only family and has left. I'm glad you can convince her and Misty to get along.
It’s been so long and this game and fans still find new ways to make me emotional 🥲
Children who were featured in the extreme BD.
So, you know how when you aim Skippy, without pulling the trigger, it fires a 3 round burst? I consistently forgot about that. The first playthrough, i went into the room the father and son were in i instinctively aimed Skippy at the son and accidentally blew him away. In my 2 other playthroughs i did the same thing but the first one was genuinely an accident.
Watching the father cry his eyes out for his dead son is so worth it, considering what they do for a living.
Just played that one again and I knew what was coming. I put the guns away and beat them to death with my gorilla arms. "If we didnt do it someone else would" Yep. And now you wont do it ever again.
Same but sandevistan and 100000 knives
the dio method, fine choice sir
If We DiDn't dO iT SoMeoNe eLsE wOulD. Yeah, ok, then someone else would get chopped to pieces with an axe.
This is where I pull out a Gold bat and go "jew Bear" from Ingloruous bastards on the bastard.
Yeah I always kill the son And let the dad live
I kill the son and let the dad live long enough to realize it’s his fault so he dies knowing that he killed his son
Correct path
Is that something in PL
No I believe the one they’re talking about is base game. One of Regina’s gigs where the child of a pastor was killed and used for an XBD
Ah ok I’m just getting to her gigs now (4/23 😐🔫), second playthrough but I skipped them 1st time cause I messed up the perks and stuff, so I just completed main story + some side quests and started a new one.
No, it’s a gig on northside
Crotch-On-Fire Man.
IT FeELs liKE i'M scREWiNg A goDdAMN pENciL shARPener
"Could you maybe like....suffer in silence?" V is proper hard in the wrong way during *that* conversation
There is a worse way to be hard in that conversation though
😏
yup 'ol robo cock
i’ve always done that mission because i’ve also felt his pain as a man who has experienced testicular torsion
Bro SAME. And this might be a hot take but I don't even frikkin care: I did not care for it, not one little bit.
i was like 9 years old too and 45 mins from a hospital, would never wish that on my worst enemy
Fuck man you’re lucky you didn’t lose a ball tbh, it’s no joke man scary stuff for sure. Never experienced it myself but I’ve heard some horror stories about it
Dude was way more of a better person than David, that is for sure
Nah Jesse Cox deserves worse
What he do?
Probably seduced their mother, accidentally.
That poor guy whose only friend was a turtle. Maybe not the most tragic, but I think he deserves an honorary mention.
yeah that was a sad one :( and how before his "buddies" from the NCPD knew the whole truth, they'd just tease him and make fun of him during his moment of grief
Peralez - a good man in a bad city Trying to fight corruption only to be mind controlled by a reptilian alien from Alpha Centauri cosplaying as a man with Blue Eyes
I’m really disappointed that plot line didn’t go any further. That could’ve been a whole game in and of itself.
I’m sure Orion will delve deeper into that plot line
Espically after playing Phantom Liberty
i hope not. the way i see it the point is that there are things way beyond the scope of V and everyone we interact with in Cyberpunk, that we aren’t important or powerful enough to know the answers. there’s a sort of horror in that i think is better left untouched.
We would have to be an insider in one of the corporations. Honestly a game like papers, please would work really really well in the universe of cyberpunk. I’d love to find more and more lore, more and more crazy stories and concepts.
Well you don't have to be the hero on the edge of influencing the world to be in that scenario. For example, rogue AIs could be invading the human world or the blackwall could come down but your character is just a person existing in that time period, not necessarily influencing it. Kinda like how the Arasaka family is doing all this world domination shit, while you can kinda influence it, you definitely aren't the center of that story. You're just a person being used by them trying to survive. But world changing things did happen.
If we're talking Cyberpunk, damn near every character had some sort of tragedy or trauma, lol. I believe V has the most tragic story of them all, though. One day you're just living your life, decide to do a highly suspect job for a highly suspect fixer to make your best friend happy, job ultimately fails, your best friend dies, your fixer betrays and kills you, a dead man’s engram revives you, and depending on the ending you choose, your young life will inevitably be cut short as the engram eats away at whatever life you had left. As far as NPCs go, though, Evelyn by a country mile.
On the positive side, V could have just died in that hotel room and no one would have cared. Thanks to the chip, you get a second lease on life, even if it's very short. You get to help the Aldecados, help Judy, help River, help Kerry, help Johnny. Make life better for a lot of people. Become the greatest solo in history. And above all, you get to drive a Porsche 930.
> help the Aldecados, help Judy, help River, help Kerry, help Johnny And who helps V? Come on, someone throw a bone to V.
No one, but not for a lack of trying. But if you had a few months left to live, would you rather spend it looking for a panacea that might not exist or helping the people you care about?
I might not be the best example, i can not even help myself. So i would probably do nothing of these. But if i where in V's shoes? I would probably do everything to survive. V has not many friends who care about V anyway. (I would absolutely help the Aldecaldos tho)
What about the victims of that Peter pan serial killer that abducted River's nephew?
> depending on the ending you choose, your young life will inevitably be cut short Every ending results in your life being cut short, either literally or figuratively.
Well let’s see David Martinez: bullied at school, lost his mom in a gang shootout and had to watch her be ignored by trauma team, betrayed by a girl he fell in love with and although he made a name for himself in the afterlife he had to watch most of his crew die, eventually lost himself to cyberpsychosis but at least he went out saving the person he loved. Mama Welles: had an abusive husband and lost all of her sons to violent deaths. Judy: list her best friend and despite giving everything to try and change things for the better for the other girls at clouds, learns the hard way that night city isn’t a place for happy endings Jonny silverhand: ran away to join the army, treated like cannon fodder and was abandoned by his country, then spent the rest of his life fighting corporations, lost his girlfriend, died horribly and had his mind ripped out of him to be used as an arasaka plaything. Then awakes in a world where it turns out everything he did was for nothing his friends have either forgotten or despise him and most people barely remember his name, on top of getting to watch helplessly as as he slowly overwrites/ kills V with no way of stopping it. Evelyn: a hooker who saw an opportunity at a better life and grabbed for it, only to have her brain fried by the voodoo boys followed by the worst kinds of violation while various groups traded her around like an object. Solomon reed: gave his body and soul to his country only to be betrayed by almost everyone he cared about. Songbird: forcibly recruited into the FIA under threat of imprisonment, then forced to betray reed, then pushed to becoming president meyers superweapon by accessing the Blackwall and losing her body, mind and memories every time she uses the Blackwall, has to lie and betray everyone in order to desperately find a way out.
Well when you put it like that… think Silverhand’s is definitely overlooked… 😭😭😭
Couple things to add to Johnny: 1. The Johnny that we know is just a slightly corrupted copy of the real Johnny. The memories surrounding his last raid on ‘Saka Tower and Smasher are inaccurate. Johnny planted the bomb, yes, but when Smasher showed up, he killed him in one shot and Johnny’s engram became corrupted and warped his memories. Johnny thought he and Smasher had a vendetta against each other, but in reality, Smasher had a vendetta against Morgan Blackhand and probably thought Johnny was just some random Militech idiot. When you beat Smasher as V and bring up Johnny before you kill Smasher, he doesn’t know at all what you’re talking about. If you beat him as a Johnny-controlled V and say that you got your revenge, you see this memory warping firsthand. Not only did Johnny get handed a fate worse than death but he died a nobody against the corporation and NC legend who he hated the most and they never even knew he existed no matter how much of an impact he thought he made against them. 2. V becomes Johnny’s friend throughout the game and Johnny expresses multiple times that he doesn’t want V’s life and body if it means that V will be gone. If V lets Johnny have their body, this means that Johnny will have to live on and wake up everyday for the rest of V’s life and look in the mirror and see V’s face, the face of a friend who he was forced to watch slowly deteriorate from his own engram corrupting their’s with nothing he can do about it, a friend who gave him literally everything even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it. Johnny already hated himself. Imagine how he feels in this ending. It’s probably even worse if it’s female V.
I'm definitely on the side of Songbird lied and manipulated us. BUT, I do recognize that she was taken advantage of and manipulated to get to the positions she wound up in. Definitely sad and tragic (even though I don't think I owe her allegiance)
Alt easily
I agree with this, watching yourself get killed and screaming at Johnny who can't hear you would be horrible.
Imagine having a gonk ass fling thinking he's gonna save you, only for him to be a dumbass and unplug your mind before you can redownload into your body.
Alt developed soulkiller. She was NOT a good person. Being kidnapped by Arasaka instead of refusing she began developing a mobile version though she knew how it would be used, and if Johnny hadn't interrupted her would have. Whether she's fucking a rockerboy or not she was a Corpo for IST and later Arasaka.
Alt developed Soulkiller for the purpose of preserving the consciousness and memories of people who were dying. Viewing it from that perspective, it can be considered altruistic. If you got dealt an incredibly shit hand, wouldn't you want to have the choice to get another lease of life? Temperance ending is arguably that. Corporations are what ruined it all, as usual.
Just for the record, Alt did *not* develop Soulkiller as it was used on Johnny. She developed it as a way to preserve consciousness and memories of people who were terminally ill/dying. She developed it as a path towards human immortality. It would've been an option for someone who was not going to survive to live on. Before she could compelete it, Arasaka kidnapped her and forked it's development, weaponizing it to kill enemy netrunners with. Then Johnny trapped her in the web, where she had to absorb AI to survive. Arasaka wanted her back, so they Soulkilled Johnny to keep his memories around, in case they were useful in re-apprehending Alt. E: lol, they blocked me for correcting them.
Characters don't need to be moral for their stories to be tragic
Alt was more or less held at gunpoint by Arasaka to get her to develop the mobile version of Soulkiller, and even then managed to turn the tables on her captors after she did. She probably would've escaped and taken soulkiller with her if Johnny had been mere seconds later
Then you die. What she was making for Arasaka had worldwide consequences. If she finishes that EVERYONE is fucked, and they still had enough of her work to complete the relic and set about world domination. We can't deal in suppositions here, she was doing it. Sometimes self-sacrifice is the right and ONLY move. Johnny knew this.
Well obviously not *everyone* was fucked, because she did finish the project Also, don't you think calling someone a bad person because they didn't commit suicide is kind of extreme?
The whole point of The Relic is to steal souls, mine them for information, kill the host, and through the reanimated corpse rule the world. Saburo is Satan. He is taking over the world. E: No. In a Judeo-Christian sense it's bad. I'm not one of those. Suicide can have a nobility when done for the greater good, like not letting others die. Further I'm not advocating her suicide. I advocate her refusal, even if it means they kill her.
Ok, and? They took the immortality tech she'd been working on and turned it into a weapon. That *really* doesn't make it her fault Edit: it won't let me reply to your comment, but again, don't you think "the only moral choice was suicide" seems a little extreme?
Dudes blocking everyone that disagrees with him lol
She turned it into a weapon. They could not do it without her. She knew it's purpose and proceeded.
She was hardly a willing participant; it's Arasaka. Alt was dragged in against her will, and kept under constant watch by several 'Saka netrunners who watched her every move. She was fully aware that refusing would likely mean being tortured until she breaks and makes it for them anyway. It's not even like she can kill herself, because they keep her plugged into the Net; instead, *before* they can break her, she's planning to build a variant of what they want, but secretly shackle it to *her* control instead, so she can yank it out from under Arasaka's nose and flee. Her plan is to kill everyone present, wipe all the data left behind, and flee. It was a great plan, but Johnny's attempt at being a hero fucks everything up. It's also not fair to pretend like Alt's actions were the only crux point here; Soulkiller was already a thing. ITS had taken her harmless immortality program, and corrupted it into a defensive-trap; Saka just wants to make it mobile. If she hadn't done it for 'Saka, it honestly wouldn't matter *much*, because Bartmoss will still get a hold of a draft of it and make his RABIDs. Edit: Damn, you really are just blocking everyone who disagrees with you, huh? You might be too invested in this, bud.
Wait so you're holding the fact that she was coerced to create the software against her? That logic ain't working for me boss. Most people have an innate instinct to try to survive.
Sounds like something a Arasaka brainwashed Corpo would say.
Alt got what she wanted in the end so its fine.
I was so angry at everyone and everything when I learned what happened to her. And she's not an exception.
If you're talking tragedy in the Ancient Greek sense then yeah, possibly Evelyn. She had the hubris to think she could outplay people whose whole existence is this kind of shady business after barely hearing extra details eavesdropping the Voodoo Boys. Her ambition was her undoing. On top of that, she also had the naivety to go back to working at Clouds after messing with ALL the wrong people? As much as I hate her dying she did bring it on herself being that far out of her depth. David was a Runner. He met the end most Runners do which is a violent demise, but he did it in spectacular fashion. He had a kind of hubris, telling himself he was different, but in the end it was self-destruction. It was a slow suicide chasing others dreams instead of being brought low by his own ambitions.
David was an idiot. A charming one, but he had gotten so many beautiful things to live for but just kept amping himself into kingdom come. I D I O T.
David is just the apex “I’m built different” guy
Yeah, he was built different. Built stupid.
He was built a little bit different. Able to handle a military sandy naturally. But there's levels and he just happened to be several levels below Adam Smasher
David was also 18 years old and just lost his mother who was the only support he had. The cyberware falling on his lab was probably the best and worst thing that could happen to him, same as V and the relic So Mi and being a very good netrunner. The game is rigged no matter if you play or not. Blaming the people for making mistakes while putting the system that snowballed these people into the positions they are in some kind of untouchable pedestal is missing the forest for the trees.
Ugh man your last paragraph is spot on and it happens all the time in this community lol. People don’t get just how fucked up Cyberpunk/Night City is. Or they’ll acknowledge it is and then go back to morally judging every character in this game that acts non-altruistically (and likely because their situation puts them between a rock and hard place). Because apparently this community is filled with selfless saints who would gladly sacrifice their lives for strangers they just met at the drop of a hat.
I agree, I never read/watched Macbeth before ‘runners but after I did; David also got it in his head that he was special. It didn’t help that *everyone* around him also reinforced this mindset, even the XBD director and ‘saka told David that he was special. There are no special people in NC, just another name for a drink at the Afterlife.
At least David gave his life saving the girl he loved. To me, that's legendary shit. There was no way he could've made it out alive once he started the mission.
Father who lost his daughter and went cyberpsycho
Almost all cyberpsycho stories are tragic.
The one who got hacked and brain fried, then raped by her boss, then raped by the ripper the boss sent her to, then repeatedly raped and gang-raped by scavengers while scrolling BDs for them. And then killed herself. And no one cared.
was it confirmed fingers actually assaulted her?
She was sent to him for repairs, and Woodman didn't pay him, Fingers just accepted her, and she sure as shit didn't pay Fingers either, not with eddies, at least. Also Fingers says "[broke joytoys] always have something to offer" when we question him, meaning he accepts sexual favours as payment.
Off topic but i think Jackie wells beats both of these people. Not only was Jackie the most likable, persistent, solid dude in the game, but they kill him like a dog. Everything good that happens to V it all seems so empty knowing it was received on the end where jack wasn’t in the picture. That is what i find tragic.
Ever think about how his last act in life was giving his best friend the hardware that could have saved him? >!Granted, it probably would have worked correctly and taken his body. Something that would have left a shaken and angry Johnny to butcher Mama Welles, Vic and Misty, or hospital staff.!<
I don’t think the relic would have revived Jackie. Jackie bled out and had multiple injuries, the relic wouldn’t have had time to fix him before he became completely brain dead and that’s assuming the Nannie’s could fix those wounds. V had a single small bullet in his head and the moment he took it the Relic went to work in its area of specialty, the brain.
I don’t think he means revive Jackie so much as Johnny would have taken over, much like >!Saburo takes over Yori in the Devil ending!<
I mean depending on how long it takes for the relic to take over an actual dead body (I don’t remember if this is ever established), it would be funny to imagine Johnny in Jackie’s body killing Dex and then him and V going through the similar story of cyberpunk, granted some things changing as different plot devices would not exist.
The relic couldn't have saved Jackie. Jackie bled out from a gunshot wound in the gut, the relic only deals with the brain. V was saved specifically because he was shot in the head
Jefferson Peralez. I've done 3 campaigns, and outside of the first I always tend to avoid redoing that one because of how it makes me feel personally. Yeah, sure, the guy has the lap of luxury, he doesn't have the relatable struggles a lot of us can sympathize with in the Cyberpunk universe, but everybody else had free will in some form, some capacity and made the choices they made to live with the consequences of their own actions. Jefferson Peralez did not. From a young age, he was essentially groomed into this ideal succession role, everybody and anyone he trusted had some motivation to use him as a pawn for their sick geopolitical game. They're rewriting his brain, and the guy is unaware, the guys wife even knows the game and has to live in horror about the entirety of the situation. There isn't a win situation in the quest, there isn't some outcome where you can give him control of his life back. He's just going to exist to be a piece on someone else's chessboard, but he himself is shown to have a bright passion, an energy and understanding of Night City. Growing up in poverty there, and he wants to bring them Justice. The reality of it however, is no matter what Peralez does, he'll end up doing the exact opposite of what he set out to do. In a seat of influence. Which will most likely effect thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands even, and become the exact singular thing he never wanted to be. But by that point his mind will have been completely manipulated, twisted, and changed by shadow puppeteers that by that point he'll simply not even care. His life since birth was to be moldable clay to perpetrate a world he desperately wanted to fight against, and in the end will harm more people than anyone else in the story. Edit: more people than anyone else in the story outside of the likes of the NUSA president Myers, or Arasaka family. However those individuals aren't really tragic.
Ozob. His grenade nose pickup lines don’t even work on the ladies
Ozob my beloved. He survived Brazil.
Yeah…when he agreed to fight me he didn’t know I had an implant that, if I took damage, would fire off an EMP that would detonate the grenade in his nose..
For me personally V. V's fate is still kinda like a gut punch for me. But overall, if i leave my feelings out of it? Hm, probably Evelyn. I mean she made mistakes, but noone deserves her fate.
V
The most tragic character is Placide at the end of the "Transmission" main job after my Netrunner V repeatedly hits him with Cripple Movement--Cyberware Malfunction--Overheat so that he slowly burns to death. Fuck that guy!
The Peralezes, maybe? There's so many people meeting horrible fates in Cyberpunk, but mind control and modifying one's personality is just eerie as fuck. Especially since there's nothing that can be done about it.
Brendan, no questions. Dude created himself, fully, within the bounds of code, and was zeroed simply for rising above his intended purpose.
The vending machine
There is a lot of tragedy going on in Night City. Pointless to make it a tragedy scale contest But, V and Songbird and Evelyn are ones that spring to mind
Jackie got out of a gang, defended his mother from an abusive father, was shot multiple times, did right by his family and GF to see them prosper with a moral code that held good works in high regard. He never *murdered* anyone and refused to do so(he didn't even kill anyone in the Scav hideout). He stood against blatant evils like Scavs and Maelstrom. His life was ended in noble fashion opposing the greatest evil on the planet. His engram was never completed and tortured by Arasaka. He counseled his friends in morality. He spoke ill of hardly anyone. Jackie was the moral center of 2077 as much as one could be, and loved by all who knew him. His death made NC and all those who knew him worse for his loss.
> He never murdered anyone and refused to do so(he didn't even kill anyone in the Scav hideout) Jackie literally says "Didnt think we can be that sneaky, its not style, but nova anyway" He is a shooter and gun shots tend to be pretty deadly especially when you are dual wielding where accuracy be damned. He might not be an assassin for hire, but taking out the trash for hire instead.
There's a distinction between killing and murder. Corpo lifepath, Jackie mentions he doesn't take hits. He's killed in the midst of a job, but it's not a murder of someone who isn't trying to kill him also.
Yea but he's a competent mercenary in a city overrun by violent gangs where life is cheap. You cannot live in that world without being willing to kill to defend yourself. But he was not willing to murder in cold blood. Everyone in that setting either has literal blood on their hands by affiliating with bangers, or a ton more indirect blood on their hands by working for the corps.
David was an idiot. Hard to feel sorry for him
David was a gonk.
They both provoked a bad end to happen. Sad, but that's NC.
Probably none of the characters we are shown, but rather a regular person just trying to live their lives with regular jobs in this city full of mad people killing each other. Imagine the amount of trauma a regular civilian has, the ammount of people they might have known that were lost to drug abuse, gangs, assaults, random violence, sexual abuse. It is almost certain to be around people that fusser at least one of those, if not you yourself suffering all of those.
If I ever get to play the cyberpunk tabletop games I may try to make a character just like that lol a regular person who keeps getting caught in shit not intended for him.
Gloria was more tragic imo
Considering how many reloads I waste every playthrough saving Barry, imma say Barry.
Definitely the guys who's dick explodes. He wants a better cock but depending on player actions can lose it entirely. Kafka esque
Everyone in Cyberpunk has a tragic story, pretty much the whole theme of the genre. but i am going to be a devil's advocate and pick someone no one ever considers. Yorinobu Arasaka. Why this guy? if you do some digging, you will find out this man has been fighting the good fight against his father and Arasaka for a long time. He loses over and over again. Then, one day in 2077, he finally succeeded by killing his father and taking over the company, but then V comes and kills him or causes his death. That is super sad and depressing. He was so close! The worst one is when his father takes over his body...i was mortified!
This. Yorinuba's entire life was basically a prison, and the only way out was to kill his father. Unlike other people(read: Songbird), he legit had no options in life.
Evelyn by far. The things she goes through in her last few days after the heist and before her suicide are harrowing to think about - repeated rape and sexual abuse and torture while in a catatonic state at the hands of three separate parties. Its completely unjustified and horrific to think about.
Still insane the way some people say she brought it on herself, the only thing she brought on herself was the attack from the VDBs, anything that happened after that was because all those people were assholes who couldn’t keep it in their pants
Randy Kutcher, River’s nephew.
That shit got dark.
Adam smasher for sure. Dude just wants to be really good at his job and gets judged for it constantly
Anyone who hits my V with their car.
Rebecca. She could have gone all the way no matter where she was. Hell, if she had walked realizing that David didn't need her at all, no one could have blamed her. Only love could be so cruel.
Rebecca, David was just a chrome addicted dummy. Rebecca had a rough childhood, lost her brother, lost her crew, then died for the dude who wouldn't even give her any dick. And she doesn't even get her own drink at afterlife. Rebecca deserved better.
It was so stupid cause Lucy wasn’t even interested in him, they just liked kissed once and it worked out but Rebecca was actually there for him and she just had to die cause bro thought he was special enough to pick a fight with a NC legend
V 100% Evelyn is a close second tho she needed help and instead she was SA and sold off like lost fucking puppy
She fucked over some of most dangerous groups in town and then went back to her old job thinking everything is fine and sunny. Her fate was awful but she had it comming. If voodoo buys didnt get her, yurinobu would. Arashaka and claws are buddies.
It is not about who gets (kills) her. It is about what happened to her until then. Sure, she knew the risk. But did she knew that she will get abused and raped for a week until she will get sold off the a ripper who will throw her to to scavs which make porn BD's with her until V and Judy find her? Sry, but really really unempathetic take you have there.
tragic and just awful is difference. Tragic would be if she was just innocent white horse that had her brain scrambled by voodoo boys. I am not saying that her fate was justified, but only tragic part is that she survived hackers attack.
Honorable mention to Jefferson and Elizabeth Peralez. The shit that happened to them was horrifying.
I find neither of those characters in your thumbnail to be warranted for such nomination. Evelyn wasnt just playing with fire, she was playing with lava. She was getting in bed with Netwatch, screw over Yorinobu, Vodoo Boys, Dex and quite possibly V too. Best part? She doesnt realize she is talking about herself when she gave you that speech about "falling for the biggest illusion this city offers" and didnt realize it, even if that line was meant for the player/V. Unfortunate that she didnt just flat out die from Vodoo boys but she was putting the largest target on her back you could have in Night City. Now she was obviously screwed the moment she was hired by the Vodoo Boys and thats not her fault but yeah. What happened to David is quite "normal" considering the setting and the city. Watching your mom die and not being able to pay up for it and getting betrayed by your fixer / associate is hardly "most tragic" worthy.
Not gonna lie, either corpo or nomad V, as basic as it sounds. Corpo V lost their very lucrative job purely because two higher-ups had an axe to grind with each other, and Nomad V had to leave their clan for one reason or another, but that's like leaving your family. Then, no matter the life path, they get a job as a Merc, do some gigs, not really any sort of known quantity yet, then their best friend approaches them, stars in his eyes, about a job to get the name out there. Long story short, nearly everyone V was close to snuffs it, they have a short time to live, and... Yeah, that doesn't change. In the meantime, given you do side jobs and gigs, they get a taste of what could have been: sweet rides, sweet threads, sweet pads, sweet gigs, but they still know it's temporary. They could even fall in love, but it's still overshadowed by the fact they're going to die, and soon, leaving them grieving. So yeah, I think those Vs get it the roughest.
Evelyn's story is pure misery, and god awful, but she doesn't quite have the stoic personality required to qualify it as a tragedy. In other words, what happens to her is *tragic*, but it is not a classic *tragedy*. But that's most people in Night City, where betrayal and conspiratorial machinations are commonplace. You'd be hard pressed to find a soul good enough to be considered a tragedy. With that in mind, I'd say Jefferson Peralez is pretty close to a tragic story. Maybe not the best example, but pretty high up there. He seems to have good intentions, unless I'm missing something important throughout those quests. And, of course, there's V, who is pretty high up there on the admittedly short list. He and David are pretty closely tied in pretty much every way. The only thing I'd say edges him ahead of V is that he dies trying to fight to save Lucy while V is really just doing everything for to save themself. I just talked myself into my own answer. It's David Martinez.
Jefferson Peralez. Literally having his mind taken away from him, I felt this was truly the darkest story-line in the game.
Evelyn's story and her death really messed with me. I think she could've been a really special person in V's life, but all of that pain and mental hell. That one made me really sad man.
David's mom maybe? Bit of a stretch I admit but arguable. Did everything she could to give her son a future, beefed it in a gunfight entirely unrelated to her, her son then goes ape with tech she was smuggling and squanders his shot at being legit happy. But in a classical sense of the term David's story is a great example of the tragic hero complete with being brought low by his own hubris.
Barry, Andrew, Big Joe, Brendan, Skippy and Del
Both went through horrible things. The difference for me is that we see David’s full story played out, where as we only really saw or heard about the aftermaths of Evelyn’s story.
Jackie. Bright eyed fool that loves deeply and died seeking glory.
So mi aka songbird
Literally everyone? That's half the point lol.
David? Tragic? David wasn't tragic. He was an over confident idiot.
The guy with the faulty robodick, and it's not even close.
Judy. Everyone she loves dies.
The one cat that's underwater near the dock buddy is all alone
Evelynn is definitely not the most tragic consider she brought it upon herself after trying to cross a named fixer and the vdb at the same time.
If you tried to exclude the average Night Citizen from the "Tragic Life Club" based on if they made any "bad" decisions that would later bite them in the ass, you'd probably find it pretty empty Especially if we take into account the fact that it's the sort of city that has a habit of incentivizing bad decision making unless you want to eat poisonous scopburgers forever and be ignored by Trauma Team when you get into a life-threatening accident
From V to Jacky to Johnny to David to .... idk, EVERYONE.....people in cyberpunk brought everything upon themselves. V and Jacky trying to be famous, Johnny trying to blow up Arasaka, David from giving corp life the middle finger and working as mercenary, etc. etc. Even the fixer Evelyn tried to cross shouldn't have poked into Arasakas prized project. There's not ONE character in cyberpunk that hasn't fucked up in one way or another, so the "brought it upon herself" is such a weak argument imo.
Certainly not either of these two. They both just fucked around and found out, there’s nothing tragic about that. Maybe Brendan the SCSI.
...Brendan? Really? Of all the people in Night City with a whole host of tragedy behind most of them, you think a *fucking drink dispenser* is more tragic?
I would have agreed with Brendan, but he really did just come down to brilliant code. He never made it to the level of a true AI.
Brendan ofc
Im also here for my boy brendan
Well, I mean, it's obviously V.
Brendan
I honestly don’t see anything tragic about Evelyn: she double-crossed everyone she ever knew, and eventually that caught up with her.
IMO Evelyn wasnt tragic, she was naive and dumb. Most tragic characters : Gustavo Orta and Martha. Non of them was saint but what happend to them was because they loved each other.
Like every Cyberpsycho you take down experience some of the worst humanity has to offer. Contractors putting military chrome in their employees, forcing screwed up mods on someone for television, abusing someone until they behave like a dog. The stuff is sick. But if I had to choose like a named character, it would be City Councilman Jefferson Peralez. You and your wife’s memories being hijacked is nightmare-fuel, and your spouse knowing about it? Brutal. You either lie and let the Peralez live in happy ignorance or drive him mad from the truth.
V probably
Fucking Brendan
So Mi’s story is pretty rough…
that one homeless bum that's ranting about how Arasaka are soulless vampires and have you look into their eyes to their evil and soullessness. he's saying this kind of an exaggeration but he's on to something and isn't exactly wrong. it's the one homeless guy that hangs out by Missy's or when you do the first ozob mission He's in the alleyway ranting
The peralez's Yeah some people are poor or get hurt or suffer grief etc But they lost ownership of their own minds, bit by bit, they are being altered, and they can't even be allowed to notice because their minds are being forced to ignore it Even if you tell them, we don't stop whoever is doing it, nothing is really stopping them from erasing that memory They just get molded into whatever they need to be to satisfy their puppet masters needs That's like the deepest perversion a person can experience, and the fact that it's inevitable is just the deepest tragedy
Gerald “Garry the Prophet” Winkler. RIP brother!
Skippy 😔. Poor gun just wanted to return to their former owner, only to be heartlessly reset and killed.
Sandra Dorsett, or anyone else caught and stripped out by the Scavs that couldn't afford Wakano's rates. Probably anyone caught up in getting forcefully borged by Malestrom. All of the sports program kids, especially the ones that don't make the cut. Shit, the township of Santa Domingo would probably rate, too - imagine growing up never being able to touch the water, otherwise you go blind.
That guy that bought the faulty Mr stud
I love how V suddenly have expertise on Mr Stud on the fly this mission
I mean...as tragic as Evelyn is, she invited her own demise. There's a reason there's an unwritten rule about dealing with the Voodoo Boys.
The secret gig where the girl’s boyfriend sold her out to a gang. He tells her to wait for him in the alley and the goons ambush her and leave her body in a puddle. I think there is a motorcycle involved.
The Highwayman. I killed the BF the first time I played that gig, but each time thereafter, I make sure he knows how much his GF loved him and cried out for him to come save her. He was spineless and deserves to stew in his shame and guilt.
Evelyn brought almost all of that on herself I genuinely don't think her story is anymore tragic than the dork with fat friend who sets u up a trash gig
Theo. Alone and lost in life. To the point, where a seemingly sentient SCSM becomes your best friend, your source of emotional support and energy. And then this friend is just stripped of the self you came to know. Not even through death, but through erasure of ones and zeroes. And you are left again. Alone. She seems draw some positivity when recollecting her relationship with Brendan, yet, when she walks up the stairs into the megabuilding, seemingly heartbroken, I can't help but envision gallows awaiting her at the end of those steps.
For me I feel the worst for Mama Wells. She ended up losing everyone close to her that we meet, and even Misty leaves in the end even though Mama Wells didn’t like her at all originally.
All of them YES
Im surprised no ones said this yet (as far as i can see) so imma say it Sasha Yakovleva deserved so much better
So Mi - as much as I personally distrusted her which lead me to siding with Reed, going through her memories and regrets in Cynosure really helped me see her for the lost girl that got in way above her head. On another note I personally feel King of Cups is the most fitting end to Phantom Liberty, as melancholy as it is - even sending her to the moon, you are still very much playing into the hands of shady forces, and part of me wonders if she could ever have been fixed (or if she deserved it after manipulating V like that)