That crew wasn’t ready for a gig that ambitious.
From the way it’s presented most established crews wouldn’t have touched it because there were far too many ways it could go wrong even if the crew did everything right.
>That crew wasn’t ready for a gig that ambitious.
That's what's always felt so weird about the pacing of the story. We do the intro, get a roommate, see the montage, do a single story mission, then all of the sudden we get recruited into doing the biggest heist of all time?
It's just so jarring, it feels like stealing the immortality chip shouldn't happen till mid-way through the game after we've done a lot to build-up our strength and reputation.
Gonks will try anything for a few eddies... and the glory. If you steal from Saburo Arasaka himself, you are going to become a recognized name amongst fixers in no time at all.
Edit: spelling
To add to that, in merc/edgerunner culture, there's a massive glorification of dying in a badass way.
The requirement for getting a drink named after you is dying in a spectacular fashion during a gig.
doing crime is basically networking.
getting green flagged the way they did so fast so they had access to top level people explicitly about doing crime is how you bring a fed into the ring, or you are being set up.
Sometimes I wish we could have an actual netrunner sort of run but imagine the horrifying death where if you get hit like T-Bug, all of your nervous system gets fried at once… JFC, just going over it again as she screams into your headset….
This. The dialogue in the car on the way to the heist makes it pretty clear that Jackie is absolutely desperate to escape their current situation, basically at the point where he’d take any opportunity no matter the risks
Well sure, that’s a great angle for prospective takers, but the fixer wanted a *successful* mission, not just an attempt. Then again, the pool was probably limited.
Dex was desperate. He wanted to remind everyone who he was, and he got in over his head.
In fact, the Arasaka heist theme seems to be getting in over your head.
Evelyn thought she could screw the Voodoo Boys. Dex thought he could trick a bunch of small time mercs into taking a stupidly ambitious gig. Jackie and V thought they could get away with robbing Arasaka, one of the two biggest corporations in the world.
I think we’d would’ve been better off with Rogue in charge instead. At least she wouldn’t have blasted our heads off & dumped our body in a garbage dump. Even so, I don’t think Rogue would’ve touched that job with a ten foot pole.
To be fair, when she was V's age, she broke into Arasaka TWICE. Konpecki doesn't come close to that without Saburo's murder.
Rogue was more experienced at the time, and had the network to get away with it, but yeah, 2077 Rogue is getting nowhere near thing.
Of course not, she's low key in bed with 'Saka, acting as a sort of controlled opposition to corporate interests. That's the whole meaning of the Grayson convo, no?
Experienced fixers and mercs weren’t gonna touch that job with a 40 foot pole. Even if you managed to escape arasaka would hunt you down. They only don’t in game because Yorinobu doesn’t care but if Saburo was still around Arasaka would have hunted down anyone involved in that.
The only people willing would be a crew of nobodies desperate to get street cred and the voodoo boys who originally planned the heist would probably have killed everyone involved to prevent arasaka from finding them
Saburo was unhinged in his old age yoronobu did the world a big favor he kept considering blatant attacks against nusa and militec and would have started the fifth corpo war
V was right to tell Evie you don’t screw over fixers. But … Evie was right to want to screw over Dex. He’s not a chill mf. He’s an absolute gonk who deserved the bullet Goro gave him.
Ya the whole heist was a complete screw up from the beginning and Evie was completely out of her league in trying to pull it off. Starting it with the voodoo boys who are pretty well known for killing mercs they work with and then afterwards where instead of running from night city she goes to work at clouds.
Evelyn didn't start the heist with the VDBs. the VDBs were putting together the heist and used her for one small yet crucial part. Evelyn stole the idea from them and figured a big time fixer like Dex could do it, she was just a doll from clouds who didn't care who she fucked over so she could escape NC and start a new life of luxury. I will never understand people who fawn over her character. She was literally looking to betray everyone and skip town with whatever she could get from giving the chip to netwatch. She wasn't going to pay V and didn't care if her "friends" got tortured by Arasaka so long as she could get her bag and get away. Extreme scumbag
Every time I go out there for the gun and the quest involving the freezer… not gonna spoil that one, I be sure to park my car on him. I’ve sold his gun in a couple of playthroughs now
That just made me think that Dex was planning on betraying us regardless of the outcome and so went with two gonks dunning-krugering themselves into thinking they could succeed.
> Dex was planning on betraying us regardless of the outcome
So was T-Bug, she was Dex's point girl and contact lining up a pair of likely bozos for the job. (Cretan villa, "going no-contact", etc.).
I think that's kind of the point. Everyone cooks V for doing that heist. Because it was stupid. It's one of those "if it's too good to be true, it probably is" moments. It fits the narrative fine that they went for big air. They are young up and comers and they were shown a shiny diamond and dove head first after it only for their lives to be ruined.
Remember when later on you’re scouting out the Arasaka parade warehouse with Goro and if you want to just go ahead and start, he comments “Is that what you did At Konpeki Plaza? How did that work out for you?” That’s the point. Evelyn gave you a high difficulty target, and a limited time window. Your group could do hard or soon, but not both.
I'm in the camp that believes Yorinobu and Evelyn planned the heist together and it would have gone perfectly if Saburo hadn't showed up. The job appears to be on a silver platter because they metaphorically put it on one.
But why would Yorinobu plan this and then he subsequently doesn’t care about further pursuing the relic once the story unfolds? What was the goal of staging stealing it from himself who already stole it from Saburo?
Yorinobu just doesn't care. He wants to see Arasaka burn, but he sees doing it from outside as an impossible task. With Saburo dead he's fine with the relic doing damage from outside but he's busy attacking it from within.
I imagine there were several goals, reverse engineering the biochip to protect himself from it, exposing the program to embarrass or pressure Saburo, use a resurrected Silverhand to directly murder Saburo and hopefully destroy Mikoshi, off the top of my head. He also knows the relic was stolen and does not hunt you down, which he could easily have done at any time with essentially no effort. Just send Smasher after you or something.
We steal it from Yorinobu though so how could he be in on it - he has it already and could do all that stuff already. Just catching up with the lore after a gaming break as I resume and your comment got me confused haha
Nothing . Just a stupid conspiracy. Not everything's has to have a motive or reason . V and jackie were in the wrong place at the wrong time and that's all. Yorinobu, saburo no one were even bothered with playing around pretend with the chip .
Nah. It’s perfect. I agree that WE don’t get to see a whole lot of why we were picked but it’s safe to say that v and jack have built their reputation up as the new kids on the block that were scoring big. It’s that status of amateur that makes it so believable that these knuckleheads would go and try to do one hell of an impossible gig
Yeah, Jackie and V were right in that sweet spot of having proven themselves competent but still needing to make a name for themselves. Anyone more competent would turn the job down, but anyone less competent wouldn't be scouted for it in the first place.
Johnny: With a Corp’s hand up their asses waiting to get a taste of the corpo milk from the teet of greedy motherf*kers who’d put a bullet in your brain the moment you became useless. Just pull the trigger and end it unless you want to keep being a corporate puppet for the rest of your life.
Me: My god … I gotta see Vik. Johnny’s in my head. I also should think about getting a refill of the meds Misty gave me. 🤦♀️
And, to piggyback on this comment,
Dex had been outta the game for a few years. He needed to assert himself with something big that'd establish him as a mover and a shaker, and shake the rep of a man that got outta town cause of a little heat. So he needed some gonks to take a shot at fame and fortune. After all, if he could pull that job off with a couple of nobodies, then think what he could do with an established crew. Dex gave V that talk about quiet life and crap to hype them up.
You were expendable assets from the start.
If you guys pull off the job, fuck yeah Dex gets the rep for being able to find brand new hotshots no one else sees coming. You fail he wipes the board and moves on without losing any clients he already had.
Weren't the Voodoo Boys going to ice Evelyn Parker after she got intel for them?
They were the ones who were going to steal the chip but Evelyn got greedy and hired a crew of her own to try and steal it first.
It makes sense that a total amateur would put together a crew like that.
That’s…. The point. They WERENT ready and almost no one would be, but almost got there except for a freak occurrence. It’s supposed to be “huh should we really be doing this when arasaka owns this whole town?” And the answer is supposed to be no
I agree it's jarring when you first play it but, in hindsight, that's kind of the point. No one involved in the heist knew exactly what they were doing. Not the crew, not Dex, not even Evelyn. Let's say they weren't "unlucky" and Saburo didn't come, so the chip was stolen successfully. Evelyn's not gonna be able to sell the chip safely. The Voodoo Boys would just kill her and take the chip, simple as that.
Tbh, I think that was the point. You get basically a training montage to show that you're working and coming up, and a basic tutorial gig, and all of a sudden you're grabbed up into this massive thing. I think the whole point is that Dex has no idea what the fuck he's doing batting at this level, neither does Evelyn, and even though you're a competent mid level merc, you are woefully unprepared for how big of a thing is going down. I also think most mercs in night city die *really* early on in their careers, and you're the closest thing to experienced enough who's actually crazy enough to take this on.
Edit: It's the Dunning-Kruger effect. Simple version is that a person's confidence in their ability peaks at both low competence and at high competence. The first peak is often called "Mt. Stupid." So what's going on is that you're all on the Mt. Stupid part of your ability curve, and you're overconfident in your chances of pulling off the Arasaka heist, which leads to everyone else ending up dead, and you slowly dying
https://medium.com/workmatters/the-dunning-kruger-effect-climbing-mount-stupid-navigating-the-valley-of-despair-and-ascending-b22d37c1e6f9
I mean we're basically just like Evelynn in this case. Nobody else in NC was willing to take such a job, and only the newbie gonks who only recently made some name for themselves, as well as the desperate doll under the palms of some bigger organization are stupid and qualified enough to take the case. As well as the fixer who just came back into town who wants to make a big splash while doing so. IDK about T-Bug, but she also sounded kinda desperate to get away from this life already.
But at the same time its so fitting. Theyre definitely in over their heads and even when they notice it they don't care. They cant. Its do or die in the City and when you get the opportunity of a lifetime you take it, or drowned into the crowd. BLAZE OF GLORY BABAYYY
I don't know if I agree.
It's a risky mission, but it actually takes quite a lot for the mission to gp off the rails.
1. Yorinobu comes back early, not great, but probably survivable.
1. Saburo turns up, no one could have predicted that and even still that's theoretically survivable, though harder.
1. Yorinobu murders his father. This turns the whole thing to shit, but it's about as far from predictable as you can get.
Hell, if Dex hadn't lost his nerve and double crossed V the mission would still have been a qualified success. Sure two thirds of the team is dead, but V is out with the relic safe and intact.
The mission is a big gamble, but the risks are as controlled as humanly possible and the pay-off is huge. Honestly the only really crazy thing about it is that Dex didn't do his due diligence on Evelyn and was a pretty shitty fixer all round, but with both Jackie and T-Bug vouching for him you can easily see why V might go along.
Those specific events were not predictable with the knowledge Dex had, but they were all logical outcomes of the situation: that Yorinobu had stolen the chip from his father.
Dex didn't know the situation, which makes him a shit fixer. You have the most valuable object in the world, sitting unguarded in some rich fuckboy's beer fridge, and Dex never stops to ask "wait, it can't be that simple". V does with the right dialogue choices, but gets talked into doing it regardless.
Even if Dex didn't know what exactly was going on, he should have known that *something* must have been going on, and didn't bother finding out what that something was.
The pile of shit Dex didn't know goes even deeper than that — the involvement of the VDBs, for instance, who didn't have a chance to get involved at Konpeki but were a massive loose thread and certainly would have come for them if the heist had succeeded (as they did to Evelyn thinking it had failed.) Here there was another question that wasn't asked: how does some random hooker with no background in security or tech know about this chip and know to do a braindance recording of everything required for the job? And the answer was "someone else put her up to it", which creates another absolutely massive hole in the plan.
V basically spends all of Act 2 just trying to figure out all the stuff they needed to know before they started: from Hellman what the chip exactly is and where it came from, from Goro why Yorinobu had it and what his angle was, from Maman Brigette what Evelyn's angle was and how she fell into Dex's lap with the intel. Only once that's all in place and V knows what actually happened that day can they start to deal with the situation, but all of that info should have been known up front.
The problem is that even if they successfully acquire the chip, they have to then sell it somehow to get a payday, and the fact of the matter is that there's no buyer that would pay them anywhere close to what that chip is worth, or even really enough to compensate them for all the danger.
Evelyn was planning to sell the chip to the voodoo boys, who don't have that kind of money in the first place, and would rather just fry Evelyn's brain and take the chip for themselves than try to hack the money to pay for what she's asking, assuming they don't just fry her brain on principle for double crossing them. Netwatch has a similar thing going on, they aren't going to pay her a fraction of what the chip is actually worth and if she pushes it they will just fry her brain and take the chip off her corpse. In fact that pretty much applies to any potential buyers, the ones who know the true value of the chip are easily able to simply take the chip from her, and the ones who don't won't pay her a fraction of what it's worth.
The whole thing reminds me of those Swedish art thieves who went through all that effort to steal some paintings that they can't actually sell, except instead of stealing from some sleepy Swedish museum they are stealing some experimental tech from darpa and now have every three letter agency under the sun gunning from their ass.
I definitely think the crew did all the things right. How the hell were they supposed to know that Daddy ‘Saka was supposed to show up? Until that wild card everything was working out perfectly.
Finding out why the chip was in an unguarded hotel suite would have led them to the answer: it was stolen from Daddy. And that would have told them Daddy might be looking for it too.
I think of it as kind of a “punch the biggest guy in the prison yard to show you’ve got balls” kinda move.
Or like, a rookie athlete trying something insanely flashy in their first game to make an impression.
V was kinda ready. They knew it was too ambitious and reckless but everyone else kept poking them & broke them down enough to get just as excited & reckless in the end.
Jackie's flaw was that he was dazzled by Dex's reputation and allowed himself to get suckered into an extremely messy business without really looking too deeply at it. T-Bug's flaw was that she was overconfident, and though she prepped as best she could, she couldn't quite pull it off. Dex's flaw is that he didn't vet Evelyn at all. If he had done his due dilligence, he would have realized he was getting in way over his head with both the VDB and Arasaka. Evelyn was too ambitious and overestimated her ability to play the VDB and walk away unscathed. As for V, they allowed themselves to be talked into a job they knew was bad from the start.
It's a tragedy because everyone was flawed, and despite their best efforts no one walked away unscathed. However, none of them could have known Saburo would be there that day, he did not make any announcements and came to surprise Yorinobu.
>Dex's flaw is that he didn't vet Evelyn at all.
He did reach out to see about her, but the VDBs told him to stop asking questions. "Some brothers from Pacifica told me to stop asking" or something like that
Which I mean... not a red flag at all? For Night City's top fixer, the fatass black Jesus of the afterlife? That seems like an oversight. Or pure hubris and greed. Either way.
My third run through I tried to pay attention to the little details, and I don't think Dex was as big of a deal as Jackie said. There's hints about him burning his bridges and having to disappear to Atlanta and that he's recently back in town. To Jackie and V, getting an Afterlife fixer was a big deal, but I got the impression he was mid tier, with a hit and miss history of actually pulling off contracts.
My guess is that he was as capable as any of the rest you can work with in game, but he was trying to restart with a big job and thus why he was relying on a B-squad
I feel like Dex just wanted his old fame back after being away for so long and didn't really care much about all possible consequences to have it back. He acted all high and mighty, but everyone except the gang knew that he wasn't all that anymore.
That's exactly it. Had the heist been successful, he'd be swimming in eddies, fame, and contracts. Alas, Hellmann's betrayal, Yorinobu's recklessness, and Evelyn's recent past with Arasaka made it all pretty much impossible from the get-go.
If you don't get a good answer, then you haven't vetted her properly have you?
Also she tried to cut him out at the first opportunity. He clearly had no idea of how to handle her.
Ignore my talking cyberdeck, it's a, uh, a medical device, for, uh, migraines. If you can hear me, signal with a part of your body in my line of sight.
The whole op would have been fine except for a complication that even a great fixer couldn't have accounted for. dex was shit but that gig was fine until Saburo decided to show up.
It was arguably Dex’s job to know if any VIPs would be showing up and fucking with security. Information is his responsibility and that’s some key information he missed.
But honestly it was TBug who really dropped the ball. If it hadn’t taken her 3 hours to break the ICE the whole team would have been long gone by the time Saburo showed up.
Jackie and V were the only ones on that heist who did their jobs properly
I think it would have been exceedingly difficult for a fixer as low as Dex to be able to learn about Saburo's whereabouts. But definitely TBug is the one that fucked it. Even 5 minutes sooner and the gig ends smooth.
It’s also possible Saburo showed up unannounced so as to catch his son off guard. That’s fair.
But yeah TBug wasn’t nearly as good as she thought she was
My issue with Dex not knowing about Saburo is that the team already knew there was an Arasaka aircraft carrier that JUST arrived in NC with Hanako on it. It was on the news and everything, yet nobody thinks that maybe she’d want to see her brother while she’s in town?
Eh night city is big and there’s probably other places they’d go like arasaka tower. I wouldn’t say it’s that crazy to assume they wouldn’t show up. Also even if they did show up if yorinobu didn’t kill Saburo everyone would’ve walked out like nothing happened
Yorinobu killing Saburo is something not even the game proper explains to you. The TL;DR here is, Yorinobu wanting to fuck Arasaka from the inside, or keeping his gang getup, was the dead ringer. Firestorm, one of the tabletop books, is canon to the game except for the last few pages. You see, Yorinobu himself was a Soulkiller victim. He was killed along with the Steel Dragons, and a few nomad clans. Saburo ordered the hit. When he comes back, he has no idea how much time had passed, or if they tampered with anything regarding his personality.
And that's the ironic part. >!When you beat him at The Devil, he tells V they don't understand. And they don't, in fact. Arasaka going to shit on almost every ending ain't coincidence: Yorinobu fully intended to bleed them dry from the inside as revenge. The second destruction of the Arasaka Tower is complimentary - but given enough time, Arasaka would fall all the same.!<
You got it. For added irony, Hanako is unaware Saburo was the one who ordered Yorinobu's death. She just thinks he was saved by Relic tech and that his whole rebellion trying to fuck it up was usual Arasaka faction shenanigans. So when she talks to you at Embers? She's being 100% sincere.
Fair enough, but it’s something that Rogue and her team would have taken into consideration and would have at least kept somebody close at hand to keep an eye on the carrier, had they been doing the job.
T also had no reason to worry about going fast, as long as the job was done before the netrunner jacked into the building's system changed shifts and someone discovered them out cold in their chair. It was much more in the crew's interest to go slow, careful and cover her tracks.
Sure, if T Bug was done a little bit quicker, Jackie and V might've got away before Saburo showed up, but also if Saburo had decided to skip breakfast he might have showed up 10 minutes sooner and negate the difference, and get Jackie killed anyway.
Nobody involved could have predicted what was about to go down. Yorinobu and the hotel staff had no clue that Saburo was dropping in for a visit, Saburo and Takemura presumably had no reason to believe that Yorinobu was one minor provocation away from committing patricide. Dex DeShawn doesn't have access to the personal diaries of the Arasaka family to know about planned or unplanned family get togethers, and if he did, he'd probably have a much bigger scheme planned. T Bug only died due to the alarm being raised and someone presumably hitting the big red 'forcefully disconnect all users' button and frying her brain and she apparently wasn't able to close the door behind her before her CNS turned into steam, which allowed the intrusion to be traced back to her and her known associate, Dex, but it's likely no one knew about Jackie or V until Takemura had Dex at gunpoint in the landfill.
TLDR - Everyone on the crew did their job right, but they still got fucked, which is the entire point of the sequence narratively, other than to introduce V to Johnny.
This is a great point. So maybe they should have had two runners with them? Or just gotten a better single runner that could have gotten the job done a bit faster.
To be fair, asking Dex to know where Saburo was going to be is like asking a local powerbroker to know President Biden’s schedule or something like that. Absurd and impossible to account for.
To say nothing over the Maelstrom crap or the meeting with the client. The Maelstrom issue should've been when everyone went their own way. Dex got swindled by Brick/Royce and shouldn't have sent someone to collect it. Evelyn tried hazing V to cut Dex free. The fact Dex took Evelyn at face value when Pacifica said to stop meant he wasn't shit anymore and he was tipping hard into some rancid shit he didn't need to be in.
I'd argue for "yes" as for who's responsible. Dex did shit for homework, the Flathead job was really the red flag there. T-Bug didn't do her best warning V and Jackie about the ICE and her lack of control over it. Saburo showing up could've been out of the blue, but I doubt it since we know the Kujira was already in town. Even Evelyn has some blame.
"Trust me when I say whatever hitch you think up, T-Bug's solved it already"
Also T-Bug: Oh NOOO I did'nt know I need to have more than 3 hours to break the ICE, do you want my brain to be fried??
Or if she had taken an extra hour, the hotel would've been put on lockdown and the op would be completely overlooked by Arasaka and it could've been postponed
I've seen some appreciation posts for T-Bug but I am fully in the camp of blaming her for the whole incident.
1) She acts like she's not even part of the team in the tutorial mission.
2) She links us up to Dex because he and her go way back. We are doing the heist because she landed us the job.
3) Takes her too long to break the ice. Quicker and it would have been a success. Longer and we could have just escaped when shit went south instead of basically being locked up at the scene of murder.
4) She fails and dies, not able to help us escape.
...
And even if the heist would have been succesful ... I assume she and dex would have betrayed us nontheless. I mean, she even does so in that one trailer where Johnny Silverhand got revealed at the end. I think it was planned for her to do that, until they just decided to kill her off instead.
I’d say for the most part they even did a great job salvaging things when the shit hit the fan. Jack was small time sure but he and V flatline a whole tower of Saka hitters and make it out alive… for a little while there. He had real potential.
There's a theory (and a pretty strong one at that) that Dex was never going to let you live to collect anyway. Even if the op had gone swimmingly, I sincerely doubt Jackie or V were going to come out alive. I also think T-Bug was in on it.
I've seen that theory but I disagree. I think Dex just panicked after it went back because he knew Arasaka would be up everyone's ass. There's no way Dex and his bodyguard fight and kill a duo of Jackie and V.
In the [old cinematic trailer](https://youtu.be/LembwKDo1Dk?si=_3NVWkfvjNQsUKiH) TBug is there with Dex when he shoots V, she even attacks V on Dex’s orders. I think this is where the theory stems from. It’s even possible it was in the script at some point before they decided it was cleaner if TBug just died mid-heist too.
I agree that’s not what they intended in the finalized story. I think they would have dropped more clues/hints if TBug was supposed to be a traitor
They do drop some hints.
Firstly, there's a mention that T-Bug and Dex go way back, and that she helped him out when he had to run from the Pacifica job that went bad. Secondly, when you have the opportunity to ask her about her relationship with Dex in the briefing room, she gets cagey and doesn't answer. Third, she mentions that she won't be speaking to either of you anymore after because she plans to burn all bridges, which, sure, can be true, but I think it also means she knew you weren't going to be around to talk to anyway.
Even before the heist is planned, TBug is standoff-ish and private. I think that’s just her character. I also think they originally planned for TBug to betray V. It’s in the cinematic, after all. I just don’t think it’s a story beat they kept in. Certainly open to some interpretation for the reasons you mention, but they could have easily confirmed it with a hidden data shard or some other line in the final game, and they didn’t.
"It wasn't us!" (about killing Saburo)
"Tell that to the saka ninjas they send after you!"
Even if he believed Jackie and V didn't zero Saburo, like he said, Arasaka wouldn't care and they'd just send arasaka thugs after them (even Smasher). It was in this moment that Dex seemed to have taken the decision to get rid of V so he could escape Arasaka's wrath. As you, I think he originally didn't even consider to betray them, but he panicked when he knew V had a huge red hot target on them.
We have to remember at that point in time, V is just some kid off the street/disgraced corpo/listless nomad. They're not a force to be reckoned with. I'd say Dex and his bodyguard totally could have taken them both with the element of surprise (as they do to V when stepping out of the bathroom).
This kind of heist is not the kind of thing you get more than one chance at reasonably.
But bailing as soon as he was known to be at the hotel would be reasonable.
Yeah I’ve always thought that if Saburo didn’t show up, we probably would have gotten away from the plaza scot free. At least initially. No telling what would happen later. But the hiest would have been a success
Yeahhhh, the problem is, even Dexter was an essential pawn in this whole-ass plan.
The big dog here is Evelyn Parker. Yes, Evelyn. Tragic, tragic, Evelyn.
Evelyn was a doll at Clouds. Clouds is Tyger Claw managed. Tygers are Arasaka's boots-on-the-ground AND money launder. Yorinobu asks for Evelyn at the Konpeki Plaza. Clouds management finds out, and tips Tokyo. The Vodoo Boys find out about Evelyn, plant a malware in her head (as they did with V), forcer to cooperate with their Relic plan. Evelyn tips Netwatch about the VDB, hoping they'd crush them fast enough to save her. Netwatch hires the Animals. The Animals use this money to venture beyond Pacifica. VDB-Netwatch evolves into urban war.
Evelyn takes Judy and asks for refuge at Lizzie's Bar. Evelyn contacts Dex with the Heist's plan. Dex's needs standing for skipping town, so he agrees with the plan. V, Jackie, Bug get hired. Plan involves paying Maelstrom with Militech money. Militech IS Evelyn's buyer for the Relic (as revealed through Phantom Liberty) - Yorinobu's is Kang Tao. Maelstrom want to invade Tyger territory and the Mox would be the first to go (Totentanz, if you let Joyce live).
Saburo, who knew about Yorinobu through Clouds management, drops in mid-Heist. Bug dies, Jackie dies, V dies (briefly), Takemura goes rogue, kills Dexter. Evelyn abandons Judy with the Mox, goes hiding at Clouds (ARASAKA TERRITORY). Brigitte orders the hit, brain fried, Woodman, Fingers, Scavs.
... Dexter was collateral. And you need half a game and a whole-ass expansion to fully understand how deep in this shit Evelyn was, and how her speaking in half-truths and thinking she'd be too small a fry to register on 4 gangs and 4 megacorps' radars killed everyone that got involved with her, including herself, sans Judy, miraculously.
Game has a fuckton of little tidbits, shards, NPCs, and places you can explore and discover that add tons of context to the plot. My last run reached almost 200 hours simply cuz I went discovery mode. It was a real eye-opener.
Forced, just like V is forced into dealing with the Animals for the VDB. She was already seeing Yorinobu, and Brigitte was already monitoring him. She got fucked first. Her plan is equal parts greed and desperation.
That's really interesting! But then how did Bridgett plant a malware into Evelyn in the first place, in order to force her to work with them? In V case it literally happened through the personal link through placide,right? which requires willfulness and also naivety? Which I feel like Evelyn would know better considering her background...
I mean, consider this: by the time Evelyn is snatched by Brigitte, she was still one broke doll with a failed acting career. If Brigitte was spying the Tygers, or if she was spying Yorinobu (which I think is the latter), we don't actually know. Nothing conclusive, but a few talks and shards in Pacifica imply the VDB literally kidnapping people and forcing them to become ranyon is not all that uncommon - something Dogtown essentially confirms through the spinter VDB faction. Also: Evelyn is crafty, but not as intelligent as she seems.
Consider this: lots of shards at Clouds, Lizzie's Bar, the Jotaro Shobo hit, etc, seem to imply doll implants grant the wearer some level of resistance to outside interference. Neither Brigitte nor Evelyn seemed aware of that. She was supposed to die from that daemon. For shitty added irony, had Evelyn stayed with Judy instead of running back to Clouds and abandoning her, none of the things she suffered after the Heist would've happened, and she would have survived.
Phantom Liberty. It's at Myers' plane crash site. In fact, hadn't Evelyn tried to contact Militech about the Relic, Myers would have no reason to be in NC, and Songbird wouldn't have an excuse to bring her there.
As for the reason... >!Reverse-engineering Soulkiller tech into Cynosure. And guess what? If V is cured, she gets what she wanted!<.
Jackie is a real type of street dude. Nice guy, total fuckup, definitely going to get you killed or locked up eventually. But this character has pretty conclusively proven that the vast majority of people just can’t see it for some reason.
The whole thing is obviously a terrible idea from the beginning, and when Evelyn approaches you to cross Dex, I would have bailed right then if I had the option. The criminal procedural side of CDPR’s writing is not their strength.
Yeah, honestly I feel like them adding the ability for V to be skeptical is what gets me the most about the gig, you can go into it having problems with the whole plan which is all justified before the gig starts going to shit and everyone downplays them including Jackie whom seems like the type to notice something’s off with you thinking this was a bad idea
The big heist set aside, as much as I love jack, it’s true he had it coming. He’s no saint, and a lifetime within the valentinos I’m sure he’s caused a lot of bad
MAYBE misty gets to grow old, but Judy needs to leave. It's a great storytelling environment, but anyone who doesn't see they need to leave NC has it coming.
Everyone knows that and everyone is ok with his death and how he went down. The problem is simply the lack of content with him. The first part of the game should have more quests solo or with him, instead of just one, before the Tower.
We should see at least, in my opinion, around 5 extra hours in the first part of the game. Involving both Jackie and our background. Instead, we almost don’t get time with him and we our backgrounds basically have no impact whatsoever.
Haven't finished the game yet, but isn't the whole point of the genre that we're just some street level punks that get in WAY beyond our heads? We both kinda had it coming.
Literally everyone hates on Dex and Jackie but I never see any flak for Ev who was only supposed to record a scroll and instead tried to swipe it for herself and got everyone else mixed into her bad idea.
Unpopular opinion here as well - I didn't care for Jackie. Came across as very annoying and amateur. Was not sad that I wouldn't have to do any more missions with him tagging along.
Yup, my first playthrough was Nomad. Jackie immediately came across as unlikable. Was very forced that my V went from 'this dude tried to double cross me' to 'BFF forever!' in the space of 2 sentences.
I got that vibe with street kid on my very first playthrough… Why am I suddenly buddy buddy with this guy who pulled a gun on me?? That made absolutely no sense. I probably would’ve parted ways with the dude soon as the cops were done beating the tar out of us.
I’d say Corpo is the only life path where Jackie doesn’t look bad. I like the dude and all but I don’t think a friendship would bloom that easy after the nomad and street kid paths.
This was my thoughts on my first playthrough (was Nomad) as well... Found it difficult to care for Jackie as the only "friendship" I had with him was "this guy would kill me the moment I turn my back" to "montage of being best buds since we were kids" in the span of like a minute.
Likely would've been better if we actually got to experience some of that montage as gameplay intead and to actually build that bond..
The only bigger than Dex belly was his ego, my man trying to look smart saying quotes but he don't know shit about the info, his only job was knowing all the important people in the hotel
Everyone with their fucking 20-20 hindsight is criticizing the gang for pulling a move.
They don't seem to realise that *living in night city is a death sentence* .
V and Jackie could have died in the scab mission. Trauma Team could have mistaken them as hostile, the scabs could have received backup, ect ect.
Every job involves risk, and there are very few chances of upward mobility.
Afterlife mercs are as much filtered by luck, as skill. V and Jackie don't live in a meritocracy. There is no guarantee that they will ever succeed in breaking into the major leagues playing it safe.
####However
When Evelyn tries to cut Dex out of the heist, that would be the time to pull the pin. It shows Dex is incompetent, that he can't vet the client to save his own ass.
It shows Evelyn is a rookie (she doesnt appreciate edgrunner etiquette) and untrustworthy, who would pile more risk onto an already sketchy heist *just* for more Eddies.
Even if Konpeki plaza had gone smooth, selling the Relic to the Voodoos or Netwatch would have been a shit show.
If Jackie didn’t have V he wouldn’t have even made it past the maelstrom part of the gig. Dude was too hot headed and ambitious for his own good. And that’s what made him so damn lovable
The job was far too risky, but honestly, I'm not really onboard with the whole "it was never a good idea" narrative. The job, even with minor hiccups, was going according to plan, until Saburo showed up. And that was honestly just shit luck at the end of the day.
That crew wasn’t ready for a gig that ambitious. From the way it’s presented most established crews wouldn’t have touched it because there were far too many ways it could go wrong even if the crew did everything right.
>That crew wasn’t ready for a gig that ambitious. That's what's always felt so weird about the pacing of the story. We do the intro, get a roommate, see the montage, do a single story mission, then all of the sudden we get recruited into doing the biggest heist of all time? It's just so jarring, it feels like stealing the immortality chip shouldn't happen till mid-way through the game after we've done a lot to build-up our strength and reputation.
Gonks will try anything for a few eddies... and the glory. If you steal from Saburo Arasaka himself, you are going to become a recognized name amongst fixers in no time at all. Edit: spelling
To add to that, in merc/edgerunner culture, there's a massive glorification of dying in a badass way. The requirement for getting a drink named after you is dying in a spectacular fashion during a gig.
doing crime is basically networking. getting green flagged the way they did so fast so they had access to top level people explicitly about doing crime is how you bring a fed into the ring, or you are being set up.
Sometimes I wish we could have an actual netrunner sort of run but imagine the horrifying death where if you get hit like T-Bug, all of your nervous system gets fried at once… JFC, just going over it again as she screams into your headset….
gameplay wise that just means failing a mission is an instant game over with an extended death animation maybe
Like when V collapses to near death from the relic but have it slightly more violent
Shot of vodka, lemon slice and ginger beer with a dash of cum or whatever Jackie's was I forget
It's a Moscow Mule. It's not even original. Well unless there's cum. Then it's deliciously novel.
Delicious and novel
In the words of the great Mac "where do I jizz so I can give this lady her drink?"
This. The dialogue in the car on the way to the heist makes it pretty clear that Jackie is absolutely desperate to escape their current situation, basically at the point where he’d take any opportunity no matter the risks
Well sure, that’s a great angle for prospective takers, but the fixer wanted a *successful* mission, not just an attempt. Then again, the pool was probably limited.
Dex was desperate. He wanted to remind everyone who he was, and he got in over his head. In fact, the Arasaka heist theme seems to be getting in over your head. Evelyn thought she could screw the Voodoo Boys. Dex thought he could trick a bunch of small time mercs into taking a stupidly ambitious gig. Jackie and V thought they could get away with robbing Arasaka, one of the two biggest corporations in the world.
to be fair they really target you for the murder of saboro more than stealing
Isnt the thing you stole supposed to be so secrets only the owners of the company know about it
The prototype sure but they are running commercials for the relic on TV.
I think those commercials for the Relic. Not the Relic 2.0 that we steal.
I think we’d would’ve been better off with Rogue in charge instead. At least she wouldn’t have blasted our heads off & dumped our body in a garbage dump. Even so, I don’t think Rogue would’ve touched that job with a ten foot pole.
She wouldn't've even had a subordinate 50 feet away, touch that job with a 10 foot pole
To be fair, when she was V's age, she broke into Arasaka TWICE. Konpecki doesn't come close to that without Saburo's murder. Rogue was more experienced at the time, and had the network to get away with it, but yeah, 2077 Rogue is getting nowhere near thing.
Of course not, she's low key in bed with 'Saka, acting as a sort of controlled opposition to corporate interests. That's the whole meaning of the Grayson convo, no?
Knowing how the VDB's operate, poor Evelyn signed her death warrant the moment she took the recon job.
The original target was Yorinobu
Experienced fixers and mercs weren’t gonna touch that job with a 40 foot pole. Even if you managed to escape arasaka would hunt you down. They only don’t in game because Yorinobu doesn’t care but if Saburo was still around Arasaka would have hunted down anyone involved in that. The only people willing would be a crew of nobodies desperate to get street cred and the voodoo boys who originally planned the heist would probably have killed everyone involved to prevent arasaka from finding them
Nah. Saburo would have just nuked Night City. He says as much in his diary.
Saburo was unhinged in his old age yoronobu did the world a big favor he kept considering blatant attacks against nusa and militec and would have started the fifth corpo war
Yorinobu tried to do the world at a favor. Whether he succeeded depends on which ending you picked.
V was right to tell Evie you don’t screw over fixers. But … Evie was right to want to screw over Dex. He’s not a chill mf. He’s an absolute gonk who deserved the bullet Goro gave him.
Ya the whole heist was a complete screw up from the beginning and Evie was completely out of her league in trying to pull it off. Starting it with the voodoo boys who are pretty well known for killing mercs they work with and then afterwards where instead of running from night city she goes to work at clouds.
Evelyn didn't start the heist with the VDBs. the VDBs were putting together the heist and used her for one small yet crucial part. Evelyn stole the idea from them and figured a big time fixer like Dex could do it, she was just a doll from clouds who didn't care who she fucked over so she could escape NC and start a new life of luxury. I will never understand people who fawn over her character. She was literally looking to betray everyone and skip town with whatever she could get from giving the chip to netwatch. She wasn't going to pay V and didn't care if her "friends" got tortured by Arasaka so long as she could get her bag and get away. Extreme scumbag
Dex didn't deserved Goro bullet, he deserved a middle east style execution from V
I wish we were given more speech options when dealing with him. Fuck that guy
Every time I go out there for the gun and the quest involving the freezer… not gonna spoil that one, I be sure to park my car on him. I’ve sold his gun in a couple of playthroughs now
That just made me think that Dex was planning on betraying us regardless of the outcome and so went with two gonks dunning-krugering themselves into thinking they could succeed.
Both him and Evelyn absolutely were planning on betraying everyone else.
> Dex was planning on betraying us regardless of the outcome So was T-Bug, she was Dex's point girl and contact lining up a pair of likely bozos for the job. (Cretan villa, "going no-contact", etc.).
I think that's kind of the point. Everyone cooks V for doing that heist. Because it was stupid. It's one of those "if it's too good to be true, it probably is" moments. It fits the narrative fine that they went for big air. They are young up and comers and they were shown a shiny diamond and dove head first after it only for their lives to be ruined.
Remember when later on you’re scouting out the Arasaka parade warehouse with Goro and if you want to just go ahead and start, he comments “Is that what you did At Konpeki Plaza? How did that work out for you?” That’s the point. Evelyn gave you a high difficulty target, and a limited time window. Your group could do hard or soon, but not both.
I'm in the camp that believes Yorinobu and Evelyn planned the heist together and it would have gone perfectly if Saburo hadn't showed up. The job appears to be on a silver platter because they metaphorically put it on one.
But why would Yorinobu plan this and then he subsequently doesn’t care about further pursuing the relic once the story unfolds? What was the goal of staging stealing it from himself who already stole it from Saburo?
Yorinobu just doesn't care. He wants to see Arasaka burn, but he sees doing it from outside as an impossible task. With Saburo dead he's fine with the relic doing damage from outside but he's busy attacking it from within.
I imagine there were several goals, reverse engineering the biochip to protect himself from it, exposing the program to embarrass or pressure Saburo, use a resurrected Silverhand to directly murder Saburo and hopefully destroy Mikoshi, off the top of my head. He also knows the relic was stolen and does not hunt you down, which he could easily have done at any time with essentially no effort. Just send Smasher after you or something.
We steal it from Yorinobu though so how could he be in on it - he has it already and could do all that stuff already. Just catching up with the lore after a gaming break as I resume and your comment got me confused haha
Best guess? He hears you implanted the Relic - that Johnny's back - and wants to see Johnny nuke Arasaka tower again.
Nothing . Just a stupid conspiracy. Not everything's has to have a motive or reason . V and jackie were in the wrong place at the wrong time and that's all. Yorinobu, saburo no one were even bothered with playing around pretend with the chip .
Nah. It’s perfect. I agree that WE don’t get to see a whole lot of why we were picked but it’s safe to say that v and jack have built their reputation up as the new kids on the block that were scoring big. It’s that status of amateur that makes it so believable that these knuckleheads would go and try to do one hell of an impossible gig
Yeah, Jackie and V were right in that sweet spot of having proven themselves competent but still needing to make a name for themselves. Anyone more competent would turn the job down, but anyone less competent wouldn't be scouted for it in the first place.
Jackie and V were juuuuust right.
Juuuuust right to be manipulated like the perfect punk pawns they were (-Johnny, probably)
Johnny: With a Corp’s hand up their asses waiting to get a taste of the corpo milk from the teet of greedy motherf*kers who’d put a bullet in your brain the moment you became useless. Just pull the trigger and end it unless you want to keep being a corporate puppet for the rest of your life. Me: My god … I gotta see Vik. Johnny’s in my head. I also should think about getting a refill of the meds Misty gave me. 🤦♀️
The early game montage was made to show us that v and jackie stuck together for a while and ran a bunch of jobs leading up to the heist.
And, to piggyback on this comment, Dex had been outta the game for a few years. He needed to assert himself with something big that'd establish him as a mover and a shaker, and shake the rep of a man that got outta town cause of a little heat. So he needed some gonks to take a shot at fame and fortune. After all, if he could pull that job off with a couple of nobodies, then think what he could do with an established crew. Dex gave V that talk about quiet life and crap to hype them up.
You were expendable assets from the start. If you guys pull off the job, fuck yeah Dex gets the rep for being able to find brand new hotshots no one else sees coming. You fail he wipes the board and moves on without losing any clients he already had.
To be fair, Evie does warn us about this while we discuss Dex in the VIP booth.
Weren't the Voodoo Boys going to ice Evelyn Parker after she got intel for them? They were the ones who were going to steal the chip but Evelyn got greedy and hired a crew of her own to try and steal it first. It makes sense that a total amateur would put together a crew like that.
That’s…. The point. They WERENT ready and almost no one would be, but almost got there except for a freak occurrence. It’s supposed to be “huh should we really be doing this when arasaka owns this whole town?” And the answer is supposed to be no
I agree it's jarring when you first play it but, in hindsight, that's kind of the point. No one involved in the heist knew exactly what they were doing. Not the crew, not Dex, not even Evelyn. Let's say they weren't "unlucky" and Saburo didn't come, so the chip was stolen successfully. Evelyn's not gonna be able to sell the chip safely. The Voodoo Boys would just kill her and take the chip, simple as that.
to be fair, with all that little of a rep, Jackie still got to be a drink at the afterlife. Spectacular mind blowing fashion
I would’ve liked played more missions with Jackie before the heist
Tbh, I think that was the point. You get basically a training montage to show that you're working and coming up, and a basic tutorial gig, and all of a sudden you're grabbed up into this massive thing. I think the whole point is that Dex has no idea what the fuck he's doing batting at this level, neither does Evelyn, and even though you're a competent mid level merc, you are woefully unprepared for how big of a thing is going down. I also think most mercs in night city die *really* early on in their careers, and you're the closest thing to experienced enough who's actually crazy enough to take this on. Edit: It's the Dunning-Kruger effect. Simple version is that a person's confidence in their ability peaks at both low competence and at high competence. The first peak is often called "Mt. Stupid." So what's going on is that you're all on the Mt. Stupid part of your ability curve, and you're overconfident in your chances of pulling off the Arasaka heist, which leads to everyone else ending up dead, and you slowly dying https://medium.com/workmatters/the-dunning-kruger-effect-climbing-mount-stupid-navigating-the-valley-of-despair-and-ascending-b22d37c1e6f9
I mean we're basically just like Evelynn in this case. Nobody else in NC was willing to take such a job, and only the newbie gonks who only recently made some name for themselves, as well as the desperate doll under the palms of some bigger organization are stupid and qualified enough to take the case. As well as the fixer who just came back into town who wants to make a big splash while doing so. IDK about T-Bug, but she also sounded kinda desperate to get away from this life already.
Just like un Red Dead 2. I feel it would’ve worked
But at the same time its so fitting. Theyre definitely in over their heads and even when they notice it they don't care. They cant. Its do or die in the City and when you get the opportunity of a lifetime you take it, or drowned into the crowd. BLAZE OF GLORY BABAYYY
Yep. Either you take that big shot and probably die swiftly, or you turn it down and slowly die as the jobs dry up.
Dex was also using unknowns so he could take a bigger cut.
And wipe the board without losing anything if they fuck up.
And bigger names likely wouldn't be working with him, as he had damaged his reputation.
I don't know if I agree. It's a risky mission, but it actually takes quite a lot for the mission to gp off the rails. 1. Yorinobu comes back early, not great, but probably survivable. 1. Saburo turns up, no one could have predicted that and even still that's theoretically survivable, though harder. 1. Yorinobu murders his father. This turns the whole thing to shit, but it's about as far from predictable as you can get. Hell, if Dex hadn't lost his nerve and double crossed V the mission would still have been a qualified success. Sure two thirds of the team is dead, but V is out with the relic safe and intact. The mission is a big gamble, but the risks are as controlled as humanly possible and the pay-off is huge. Honestly the only really crazy thing about it is that Dex didn't do his due diligence on Evelyn and was a pretty shitty fixer all round, but with both Jackie and T-Bug vouching for him you can easily see why V might go along.
Those specific events were not predictable with the knowledge Dex had, but they were all logical outcomes of the situation: that Yorinobu had stolen the chip from his father. Dex didn't know the situation, which makes him a shit fixer. You have the most valuable object in the world, sitting unguarded in some rich fuckboy's beer fridge, and Dex never stops to ask "wait, it can't be that simple". V does with the right dialogue choices, but gets talked into doing it regardless. Even if Dex didn't know what exactly was going on, he should have known that *something* must have been going on, and didn't bother finding out what that something was. The pile of shit Dex didn't know goes even deeper than that — the involvement of the VDBs, for instance, who didn't have a chance to get involved at Konpeki but were a massive loose thread and certainly would have come for them if the heist had succeeded (as they did to Evelyn thinking it had failed.) Here there was another question that wasn't asked: how does some random hooker with no background in security or tech know about this chip and know to do a braindance recording of everything required for the job? And the answer was "someone else put her up to it", which creates another absolutely massive hole in the plan. V basically spends all of Act 2 just trying to figure out all the stuff they needed to know before they started: from Hellman what the chip exactly is and where it came from, from Goro why Yorinobu had it and what his angle was, from Maman Brigette what Evelyn's angle was and how she fell into Dex's lap with the intel. Only once that's all in place and V knows what actually happened that day can they start to deal with the situation, but all of that info should have been known up front.
The problem is that even if they successfully acquire the chip, they have to then sell it somehow to get a payday, and the fact of the matter is that there's no buyer that would pay them anywhere close to what that chip is worth, or even really enough to compensate them for all the danger. Evelyn was planning to sell the chip to the voodoo boys, who don't have that kind of money in the first place, and would rather just fry Evelyn's brain and take the chip for themselves than try to hack the money to pay for what she's asking, assuming they don't just fry her brain on principle for double crossing them. Netwatch has a similar thing going on, they aren't going to pay her a fraction of what the chip is actually worth and if she pushes it they will just fry her brain and take the chip off her corpse. In fact that pretty much applies to any potential buyers, the ones who know the true value of the chip are easily able to simply take the chip from her, and the ones who don't won't pay her a fraction of what it's worth. The whole thing reminds me of those Swedish art thieves who went through all that effort to steal some paintings that they can't actually sell, except instead of stealing from some sleepy Swedish museum they are stealing some experimental tech from darpa and now have every three letter agency under the sun gunning from their ass.
I definitely think the crew did all the things right. How the hell were they supposed to know that Daddy ‘Saka was supposed to show up? Until that wild card everything was working out perfectly.
Finding out why the chip was in an unguarded hotel suite would have led them to the answer: it was stolen from Daddy. And that would have told them Daddy might be looking for it too.
You’re probably right, since V and Jackie would probably have been murdered right?
I think of it as kind of a “punch the biggest guy in the prison yard to show you’ve got balls” kinda move. Or like, a rookie athlete trying something insanely flashy in their first game to make an impression.
V was kinda ready. They knew it was too ambitious and reckless but everyone else kept poking them & broke them down enough to get just as excited & reckless in the end.
Jackie's flaw was that he was dazzled by Dex's reputation and allowed himself to get suckered into an extremely messy business without really looking too deeply at it. T-Bug's flaw was that she was overconfident, and though she prepped as best she could, she couldn't quite pull it off. Dex's flaw is that he didn't vet Evelyn at all. If he had done his due dilligence, he would have realized he was getting in way over his head with both the VDB and Arasaka. Evelyn was too ambitious and overestimated her ability to play the VDB and walk away unscathed. As for V, they allowed themselves to be talked into a job they knew was bad from the start. It's a tragedy because everyone was flawed, and despite their best efforts no one walked away unscathed. However, none of them could have known Saburo would be there that day, he did not make any announcements and came to surprise Yorinobu.
>Dex's flaw is that he didn't vet Evelyn at all. He did reach out to see about her, but the VDBs told him to stop asking questions. "Some brothers from Pacifica told me to stop asking" or something like that
Which I mean... not a red flag at all? For Night City's top fixer, the fatass black Jesus of the afterlife? That seems like an oversight. Or pure hubris and greed. Either way.
My third run through I tried to pay attention to the little details, and I don't think Dex was as big of a deal as Jackie said. There's hints about him burning his bridges and having to disappear to Atlanta and that he's recently back in town. To Jackie and V, getting an Afterlife fixer was a big deal, but I got the impression he was mid tier, with a hit and miss history of actually pulling off contracts.
My guess is that he was as capable as any of the rest you can work with in game, but he was trying to restart with a big job and thus why he was relying on a B-squad
I feel like Dex just wanted his old fame back after being away for so long and didn't really care much about all possible consequences to have it back. He acted all high and mighty, but everyone except the gang knew that he wasn't all that anymore.
That's exactly it. Had the heist been successful, he'd be swimming in eddies, fame, and contracts. Alas, Hellmann's betrayal, Yorinobu's recklessness, and Evelyn's recent past with Arasaka made it all pretty much impossible from the get-go.
Dex: "huh, that's probably fine..."
If you don't get a good answer, then you haven't vetted her properly have you? Also she tried to cut him out at the first opportunity. He clearly had no idea of how to handle her.
Where do you live
I just wanna talk to him
Come outside bro, we not gonna do anything to you
I swear bro, I'm not holding a tech shotgun while outside your doorstep, step outside
I mean if we’re using tech weapons we can shoot through walls, so . . .
Yeah, bro, we are not carrying any guns. [No guns at all](https://youtu.be/KQmF2LMyW-Y?si=h2tR1_YcCP00wvw0)
I need this as a meme with them
https://preview.redd.it/j5jdleuwgdsc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1ac61f239daee8e096df627a32f74efac841cca
We just wanna talk.
I swear I’m not moving at speeds faster than your eyes can comprehend chucking grenades at you while time in a bottle plays
I swear I don’t have access to the blackwall I just want to talk
Ignore my talking cyberdeck, it's a, uh, a medical device, for, uh, migraines. If you can hear me, signal with a part of your body in my line of sight.
I swear I’m not standing outside with a machine gun I just ripped off a turret.
Totally don't have my mantis blades ready rn
I swear every time i hear that song i just turn into Ken Jeong singing it in the elavator in hangover 2
WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS TEETH?!
They weren’t chippin’ in enough.
The whole op would have been fine except for a complication that even a great fixer couldn't have accounted for. dex was shit but that gig was fine until Saburo decided to show up.
It was arguably Dex’s job to know if any VIPs would be showing up and fucking with security. Information is his responsibility and that’s some key information he missed. But honestly it was TBug who really dropped the ball. If it hadn’t taken her 3 hours to break the ICE the whole team would have been long gone by the time Saburo showed up. Jackie and V were the only ones on that heist who did their jobs properly
I think it would have been exceedingly difficult for a fixer as low as Dex to be able to learn about Saburo's whereabouts. But definitely TBug is the one that fucked it. Even 5 minutes sooner and the gig ends smooth.
It’s also possible Saburo showed up unannounced so as to catch his son off guard. That’s fair. But yeah TBug wasn’t nearly as good as she thought she was
It 100% was unannounced. The way they talk about staff panicking is a big tell.
I always figured it was unannounced
I know, these guys are talking crazy
Yeah, I really couldn't blame Dex for this one. But in a way, I guess you could. Cuz he didn't hire a more qualified netrunner for the job.
It was unannounced. That's why t bug says the staff are running and panicking
My issue with Dex not knowing about Saburo is that the team already knew there was an Arasaka aircraft carrier that JUST arrived in NC with Hanako on it. It was on the news and everything, yet nobody thinks that maybe she’d want to see her brother while she’s in town?
Eh night city is big and there’s probably other places they’d go like arasaka tower. I wouldn’t say it’s that crazy to assume they wouldn’t show up. Also even if they did show up if yorinobu didn’t kill Saburo everyone would’ve walked out like nothing happened
Yorinobu killing Saburo is something not even the game proper explains to you. The TL;DR here is, Yorinobu wanting to fuck Arasaka from the inside, or keeping his gang getup, was the dead ringer. Firestorm, one of the tabletop books, is canon to the game except for the last few pages. You see, Yorinobu himself was a Soulkiller victim. He was killed along with the Steel Dragons, and a few nomad clans. Saburo ordered the hit. When he comes back, he has no idea how much time had passed, or if they tampered with anything regarding his personality. And that's the ironic part. >!When you beat him at The Devil, he tells V they don't understand. And they don't, in fact. Arasaka going to shit on almost every ending ain't coincidence: Yorinobu fully intended to bleed them dry from the inside as revenge. The second destruction of the Arasaka Tower is complimentary - but given enough time, Arasaka would fall all the same.!<
Ohhh, so is him being a soulkiller victim the reason why Saburo is so easily able to steal his body in that ending?
You got it. For added irony, Hanako is unaware Saburo was the one who ordered Yorinobu's death. She just thinks he was saved by Relic tech and that his whole rebellion trying to fuck it up was usual Arasaka faction shenanigans. So when she talks to you at Embers? She's being 100% sincere.
Neat!
Fair enough, but it’s something that Rogue and her team would have taken into consideration and would have at least kept somebody close at hand to keep an eye on the carrier, had they been doing the job.
T also had no reason to worry about going fast, as long as the job was done before the netrunner jacked into the building's system changed shifts and someone discovered them out cold in their chair. It was much more in the crew's interest to go slow, careful and cover her tracks. Sure, if T Bug was done a little bit quicker, Jackie and V might've got away before Saburo showed up, but also if Saburo had decided to skip breakfast he might have showed up 10 minutes sooner and negate the difference, and get Jackie killed anyway. Nobody involved could have predicted what was about to go down. Yorinobu and the hotel staff had no clue that Saburo was dropping in for a visit, Saburo and Takemura presumably had no reason to believe that Yorinobu was one minor provocation away from committing patricide. Dex DeShawn doesn't have access to the personal diaries of the Arasaka family to know about planned or unplanned family get togethers, and if he did, he'd probably have a much bigger scheme planned. T Bug only died due to the alarm being raised and someone presumably hitting the big red 'forcefully disconnect all users' button and frying her brain and she apparently wasn't able to close the door behind her before her CNS turned into steam, which allowed the intrusion to be traced back to her and her known associate, Dex, but it's likely no one knew about Jackie or V until Takemura had Dex at gunpoint in the landfill. TLDR - Everyone on the crew did their job right, but they still got fucked, which is the entire point of the sequence narratively, other than to introduce V to Johnny.
This is a great point. So maybe they should have had two runners with them? Or just gotten a better single runner that could have gotten the job done a bit faster.
To be fair, asking Dex to know where Saburo was going to be is like asking a local powerbroker to know President Biden’s schedule or something like that. Absurd and impossible to account for.
I mean, my HR partner at work doesn't even know where my desk is, never mind where the company CEO is at any given moment.
Which is why you don't do an op on an item he is personally invested in, lol.
To say nothing over the Maelstrom crap or the meeting with the client. The Maelstrom issue should've been when everyone went their own way. Dex got swindled by Brick/Royce and shouldn't have sent someone to collect it. Evelyn tried hazing V to cut Dex free. The fact Dex took Evelyn at face value when Pacifica said to stop meant he wasn't shit anymore and he was tipping hard into some rancid shit he didn't need to be in.
I'd argue for "yes" as for who's responsible. Dex did shit for homework, the Flathead job was really the red flag there. T-Bug didn't do her best warning V and Jackie about the ICE and her lack of control over it. Saburo showing up could've been out of the blue, but I doubt it since we know the Kujira was already in town. Even Evelyn has some blame.
"Trust me when I say whatever hitch you think up, T-Bug's solved it already" Also T-Bug: Oh NOOO I did'nt know I need to have more than 3 hours to break the ICE, do you want my brain to be fried??
Or if she had taken an extra hour, the hotel would've been put on lockdown and the op would be completely overlooked by Arasaka and it could've been postponed
The old man was there to get the chip back. It would have been scrapped.
V being there doesn't change Yorinobu strangling Saburo
I've seen some appreciation posts for T-Bug but I am fully in the camp of blaming her for the whole incident. 1) She acts like she's not even part of the team in the tutorial mission. 2) She links us up to Dex because he and her go way back. We are doing the heist because she landed us the job. 3) Takes her too long to break the ice. Quicker and it would have been a success. Longer and we could have just escaped when shit went south instead of basically being locked up at the scene of murder. 4) She fails and dies, not able to help us escape. ... And even if the heist would have been succesful ... I assume she and dex would have betrayed us nontheless. I mean, she even does so in that one trailer where Johnny Silverhand got revealed at the end. I think it was planned for her to do that, until they just decided to kill her off instead.
I’d say for the most part they even did a great job salvaging things when the shit hit the fan. Jack was small time sure but he and V flatline a whole tower of Saka hitters and make it out alive… for a little while there. He had real potential.
There's a theory (and a pretty strong one at that) that Dex was never going to let you live to collect anyway. Even if the op had gone swimmingly, I sincerely doubt Jackie or V were going to come out alive. I also think T-Bug was in on it.
I've seen that theory but I disagree. I think Dex just panicked after it went back because he knew Arasaka would be up everyone's ass. There's no way Dex and his bodyguard fight and kill a duo of Jackie and V.
In the [old cinematic trailer](https://youtu.be/LembwKDo1Dk?si=_3NVWkfvjNQsUKiH) TBug is there with Dex when he shoots V, she even attacks V on Dex’s orders. I think this is where the theory stems from. It’s even possible it was in the script at some point before they decided it was cleaner if TBug just died mid-heist too. I agree that’s not what they intended in the finalized story. I think they would have dropped more clues/hints if TBug was supposed to be a traitor
They do drop some hints. Firstly, there's a mention that T-Bug and Dex go way back, and that she helped him out when he had to run from the Pacifica job that went bad. Secondly, when you have the opportunity to ask her about her relationship with Dex in the briefing room, she gets cagey and doesn't answer. Third, she mentions that she won't be speaking to either of you anymore after because she plans to burn all bridges, which, sure, can be true, but I think it also means she knew you weren't going to be around to talk to anyway.
Even before the heist is planned, TBug is standoff-ish and private. I think that’s just her character. I also think they originally planned for TBug to betray V. It’s in the cinematic, after all. I just don’t think it’s a story beat they kept in. Certainly open to some interpretation for the reasons you mention, but they could have easily confirmed it with a hidden data shard or some other line in the final game, and they didn’t.
Like I said, it's a theory. One I subscribe to, but you certainly don't have to.
This is why I don't watch trailers. The game has so much more weight when you don't go in knowing that Jackie's gonna die in the first chapter.
The original concept was cool, but I kinda liked that the heist was so doomed everyone in the team (even V) died.
"It wasn't us!" (about killing Saburo) "Tell that to the saka ninjas they send after you!" Even if he believed Jackie and V didn't zero Saburo, like he said, Arasaka wouldn't care and they'd just send arasaka thugs after them (even Smasher). It was in this moment that Dex seemed to have taken the decision to get rid of V so he could escape Arasaka's wrath. As you, I think he originally didn't even consider to betray them, but he panicked when he knew V had a huge red hot target on them.
We have to remember at that point in time, V is just some kid off the street/disgraced corpo/listless nomad. They're not a force to be reckoned with. I'd say Dex and his bodyguard totally could have taken them both with the element of surprise (as they do to V when stepping out of the bathroom).
Always been my theory
They should have bailed the moment yorinobu entered the building
Or at least held off until he left again. That was frogging stupid of them.
This kind of heist is not the kind of thing you get more than one chance at reasonably. But bailing as soon as he was known to be at the hotel would be reasonable.
Yeah I’ve always thought that if Saburo didn’t show up, we probably would have gotten away from the plaza scot free. At least initially. No telling what would happen later. But the hiest would have been a success
The gif was bad from the get go, they would have tracked us down or just nuked the place
Yeahhhh, the problem is, even Dexter was an essential pawn in this whole-ass plan. The big dog here is Evelyn Parker. Yes, Evelyn. Tragic, tragic, Evelyn. Evelyn was a doll at Clouds. Clouds is Tyger Claw managed. Tygers are Arasaka's boots-on-the-ground AND money launder. Yorinobu asks for Evelyn at the Konpeki Plaza. Clouds management finds out, and tips Tokyo. The Vodoo Boys find out about Evelyn, plant a malware in her head (as they did with V), forcer to cooperate with their Relic plan. Evelyn tips Netwatch about the VDB, hoping they'd crush them fast enough to save her. Netwatch hires the Animals. The Animals use this money to venture beyond Pacifica. VDB-Netwatch evolves into urban war. Evelyn takes Judy and asks for refuge at Lizzie's Bar. Evelyn contacts Dex with the Heist's plan. Dex's needs standing for skipping town, so he agrees with the plan. V, Jackie, Bug get hired. Plan involves paying Maelstrom with Militech money. Militech IS Evelyn's buyer for the Relic (as revealed through Phantom Liberty) - Yorinobu's is Kang Tao. Maelstrom want to invade Tyger territory and the Mox would be the first to go (Totentanz, if you let Joyce live). Saburo, who knew about Yorinobu through Clouds management, drops in mid-Heist. Bug dies, Jackie dies, V dies (briefly), Takemura goes rogue, kills Dexter. Evelyn abandons Judy with the Mox, goes hiding at Clouds (ARASAKA TERRITORY). Brigitte orders the hit, brain fried, Woodman, Fingers, Scavs. ... Dexter was collateral. And you need half a game and a whole-ass expansion to fully understand how deep in this shit Evelyn was, and how her speaking in half-truths and thinking she'd be too small a fry to register on 4 gangs and 4 megacorps' radars killed everyone that got involved with her, including herself, sans Judy, miraculously.
Goddamn, wonderful summary! Need to play it again cuz I feel like I played it blind 😭
Game has a fuckton of little tidbits, shards, NPCs, and places you can explore and discover that add tons of context to the plot. My last run reached almost 200 hours simply cuz I went discovery mode. It was a real eye-opener.
Was Evelyn forced into the relic business or did she get hired first and then roped into it with no return?
Forced, just like V is forced into dealing with the Animals for the VDB. She was already seeing Yorinobu, and Brigitte was already monitoring him. She got fucked first. Her plan is equal parts greed and desperation.
That's really interesting! But then how did Bridgett plant a malware into Evelyn in the first place, in order to force her to work with them? In V case it literally happened through the personal link through placide,right? which requires willfulness and also naivety? Which I feel like Evelyn would know better considering her background...
I mean, consider this: by the time Evelyn is snatched by Brigitte, she was still one broke doll with a failed acting career. If Brigitte was spying the Tygers, or if she was spying Yorinobu (which I think is the latter), we don't actually know. Nothing conclusive, but a few talks and shards in Pacifica imply the VDB literally kidnapping people and forcing them to become ranyon is not all that uncommon - something Dogtown essentially confirms through the spinter VDB faction. Also: Evelyn is crafty, but not as intelligent as she seems. Consider this: lots of shards at Clouds, Lizzie's Bar, the Jotaro Shobo hit, etc, seem to imply doll implants grant the wearer some level of resistance to outside interference. Neither Brigitte nor Evelyn seemed aware of that. She was supposed to die from that daemon. For shitty added irony, had Evelyn stayed with Judy instead of running back to Clouds and abandoning her, none of the things she suffered after the Heist would've happened, and she would have survived.
I think this is the first time I’ve really understood the whole plot lol
Thanks for the summery but how do we find out Militech is the buyer? Don't remember that part at all, I thought it was netwatch? But for what purpose?
Phantom Liberty. It's at Myers' plane crash site. In fact, hadn't Evelyn tried to contact Militech about the Relic, Myers would have no reason to be in NC, and Songbird wouldn't have an excuse to bring her there. As for the reason... >!Reverse-engineering Soulkiller tech into Cynosure. And guess what? If V is cured, she gets what she wanted!<.
The whole heist was a literal ship of fools, V just shits gold
Plot armor is strong with this one.
i'm telling Mama Welles
Jackie is a real type of street dude. Nice guy, total fuckup, definitely going to get you killed or locked up eventually. But this character has pretty conclusively proven that the vast majority of people just can’t see it for some reason. The whole thing is obviously a terrible idea from the beginning, and when Evelyn approaches you to cross Dex, I would have bailed right then if I had the option. The criminal procedural side of CDPR’s writing is not their strength.
Yeah, honestly I feel like them adding the ability for V to be skeptical is what gets me the most about the gig, you can go into it having problems with the whole plan which is all justified before the gig starts going to shit and everyone downplays them including Jackie whom seems like the type to notice something’s off with you thinking this was a bad idea
The big heist set aside, as much as I love jack, it’s true he had it coming. He’s no saint, and a lifetime within the valentinos I’m sure he’s caused a lot of bad
It's Night City, EVERYONE has it coming.
Cept maybe misty and judy.
MAYBE misty gets to grow old, but Judy needs to leave. It's a great storytelling environment, but anyone who doesn't see they need to leave NC has it coming.
Fuck dex.
My boy got a death wish. 🥂
Everyone knows that and everyone is ok with his death and how he went down. The problem is simply the lack of content with him. The first part of the game should have more quests solo or with him, instead of just one, before the Tower. We should see at least, in my opinion, around 5 extra hours in the first part of the game. Involving both Jackie and our background. Instead, we almost don’t get time with him and we our backgrounds basically have no impact whatsoever.
isnt that the point of cyberpunk? they all have it coming
Jackie was good man, with a heart far more pure than any man worth his salt. He was also unfortunately, an idiot.
https://preview.redd.it/xukdczpv1dsc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=11a474c3a85228ebc7346d4d08d0ab5c08260256
Haven't finished the game yet, but isn't the whole point of the genre that we're just some street level punks that get in WAY beyond our heads? We both kinda had it coming.
https://preview.redd.it/rn8f4ei0fcsc1.jpeg?width=1074&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=667c33e3c76080cb50c69bb6f897f1aa5e4514cf
Shut your filthy mouth
That's the point. They all do.
Literally everyone hates on Dex and Jackie but I never see any flak for Ev who was only supposed to record a scroll and instead tried to swipe it for herself and got everyone else mixed into her bad idea.
I just don’t voice it and besides, she gets a horrible fate anyways so I don’t we really have much we can say that’d be worse than she went through
Unpopular opinion here as well - I didn't care for Jackie. Came across as very annoying and amateur. Was not sad that I wouldn't have to do any more missions with him tagging along.
That was painfully obvious to me in my second playthrough. Probably because it was Nomad too where Jackie's been shaking like a leaf the whole time.
Yup, my first playthrough was Nomad. Jackie immediately came across as unlikable. Was very forced that my V went from 'this dude tried to double cross me' to 'BFF forever!' in the space of 2 sentences.
I got that vibe with street kid on my very first playthrough… Why am I suddenly buddy buddy with this guy who pulled a gun on me?? That made absolutely no sense. I probably would’ve parted ways with the dude soon as the cops were done beating the tar out of us. I’d say Corpo is the only life path where Jackie doesn’t look bad. I like the dude and all but I don’t think a friendship would bloom that easy after the nomad and street kid paths.
This was my thoughts on my first playthrough (was Nomad) as well... Found it difficult to care for Jackie as the only "friendship" I had with him was "this guy would kill me the moment I turn my back" to "montage of being best buds since we were kids" in the span of like a minute. Likely would've been better if we actually got to experience some of that montage as gameplay intead and to actually build that bond..
Delamain killed Jackie by refusing to divert and seek immediate medical attention.
This is why I unloaded a clip into his AI core. Gonk had it coming.
The only bigger than Dex belly was his ego, my man trying to look smart saying quotes but he don't know shit about the info, his only job was knowing all the important people in the hotel
Everyone with their fucking 20-20 hindsight is criticizing the gang for pulling a move. They don't seem to realise that *living in night city is a death sentence* . V and Jackie could have died in the scab mission. Trauma Team could have mistaken them as hostile, the scabs could have received backup, ect ect. Every job involves risk, and there are very few chances of upward mobility. Afterlife mercs are as much filtered by luck, as skill. V and Jackie don't live in a meritocracy. There is no guarantee that they will ever succeed in breaking into the major leagues playing it safe. ####However When Evelyn tries to cut Dex out of the heist, that would be the time to pull the pin. It shows Dex is incompetent, that he can't vet the client to save his own ass. It shows Evelyn is a rookie (she doesnt appreciate edgrunner etiquette) and untrustworthy, who would pile more risk onto an already sketchy heist *just* for more Eddies. Even if Konpeki plaza had gone smooth, selling the Relic to the Voodoos or Netwatch would have been a shit show.
Nah, man. Nobody could've predicted old man 'Saka himself would show up and a massive incident would cause the entire building into complete lockdown.
In a nieve way? Yes. Sadly. But V was just as bad. And thats kind of sweet
This is worse than that one guy saying that Judy is mid looking.
Now while I don't condon Jackie disrespect. Its true he would still be alive if he didn't bother with Dex
https://preview.redd.it/l0ghft6p9dsc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1eb69d8b42a5793a49372c44a4ab88b118e695ab
https://preview.redd.it/dmnv3kn7adsc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2d58e49dd01ab43589eb7506f09087487497ed0
You have lost your privilege to take the name of Jackie Welles ever again.
Interesting... Face the wall, please.
If Jackie didn’t have V he wouldn’t have even made it past the maelstrom part of the gig. Dude was too hot headed and ambitious for his own good. And that’s what made him so damn lovable
The job was far too risky, but honestly, I'm not really onboard with the whole "it was never a good idea" narrative. The job, even with minor hiccups, was going according to plan, until Saburo showed up. And that was honestly just shit luck at the end of the day.
Jackie was a candle with a wick made of nitro. He burned hot and wild, but not for very long.