The Betrayer

My CyberPunk adventures have been continuing (I'm probably about 80% done--just have to wrap up scanner jobs and gigs in City Center) and I've had to make some tough decisions for my male V.  In my ultimate quest to experience ALL the potential endings (but in a full playthrough), I made a few different choices this go-round.  Sadly, not all those decisions have felt...great.

The first new decision I made was to test out the Kerry option as a romantic partner for V.  I've always found Kerry to be a bit of an odd choice (I mentioned the age difference in my last post), but the actual relationship plays out fairly nicely.  You can opt to kiss Kerry after you complete the mission to meet up with him during a press event promoting his new collaboration with the band Us Cracks (you know, the Japanese girl group that he's initially trying to destroy).  One thing I've noticed that I haven't paid much attention to before--someone at CD Projekt must like freckles because both Kerry and Rogue have a smattering that isn't immediately obvious until you go in for a kiss.  Then, Kerry calls up V for his ultimate act of revenge on his hapless manager--sinking the poor man's luxury yacht.  It's during this mission that you get to experience the one sex scene and it's a bit of a doozy.  While the yacht is burning, Kerry and V engage in some passionate fun times before taking a naked dive off the sinking ship.  It kind of makes sense with Kerry's whole "rockerboy" vibe and it's definitely less weirdly awkward as the Panam tank sex scene.  Kerry will text V several times making silly, flirty jokes and you can also opt to hangout at one of V's apartments.  Overall, I think Kerry's romance is one of the better ones.

It's V and Nibbles, just chillin'.

(Spoilers for Phantom Liberty ahead--read on with caution)

I had only played through the Phantom Liberty DLC once prior to this, so I decided to try out a different option when it comes to the major fork in the storyline.  Basically everything comes down to choosing if you're going to help Songbird or help Reed.  Both characters have their own understandable motivations, so it's a tough choice.  My first go-round I decided to help Songbird but ultimately handed her over to Reed and the FIA (I wanted to experience the ending where V gets help from them).  This time I decided that I was going to side with Reed and capture Songbird during the mission where you impersonate the Cassel twins.  Reed gives V a device that should be able to disable Songbird while she's busy with liberating the neural matrix from the Cynosure device.  Things immediately go south...Songbird detects the attempt to disable her, is extremely pissed that V betrayed her trust, and goes berserk.  During the chaos of Songbird fleeing, Alex (who is impersonating Aurare Cassel) is killed by Hansen (the first big ugh).  V has to fight through a legion of Barghest goons while chasing Songbird through the stadium and then ultimately face off against Hansen.

After V dispatches Hansen, he meets up with Reed and they drive to a nearby overlook and try to track down Songbird.  It's here that they see something that isn't typically seen in Dogtown--MaxTac comes swooping down to capture Songbird.  Now, Reed and V are tasked with breaking Songbird out of MaxTac custody...and it's going to take some help from friends.  Reed tasks V with finding a netrunner who can hack into MaxTac's database and find out where Songbird is located while he goes off to find some allies who can potentially help with a firefight (you can choose to call up Mr. Hands and pay him $15000 for help or possibly find your own netrunner).

Once V has tracked down a friendly netrunner, they meet up with Reed to set up the ambush on the convoy carrying Songbird.  Reed has enlisted some help from 6th Street (Santo Domingo's local gang and apparently a group that is on the payroll of the FIA/NUSA...go figure) and you can plan out certain aspects of the attack.  The real combat involves attacking a convoy of cops and ultimately a team of MaxTac fighters.  The MaxTac crew is made up of four cybernetically enhanced super soldiers--there's a heavy type toting a big machine gun, a mantis blade wielding dude who jets all over the place, a netrunner who's trying to constantly hack you, and a sniper.  (*I opted not to play on the hardest difficulty this time around and was grateful for it in this particular scenario)  Luckily, you get Reed to help you out (he's got a sniper rifle and will basically attack whatever target you are), but it's a fairly tough combat scenario.

During the chaos of the end of the MaxTac fight, Reed is injured and while V is checking on him, Songbird manages to break free and flee in a vehicle.  V has to chase her down and finds that the truck has crashed into a hidden underground bunker.  This bunker turns out to be the very Cynosure project where the neural matrix was hidden away.  V then has to follow weird traces of the Blackwall left behind by Songbird as she flees through the facility.  This mission takes on a very...creepy, supernatural kind of feeling in a way that's not present in the rest of the game.  As V tracks Songbird he finds himself navigating through a hidden facility where Militech was experimenting with using rogue AI (similar to what Songbird does for the NUSA) as a potential weapon.  Things get even more intense when Songbird boots up a killer robot that periodically emerges to track down V (you can't attack or kill the robot and instead have to hide from it until it will eventually head off somewhere else--I've never played Alien: Isolation but I'm guessing that it's a very similar vibe--oddly unsettling and a bit scary).  You have to avoid the creepy robot and figure out how to disable the machinery to unlock the core of the facility where Songbird has hidden.  Once you've disabled the machinery, you reach Songbird and are greeted with a sequence of memories from her life.  You get to see her early netrunning days in Brooklyn and how everything unravels as she winds up in the clutches of the FIA--there's a lot of insight into her character and personality.  After that sequence plays out, V is faced with another very difficult decision--Songbird begs V to kill her.  She doesn't want to return to the FIA and be forced to continue being their handy Blackwall puncturing tool.  She begs V (it's tough....) and you can choose to kill her or hand her over to Reed.  I opted to hand her over (I intend to choose a different ending than last time that is dependent on Reed's help).  There's a sequence where you transport a barely conscious Songbird across the Night City/SoCal border to meet up with good ol' President Meyers.  Here, the Prez offers V a medal for their service (you can accept it or turn it down) and then flies off into the sunset on her AV.  Songbird is stabilized and placed on a helicopter to be transported to FIA headquarters for treatment/surgery.  Reed and V have a brief conversation about their choices (are they doing the right thing?) and then go their separate ways--Reed's offer to help V is still standing.

I found the mission to enter the Cynosure facility to be more exciting than the one where you save Songbird.  It's not extremely combat focused, so if fighting is your forte, I would opt to save her (you're looking at tons of combat against waves of enemies).  The departure from combat to creepy, scary, hidey game to be kind of fun (the whole sequence in the bunker is weirdly unsettling).  Making a decision about Songbird's ultimate fate is difficult.  In some ways she has been forced to become a tool of the NUSA/Rosalind Meyers/the FIA and she wants to be free.  In other ways, she went along with the whole thing and decided to take the extremely dangerous step of engaging with the rogue AI's of the Blackwall.  Betraying her felt very BAD though.  Next go round, I'm going to save her and help her escape from the FIA (it'll mean killing Reed though...which does suck).

Do I think that I picked the "happier" ending?  Nope, not really.  CD Projekt is very good at making sure that there is no truly "happy" ending and that there are always shades of grey.  The scenario I chose meant that Alex died, Songbird survives...but remains a part of the FIA, and Reed gets to live with his heavy conscience.