Cyberpunk asks us if it's possible to resist the soul crushing power of corporations. Johnny Silverhand faces down BPR in an epic duel. You won't wanna miss this video essay.
I have an opposing persective to offer; Cyberpunk isnt just about Johnny's progression, but V's decline. The DLC demonatrates a character who has done horrible things to save herself. The story of Cyberpunk, especially as a corpo, is a story of V's life falling apart before him, losing his job, his cybernetics, his liveliehood, and eventually his best friend. V loses everuthing, and, assuming they do the minimum to get The Devil, has no choice but to crawl back to Arasaka, ironically becoming most like the jerk that Silverhand used to be. He even meets the same fate.
And I see it completely different. I'm a main corpo V player (meaning that I always choose corpo V, my favorite life path) and I think that the SoMi is a mirror to V's fate. SoMi is in a very similar position as corpo V: player by a corporation, used as a tool, traumatized and facing death. What SoMi does is trying everything, doesn't matter who she's hurting, to save herself. As Pondsmith says: Cyberpunk is about saving yourself. But saving yourself doesn't mean, in my opinion, *just* saving your life. It's about saving your *soul* (Pondsmith really leans into the perspective of soul in his universe. Not going through the specifics of what soul really is, but rather using it as something to make us human despite every cybernetic enhancement, technological advance and dystopic futurism). SoMi might save her life by playing V, assuming V saves her anyway (meaning siding with her all the way to the end), but she lost her soul. V, on the other hand, can betray SoMi, realising she thinks, as V says to Johnny himself, that the ends justify the means, and at the last segment of the game, given SoMi's redemption and realization, V let Songbird die. This is arguably the worst ending since Alex gets killed, you don't get to use the neural matrix and Songbird dies, but is the ONLY ending where Reed (from what I remember) understands that he was wrong, that SoMi gets her redemption (she admits she lost control, did many bad things and is truly sorry) and the NUSA can't poke wholes on the blackwall at least for now. But you can only do it if you, as a player, understand that saving yourself doesn't mean just saving your life, otherwise you will either side with the NUSA till the end or with SoMi. You want someone to just live, but can't see beyond that narrative of "who's more oppressed" when, in reality, everyone is equally fucked, got equally played and no one has the right to go in a goddamn psychotic run just to save their lives or jobs. No end justifies the means (in this case). Johnny says in one of the endings "don't let anyone change who you are", re-enforcing again that it's not just about SAVING YOUR LIFE, but saving WHO YOU ARE. And WHO YOU ARE? You are your opinions, values, personal preferences. In other words, you are your *SOUL* . If you can get this message while playing, then V don't get a downfall. V matures, becomes a better person rather than just a petty merc who wants to become a legend or a unfortunate merc who was in the wrong place in the wrong time.
HENRY BACK WITH ANOTHER VIDEO THIS VIDEO WILL CHANGE NATIONS AND CREATE A NEW TIME I LOVE THIS GAME AND VIDEO SHOUTOUT HENRY WITH ANOTHER BANGING VIDEO LFG THIS IS EPIC
