The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
I just finished my CP2077 (first) play-thru. I had no fore-knowledge of game or outcomes. When I play RPGs, I abide by a strict “choices matter - there are no mulligans”, in that I won’t fish reloaded saves for “better” outcomes. If I make a bad choice, I live with it.
About a week before I finished, I was having dinner with some friends who had played it already and they were probing me to see how I think the game would end. I said, matter of factly, “Oh, I think my V is doomed, like Arthur [RDR2] was doomed.”
And if there was a magic happy ending in Phantom Liberty, as there seemed there might be because Sol pointedly asked V twice “Are you sure you don’t want it?”, my V had given it to Songbird.
When I came to the pinch at climax where Jonny presents you with your options and you have to pick what to do, I probably sat on that dialog wheel for 15 minutes. I’d vacillate between the options presented and listen and watch carefully how Jonny reacted and think things through. I had played a V who was never comfortable with the loss of his autonomy and desired, more than anything, to live his own life his own way. This V was also sort of a mensch, too, inclined to empathy and sympathy. He had pity for Jonny’s situation. After much contemplation, V reached out to Panam - I would say almost desperately as it seemed the only path that really gave V any hope - and events ensued and they arrived at what I called “The Sunset Ending” (which I considered a great success).
I felt I had arrived at a very satisfactory conclusion for this V and I really have no desire (in a good way!) to play CP more - the story was over, if bittersweet.
The feeling of completeness matched reaching the Sunrise Ending in RDR2, which kinda devastated me.
Yeah the story was bittersweet I would say in a good way.
I played the game at a moment not long after I had lost a close family member, so perhaps that skewed my perception of it.
I have played the game since, but I stopped before the ending!