Many modern games have a character creator of some sort, allowing players to customize their appearance, sometimes in minute detail, and that's before they make it to the actual game, where they can acquire different outfits and similar. It helps players make their character feel like "theirs," and in third-person games, they can see their character before them. But in first-person games, it often begs the question of why bother customizing the character's face, if you never see it. In Cyberpunk 2077, the only time you're likely to see V's face, apart from the pause menu, is if you deliberately interact with a mirror.
And from there, my brain went further off down a rabbit hole of ideas about how you could make that meaningful in the Cyberpunk sequel.
This post is not about character customization, but goes into the ideas that came out of it. As this post will involve some manner of spoilers for CP2077, be warned of SPOILERS BELOW THE BREAK.
Developing The Idea
Step One
After Act 1 of CP2077, the main character, V, is implanted with a piece of prototype tech, which contains the memory engram of rebellious rockerboy Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves). The plot at that point becomes about V finding a way to get the chip out of their head before it kills them-- as the tech involved is integrating with V's brain, and Johnny's personality will more or less overwrite theirs. Throughout the game after the chip is implanted, Johnny will periodically manifest in V's vision-- explained as the chip interacting with V's optic implants-- to provide sardonic commentary, try to influence V's behavior, and pass judgment on everything. In the Phantom Liberty expansion, another person-- the hacker Songbird-- is able to remotely hack into V's cyberware to speak to them via their optical implants, appearing in their vision much the same way Johnny does.
As noted above, there's no real in-game way to see V's face apart from the pause menu or deliberate interaction with mirrors. So what if you use that "appear in your vision" mechanic to let the player see their character? Why would that happen to them, however?
Well, there's a condition in the world of Cyberpunk 2077 called "cyberpsychosis." In-universe, there's a host of reasons for it, and almost always means the individual suffering from it becomes violent, but in the tabletop RPG that inspired the game, there was a mechanic for it. The more cyberware (cybernetics) a player chose to implant into their character, the lower their "humanity" score became, and the lower their "empathy" score became, making it increasingly likely the character might break and become a cyberpsycho. In CP2077, there was a sidequest involving hunting cyberpsychos, neutralizing them (ideally non-lethally) so that they could get treatment, and so interested parties could search for a "cause" for the condition. (Even though in every case, there were a variety of stressors that led to the cyberpsycho snapping and going on a violent tear.)
So... what if the sequel's player character starts seeing a vision of themselves because they're going cyberpsycho?
Step Two
Okay, solid notion there. From there, I got to thinking how do they go cyberpsycho? Is there an inciting incident? What caused it?
From this point forward, I'll refer to this hypothetical player-character by the gender-neutral name Lex. Let's suppose that Lex has an actual medical condition that affects their neurological system. One that potentially makes installing any cyberware a risky venture, as the strain of the new tech integrated with their nervous system risks causing a system collapse and having a deleterious effect on their brain and mind. They're even warned this could lead into cyberpsychosis.
At some point in the narrative, possibly after a story event involving new tech being implanted into them, Lex starts to suffer from the cyberpsychosis, and it manifests with them "hearing voices," meant to be all those little impulses that any person has, now given a louder voice from Lex's fragmenting mind. And these Voices eventually start appearing in Lex's vision, similar to the way Johnny had, providing commentary on things. Perhaps to start with, these fragments look like Lex, but soon develop their own look and voice (to help them all stand out from one another, and reduce the load on the voice actors for Lex).
At least one of these voices is the one I refer to as Devil Lex or Devilex. Who does still maintain Lex's appearance, but could have their own voice, but perhaps Devilex does start wearing their own outfit somehow. Devilex is the proverbial "dark urge," being a little more align, a lot more hostile about things, and doesn't express the nicest things about Lex either. Devilex would be the more prevalent of the voices of Lex's cyberpsychosis.
To make the risk of cyberpsychosis a regular part of the game, I'd introduce a new meter in the HUD, near the health bar and RAM meter, which represents Lex's neuro-stability. Performing certain actions (random murder or destruction for one) starts depleting the stability meter. At certain threshholds, this would have certain effects. More visual and audio distortions to start with. At the next, maybe Lex starts hallucinating things that aren't there. And when the meter depletes, Lex enters a bout of cyberpsychosis, and random NPCs start turning hostile, things start going haywire around them, and they start getting an increasing wanted level. Even if these things are only imagined, it still actually effects them.
The meter would be divided into sections, perhaps 10 to start with, and there could be a medication of some kind that Lex could take to help stabilize them-- but this med needs to be hard to come by and expensive to start with. Taking the meds helps restore the meter to the next segment. Staying out of combat for a while, sleeping, these will also restore the meter.
Installing cyberware, meanwhile, has a new drawback, in that as you reach certain threshholds of cyberware, it permanently reduces your stability meter. So the risk of a cyberpsychosis attack gets stronger as you chrome up.
Step Three
It was at this point that my creative center started constructing a lot more about this hypothetical CP2077 sequel, in part by thinking on some flaws in the original game. For instance, Act 1 of CP2077 concludes with a long mission involving V pulling off a heist in the corpo luxury hotel at Konpeki Plaza, in the process of which two of V's crew end up dying: their hacker/netrunner T-Bug, and V's best friend Jackie Welles. I saw some criticism online that, for all that V and Jackie were best chooms, we barely had much interaction with him before the Konpeki Plaza Heist. The grand total of V's interactions with him prior to that was roughly four: V's Lifepath prologue, the opening mission of Act 1 where they rescue Sandra Dorsett, the mission where he sets up V's meeting with Dexter DeShawn, a phone call after meeting with Evelyn Parker, and the Maelstrom mission in the All Foods factory. The criticism was that it barely felt like Jackie mattered that much, and some had suggested there could have been more missions/gigs you could have done to establish the weight of his loss.
While trying to reconcile that notion with the ideas percolating around about Lex's cyberpsychosis risk, I eventually started working out the structure of a story around them.
My Sequel Story Idea
CP2077 had a three-act structure to its main story. Act 1 was all about the build up to the Konpeki Plaza Heist, with its main story missions being about gathering intel and materiel necessary. Act 2 dealt with the aftermath and was about V working with people to try to find a way to cure their condition/remove the Relic chip with Johnny so that they wouldn't die, culminating with infiltrating Arasaka's parade through Night City, to help their ally Takemura get aboard Arasaka exec Hanako's float, so he could speak with her. Act 3 was "Meet Hanako at Embers," starting with that meeting, and from which the player chose which endgame to pursue, based in part on their choices and which side questlines they may have followed through upon.
But this three-act structure feels a bit limiting for the story structure I want, and also include some of the necessary development of Lex's relationships. So I propose instead a five-act structure, which still more or less falls into the same arc of story.
While there's talk that the actual sequel may take players to other cities, I'm writing these ideas below with the assumption that the bulk of the game will still be in Night City.
Prologue & Act One
As with the first game, we'd open with a Prologue, dependent on what Lifepath the player selects for Lex. In the first game, these were Streetkid, Nomad, and Corpo. I don't know if you'd necessarily change that, or put in some new lifepath choices. In any case, there's a brief prologue mission that's Lifepath dependent, which just leads into however Lex got to Night City to set up Act One.
The basic structure of Act One is some tutorial stuff. Establishing the controls and mechanics of the game, and so on. Probably it's limited to one part of the City, but to make it distinct from the first game, I'd recommend it starts somewhere besides Watson, maybe Santo Domingo. We get some setting exposition, but primarily we meet the important NPCs in Lex's life.
It's in Act One also that the essential fact about Lex's neurological condition is brought up, to emphasize the risks of installing cyberware. This should be part of the first mission, so the new neuro-stability meter can be explained and introduced.
All those NPCs that Lex is meeting make up their core group of allies, and they're all tied to a fixer that Lex meets early in Act One, a professional in a suit who always wears sunglasses whom I'll just call Mr. Johnson (so I can shout out Shadowrun). Mr. Johnson has a high-risk, high-reward gig they want Lex to take part in, but first Lex needs to prove they can work well with The Crew (as I'll call the team Mr. Johnson's putting together for the gig). Some of the Crew are people Lex already knows, but the others are new to them.
What follows are the missions establishing the characters and relationships. These don't need to be super deep mission threads, but there should be a few jobs/missions with each of them so that both Lex and the player can form the necessary connection to them. Once all the Crew's missions are done, we move on to Act Two.
Act Two
Mr. Johnson meets with the Crew to explain the Heist. Unlike Dex from the first game-- who was almost certainly planning to betray V and Jackie (possibly T-Bug as well) after Konpeki Plaza, smoke them all, and collect the payment all for himself-- Mr. Johnson's upfront about the risks of the Heist, but also knows that each member of the Crew is likely to accept that risk for their own reasons, whether that's pure thrill, glory-chasing, or pure profit. Let's assume there's at least one of each archetype (Thrillseeker, Glory Hound, Profiteer) in the Crew, one each from the Act One missions, and at least one or two people that Lex knew ahead of time.
The specifics of the Heist are something I'm also iffy about, but one of the ideas I had was breaking into some secret corpo bunker, not unlike the Cynosure labs from Phantom Liberty. The Act Two missions involve the prepwork for the Heist. Gathering intel and scouting the location in some way, as well as acquiring materiel they'll need to pull it off.
And the finale of Act Two is the Heist itself. Things go fairly well up to a point, but just like in the first game-- where Konpeki Plaza goes wrong because of circumstances outside of V and Jackie's control when Saburo Arasaka shows up-- things go sideways for Lex's Crew because of outside factors they couldn't have prepared for. If we're going with a corpo lab notion, it could be something like the megacorp in question (let's assume it's Militech) has decided to liquidate the project for reasons unclear, and they're sending in their heavies to deal with it.
But as part of the whole process, Lex ends up grafting some experimental tech (let's call it the Black Box since what it is isn't clear) into their system, not necessarily willingly-- I picture the lead scientist (whom I'll call Dr. Proctor as a little shout-out to a Dean Koontz character) needing to make sure that their project survives the purge, forcibly implanting it in Lex, before setting them free. The Black Box doesn't do anything right away until after Lex and the surviving Crew escape the facility. Dr. Proctor's fate is left unclear.
Act Three
Part of Mr. Johnson's briefing before the Heist had been to scatter if anything went wrong. Go dark and lay low. Lex holes up in a safehouse (setting up the safehouse could even have been part of their Act Two prepwork) and it's while they're recuperating from the Heist that the Black Box starts affecting them and triggers their cyberpsychosis manifestations. The Voices (or at the very least Devilex) start appearing to them, and while Lex should stay inside for longer, the worry that if they don't do something soon, they'll completely lose their mind drives them to venture out to get their stability meds.
And this prompts perhaps a few quests as the Voices all try to get Lex to do certain things. The player can indulge these impulses if they want, and doing so may unlock more mission strands, but the main thing is about trying to touch base with the Crew, and then trying to locate Mr. Johnson. Lex also wants to know more about what the hell the Black Box is, not helped by the fact that Militech is trying to track down the Crew, if only to eliminate them as witnesses to what was going on in the facility.
Of the Voices quests, the only one that really ties into the main quest line is Devilex's, but as violently-inclined as they are, they're also vocally questioning everything that Lex does, often in the most judgmental way, ostensibly believing that anything which doesn't involve the darkest of impulses is a waste of time, but really digging into Lex's motivations for everything they do.
In the climax of Act Three, Lex manages to locate the information they need on the Black Box, by accessing a dead-drop left by Dr. Proctor. And this is where a major twist is thrown into the mix. The reason the Black Box project was getting liquidated was because it involved experiments with AI, specifically AI from beyond the Blackwall.
In the world of CP2077, the Old Net was rendered extremely hostile and dangerous thanks to the presence of rogue artificial intelligence, the only solution was partitioning it off by a separate AI known as the Blackwall, like one giant great firewall. The so-called "Blackwall AIs" (the aforementioned AIs prowling in the Old Net) are extremely dangerous and actively hostile toward humanity, but they're also potentially very powerful, and so the megacorps are frequently trying to find some way to tame them and exploit them.
The Black Box contained a fragment of one of these Blackwall AIs. Dr. Proctor's dead-drop-- which I could see having some kind of message built in, taking the form of his own "hallucination" like the Voices or Devilex. One that is programmed to respond to Lex's questions, like Dr. Lanning in 2004's I, Robot movie. It leads Lex to realize that Devilex isn't merely an aspect of their bubbling cyberpsychosis-- Devilex is very likely the Blackwall AI fragment itself.
This should recontextualize all of Lex's interactions with Devilex. The dark Voice's constant questioning of their motives for doing things could just be an inhuman AI trying to understand what drives humans. Its violent impulses are because of its hostility toward humanity, but one driven by its cold logical digestion of data-- it knows everything that humanity has done, how much humanity has done that has ruined the world, how humanity treats its fellow humans, every dark act in history-- and so its desire to inflict harm on people is because "humanity deserves it." But it also gives the player a chance, depending on their choices, to show Devilex there is more to humanity than their worst deeds. Through its connection to Lex, Devilex is exposed to actual emotion, something it is not sure how to process.
The realization of Devilex's true nature puts Lex on an ever more important deadline. Their cyberpsychosis is now that much more dangerous, and they need to get the Black Box removed from themselves before they spiral too much more out of control, before their mind splinters even further, and before Devilex can assume direct control.
Act Four
By this point, Lex knows they need to get help from any member of the Crew that's still alive. They tracked down some of them during Act Three, even though doing so put them at risk of being found by the corpo hit squads looking to silence any witnesses to the Black Box project. Some of the Crew don't want anything to do with Lex-- the Profiteer thinks the risk outweighs the potential reward, the Glory Hound suspects the entire story will be buried and they'll only be a footnote instead of a legend, and the Thrillseeker knows that some thrills just aren't worth it.
Lex also needs to track down Mr. Johnson, since it was his gig that got them into this mess in the first place. This much they're at least able to figure out, and they learn that Mr. Johnson is connected to the corpos himself. I could see this coming about as Lex eavesdrops on Mr. Johnson meeting with Militech's reps, seeing the man completely at ease despite the presence of Militech's heavies ready to smoke him, and speaking so forthrightly about their failure to secure the Black Box. It all comes across as Mr. Johnson being someone connected to Militech, one opposed to the scuttling of the Black Box Project, talking down the other Militech reps and having secured some support from their higher-ups.
This provokes some responses from the Crew. Mr. Johnson was either not being completely honest about the gig or had otherwise sold out. The Glory Hound and Thrillseeker both want some revenge, while the Profiteer is pissed off about how they're not getting a cut of all this. You could easily play it that the Profiteer-- the most likely to sell out themselves-- stays loyal to the Crew, while the Glory Hound buys in as well, in the hopes of getting better equipment and whatnot so they can build their legend. But the Crew's reactions to the treachery forms the backbone of Act Four.
Act Four also would focus on Lex and the Voices. They're not sure how much the Voices are just genuinely the result of their splintering mind from the cyberpsychosis, and how much they might be the Black Box AI trying to manipulate or break them. It's up to the player to determine how much they continue to indulge the Voices, but any mission strands here can be built in a way to try to temper them so they become a little less chaotic, to make them more manageable.
How much Devilex has been affected by the player's choices becomes key in Acts Four, because much like in the first game, the right "score" in Lex's relationship with it may determine what endgame paths are available by the time they get to the start of Act Five.
Act Five
As in the first game, the final act begins when the player goes to a meeting. In this case, Mr. Johnson makes Lex aware that he knows they're looking for him, and offers to meet with him at a safe, public location. Things get re-contextualized again here when Lex finally does meet with him. For the first time, Mr. Johnson removes his sunglasses, revealing his glowing Blue Eyes. He's not Mr. Blue Eyes-- an enigmatic figure only seen a handful of times in CP2077 and Phantom Liberty, but one with very mysterious motives and connections-- but the revelation of his own blue eyes establishes Mr. Johnson's connection to Blue Eyes.
Mr. Johnson is and is not Militech. He is embedded within Militech and is working with them to a degree, but is pursuing his own agenda in accordance with the Blue Eyes conspiracy, which has to do with the Blackwall AIs. The Blue Eyes are all too aware that the Blackwall itself is likely to fail, and when it does, the AIs contained by it are going to be a major problem. The Blue Eyes conspiracy is trying to find a solution, but not by exploiting the Blackwall AIs, as the corpos want to do, but by tempering them, finding some way get their more rapacious and violent tendencies under control.
Mr. Johnson explains, "We've had some successes, but not nearly enough and not nearly fast enough." The Act Two Heist's goal wasn't for Lex to get implanted with the Black Box-- it was always the intent to get it out of the lab and somewhere safe until the project could resume in some other capacity-- but it may work out to their benefit. Lex's interactions with the Black Box AI/Devilex (and to a lesser extent, the Voices) could provide useful data to the Blue Eyes. However, the tech necessary to more safely remove the Black Box is still in Militech's hands, and for all that Mr. Johnson is embedded in the megacorp, he doesn't have and can't get access to it, but he can point Lex and the Crew to it. The tech is in another Militech bunker lab, very similar to Cynosure-- perhaps even still in Cynosure-- and as such is another high-risk job.
Endings
After the meeting with Mr. Johnson comes the choice by the player, as to which ending to pursue. Similar to the first game, there should be different options available, none of which is necessarily a "golden" one, along with at least one hidden ending dependent on how much positive influence Lex has had on Devilex, and possibly also with the other Voices.
I'm not going to go too much into the specifics of the choices or anything, just giving a suggestion about the end results. The main factors involve a final choice at the climax of the Final Raid. This will entail whether Lex chooses to keep the Black Box installed and what they choose to do with the data from the Black Box.
Synthesis: Choosing to upload the data past the Blackwall, Lex manages to temper the Voices' impulses and effectively reintegrate them into their psyche. Their neurological stability will never make a full recovery, their cyberpsychosis is kept to a manageable level, but they probably won't live too much longer, more than a few years at best, after the strain they took with the Black Box's integration. The data from Lex's attempts to show there's more to humanity than their worst deeds and impulses may have some effect on the Blackwall AIs, to show that there is a chance of living alongside humanity, but it will still take work.
A variant of this ending can happen if Lex chooses to have the Black Box removed. Reintegrating the Voices before removing the Black Box keeps their psyche more intact, even though removing it will drastically shorten their life. Lex's projected life span goes from years to months. Their psyche won't fall apart and cause their cyberpsychosis to erupt, but their neurological system will eventually collapse completely. Mr. Johnson keeps up his end of the bargain and makes sure Lex gets treatment to ease their final days.
Broken Psyche: Choosing upload the data past the Blackwall, Lex doesn't have the Voices under control, and so they all more or less follow along with Devilex's leadership. The data upload to the Blackwall AIs doesn't have the same effect, as they remain largely hostile and incompatible with humanity. Lex's cyberpsychosis doesn't get better, but Mr. Johnson makes sure they get as good a treatment as they can get for the remaining months they have to live before their psyche degenerates completely.
If Lex does this and then chooses to have the Black Box removed, they suffer a severe neurological collapse, as without the Voices' cooperation to keep them stable, they aren't there to shoulder some of the load to the system. Lex goes out in a few hours as their psyche degenerates, cannibalizing itself.
I'm aware this feels like the weakest of the endings, but that should be the point. Without taking care of themselves (by dealing with their own issues), they aren't in the right place to be able to take care of others.
Sellout: Choosing to upload the data to a corpo datavault, Lex sells out to Militech. This ending would require some work in the writing to make it seem like a viable choice, not unlike the first game presenting working with Hanako as a reasonable choice, through a combination of witnessing Yorinobu murder his father, presented out of context as a sign that he was unstable, a generally professional and respectful relationship between V and Takemura, and Hanako's polite demeanor at Embers. The truth was in that ending, it enabled Saburo to effectively live forever by using the Relic technology to take over his son's body, and revealed that Yorinobu had been intending to sabotage Arasaka from within. Some similar storytelling would be necessary in order to make this Sellout ending feel palatable and valid, even if the turnaround isn't revealed until after the choice is made. One way to do this would be to have Lex rationalize it with wanting to secure the Crew's safety, maybe even implying that they don't trust Mr. Johnson or the Blue Eyes to have humanity's best interests in mind. Lex would probably justify it as "the lesser of two evils." Bad as Militech might be, they're a known quantity, and the Blackwall AIs are not.
How the Voices and Devilex take this depends on their relationship to Lex. Tempered Voices are disappointed but understand that Lex thinks they're making the best choice possible. Devilex is angry, no matter what, promising to tear Lex's psyche to shreds. And here's where the Voices side-quests would kick in. If Lex got the Voices on side, they work to restrain Devilex and keep it from doing too much damage. Militech holds up their end of the bargain, getting Lex treatment for their neurological condition, but their psyche is still irrevocably damaged due to Devilex's rampage.
If Lex didn't get the Voices on side, they join in with Devilex's rampage, driving Lex into full-blown, irretrievable cyberpsychosis. Militech ends up having to put them down, leading to a big final combat segment, as Lex fights off waves of Militech soldiers, drones, and heavies, until finally their body burns out from the strain and they're put down.
What Lex does regarding the Black Box itself is irrelevant in this path, as by giving themselves over to Militech, they surrender the choice.
Devil In Me: Instead of tempering Devilex and the Voices, if Lex indulges their impulses and sways more toward their advice and influence, they can cause a much darker ending.
The choice of where to upload the data doesn't matter in this path. By following along with Devilex's impulses, Lex uploads it into Militech's systems. Not the datavault, but their systems writ large. Unleashing the violent, chaotic, and destructive power of a Blackwall AI into the megacorp's network, and thence into Night City as a whole, it causes widespread devastation. Similar to the Sellout ending's standoff against Militech's forces, Lex faces off against waves of enemies as they try to get further past Militech's firewalls so they can help Devilex launch an assault on the Blackwall itself.
I don't know whether they should be entirely successful, but it does damage the Blackwall, making it more likely the AIs beyond it will break through and tear it down in the future. It is meant to be the darkest one, with no optimistic side to it. The player chose to indulge their worst impulses, and there are consequences for that.
Conclusion
There we go. It's only the structure of the story, there's not a ton of specifics, and I leave out a lot concerning side-quests, merc gigs, and other content that the player could indulge, but it was an intentional choice, as otherwise I'd be world-building for weeks.
There are other twists you could filter in there if desired. I had a mental image of some NPC that Lex had been interacting with through some of the content turning out to be a complete hallucination, another aspect of their cyberpsychosis manifesting. I couldn't latch onto a specific way to make this work in the short turnaround I was aiming for to write this much, so I left it out.
Cyberpunk 2077 heavily implied that a sequel would focus heavily on the Blackwall and the AIs, between their implied involvement in the Peralez side-quest, the VooDoo Boys' attempts to breach the Blackwall, and everything surrounding Songbird in Phantom Liberty. And my brain took an idle thought about "why spend time customizing your character's face in a first-person game" and just came up with a way to make it meaningful/useful, and from there it spiraled into a skeleton of a story.
Gotta love the way my crazy brain works.
No comments:
Post a Comment