Cyberpunk 2077 is "no place for happy endings", says the writer of Judy Alvarez storyline

rockpapershotgun.com:

Cyberpunk 2077 has several endings and the recent Phantom Liberty expansion added more. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that none of these endings are uncomplicated.

"I know that some players were disappointed that we didn’t add a 'good' ending when Phantom Liberty was released," says CD Projekt Red senior writer Magda Zych in a new interview. But Cyberpunk 2077 is "no place for happy endings."

Zych made the comment when asked about Phantom Liberty's "decidedly bleak" potential ending.

"The thing is, Cyberpunk 2077 is a noir game and in this genre there is no place for happy endings by definition. Is anyone complaining that Casablanca ends badly? These are the genre rules," says Zych. "We have always strived for immersion and for our games to give the greatest possible illusion of reality, and as we know, not every real story always has a happy ending, we also know that every human life ends in death. V has still more variation in this regard; also for V everything simply happens in a more intensified way (which is also how things go in cyberpunk as a genre) and over a shorter period of time. But in my opinion, just because the story ends in a bleak way doesn’t mean it’s not worth experiencing. I’d say the opposite — it hits you harder because it rings true."

I'm a big fan of any game developer interview that mentions "every human life ends in death." Not a lot of producers at EA drop that into their conversations with press.

I loved Phantom Liberty's new and bleak ending, which isn't simply heartbreaking but is also, in its way, hopeful. I'm still thinking about it.

Zych was also asked about what she learned from working on the game and spoke about writing the character of Judy Alvarez.

"At one point while