Recommended Game Story · Cyberpunk 2077 Part 12
Chapters in this story
Spoiler Alert: This is a commentary series covering major events, companion stories, branches, and endings of the main game and Phantom Liberty. Each ending is the result of different choices and does not happen all at once. It does not transcribe original dialogue or reenact every scene. Unstated inner thoughts are distinguished as interpretation. AI illustrations are symbolic reconstructions, and V's appearance, gender, and relationships vary depending on the playthrough.
Chapter 1 · The reason for choosing Hanako's help
From here, we read the alternative endings of the main game separately. The path of seeking help from Hanako is not an event that follows other endings. On the rooftop after meeting Embers, V chooses the option they can handle. The available paths also vary depending on whether the missions of the companions who will provide help have been completed. Not all options are open from the beginning in every playthrough.
V's heart in choosing Arasaka cannot be explained simply by saying they like the corporation. They may believe that the company possesses the technology and facilities to actually understand their diseased body. They may not want to drag their friends into a dangerous attack. In a situation where their own life is at stake, the psychology of relying on the most professional-looking institution is understandable. This understanding does not turn the contract into a safe one. The fewer options a desperate person has, the heavier the conditions presented by the other party become.
Hanako's plan is linked to the restoration of the family's power. Saburo's engram appears, and the composition surrounding Yorinobu also moves away from a simple story of a good father and an evil son. One must look at Yorinobu's anti-Arasaka intentions and the father's desire for dominance together. If you examine who used V and who gained more power, you are led to ask whose justice the expression 'restoring justice within the corporation' refers to.
Whether Oda and Takemura survive affects the appearance and dialogue of this path. It is meaningful that the choice to save people returns to the scene, but that does not make the institution of Arasaka good. The emotion of trusting an individual who helped and the judgment of trusting the contract of the organization that individual belongs to can be different until the end. V's personal debt is not a debt that must be repaid infinitely to the corporation.
Chapter 2 · Survival questioned again before the contract
The Relic is removed, but the changes V's body has already undergone are not simply reversed. The examinations and isolation in the space medical facility make V appear more helpless than in battle. They become not a victorious soldier or a famous mercenary, but a patient waiting for test results. The fact that professional procedures continue coldly reveals that it does not mean the patient controls their own future.
Even within the Devil ending, V chooses again. They can return to Earth to live the remaining time in their own body, or accept a contract to be preserved as an engram through the Secure Your Soul program. Preservation is not a happy immortality guaranteed with a proper body and a restored future. It is entrusting one's existence to the contract and the control of the corporation. Refusal is not an ending where the illness disappears, but it can be read as a meaning to live the uncertain time as one's own life.
The horror of this ending does not lie only in the fact that the surgery was a sham. Even if part of the promise is technically fulfilled, the entire life the person wanted may not return. Arasaka uses V's crisis as an opportunity to restore the power it wanted, and Saburo returns through Yorinobu's body. V's story of trying to reclaim their own body is contrasted with the return of a powerful person who takes over another's body.
Nevertheless, mocking players who chose this path makes the work's questions too easy. What would you do when the party that seems capable of providing certain help is the very organization that created the problem? The closer the end, the more dangerous promises sound like hope. The Devil traps and shows the imbalance between that desperation and the power of the contract in the narrowest and cleanest room.
Data and Writing Guide
This is an original commentary and critique written by the TroubleMaker operations team, referencing public data and with the help of AI. Official introductions and visual materials are from the developer, and the separately marked walkthroughs are community data comparing events and branches. This is not a full reproduction of all dialogue, quests, or choices, and the content distinguished as interpretation in the text is not a definitive explanation of official lore.
Data verification date: 2026-10-17.
CD PROJEKT RED official work introduction
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