Important decisions can determine the outcome of stories and the fates of characters in video games, just like in Cyberpunk 2077. There, MeinMMO editor Caro tested the consequences of a decision she previously would have condemned deeply – and has to admit that she must retract her statement.
Spoiler Warning! The article discusses the ending of the DLC for Cyberpunk “Phantom Liberty”. Anyone who already knows the ending or has no problems with spoilers can read on without hesitation.
So far, I have already played Phantom Liberty twice. During my current and third playthrough, it was the weekend when an important decision had to be made. A decision that seems to determine life and death for allied characters as well as for V.
You either ally with Song So Mi, known as Songbird, or you help Solomon Reed and the FIA capture the netrunner and stop the threat she harbors due to her connection to the dangerous Blackwall.
For me, only the former has always been an option. The parallels between Song and V are so similar that it felt like a betrayal of V itself and a surrender of one’s own moral conviction to hand Songbird over to the FIA.
Whoever dared to betray So Mi and try to arrest her was deeply condemned by me, as I have already explained in my list of the worst decisions in Cyberpunk 2077.
However, since I wanted to know purely out of curiosity how the other path of the grand DLC finale looks, I decided with a backup save to become a traitor. I aligned myself with Reed and played the path I would never have chosen with a clear conscience.
After the additional hours in the game, I must unfortunately admit … I did not use the old save anymore. I stuck to my decision. And that only because my V and I have a weakness for cool weapons.
Instead of a clear conscience and life-saving help, I received something much cooler
If you betray Song, you get a completely different endgame of the DLC than if you side with her. Instead of helping her escape to the moon, you must follow a corrupted So Mi into a deep bunker, where she connects with a wild AI of the Blackwall.
While V is pursued by a Militech “Cerberus” controlled by this AI, I came across two items in the facility that you can combine with the remains of the nasty hunter to create one of two special items. And in this way, I stumbled upon my new absolute favorite weapon in the game: the Power SMG “Erebus”.
Erebus is an experimental prototype weapon that caters to all my Tech-Warlock fantasies. It houses an AI from beyond the Blackwall that even regularly speaks and possesses an eye that blinks and moves.
I equipped the weapon to test it once, ready to reload my old save to save Song, but then within minutes I realized with Erebus: This is love at first sight.
Erebus turns V from a mercenary into a dark tech sorceress with a pact weapon
Erebus is not only a powerful weapon. What really makes the Power SMG great, besides its damage, is simply its vibe.
When an enemy is brought below 33% health by Erebus, it sends the Quickhack “Blackwall Gateway” through their synapses. Enemies are completely fried by the AI, screaming as if they are possessed by a demonic entity, after which Erebus almost boredly comments on how fragile humanity is and that it is absolutely effortless to eliminate them.
I tested the weapon – as it should be – on a group of Scavengers, one of the worst gangs in the city, who deserve it. Erebus made the exploiters collapse, while the Blackwall AI from the weapon sent the culprits writhing into cyber-hell. When my weapon commented on that with “That was depressingly easy,” I knew we would grow into a dream team.
In this clip, you can see what it feels like to fight with Erebus:
Erebus gives V a new, much darker vibe that really appeals. Yes, I still condemn myself for not saving Songbird. I wish I would regret it. But I do not. Erebus and V together are just an absolute force.
Based on Erebus and the level design in Cyberpunk 2077, I realized that opinions can change. Whether I will save So Mi in future playthroughs or not will probably be a significantly tougher decision than I felt in my first playthroughs. However, what I am still a hundred percent sure about is my opinion of an NPC that gave me one of the most uncomfortable moments in gaming: In Cyberpunk 2077, a player feels pity for an NPC, discovering for themselves why he is disliked by the community
