Plenty can be said about Cyberpunk 2077's performance on older hardware and all of the other issues this game struggled with at launch, but even the staunchest critics of CDPR's most ambitious project to date have to admit that Cyberpunk is full of great dialogues and thought-provokingplotlines thatmore than justify the Polish studio'sreputation as one of the industry's leaders when it comes to creating narrative-focused games.
RELATED: Cyberpunk 2077: 10 Rogue Amendiares Facts Most Fans Didn't Know
Some of the very best writing in Cyberpunk 2077 is related to V's romantic pursuits in Night City. Nearly all of them are presented as side quests, but one of them is completely different from all of the other ones. This is because it revolves around the love story of Johnny Silverhand and Rogue Amendiares, an over 60-year-old affair. Due to V and Johnny's unusual predicament, this plotline was bound to be exceptionally complicated, but for the most part, the writers handled it very well. Nonetheless, there were some aspects of this love story that left fans scratching their heads in confusion.
Johnny's situation is obviously unique, and given the fact that his engram is stuck in V's body, it makes it easy to forget his actual age, but it's worth keeping in mind that when Cyberpunk's main story is taking place, Johnny Silverhand is 88 years old!
Now, Rogue lived through the majority of the 21st century as a regular human (albeit aided bycyberware). Her exact age is not revealed in the game, but it is safe to assume that she is around Johnny's age, turning the "Blistering Love" side quest into a love story of two elderly people. While there's nothing wrong with that per se,the writers didn't explore that concept deeply enough,making Johnny and Rogue's dialogue and interactions feel a bit out of place.
All of the other romance options in Cyberpunk 2077 have some specific requirements for V's voice and body type in order for players to be able to romantically engage with certain characters. For example, in order to romance Panam, players need to be a male V, and to woo Judy, they need to play as a woman. It makes sense. After all, people in the real world have different sexual orientations and don't just choose to get involved with whoever crosses their path.
RELATED: Cyberpunk 2077: 10 Best PC Mods So Far
When romancing Rogue, the question of V's gender and voice is non-existent, though. Sure, it is not V who Rogue is romancing, but still, it's difficult to believe that she could look past hersexuality just because of Johnny's personality.
The first job that Johnny and Rogue go on together is a raid on Arasaka tower to rescue Alt Cunningham from the corpos. They fail toreach her in time, andwhen they finally get to where she was being held, all Johnny finds is his lover's lifeless body. Thompson, the accompanying reporter continued to film Silverhand coming to terms with Alt's death.
In true Johnny Silverhand fashion, he erupts in a fit of uncontrollable anger and begins to brutally beat Thompson up. If not for Rogue stopping him, he would have surely killed the unfortunate reporter. Having seen how much Alt meant to Johnny and how emotionally unstable he can be, Rogue maintaining her feelings for the rockstarseems questionable, to say the least.
Before she found out about the fact that an engram with Johnny Silverhand's personality is embedded in V's head, the main character ofCyberpunk 2077and Rogue Amendiares have enjoyed a fruitful business relationship.
Although the revelation of Johnny's engram may have led to Rogue perceiving V a lot differently, the game does not go into enough detail when it comes to juxtaposing V and Rogue's fixer-merc dynamic with her and Johnny's love story, which in turn makes this whole plotline lose out on some interesting depth.
InCyberpunk 2077,players witnessRogue risking her life for Johnnythree times. Depending on their choices in the last quest, she may end up sacrificing herself for her ex-lover. Love makes us all do crazy things, buteven love has its limits.After Johnny cheated on her (multiple times) and recklessly steered off-course of the plan during the Arasaka tower bombing in 2023, Rogue still pulled through for him fifty years later.
It doesn't really make sense for a strong, independent person such as Rogue to be so forgiving and forgetful to someone who's failed and hurt her so many times.
Aside from cheating on her multiple times, and recklessly putting her life in danger, there is another thing that should make Rogue reconsider her feelings and abandon all hope for a potential future relationship with Johnny -- his love for Alt Cunningham.
RELATED: Cyberpunk 2077: 10 Alt Cunningham Facts Most Fans Didn't Know
The brilliant netrunner was Silverhand's next major relationship after Rogue, and quite frankly, it seems like he cared for Alt much more than he ever did for the Queen of the Afterlife, as seen in the "Never Fade Away" main quest. As a mature, older woman, Rogue should know better than to pursue a relationship with Johnny, knowing that he'll never love her as much as he loved Cunningham.
There seems to be some inconsistency regarding when exactly Johnny and Rogue have met. The timeline of events inCyberpunk 2077'suniverse suggests some time between 2010 and 2013, after Amendiares's arrival to Night City.
However, during their date in "Blistering Love", Johnny says that they met in 2015, which would make no sense, given how just a few quests before ("Never Fade Away"), he teamed up with Rogue to break Alt out of Arasaka tower. It is probably a mistake overlooked by the writers, but it's yet another thing that doesn't add up when it comes to Johnny and Rogue's relationship.
By the time the "Blistering Love" side quest rolls around,players will have had plenty of chances to get familiar with how the Relic works and how the two personalities in V's brain compete for control. Whenever one is in charge of V's body, the other one doesn't have any influence on their actions, but can still see, hear, and be aware of what is going on around them.
This means that during Johnny and Rogue's date, V saw and heard everything. Maybe it's why Rogue cut the date short as they were about to have sex. Still, the entire sequence did not make much sense in the context of V and Johnny's predicament.
Even if Rogue could honestly look past the discrepancies between Johnny's personality and V's looks, there is one thing that should make her rethink her relationship with Johnny.
RELATED: 5 Cyberpunk Games To Play After Cyberpunk 2077
After he died in 2023, Arasaka used Soulkiller to transfer Johnny's engram onto the Relic. The game's lore explains Soulkiller and what it does pretty well -- it destroys the initial personality, or "soul", and creates an exact digital copy of it. It means that even though the engram talked, behaved, and had the same memories as Silverhand, it wasn't really him. As the most experienced fixer in Night City, Rogue was probably aware of this,renderingher relationship with Johnny's engram quite meaningless.
Rogue Almendiares was nothing but loving and helpful to Johnny Silverhand all throughout the story ofCyberpunk 2077,even though she had more than one reason to reject him altogether and stop associating herself with the fallen rockstar. He cheated on her, never appreciated her help, and realized his mistakes when it was far too late to do anything about it. On top of all that, he shamelessly asked her to accompany him on a suicide mission to Arasaka tower at the end of the game, which resulted in her death at the hands of Adam Smasher.
Many things didn't make sense about Rogue and Johnny's relationship, but the most jarring one of them all was the fact that Silverhand never deserved Rogue's love in the first place.
NEXT: 10 Continuity Errors & Dropped Storylines In Cyberpunk 2077
Next Skyrim: All Joinable Factions, Ranked From Worst To Best
Maciej Grzymkowski is a writer based in Warsaw, Poland. Aside from being a list writer for Game Rant, he is an experienced copywriter at one of the leading digital marketing agencies in the UK. He's got a soft spot in his heart for sprawling open-world RPGs and over-the-top, convoluted storylines in games, which doesn't mean that he doesn't appreciate a little indie charm every now and then.
See the rest here:
- Cities Skylines 2 goes full Cyberpunk 2077 in stunning new city building game coming to Steam - PCGamesN - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Cyberpunk 2077 Player Finds Hidden Message in the Game - GameRant - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Dystopika is a chill city-builder where you can create the cyberpunk cityscape of your dreams - Gamesradar - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Make the Night City of your dreams with this cyberpunk city sandbox builder - Rock Paper Shotgun - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Metallic Rouge is a cyberpunk mystery worth unraveling - Polygon - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Cyberpunk devs promise new patch to sort out most common remaining issues - ReadWrite - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- New Cyberpunk 2077 Patch Inbound; Will Fix Finisher Animations and More Reported Issues - Wccftech - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Hidden Cyberpunk 2077 Detail May Reveal The Location Of Cyberpunk 2 (Orion) - Screen Rant - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Ruiner devs reportedly lay off over half of studio behind cyberpunk shooter - Rock Paper Shotgun - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Cyberpunk 2077 sequel is in the "conceptual phase," but might ramp up production this year as its devs consider ... - Gamesradar - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Cyberpunk 2077 publisher giving away one of gaming's most controversial titles free - GAMINGbible - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Palworld Has Huge Weekend, Sells 5 Million and Overtakes Cyberpunk 2077 in Steams Most-Played Games List - IGN - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- CD Projekt Red Is "Considering" Multiplayer In Cyberpunk 2077 Sequel - TheGamer - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Palworld beats Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 with an all-time peak player count of more than 1.8 million - PC Gamer - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Cyberpunk 2077 collides with Assassin's Creed in slick new action game - GAMINGbible - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- CD Projekt latest: next Cyberpunk game might have multiplayer, Witcher 4 enters "production phase" - Rock Paper Shotgun - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Witcher 4 could enter production this year, multiplayer being considered for Cyberpunk 2 | VGC - Video Games Chronicle - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Cyberpunk 2077 Sequel May Feature Multiplayer, as The Witcher 4 Set to Enter Production | XboxAchievements.com - XboxAchievements - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Turbo Overkill is like a Cyberpunk Doom, and it's coming to Xbox - TrueAchievements - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Cyberpunk 2077 sequel: everything we know about the sci-fi game - Evening Standard - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Palworld becomes only the sixth Steam game to reach one million concurrent players, beating Cyberpunk 2077 in the ... - Gamesradar - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Palworld becomes only the sixth Steam game to reach one million concurrent players, beating Cyberpunk 2077 in the ... - Yahoo! Voices - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- The reality of a cyberpunk universe in the real world - Verdict - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Cyberpunk 2077 sequel could have multiplayer - Project Orion - Gamereactor - Gamereactor UK - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Palworld Passes Impressive Steam Concurrent Player Milestone, Beats Cyberpunk and Elden Ring - GameRant - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Follow-up to The Witcher 3 will be in development this year - ReadWrite - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Former Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk Devs are Developing a New Game that Could Be Better than Both - FandomWire - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Palworld Beats CS2, Dota 2, and Cyberpunk 2077 to Become the Second Most-Played Game on Steam - Beebom - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- The Witcher 4 Could Enter Production This Year - TheGamer - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Palworld becomes only the sixth Steam game to reach one million concurrent players, beating Cyberpunk 2077 in the ... - Yahoo Entertainment - January 27th, 2024 [January 27th, 2024]
- Cyberpunk 2077 collides with GTA 6 in upcoming game you'll want to keep an eye on - GAMINGbible - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- Black Friday 2023: Grab Some of Our Favorite Cyberpunk and Witcher Merch - IGN - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- Cyberpunk 2077 Is the Cheapest It's Ever Been - GameRant - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition For Xbox And PlayStation Have One Huge Difference - Screen Rant - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 story lead casually reveals players haven't found his favorite Easter eggs, so "I won ... - Gamesradar - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- The Best Games To Play on Steam Deck OLED From 'HiFi Rush' and 'Cyberpunk 2077' to 'Street Fighter 6' and 'Dave ... - Touch Arcade - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3 story lead "won't talk about" his favourite Easter eggs until players find them - VG247 - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- How To Complete Forward To Death Quest In Cyberpunk 2077 - TheGamer - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- Cyberpunk 2077: How To Get Inside The Riot Club - GameRant - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- Cyberpunk 2077: How To Get the Warden - GameRant - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- You can finally romance the hot French netrunner from Cyberpunk ... - VG247 - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- Northland man's custom cyberpunk car to be released as Hot ... - 1News - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- Here's Austin Powers Being A Huge Nuisance In Cyberpunk 2077 - Kotaku Australia - November 26th, 2023 [November 26th, 2023]
- Cyberpunk 2077 finally has 'very positive' rating on Steam, 2 years later - GAMINGbible - July 19th, 2023 [July 19th, 2023]
- Why Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Being the Only DLC is For the Best - GameRant - July 19th, 2023 [July 19th, 2023]
- Cyberpunk 2077: Things You Never Knew About Johnny Silverhand - GameRant - July 19th, 2023 [July 19th, 2023]
- Bringing A Baofeng Into The Cyberpunk 2077 Universe - Hackaday - July 19th, 2023 [July 19th, 2023]
- What is Cyberpunk Genre Definition, Origins & Examples - StudioBinder - March 31st, 2023 [March 31st, 2023]
- Cyberpunk 2077 review | TechRadar - March 31st, 2023 [March 31st, 2023]
- More Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty DLC News Coming In June - GameSpot - March 31st, 2023 [March 31st, 2023]
- Cyberpunk 2077 DLC Phantom Liberty gets release window, first trailer ... - February 20th, 2023 [February 20th, 2023]
- Utah band Spirit Machines beats out 7,800 others to have song featured in video game Cyberpunk 2077 - ABC4.com - February 7th, 2023 [February 7th, 2023]
- Nvidia's RTX And DLSS3 Cyberpunk Support Demonstrate Why These Features Are The Future Of Gaming - Forbes - February 7th, 2023 [February 7th, 2023]
- How to hack the Cyberpunk 2077 Militech Datashard - pcgamer - January 6th, 2023 [January 6th, 2023]
- The Last Of Us Updates, An Award For Cyberpunk 2077 And More Gaming News For Wednesday, January 4 - Forbes - January 6th, 2023 [January 6th, 2023]
- Why Playing Cyberpunk 2077 As A Melee Character Is The Most Fun You Can Have With It - Kotaku Australia - January 6th, 2023 [January 6th, 2023]
- Win NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU with Cyberpunk 2077 backplate! - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- The best Cyberpunk 2077 mods | PC Gamer - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Best Of 2022: Cyberpunk 2077's Redemption Arc Is A Breathtaking Return To Form For CD ... - Latest Tweet by - LatestLY - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and Plenty of Other Hit Games Will Soon Be Able to Play in ... - Latest Tweet - LatestLY - December 18th, 2022 [December 18th, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077's First Big DLC Stars Idris Elba - Kotaku - December 12th, 2022 [December 12th, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077 Core Team Moving to Boston to Start Work on Sequel - Latest Tweet by GameSpot - LatestLY - November 25th, 2022 [November 25th, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077 Hits 90% Positive Reviews On Steam For The First Time - Forbes - October 25th, 2022 [October 25th, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077 Tips To Break Hearts, Romance Everyone After All The Updates - Kotaku - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077 is a revelation with Nvidia's new DLSS 3.0 technology - VG247 - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077 is a Strand game with this courier mod - Gamesradar - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077 Happy Together walkthrough guide: How to complete the side job and more - Sportskeeda - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Has the world finally forgiven Cyberpunk 2077? - Gamesradar - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077: How To Get $200,000+ Right At The Start Of The Game | Corpo Life Path Trick - Gameranx - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- BLIND GUARDIAN Streams Cyberpunk-Inspired Video For "Life Beyond The Spheres" - Metal Injection - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077 Johnny Silverhand Items Locations Guide - RespawnFirst - October 13th, 2022 [October 13th, 2022]
- Shares of Cyberpunk 2077 publisher surge after announcing a slew of new games - CNBC - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- 'Cyberpunk 2077' Re-Review: Two Years Later, What's Changed? - Forbes - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Cyberpunk 2077's revival continues as it becomes one of the most popular games on Steam Deck - Eurogamer.net - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Want to play Cyberpunk, Ghost Runner through a set-top box? Heres how 5G will help - Business Today - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- How to Read Shards in Cyberpunk 2077 - Attack of the Fanboy - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Where to Find Nibbles the Cat in Cyberpunk 2077? - Attack of the Fanboy - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Destiny 2: Lightfall is cyberpunk battle when it launches in February - The Verge - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Tower Of Fantasy Will Receive New Land & Character Soon - Bleeding Cool News - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]
- Turn-Based Cyberpunk RPG 'Jack Move' Will Boot Up On Switch Next Month - Nintendo Life - August 29th, 2022 [August 29th, 2022]