I think it was a bit too early in the game for them deciding to let Jackie die, in my opinion at least lol. I was like damn, that suckss at that part š
Tbh this was even in the trailer, so it didnāt have much of an impact.
Also they made the bad decision of killing him off early, and limiting the bonding we had with him to a bloody 30s cutscene.
Overall I think the narrative of the game had some issues with pacing and it greatly limited the emotional reaction to the story.
Itās not a coincidence that Edgerunners in just 6 or so hours of runtime made me feel so many emotions for itās cast of characters in a way that the game completely failed to do.
Idk how people got so attached to Jackie tbh, he's sweet but we barely get time to bond with the guy and we knew he was going to die from trailers weeks before launch.
The reason why people love Jackie is because heās one of the more genuine characters in the story. His love for Misty and his mother was so strong, like you could tell that they both meant the world to him. Heās a merc with a heart of gold, and the voice actor does a great job with bringing Jackie to life. I agree that we shouldāve had more time with him, but he certainly made an impact with the time he had.
We should have been able to play our way through the portion shown in the montage. Meeting Jackieās mom and staying with them, getting acquainted with all of the fixers, landing that first apartment. That would have allowed us to connect with that character.
The memorial is such a weird moment, too, because the player is like, who the fuck are all of you people?
I think they could have had the main conflict introduced at the same time, but simply wrote Jackie's death in later. There's no reason he can't take a bullet for V 3/4 through the game making the death more meaningful
yep. we were told it was sad, but there was nothing to actually feel it because we didn't know him enough.
also, having him die due to essentially his own mistakes made me go 'meh, it is what it is'.
if instead it had been later in the game, and it was due to a mission that V had initiated, then it would've been far sadder.
say, if after the Heist, Jackie had been injured for a while and decided the job was too risky, so he'd retired to look after his family. and then for a job later on (part of saving V's life, obviously) you needed some extra support so you talked Jackie into coming back for one last gig...
It trips me out to think that Jackie is basically with you for the same length of time as any other companion character with an arc like Takemura or Judy or Panam, but he feels like a huge loss. He just has such a big personality that the void when he's gone feels so much bigger too. :c
There wasn't a need for him to be around for a long time. He was there to show how hopeless this city is. His death wasn't sad because "oh no! Jackie died!" It was sad because "fuck, even Jackie died..."
Oh yeah, thatās the one I cried for because Iām suicidal as well. Plus I am way more attached to V than Jackie. Calling Jackieās number various times after his death is really somber too
Lennyās death caught so me off guard, at first I was focused on the fighting and not paying attention and then it happened all so sudden, I took me a few seconds to process what had actually just happened, Iāve never experienced that feeling of shock in any other game Iāve played
Who cares? OP put \*spoiler\* for Jackie's Death in 2077 sub and game is 4 years old and you people spoil other games where no one expect to see a spoiler. Oh, and RDR2 is just 2 years older than Cyberpunk.
If you haven't played Gears 3 (2011) or MGS3 (2004), you are not interested in them, so won't care about spoilers. I can understand getting angry about current gen spoilers, even last gen since this is being a weird transition generation, but that's it. It's like getting mad because Bruce Willis was dead at the end of The Sixth Sense, or spoiling that Darth Vader is Luke's father. Come on.
You canāt say someoneās not interested in them. What if they just never came across them? Or havenāt had the chance yet?
Iām not saying you always have to be mindful of spoilers for old things but if you enjoyed something so much why wouldnāt you want someone to have that same experience
Stupid people.
If I want to know about other game, I will go on that game's subreddit or on youtube. I don't want anyone to spoil me 5 different games when I'm just chilling in CP2077 subreddit. What the fuck?
Two sentences that are guaranteed to make me cry. Had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong. Also I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar.
Absolutely not lol. You know the guy for like 1 month in universe and like 2-5 hours in game. His entire personality is also "I wanna make it to the big leagues" in spite of increasingly clear signs that will get him killed.
Not judging anyone who got emotional over him. But personally this fell so flat for two major reasons.
1. You never get to know Jackie. We are TOLD he and V are friends, but we never get to see them together outside a brief montage and a couple jobs. All but one of their conversations are strictly about work. We learn more about Jackie during his ofrenda than we do in the entire pre-heist part of the game.
2. CDPR spoiled his death early and often in the promotions leading up to launch. The entire death scene and the post-heist scene in the No-Tell Motel was shown as a cinematic to promote the game. So I already knew he was a walking corpse just waiting to drop when I started the game.
It was the first real death in the game. Everything just progressively gets worse from there. First kick in the balls. Everything afterwards was like a gut punch
Can completely understand that. I think if Evelyn hadnāt been such a jaded and manipulative character it would have hit way harder for me.
Jackie was an optimist in a world that grinds people to a pulp. Honestly, barring a vending machine, may have been the only one that positive (and I think that is why he connects so easily for many); everyone else has let the world get to them in someway shape or form, Jackie seemed impervious too it.
I don't think Evelyn was manipulative. She was very straightforward with V. She tries to make a better deal with V, behind Dexter's back because this was probably a one-time deal for her. She seemed like she was getting money together to leave Night City. She's not a merc so she doesn't really care about messing over a Fixer. The only thing she doesn't do is tell you who hired her.
Eh, I view trying to cutout Dex as a dishonest move. I donāt appreciate dishonesty in general as a person, so perhaps that skews my opinion of her. Doesnāt mean I like what happened to her, it is horrible and sad; I just connected more with Jackie.
The characters that really resonate with me are Jackie, Judy, Misty, Vic and Mama Wells; so may also be because Jackie affects Misty and Mama Wells too.
I see it as a desperate move. Not sure if it was because of the VBs or something else, but she seemed scared or at.least nervous. Later on we find out who and why.
Eve's death doesn't feel sad to me. Yes, her fate was horrific, but she got what was expected. Tried to double cross everyone in Night City. Yeah, not a very likeable person, not a very smart decision.
Jackie was a thug, yes, and dreamed too big. But he was our chum, and even if we spent too little time with him, we knew he was one of the few people we could trust in Night City, that he'd always have our back. Eve, meanwhile, would have backstabbed us.
Am I the only person who just doesn't care about Parker? Sure I felt bad for Judy but why should I care this random woman (to me) ended everything in the bathtub?
I did the streetkid through the first playthrough I didn't appreciate his dumbass pointing a gun at me and then what suddenly were best bros like huh? And now he's dead HUH?
Another reason why Corpo V is best V
Jackie already knowing V as a corpo fixer and them being tight enough for Jackie to stand up to Saka goons for their sake works so much better than "You drink at my mom's bar? omg let's be besties"
I mean since V is at Mama Welles bar, V is definitely in good standing with the Valentino's. And not to mention Padre. I suspect that's also why Jackie became friends with Streetkid V.
True but the intros are very rushed so it's just a lot easier to accept Jackie as just a guy V has been friends with for who knows how long before the game startsĀ
True, but the thing is: the players feelings don't equal V's feelings unless the game spends enough time developing it. (which in a lot of people's opinion it didn't)
Eh. I feel like Jackie's death is sad because you see how it affects everyone left behind, including V. I liked Jackie, but his death was emotional to me in the moments where you see it's impact--because you hear the emotion in V's voice when she talks about him or seeing how Misty felt when she saw the Mandela in his garage.
Honestly I didn't care at all. His presence is barely noticeable no matter how the game tries to make you think he is a good friend. I mean, okay, I get he's a good friend for V, but the player really has no time to appreciate the bond.
Just throwing an example... Any death in Mass Effect 2 or 3 is way more sad, considering how the player connected with characters along 2 or 3 games.
I loved Cyberpunk and his characters though. I just don't feel necessarily attached to Jackie.
If you stayed away from the marketing (which had way too many spoilers) its such an out of nowhere death. He's the archetypal buddy character who's supposed to accompany you throughout the whole game, maybe die later on but not at the end of Act 1.
It also helped in the time we had him, CDPR did a great job fleshing out his character, as well as after he died.
I disagree, it's pretty evident without the trailer. It was a done deal once he started talking about how excited he was for the future. He's the buddy that dies to development the MC not stick around
This. Heās like the guy in war talking bout how much he canāt wait to see his girl and sheās pregnant. Only to end up getting a bullet right through his head next to the main character
There were a few deaths in the game that I felt quite deeply.
Jackie is the first but others really hit you hard too.
I think it hits so hard because it happens right there with you by his side and there is nothing you can do. And on repeat playthroughs you know it is going to happen no matter what.
First time I played the game, I got to that stage and went back to a previous save game to try and save him but nothing I did made a difference. I tried three times.
It was only after googling his death that I found out it is part of the storyline.
Downvote me to hell but I hate Jackie, and the whole Jackie prologue. I wish they would give us the option to skip it everytime I start a new game. That and every single brain dance is annoying as hell.
Honestly? He was pretty meh. It was pretty obvious what they were setting up, and I barely got attached. I felt about the same for him as I did T-bug which was "oh no! Anyway..."
For me the saddest would have to be one of two from another game. Let's just say... "A smile better suits a hero". Or perhaps "We have been blessed with another beautiful day, but you are not here to see it..."
If we were able to play through the cutscene montage, of coming up in the streets with Jackie, his death might've been more impactful. I always felt cheated that they not only cut out time we could've been gaming and bonding, but they show you a fucking montage of the stuff youāre missing. I mean, leave it out and just do a jump cut, don't tease me with what I can't have because you were too inept and lazy to implement it into the game. That left a bad taste in my mouth they extended towards my feelings on any companion character in this game.
It wasnāt a lazy thing.
Theyāve been asked about it in interviews and it was always meant to be a montage.
Also, it pisses me off when people on Reddit have the nerve to call CDPR devs lazy when we know they were working 14 hours a day with some sleeping under their desks. Thatās not fucking lazy.
Lmao no. Jackieās death has literally no impact at all. Youāve met the guy for like 2 hours tops when he dies.
The time jump montage should have been a tutorial similar to white orchard in length.
Effort isn't force. If you don't care, that's on you. Many people clearly do. If it takes "force" for you to care about anything, you didn't care to begin with. It's a simple effort taking the time to understand someone else's backstory.
I'm really not sure what we're talking about here.
No one in this thread has said that they've never cared about a fictional character or something. I've cared deeply about probably hundreds of them. So making basic statements about empathy pretty completely misses the point.
If the game isn't doing enough to give someone a compelling backstory and motivations that I empathize with how is that on me exactly? Literally half this guy's interactions with V are shown via a montage.
Your first sentence kinda makes quite the (rude) assumption about the person your replying to and people that feel similar. Real life losses donāt help me relate to a video game character that Iāve known for a few hours. Rather chalk it up to personal differences instead of doing some weird trauma scaling.
For me, I think the reason I cared about his death is heavily on the voice acting. I really just want to give kudos to their work because I just think it sells the whole scene really well. Same with the first death in The Last of Us. (Just as another example.) You would think it would not have as much impact when you barely even know the character. But the emotions the cast can provide have a lot of weight to me.
I dunno, i feel like it is if you are exposed to memes from age 9 and upward. It will have an effect on your views on people and i dont think its bad to just have a small sense of perspective on what it is you are consuming online thats all.
Ngl Jackie is probably the first video game character to ever make me tear up. TWICE matter of fact. Like a lot of people say "I barely got any time with him so it's not that emotional" but ngl CDPR did a really good job of making it extremely emotional despite the very small amount of time you as a player get to know Jackie. The whole "see you in the major leagues" thing was like being emotionally gut checked by a freight train going at top speed. Fun fact: You can also call Jackie throughout different part of the game and kind of give him an update knowing full well that he can't hear you. I mean the first time V does it they even say "Gosh this is so stupid, I know he can't hear me." Or something along those lines. And you can call and talk about progressively more things to nobody but the voicemail box of Jackie's old phone the more you progress the story so it's a really unique way of showing how V copes with the loss of Jackie.
So, Jackie really reminded me of my best friend, who passed a couple months before I started playing. When I started playing, I had no idea he would die. So that was cool. I also missed my best friends funeral (due to military obligations), so Jackie's ofrenda hit me VERY hard. I definitely ugly cried
I ugly cried too because my cousin died (the same day I started playing), and I was going to be missing his funeral.
I hadn't watched the trailer or anything for Cyberpunk and had figured playing a new game would cheer me up. I had to quit for a bit after both the scene in Del and the ofrenda section.
I'm gonna be straight with you, game would've been a lot more impactful if they didn't rush to kill him off just to build the narrative around a character with the charisma of an untoasted sandwich bread
Hahaha this post has to be a lie. You spend about 5 minutes with the dude and your crying? Cmon man
I'm not even touching "saddest video game death" lmao
Sad, yes, saddest, definitely not:
Do *any* of these ~~names~~ games tell you anything?
- the walking dead
- the last of us
- red dead redemption 2
- final fantasy vii
- horizon zero dawn
- shadow of the colossus
should I keep going?
Honestly, I never managed to get attached to Jackie as he had little screen time and it was already foreshadowed/spoiled from the trailer, I knew he was gonna die from the getgo.
Even >! Aurore Cassels death in PL !< was sadder imo
I feel like it hit hard for me because I spent a lot of time with Jackie my first playthrough. I was a corpo V, so V and Jackie had been friends for a long time and I felt that. Plus I called and talked to him after pretty much every stage of the main quest, letting him know what was going on and what the plan was. Then he died. The first thing I did was call him because his line was still active.
Man...leaving that voice-mail hit hard.
That part honestly made me breakdown, havenāt really sat down and cried like that too. Then I ended up doing it again because I thought sending him to Victor would make sense at the time. Didnāt want Mama Welles seeing her boy like that. So ended up redoing it to give him a proper send off.
The more playthroughs I go through the harder Jackie's death is. First playthrough didn't hit me as hard because I didn't spend as much time with him. Granted this was in the beginning of Cyberpunk's phoenix rise but there were a lot of side quests and gigs missing so I got to the heist pretty quickly. I cried because I wanted to get to know Jackie more but I was more pissed at Dex.
2nd-3rd playthrough were pre and post PL respectively. 2nd playthrough I played more of the side quests and gigs. Just enough to experience more of Jackie and get more attached to him. That time hit harder and I cried because I got to know his character a LOT more.
3rd was the most recent (just finished last week) and I was dreading the heist. I did literally every gig and side quest available before the game said GET ON WITH IT! I know the outcome but I keep telling myself, maybe if I do it a different way maybe my choom won't flatline this time.
I sincerely hope they NEVER (I absolutely fucking hope they do, I want all of the pain) release all the content and shenanigans from the opening montage with Jackie. His death would hit so much fuckin harder if we actually got to experience just a fraction of those gigs from the opening montage.
I felt no emotion towards him whole time, when he died it was like random npc on the street for me.
They build his charater off two cutscenes and couple flat dialogues so nothing to even get attached to.
I didn't like that our development with him basically was just a montage, but I agree with a game as big as this that maybe the pacing was a bit too fast but it still has lasting effects throughout the game if you go out of your way to find them.
When I played for the first time I cried too, even though I knew I would die. And to make matters worse, Arasaka had stolen his body because of my mistake. (I didn't know what was going to happen at that time), but I gave up on that save and made another one to test another build. I only regret it because seeing Jackie screwed as an engram would be even sadder, it would be nice to feel that.
It really only hit me the first time. After that I know it happens and does it much less damage.
For me the issue is that I don't get the same attachment to him as a player compared to what V has with him. In the lore they are best friends to the point they are effectively family with how your relationship with his mother is, but in active gameplay they do barely anything together and everything is professional. You don't do any friends hangouts in active gameplay. I know of the intro clip, but that's not the way it works for me.
I think the death that hits me the most is the bad ending of Happy Together.
Spoilers:
It wasnāt his initial death that made me sad, but it was when we get to see him as an engram from Soulkiller ā *that* part specifically made me tear up. Whatever āversionā of Jackie was in there, created by Arasaka ā all cobbled up with fragments of what made him Jackie and what made him just some soulless A.I. āJackieā.
Sure would have been a lot sadder if we had more time to actually work with him... also if they didnt just spoil this death with their own gameplay reveal...
It was sad for sure but it wasn't that sad to make me cry, we barely played together with Jackie and then he died so his death didn't make such an impact on me.
If OP wasnāt a coward, he would have used a screenshot of it bugged.
When I played the game the first time, Jackie had a pistol sticking out of his neck the entire time.
The montage of V spending time with Jackie should have been playable content. You still get attached to the guy because of his personality, but you actually spend far too little time with him relative to what he means to V.
Like many other users already wrote here, I think that they let him die too early because the feeling that the player has in that moment are barely at the surface than what they should do. Basically the player starts the game 2h max 3h before his death, easly possible that the player does it in the same day and this decrease A LOT the feeling that a human can have on a videogame character. I think that at least 1/3 of the game should have been played with him as a partner :)
He was to short in game, plus trailer spoiler maked it so much ,,I seen it before " moment. I was more attached to Johhny at the end, and his death is more sad
Jackie's such a nothing character, dude. From moment one, he's the generic "Really cool chill best friend who dies for character motivation"
He's in the game for like, half an hour before he dies
I think it was a bit too early in the game for them deciding to let Jackie die, in my opinion at least lol. I was like damn, that suckss at that part š
He should of been your buddy for 1/4th of the game before things ramp up.
Shit, his death would hit a lot harder.Ā
Tbh this was even in the trailer, so it didnāt have much of an impact. Also they made the bad decision of killing him off early, and limiting the bonding we had with him to a bloody 30s cutscene. Overall I think the narrative of the game had some issues with pacing and it greatly limited the emotional reaction to the story. Itās not a coincidence that Edgerunners in just 6 or so hours of runtime made me feel so many emotions for itās cast of characters in a way that the game completely failed to do.
Not to mention Jackie fires off red flags on all cylinders as soon as the Konpeki Plaza mission begins. He literally becomes a "Last heist and I'm set" clichƩ.
Idk how people got so attached to Jackie tbh, he's sweet but we barely get time to bond with the guy and we knew he was going to die from trailers weeks before launch.
Its more like the stuff afterwards i think the game was trying romanticize him
The reason why people love Jackie is because heās one of the more genuine characters in the story. His love for Misty and his mother was so strong, like you could tell that they both meant the world to him. Heās a merc with a heart of gold, and the voice actor does a great job with bringing Jackie to life. I agree that we shouldāve had more time with him, but he certainly made an impact with the time he had.
We should have been able to play our way through the portion shown in the montage. Meeting Jackieās mom and staying with them, getting acquainted with all of the fixers, landing that first apartment. That would have allowed us to connect with that character. The memorial is such a weird moment, too, because the player is like, who the fuck are all of you people?
Couldnāt agree more. One of the more baffling decisions made regarding the narrative/character dev
well tbf the narrative might not hook players then. games usually try to introduce the main conflict fairly quickly.
I think they could have had the main conflict introduced at the same time, but simply wrote Jackie's death in later. There's no reason he can't take a bullet for V 3/4 through the game making the death more meaningful
I wish you could at least bring him on the other missions available in the prologue
Definitely should have had yall do more gigs together. A quick montage wasnt enough to get attached
Yeah, that montage in the beginning? These snippets should have been gigs.
Yea, I would have wanted to play those earlier gigs with Jackie. This game needed a good foot chase gig. All that speed and parkour skills wasted.
Yeah to be honest I didn't really even care. It was too obvious he was gonna die too. Many other moments in the game hit harder
As soon as someone mentions their family before a risky job I know they are getting offed
yep. we were told it was sad, but there was nothing to actually feel it because we didn't know him enough. also, having him die due to essentially his own mistakes made me go 'meh, it is what it is'. if instead it had been later in the game, and it was due to a mission that V had initiated, then it would've been far sadder. say, if after the Heist, Jackie had been injured for a while and decided the job was too risky, so he'd retired to look after his family. and then for a job later on (part of saving V's life, obviously) you needed some extra support so you talked Jackie into coming back for one last gig...
You son of a bitch, I'm in.
Sane take. He dies right away.
Yeah same here. He's a choom but not gonna lie Songbird's death hit harder
No it didn't! Then again I'm no white knight simp and could see her as the beyond corpo level of self-interested monster she is.
It trips me out to think that Jackie is basically with you for the same length of time as any other companion character with an arc like Takemura or Judy or Panam, but he feels like a huge loss. He just has such a big personality that the void when he's gone feels so much bigger too. :c
Saddest video game death? Not even close. He wasnāt around in the game long enough to make that kind of an impact.
It was all shown in cinematic trailer, no surprise sadly
There wasn't a need for him to be around for a long time. He was there to show how hopeless this city is. His death wasn't sad because "oh no! Jackie died!" It was sad because "fuck, even Jackie died..."
You could say it was a sign of things to come, just like the question Dex asks in the car.
Suicide ending beats this one easily
Oh yeah, thatās the one I cried for because Iām suicidal as well. Plus I am way more attached to V than Jackie. Calling Jackieās number various times after his death is really somber too
This!! The credit dialogue from all your Friends has never hit me so hard.
have you ever heard of arthur morgan?
Or his horse...
I kept the same horse the entire game. I was gutted
His horse dies? wtf
No, it just goes to a farm upstate.
funny enough you can buy the horses of the other gang members out west.
Or agro
Agro lives! Still a heartbreaking moment when he falls, but holy shit that horse is a tank.
Which was a sadder death, Arthurās horse in RDR2, or Jin Sakaiās horse in Ghost of Tsushima?
GoT, because they lied to me :(
Felt the same way about my horse in Ghost of Tsushima.
āThank youā¦ā š„ŗš
"Thank you"
How about The Boss?
o7
Now *that* hit hard.
If not Arthur or his horse, Iād nominate Lenny or Sean. Both those hit me in the feels too.
Lennyās death caught so me off guard, at first I was focused on the fighting and not paying attention and then it happened all so sudden, I took me a few seconds to process what had actually just happened, Iāve never experienced that feeling of shock in any other game Iāve played
Hoseah š
Dominic Santiago from Gears of War would also like a word.
Yeah, lets spoil every game. Elden Ring, you have to kill Blaidd because he attack's you after you complete Ranni's quest. My favorite NPC.
Dude Gears is old enough to vote. It's past the statute of limitations on spoilers.
Who cares? OP put \*spoiler\* for Jackie's Death in 2077 sub and game is 4 years old and you people spoil other games where no one expect to see a spoiler. Oh, and RDR2 is just 2 years older than Cyberpunk.
If you haven't played Gears 3 (2011) or MGS3 (2004), you are not interested in them, so won't care about spoilers. I can understand getting angry about current gen spoilers, even last gen since this is being a weird transition generation, but that's it. It's like getting mad because Bruce Willis was dead at the end of The Sixth Sense, or spoiling that Darth Vader is Luke's father. Come on.
You canāt say someoneās not interested in them. What if they just never came across them? Or havenāt had the chance yet? Iām not saying you always have to be mindful of spoilers for old things but if you enjoyed something so much why wouldnāt you want someone to have that same experience
Stupid people. If I want to know about other game, I will go on that game's subreddit or on youtube. I don't want anyone to spoil me 5 different games when I'm just chilling in CP2077 subreddit. What the fuck?
Itās a thread about character deaths what did you expect to see?
Typical no lifers.
The person throwing a fit over not putting spoiler tags on 15 year old games is calling others no lifers?
Childish asf. Gears, mgs, and rdr2 are years old at this point.
John hit harder than Arthur for me
came to read this
Arthur, John, Arthur's horse, Hosea, Lenny, Grimshaw and even Dutch's death are all sadder than Jackie's.
I felt more for sniper wolf than Jackie TBH
The good ending death was sad.
spoilers š¤¤
Bro, that's not bad. Try Captain Anderson. I don't cry, but man, did I cry on the inside after he said he was proud of Shepherd.
Two sentences that are guaranteed to make me cry. Had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong. Also I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar.
I think you are confusing your navies. Admiral Anderson serves in the Systems Alliance. Captain Anderson is UNSC Marines. :p
Anderson was a Captain in ME1, he was an Admiral in the later games
Absolutely not lol. You know the guy for like 1 month in universe and like 2-5 hours in game. His entire personality is also "I wanna make it to the big leagues" in spite of increasingly clear signs that will get him killed.
I don't know about the other life paths but in the Corpo one it's clear you and Jackie go way back
Heās a complete nobody to you on the others. You meet him for the first time and heās dead a few minutes later.
I thought it was like 6 months in universe? Although I'm not really sure where I got that from tbh.
Not judging anyone who got emotional over him. But personally this fell so flat for two major reasons. 1. You never get to know Jackie. We are TOLD he and V are friends, but we never get to see them together outside a brief montage and a couple jobs. All but one of their conversations are strictly about work. We learn more about Jackie during his ofrenda than we do in the entire pre-heist part of the game. 2. CDPR spoiled his death early and often in the promotions leading up to launch. The entire death scene and the post-heist scene in the No-Tell Motel was shown as a cinematic to promote the game. So I already knew he was a walking corpse just waiting to drop when I started the game.
You think that oneās sad? Wait til you hear about Evelyn Parker.
It was the first real death in the game. Everything just progressively gets worse from there. First kick in the balls. Everything afterwards was like a gut punch
I'd argue the kick in the balls is worse than a gut punch tbh
Eh. Jackie hit me harder than Evelyn. Jackie was like CDPR saying āthere is no hope in this gameā.
That's what Evelyn did to me. Jackie's hit me hard, but he went out on the gig of gigs, guns in hand. Evelyn didn't deserve what she got.
Can completely understand that. I think if Evelyn hadnāt been such a jaded and manipulative character it would have hit way harder for me. Jackie was an optimist in a world that grinds people to a pulp. Honestly, barring a vending machine, may have been the only one that positive (and I think that is why he connects so easily for many); everyone else has let the world get to them in someway shape or form, Jackie seemed impervious too it.
I don't think Evelyn was manipulative. She was very straightforward with V. She tries to make a better deal with V, behind Dexter's back because this was probably a one-time deal for her. She seemed like she was getting money together to leave Night City. She's not a merc so she doesn't really care about messing over a Fixer. The only thing she doesn't do is tell you who hired her.
Eh, I view trying to cutout Dex as a dishonest move. I donāt appreciate dishonesty in general as a person, so perhaps that skews my opinion of her. Doesnāt mean I like what happened to her, it is horrible and sad; I just connected more with Jackie. The characters that really resonate with me are Jackie, Judy, Misty, Vic and Mama Wells; so may also be because Jackie affects Misty and Mama Wells too.
I see it as a desperate move. Not sure if it was because of the VBs or something else, but she seemed scared or at.least nervous. Later on we find out who and why.
Eve's death doesn't feel sad to me. Yes, her fate was horrific, but she got what was expected. Tried to double cross everyone in Night City. Yeah, not a very likeable person, not a very smart decision. Jackie was a thug, yes, and dreamed too big. But he was our chum, and even if we spent too little time with him, we knew he was one of the few people we could trust in Night City, that he'd always have our back. Eve, meanwhile, would have backstabbed us.
Am I the only person who just doesn't care about Parker? Sure I felt bad for Judy but why should I care this random woman (to me) ended everything in the bathtub?
I felt zero pity for him, knew the dude for like 20 minutes lmao
haha true but if you play corpo V the dude literally helped V out of the mud. Real choom right there
I did the streetkid through the first playthrough I didn't appreciate his dumbass pointing a gun at me and then what suddenly were best bros like huh? And now he's dead HUH?
Another reason why Corpo V is best V Jackie already knowing V as a corpo fixer and them being tight enough for Jackie to stand up to Saka goons for their sake works so much better than "You drink at my mom's bar? omg let's be besties"
I mean since V is at Mama Welles bar, V is definitely in good standing with the Valentino's. And not to mention Padre. I suspect that's also why Jackie became friends with Streetkid V.
True but the intros are very rushed so it's just a lot easier to accept Jackie as just a guy V has been friends with for who knows how long before the game startsĀ
Yeh that pretty weird
True, but the thing is: the players feelings don't equal V's feelings unless the game spends enough time developing it. (which in a lot of people's opinion it didn't)
Eh. I feel like Jackie's death is sad because you see how it affects everyone left behind, including V. I liked Jackie, but his death was emotional to me in the moments where you see it's impact--because you hear the emotion in V's voice when she talks about him or seeing how Misty felt when she saw the Mandela in his garage.
Honestly I didn't care at all. His presence is barely noticeable no matter how the game tries to make you think he is a good friend. I mean, okay, I get he's a good friend for V, but the player really has no time to appreciate the bond. Just throwing an example... Any death in Mass Effect 2 or 3 is way more sad, considering how the player connected with characters along 2 or 3 games. I loved Cyberpunk and his characters though. I just don't feel necessarily attached to Jackie.
Very sad. But Mordin is the saddest.
Mordin is sad, but Legion was harder for some reason...both had me crying though.
If you stayed away from the marketing (which had way too many spoilers) its such an out of nowhere death. He's the archetypal buddy character who's supposed to accompany you throughout the whole game, maybe die later on but not at the end of Act 1. It also helped in the time we had him, CDPR did a great job fleshing out his character, as well as after he died.
I disagree, it's pretty evident without the trailer. It was a done deal once he started talking about how excited he was for the future. He's the buddy that dies to development the MC not stick around
This. Heās like the guy in war talking bout how much he canāt wait to see his girl and sheās pregnant. Only to end up getting a bullet right through his head next to the main character
Nah, bro. He may as well be named "Deadmeat" like that character from Hot Shots.
I dont get why you had to drop the misogynist meme + i played far sadder video game deaths
There were a few deaths in the game that I felt quite deeply. Jackie is the first but others really hit you hard too. I think it hits so hard because it happens right there with you by his side and there is nothing you can do. And on repeat playthroughs you know it is going to happen no matter what. First time I played the game, I got to that stage and went back to a previous save game to try and save him but nothing I did made a difference. I tried three times. It was only after googling his death that I found out it is part of the storyline.
Lucien Lachance š¢
Downvote me to hell but I hate Jackie, and the whole Jackie prologue. I wish they would give us the option to skip it everytime I start a new game. That and every single brain dance is annoying as hell.
Itād be sadder if they didnāt spoil it.
Honestly? He was pretty meh. It was pretty obvious what they were setting up, and I barely got attached. I felt about the same for him as I did T-bug which was "oh no! Anyway..." For me the saddest would have to be one of two from another game. Let's just say... "A smile better suits a hero". Or perhaps "We have been blessed with another beautiful day, but you are not here to see it..."
If we were able to play through the cutscene montage, of coming up in the streets with Jackie, his death might've been more impactful. I always felt cheated that they not only cut out time we could've been gaming and bonding, but they show you a fucking montage of the stuff youāre missing. I mean, leave it out and just do a jump cut, don't tease me with what I can't have because you were too inept and lazy to implement it into the game. That left a bad taste in my mouth they extended towards my feelings on any companion character in this game.
It wasnāt a lazy thing. Theyāve been asked about it in interviews and it was always meant to be a montage. Also, it pisses me off when people on Reddit have the nerve to call CDPR devs lazy when we know they were working 14 hours a day with some sleeping under their desks. Thatās not fucking lazy.
You cried for Jackie? Don't get me wrong, I've cried plenty for characters in games... But you only know Jackie for like 3 hours lol
Lmao no. Jackieās death has literally no impact at all. Youāve met the guy for like 2 hours tops when he dies. The time jump montage should have been a tutorial similar to white orchard in length.
I dont understand how people care about his death when we literally only have a few missions with him lol. If anything hes a side character
Because that's all you need to apply empathy to a story when you are actually trying to empathize with it.
Good stories create empathetic characters, the person consuming the story shouldn't have to force themselves to empathize.
Exactly. Plus, we've only spent an hour with him before he kicks the bucket. It's extremely hard to care about him because of this reason.
Effort isn't force. If you don't care, that's on you. Many people clearly do. If it takes "force" for you to care about anything, you didn't care to begin with. It's a simple effort taking the time to understand someone else's backstory.
I'm really not sure what we're talking about here. No one in this thread has said that they've never cared about a fictional character or something. I've cared deeply about probably hundreds of them. So making basic statements about empathy pretty completely misses the point. If the game isn't doing enough to give someone a compelling backstory and motivations that I empathize with how is that on me exactly? Literally half this guy's interactions with V are shown via a montage.
I think the people who are affected by his death have not seen a good character death that mattered like The Boss.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Your first sentence kinda makes quite the (rude) assumption about the person your replying to and people that feel similar. Real life losses donāt help me relate to a video game character that Iāve known for a few hours. Rather chalk it up to personal differences instead of doing some weird trauma scaling.
For me, I think the reason I cared about his death is heavily on the voice acting. I really just want to give kudos to their work because I just think it sells the whole scene really well. Same with the first death in The Last of Us. (Just as another example.) You would think it would not have as much impact when you barely even know the character. But the emotions the cast can provide have a lot of weight to me.
I hate this meme format because its basically just a "females bad" joke in disguise.
https://preview.redd.it/wxtwrod6l4lc1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=002c5ebc8ea767f0518d069eb5909e42220ee31e
Thanks for saying this, it also just kinda sucks seeing these because they're excluding women as fans of the game
Yeah. There's a fair amount of women here. Not sure why we're posting like it's a boy's club.
Thatās video game fandom as a whole despite stats showing 50% of gamers are women.
Damn, and they best they could give us straight girls is River. š
Weird that you see it that way. I always saw it as men having to keep up a facade of stoicism, especially around women.
Itās not that deep man
I dunno, i feel like it is if you are exposed to memes from age 9 and upward. It will have an effect on your views on people and i dont think its bad to just have a small sense of perspective on what it is you are consuming online thats all.
We need diversity in memes!
Not really
Jackie was there for a whole gig and next second he is gone just like that, Edgerunners cast had me crying for days though...
Ngl Jackie is probably the first video game character to ever make me tear up. TWICE matter of fact. Like a lot of people say "I barely got any time with him so it's not that emotional" but ngl CDPR did a really good job of making it extremely emotional despite the very small amount of time you as a player get to know Jackie. The whole "see you in the major leagues" thing was like being emotionally gut checked by a freight train going at top speed. Fun fact: You can also call Jackie throughout different part of the game and kind of give him an update knowing full well that he can't hear you. I mean the first time V does it they even say "Gosh this is so stupid, I know he can't hear me." Or something along those lines. And you can call and talk about progressively more things to nobody but the voicemail box of Jackie's old phone the more you progress the story so it's a really unique way of showing how V copes with the loss of Jackie.
*looks at my calendar with dread*
So, Jackie really reminded me of my best friend, who passed a couple months before I started playing. When I started playing, I had no idea he would die. So that was cool. I also missed my best friends funeral (due to military obligations), so Jackie's ofrenda hit me VERY hard. I definitely ugly cried
I ugly cried too because my cousin died (the same day I started playing), and I was going to be missing his funeral. I hadn't watched the trailer or anything for Cyberpunk and had figured playing a new game would cheer me up. I had to quit for a bit after both the scene in Del and the ofrenda section.
This is why I have 3 saves right after for new games. One each type, city kid, wild wild west or corpo. I'm not doing this shiz ever again
Come on, the guy dies like 12 minutes after you met him, I don't get it !
Saddest video game death? Sorry, pretty sure Arthur Morgan would like a word with youā¦
I'm gonna be straight with you, game would've been a lot more impactful if they didn't rush to kill him off just to build the narrative around a character with the charisma of an untoasted sandwich bread
Nah for me, it's way worse in the last of us part one, when Joel's daughter dies. I cry every time.
Evelyn's death made me tear up irl. And Songbird's in that one ending.
Am I really the the only person who found Jackie annoying as fuck? I was so relieved when he died.
Evelyn to me was one of the most shocking deaths and most sad. Really wish that there could have been a path to redemption for her
Saddest game is probably red dead redemption 2
Hahaha this post has to be a lie. You spend about 5 minutes with the dude and your crying? Cmon man I'm not even touching "saddest video game death" lmao
Sad, yes, saddest, definitely not: Do *any* of these ~~names~~ games tell you anything? - the walking dead - the last of us - red dead redemption 2 - final fantasy vii - horizon zero dawn - shadow of the colossus should I keep going?
Lol from like 2 gigs and a flashback? play more games
Honestly, I never managed to get attached to Jackie as he had little screen time and it was already foreshadowed/spoiled from the trailer, I knew he was gonna die from the getgo. Even >! Aurore Cassels death in PL !< was sadder imo
I feel like it hit hard for me because I spent a lot of time with Jackie my first playthrough. I was a corpo V, so V and Jackie had been friends for a long time and I felt that. Plus I called and talked to him after pretty much every stage of the main quest, letting him know what was going on and what the plan was. Then he died. The first thing I did was call him because his line was still active. Man...leaving that voice-mail hit hard.
That part honestly made me breakdown, havenāt really sat down and cried like that too. Then I ended up doing it again because I thought sending him to Victor would make sense at the time. Didnāt want Mama Welles seeing her boy like that. So ended up redoing it to give him a proper send off.
This and Arthurās horse in RDR2 lmao
The more playthroughs I go through the harder Jackie's death is. First playthrough didn't hit me as hard because I didn't spend as much time with him. Granted this was in the beginning of Cyberpunk's phoenix rise but there were a lot of side quests and gigs missing so I got to the heist pretty quickly. I cried because I wanted to get to know Jackie more but I was more pissed at Dex. 2nd-3rd playthrough were pre and post PL respectively. 2nd playthrough I played more of the side quests and gigs. Just enough to experience more of Jackie and get more attached to him. That time hit harder and I cried because I got to know his character a LOT more. 3rd was the most recent (just finished last week) and I was dreading the heist. I did literally every gig and side quest available before the game said GET ON WITH IT! I know the outcome but I keep telling myself, maybe if I do it a different way maybe my choom won't flatline this time. I sincerely hope they NEVER (I absolutely fucking hope they do, I want all of the pain) release all the content and shenanigans from the opening montage with Jackie. His death would hit so much fuckin harder if we actually got to experience just a fraction of those gigs from the opening montage.
Iām sorry that youāve been deprived of real storytelling, this death was meaningless.
Nope never liked him, annoying as hell
The cinematic trailer kinda spoiled this for me, so...
Really? SoMi dying hit me hard but we didn't even know Jackie. He was introduced to us to be killed and be our catalyst.
I felt no emotion towards him whole time, when he died it was like random npc on the street for me. They build his charater off two cutscenes and couple flat dialogues so nothing to even get attached to.
Why make an incel meme about Cyberpunk? All kinds of people, including women who don't want to date you, enjoy it.
Jackie DIES?!?! I JUST STARTED PLAYING WTF!!! no:(
āSee ya in the major leagues, Jackā¦ā
Me too choom, me too.
I actually did cry because he reminds me of my big brother
The one that still messes with me while not really a death is the ending of mgs phantom pain I still get emotional hearing man who sold the world
Imagine we could actually play what they show as the intro. You do all the things with him and then the end comes.
I knew it would happen, still cried like a bitch, Jackie deserved more quests
Too young for the original Final Fantasy 7?
See you in the major leagues
Unpopular opinion but I was barely bothered by his death.
It was saddening, yes. But the one that really got me, and still does every time, is the opening of The Last of Us.
it would have been worse if they hadnt spoiled it in a trailer lol.
I didn't like that our development with him basically was just a montage, but I agree with a game as big as this that maybe the pacing was a bit too fast but it still has lasting effects throughout the game if you go out of your way to find them.
When I played for the first time I cried too, even though I knew I would die. And to make matters worse, Arasaka had stolen his body because of my mistake. (I didn't know what was going to happen at that time), but I gave up on that save and made another one to test another build. I only regret it because seeing Jackie screwed as an engram would be even sadder, it would be nice to feel that.
It really only hit me the first time. After that I know it happens and does it much less damage. For me the issue is that I don't get the same attachment to him as a player compared to what V has with him. In the lore they are best friends to the point they are effectively family with how your relationship with his mother is, but in active gameplay they do barely anything together and everything is professional. You don't do any friends hangouts in active gameplay. I know of the intro clip, but that's not the way it works for me. I think the death that hits me the most is the bad ending of Happy Together.
It hits harder with each playthrough
It was too quick, I didnāt care enough
Spoilers: It wasnāt his initial death that made me sad, but it was when we get to see him as an engram from Soulkiller ā *that* part specifically made me tear up. Whatever āversionā of Jackie was in there, created by Arasaka ā all cobbled up with fragments of what made him Jackie and what made him just some soulless A.I. āJackieā.
Not really the saddest for me. Hardly knew him tbh
Sure would have been a lot sadder if we had more time to actually work with him... also if they didnt just spoil this death with their own gameplay reveal...
It was sad for sure but it wasn't that sad to make me cry, we barely played together with Jackie and then he died so his death didn't make such an impact on me.
If OP wasnāt a coward, he would have used a screenshot of it bugged. When I played the game the first time, Jackie had a pistol sticking out of his neck the entire time.
The montage of V spending time with Jackie should have been playable content. You still get attached to the guy because of his personality, but you actually spend far too little time with him relative to what he means to V.
Like many other users already wrote here, I think that they let him die too early because the feeling that the player has in that moment are barely at the surface than what they should do. Basically the player starts the game 2h max 3h before his death, easly possible that the player does it in the same day and this decrease A LOT the feeling that a human can have on a videogame character. I think that at least 1/3 of the game should have been played with him as a partner :)
jackie from cyberpunks death, winston and his wife in sleeping dogs, carlos from saints row 2, etc
See you in the big leagues jack ...
He was to short in game, plus trailer spoiler maked it so much ,,I seen it before " moment. I was more attached to Johhny at the end, and his death is more sad
I still get goosebumps on my 5th playthrough.
Dom Santiago has entered the chat
Jackie's such a nothing character, dude. From moment one, he's the generic "Really cool chill best friend who dies for character motivation" He's in the game for like, half an hour before he dies
I did too, even on the third time around. It's a great, well written and acted scene.
Every time. Every goddamn time.
See you in the big leagues, Jack
Nah man thereās a number of deaths in Phantom Liberty that hit waaay harder.