According to later statistics, about 25% of players who purchased Cyberpunk 2077 gave up before reaching the segment where Jack dies.
Or rather, these players preferred wandering around the city instead of playing the main storyline. They enjoyed causing chaos all over the city—much like Grand Theft Auto—because that was what they found fun.
As for the remaining 75% of players, once they reached the chapter in which Jack dies, most of them—almost without exception—chose to temporarily close the game.
In many livestreams, highly emotional streamers completely broke down at that moment, crying openly alongside Jack's death.
Jack's character buildup was exceptionally well done. In this regard, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment truly showed its strength.
The main storyline, which players had gradually begun to find dull earlier on, suddenly gained meaning at this exact moment.
Everything exploded at the point of Jack's death—the emotional impact hit hard and lingered.
However, although most players closed the game when Jack died, they almost all reopened it again about two hours later.
According to market surveys, by that time players had largely recovered from their grief and, filled with hatred toward the true culprit—Yorinobu Arasaka—swore to avenge Jack.
Jack may have done some morally questionable things, like stealing from powerful figures.
But many people dumped the blame for Saburo Arasaka's murder squarely onto Jack.
Within the game's in-world network and across various in-game media outlets, Jack was relentlessly condemned.
This was something players simply could not accept.
All of a sudden, many players personally felt the weight of online violence.
Even though it was "just a game," the emotions felt incredibly real.
In the game, only the player knows the truth. Everyone else blindly attacks a dead man who should never have had to bear such blame.
That was unacceptable to these players.
So they re-entered the game fueled by anger.
Of course, there was another reason as well: the game was genuinely fun.
The earlier joint combat with Jack inside the hotel tower, as well as the later car chase, sent many players' adrenaline skyrocketing.
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment possesses top-tier game development experience.
Whether it's shooters, role-playing games, or action games, they handle all of them with ease.
Vehicle handling in the game feels excellent, thanks to the company's experience with top racing franchises like Need for Speed and Forza.
Gunplay is equally outstanding, coming from a studio that once developed the Counter-Strike series and Titanfall.
The action system is also top-notch. From a third-person perspective, players can see their character use different combat abilities depending on the skill slots equipped.
If you explore carefully enough, you might even find skill slots based on traditional Chinese martial arts, allowing you to experience the charm of kung fu in-game.
Likewise, there's Japanese kendo, proudly represented, complete with its own independent animations.
All of this stems from experience accumulated while developing action games like Street Fighter and Monster Hunter.
Now, experience from every major genre has converged, giving birth to Cyberpunk 2077—a truly top-tier game.
A game that many development studios may be unable to surpass for years to come.
With such flawless gameplay across the board, even if the story had been bad, players would still have loved it.
Now, countless players regrouped and threw themselves back into the world of Cyberpunk 2077, vowing to avenge Jack.
Murakami Kazuo, being a mature and level-headed gamer, merely reddened his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and returned to the game.
After all, he had work to do—he needed to experience the entire game as quickly as possible.
He had already wasted too much time; he couldn't afford to slow down now.
And he also wanted to personally kill the true culprit, Yorinobu Arasaka.
In the Trauma Team storyline, the player character isn't publicly identified as the culprit, but she is nonetheless indirectly dragged into the vortex.
Originally, the player character planned to review Jack's final recorded memories using the Cyberpunk 2077 world's Braindance system.
But before she could do that, she was betrayed by the fixer.
As expected, the protagonist then merged with a soul contained within the chip.
To prevent damage, the protagonist had inserted the chip Jack carried into her own brain for safekeeping—never expecting it to become the lifeline that allowed her to survive a little longer.
Instead of dying outright from her fatal wounds, her damaged areas were repaired and she was revived. The price, however, was that an additional soul now resided in her mind.
That soul was the game's second protagonist:
Johnny Silverhand, a rock singer who once lived in the year 2023 of the cyberpunk world.
Back in 2023, Johnny Silverhand committed a world-shaking act: he detonated a nuclear bomb inside Arasaka Tower, the Arasaka Group's headquarters.
Although the tower was destroyed, the ultimate boss—Saburo Arasaka—did not die.
Johnny Silverhand was captured alive and taken to a secret location, where he was subjected to a brutal experiment.
That experiment involved preserving Johnny Silverhand's soul inside a chip, testing a new Arasaka technology—one that seemed capable of granting eternal youth.
With such technology, the wealthy might achieve immortality and rule the world forever.
Turning the entire world into their personal playground.
However, even decades later, the experiment was never fully completed. Eventually, the chip ended up inside the protagonist's brain, becoming another consciousness living within her.
Inside the protagonist's head, this soul never shuts up—constantly demanding cigarettes and insisting on doing all kinds of things.
The protagonist has no interest in dealing with this noisy spirit. She just wants to find a way to truly live again, free from this cursed interference.
At the same time, she must continue struggling within Trauma Team.
She never received the reward she deserved, so she still has to fight to survive.
And now, she has an additional goal: to see whether Trauma Team's technology might offer a way to restore her to normal.