Cyberpunk 2077 could be considered a favorite among fans who love detailed settings.
They were delighted to personally experience this era-defining game, whose worldbuilding was extremely rigorous, with tightly woven logic, many novel story concepts, and unique gameplay mechanics.
The braindance system was especially distinctive.
Strictly speaking, this mechanic was really just a variation of other existing systems and couldn't be called a groundbreaking innovation.
But with the added in-world explanation of "braindance," it suddenly became incredibly cool.
The animation continued. Like many conventional animated stories, the protagonist still had to go to school—and at school, he got bullied.
This was a very familiar narrative trope, neither particularly good nor bad.
It seemed like a fairly ordinary animation overall, just wrapped in a cyberpunk skin—but even so, it was still quite enjoyable.
Then, suddenly, the plot took a sharp turn.
The protagonist, David Martinez, was riding home in a car with his mother.
On the way, they unexpectedly ran into a violent clash between two gangs. In the chaos, the car overturned. David's mother was thrown out of the vehicle, her condition unknown, while David himself was trapped by his seatbelt, unable to break free.
Soon, a group of people descended from the sky in flying vehicles and landed nearby. When David saw who they were, he was overjoyed.
"That's great! It's Trauma Team! We're saved!"
David in the animation was relieved—but the veteran player watching frowned.
He suddenly had a very bad feeling.
He had played as Trauma Team in the game before. He knew exactly how they operated.
With David's social status, could they even afford a Trauma Team membership?
And if they couldn't pay—would Trauma Team still save them?
Before his doubts even finished forming, Trauma Team did exactly what he feared: they abandoned David and his mother.
Because they weren't members.
"They're not members."
"Then don't bother. Let the corpse collectors handle them. We're going to save our clients."
David froze in disbelief, then screamed in rage:
"Wait! You bastards! Mom! Mom! Hang in there!"
As his shouts echoed, the scene abruptly cut to David slumped in a chair, looking broken. A scruffy, dirty-looking man wearing a mask casually explained his mother's condition to him.
"Ah, your mother's vital signs have stabilized. Looks like she'll be discharged soon."
"Can I go see my mother?"
"Nope. You bought the cheapest treatment package—there's no visitation service included. But don't worry."
The next day, after being bullied again at school, David went to see his mother.
She was already dead.
In Night City, death was a daily occurrence.
Even V, the protagonist of Cyberpunk 2077, couldn't escape it.
The veteran player felt a lump stuck in his throat.
It hurt.
Yet everything felt horrifyingly logical.
If possible, he truly hoped the future would never become like this.
Because such a world would be unbearably cruel to ordinary people.
In that kind of society, most people would be nothing more than disposable screws—without any ability to resist.
In the real world, at least people still had some freedom of their own.
At the very least, he could play games at home, take odd jobs to survive, and do things he enjoyed.
But in the world of Cyberpunk 2077, even survival itself would be a daily struggle.
David and his mother were the perfect example.
No matter how hard they struggled, they could only barely survive in Night City, all while desperately hoping to grasp even the slightest chance of rising into the upper class.
Yet in the veteran player's view, even if David's mother had exhausted herself to send him to an elite school, it would still be extremely difficult for him to truly enter the upper ranks of a major corporation.
At best, he'd become a low-level corporate employee—still just scraping by.
At the end of the first episode, the protagonist finally snapped, completing his first major character transformation.
He wanted to become stronger.
Since the conventional path didn't work, he would take a different road.
He would become stronger—on a physical level.
The first step was to install a powerful cybernetic implant his mother had secretly taken.
The episode ended.
Only then did the veteran player realize that, during the latter half of the episode, he had completely forgotten to drink his cola or eat his chips.
Clearly, he had been fully absorbed by the story.
At least judging from the first episode alone, the animation was genuinely well made.
And that opening fight scene had been incredibly flashy—those effects clearly required a substantial budget.
It didn't match his initial assumption that this was a low-cost production.
"Dropping the whole series at once really is satisfying. Not having to wait week by week feels amazing."
The veteran player clicked into the next episode.
Over the next few episodes, the story followed David as he became a member of a mercenary crew, where he met a girl who looked incredibly cool—her name was Lucy.
The moment the veteran player saw Lucy, he liked her.
White hair, a detached expression, an air of indifference toward everything.
It hit his preferences perfectly.
As the story progressed, the two naturally became a couple. And to his delight, there was another extremely likable character in the animation.
Her name was Rebecca—a girl who looked small and cute, yet was extremely violent. That contrast was incredibly appealing.
And she was very good to the protagonist.
However, in one sudden incident, Rebecca's brother died without warning.
The cause?
He ran into a cyberpsycho who was casually urinating in the street—and his head was instantly blown apart by a single shot.
When that scene appeared, the veteran player was startled.
This animation delivered accidents without any warning—death came just as suddenly.
Just like David's mother.
It further cemented in his mind how cruel this city truly was.
Death was commonplace.
He couldn't help but feel grateful that he lived in a relatively peaceful era, not in the despair of the Cyberpunk 2077 world.
And yet…
This city also had its own strange allure.
One of those attractions was becoming a "somebody" in Night City.
Even if that status only lasted a few minutes—it still seemed worth it.
Just like Jack…
Thinking of Jack again made the veteran player's chest ache.
In the game, there were so many storylines involving Jack, all carefully designed to help players bond with him.
And then, when players were at their least prepared, the game killed him off—triggering massive emotional shock.
Even now, the veteran player still felt unresolved about it.
Jack's death was truly, unbearably unfair.