Not only does she feel like a potential romance character that was cut off too soon, I could definitely see an extended quest line with her and her ties to Militech providing an additional ending route similar to Panam and The Aldecaldos in The Star ending, this time storming Arasaka with her and a team of Militech corposoldiers.
It would have been an interesting alternative corpo ending. Though it’s kinda hard to imagine what would come after that to differentiate it from the other endings. Especially now that we have the PL NUSA ending
That would have been a direct re-enactment of the actual storming and bombing of arasaka tower by Johnny and Morgan black hand. Militech gave them the bomb
@@mordor1779 Well, V also dies in most of the endings (actually she/he dies in every ending ... just not always right away). Still V is said to return in the sequel. CDPR needs to either canonize the first game (which would be a bad choice) or let us import our save files from 2077.
I hate her, I might even hate her most of all characters in game - no wait, I don't hate her as much as Dexter. When I made a reddit post about how furious I was that the game does not allow me to kill her, most people seemed to assume it is because she pegs you, but it's simply just because she is an insufferable garbage human being. I wonder if people who are attracted to her are masochists or something.
Picked up the game recently so could be missing a beat or two. Would guess that they didn't want any of the love interests too mixed up with the corporations. Makes some of the ending actually hostile towards some of those possible partners
Due to my inability to pick up on hints, I thought she was inviting V to the motel in order to discuss a hidden business deal since he had proven himself a useful asset kinda like how the meeting place with Dex after the heist is a motel. V walking in on a nearly naked woman going "So what's the biz?"
I like how corpo V can react to her intimidation attempts, mocking her attempts at being ruthless while being cornered and scared herself. For me corpo V is the only one who is reasonably prepared to the game events.
Not just prepared, i felt that Corpo V was the only version of V had any real reason to go full send into the Heist as we saw, in kind of a "It's personnal" way
Well Street Kid Vi is a little thug and Nomad Vi is a random Nomad. Run of the mills goons you find everywhere in the streets Corpo V is an Arasaka spec ops with a massive background of roaming the world killing people, with access to the latest tech and classified information. He is so far above the other paths in terms of skills it's insane
Since I loved the Nomad life-path most, I ended up helping Meredith out. Kinky ending of her questline aside, I had initially believed there would be something more to her story. She talks to V like they are going to meet again, and that could have been rad. It's a shame how little we got to see of that kinky sadist.
I always got the feeling that Meredith was supposed to be the opposition force to takamura in her own main quest line idea. Where goro is full of sage wisdom and wannabe samurai ideals, and emphasis on trusting the honor of his modern dimyo. Meredith is all brash, loud and angry action forcing all others to heel to her will (in more ways then one.) By climbing up the greasy pole of corpo advancement. Tear down her superiors so she can take there place, and exert there power to fix v. at first as mutual benefit of v is unbroken and militech gets the relic to reverse engineer, but as the romance builds its in no small part cause she loves you. Godamn that’d be a hell of a option in the end choice.
I never thought about how underrepresented is the global Militech-Arasaka conflict in the Cyberpunk story until now, and having that pointed out is awesome. One thing left for us is a gig from Padre, where Valentinos prepare to play a "Militech" assault on an Arasaka facility commissioned by Arasaka itself. "Not my board, not my game" is a kind of closure that devs offer us, however, should Meredith's line extend, it might very well be a part of it.
Erica Lindbeck is one of the more underrated VAs working today. I still half refuse to believe Meredith, Misty, and Futaba from Persona 5 (among others) are all the same person.
Love the idea of all these different powers being involved in the Heist, just adds more dramatic irony to V and Jackie Welles walking into the proverbial lion’s den unawares. We already have NetWatch, the VD Bois, Arasaka of course, probably Blackwall AIs…if Militech wasn’t taking an interest I’d be more surprised 😂
Meredith is one of my favorite world-building characters. So much is done with such little presence. Unsolved Plotlines sounds like an excellent late-night series
What I am hoping for is one day cdpr will release the full sdk on development for cyberpunk thus allowing people to fully restore cut content or at least try to fully restore it. As for what the full content entailed, I have a couple theories. My main theory is Stout was supposed to act as a sort of corporate fixer as well as an alternative path for the main quest. The ying to rogue's yang. The building you mention was likely the area we zone in to where we talk with her and others about jobs tied to militech. As for the jobs, I suspect that some of the fixer missions in others areas might have been for missions she gives. There is also a few areas in the bad lands that are full of militech but yet they are doing absolutely nothing in some cases. If you get all her missions done then you finally get that one night stand only it ends up being a relationship. Eventually when you get to the ending choice you can choose to call her. Now separately here is something important to consider. Each of the ending is in some way tied to a path. The nomad path is tied to the aldacados. The street kid path is tied to going on your own. The corpo path I suspect was supposed to be the stout ending. The silverhand ending is if you go with rogue. Then you have the suicide and devil ending which are just meant to be bad endings. As for the corpo ending, I suspect it featured part of the phantom liberty ending with you heading off to get surgery. Later just like in that ending you have someone trying to convince you to stay only instead of reed you have stout. Stout offers you a spot working for militech and if you choose to stay you become a new exec at militech. If you choose to go back to night city you find out everyone else has moved on thus you are now alone.
I kinda feel like the Netwatch guy, Bryce Mosley, you interact with in pacifica is in a similar position. Being an introduction character to some cut content for the corp he's part of. He's a lot of personality crammed into his, what, five minute on-screen appearance? He also says he has a feeling you'll meet again too. And he's the only npc I can think of in the game that sends you text messages checking up on you if you're slow at progressing the quest if you cut a deal with him. He also straight up saves V's life by pointing out the virus or whatever Placide put into him (or it would've been if the chip doesn't save V anyway lol). Making him an example that not everybody who works for a corp is all bad. You can also find the body of someone with a nametag that says Bryce Mosley on it, hinting that he's not all that he appears to be.
I prefer Corpo background V, so Meredith’s snafu provides not only an excellent view into typical corporate culture but also one of the prime methods of exploring how your V feels about corpos and the people who work under them. Is there empathy? Contempt? Even indifference, as V is more interested in obtaining the recon bot and doesn’t care about the situations of those in their way?
Yes that's very true. My corpo V took great satisfaction in beating her at a game she knew at least as well, reasoning that those instincts don't just fade and the opportunity would be too good to pass up. But I let her play my nomad V like a cat with a mouse - that character came out of the situation used, abused and abandoned, which also seemed appropriate.
Love me some Meredith. I don't know if you watch Sam Bram's lore videos but he theorized that Militech is prepping for war, which might explain their low profile in game.
It's not even a theory. Phantom Liberty clearly shows them escalating situation in the city (in Moon route of DLC) and in the new ending you can clearly see how different NC is in just about a year, with Militech being present.
I mean, with Arasaka coming back and NUSA looking to bring the rest of the free states into the fold, I wouldn't be surprised if Militech's cooking something up under our noses.
The characterization of Alex yearning to retire to Monte Carlo is reminiscent of when T-Bug says during the heist prep that she wants to retire to a "luxury Creten Villa". This is possibly a sign these characters were once the same person.
The only romance that pretty much stopped after the No-Tell Motel meetup. A lot of people have wanted more for that storyline, as other romances in the game are longer. And finding out that Myers was Millitech makes me not giving her SoMi (allowed her to die on her own terms), not taking her vow and not shaking her hand after the events of Phantom Liberty even more pleased (as there was something about Myers I couldn't trust).
If I remember correctly, while watching one of the many UA-cam videos and interviews that the CD Project Red was doing someone said that Meredith Stout was a romance option for the Corpo Life path. I do believe the theory that the life path content was cut up and rushed.
Personally I think it's pretty clear the corpo life path was the one they focused on first before the decision to cut up the lifepaths (meredith probably simply wasn't going to be integral to story progression in the same way judy and panam, at least until later), it has the most affectual unique options, it gives you more in world history in both base and PL, and you're actually old, old friends with Jackie before the game starts, Jackie feels very forced in both other lifepaths, you just sorta become best friends in a montage for some reason and with the story so corpo heavy neither of the other lifepaths give us the player as much insight into the story
See that's exactly what I wanted with the life path stuff! When I pick Corpo I want to do corpo missions and have some progression in the corpo world. Same with if I'm a street kid how about have a series of missions involving gang wars where you can take over one of the main gangs. It would have added so much replayability if every life path was different like that. They wouldn't have even needed to rush it because you could always add extra life paths after release. I guarantee everyone who loves the game would play through every life path at least once if they were like that.
Personally Meredith should've been the "tutorial" for romances, Also Happy Together should've been in the prologue instead, or atleast that initial conversation you can have with Barry about the cars should been in the prologue
Meredith's opening text message that leads to the Venus in Furs encounter suggests to me that something was definitely cut. The message reads "Militech played out as I hoped. Thank you, and remember - we don't know each other.", but this doesn't really make sense when one considers Meredith's involvement in CP2077's quests up until this point. There are two parts to this - first is "Militech played out as I hoped". Meredith doesn't really go into detail as to her motivations around identifying the mole. It's briefly discussed in Dex's initial briefing that she's on the hook for the lost convoy, but V and Meredith don't have to discuss this at all. Her next steps aren't discussed either, but yet the line "Militech played out as I hoped" suggests that Meredith had discussed what her next steps would be with V after The Pickup. Why else would Meredith think that V is aware of (or is remotely interested in) the outcome of a larger goal of hers (her 'hopes')? I suspect that this awareness would have come from V's involvement in a Militech-focused quest chain, with the overall goal (at least initially) being Meredith's advancement at Militech, with V providing covert assistance ("remember, - we don't know each other"). This would probably take the form of at least one quest that acted as a 're-introduction' to Meredith and Militech, as her level of exposure in Act 1 is both short (and more importantly) optional. Following this reintroduction, Meredith's involvement in the broader "Militech questline" (if there was any further Militech questline at all) could largely cease, transitioning to a questline more specific to Meredith (or nothing at all) - "Thank you, and remember - we don't know each other" suggesting both that V is going to remain involved with Militech, but also that Meredith won't be interacting with V further as part of that continued involvement. Alternatively, "we don't know each other"' could be Meredith admitting that she knows V and Militech are likely to come to blows in future. I don't think that the additional questline would have been something on the level of Phantom Liberty's main quest line, but more like Panam or Judy's quest chains - 3-5 quests in other words. I would lean toward 5 (including the 'reintroduction') rather than 3, as Panam (3 quests) had more presence in the Anders Hellman questline, which meant that the player had had more exposure to her prior to starting her own quest chain, compared with Judy's 5 (which were all rather short)..
I still remember my first playthrough, man. I was expecting so much from the characters in that quest like Jackie, her and Brick. At least I got Brick's shotgun in PL.
@@lydiscott The Black Market merchant is an ex-Maelstrom who sellsit. It's called Order and its name is quite ironic considering Royce's Iconic is called Chaos.
I feel robbed... Meredith is my favorite side character in 2077, full stop. My first playthrough was as a Streetkid and I had this dream of getting An In with the corporate world through her. She's the only (canon) character I've completely exhausted on ao3. AUGH Would be nice if they went back and finished the cut content, repackaged as another expansion, though they've already said they're done and moving on. Pity. For all its faults, 2077 is one of my favorite places to be, and I could never have enough of it
I don't know what it is about this game, it has so blatant flaws but i just can't not fall in love with it. So im glad that i found a channel that points these things out while also giving me more backstory and insights. Thanks a lot for these videos! C:
Thank you for watching! Totally agree. While there’s things about it that speak to its flawed development, it’s still awesome. Never get tired of just wandering around Night City or meeting new characters. It’s a game that’s keeps you coming back to it.
500+ hours and I still dicover new things about this. I never knew of the interiour of the Militech building. I also love your theory because it makes so much sense.
Not gonna lie, she scared the absolute bejeezers out of me when I went in to shake her hand and then next minute I found myself on the floor. I had no idea what was going on, only that I was in some deep shit.
Something that’s also interesting to note that wasn’t mentioned in this video is that the op where Johnny nuked Arasaka was a Militech op. In Morgan Blackhand’s wiki page, he orchestrates the op on behalf of militech, where as we only see Johnny’s side of it, and we are told that Johnny is an unreliable narrator
Just finished Cyberpunk after getting it a couple weeks ago and just found this channel. I am loving these Fiction Forensics episodes! Great premise for videos and so much potential for other games/movies as well. Thanks for putting these up!
If you do all of the fixer missions, and the NCPD scanner missions, the Militech ones are really intriguing! Lots of shady assassinations taking out anyone who messes with them, even testing new weapons on homeless camps. There is also the Reporter mission to the old Militech Bunker for Mr Hands, which makes Netwatch try and take out V with a hit squad. I think you're on the money tho, this game was supposed to be a lot bigger, and sadly the Militech storyline seems to be the causality of running out of time/the overwhelming technical difficulties that CDPR ran into.
It still impresses me to this day after 8 playthroughs and over 1500hrs in Night City that Erica Lindbeck, the actor that voices Meredith Stout, is the same person who voices Misty and Spider Murphy. Shows how talented she is to make voice such different characters so convincingly. It's like when I found out that Peter Blomquist, the actor who plays Micah Bell (Red Dead 2) is the same actor who plays Dr. Harlan Fontaine (LA Noire). Both of these actors have incredible range.
I do hope your channel continues to do well and I've particularly enjoyed this series on Cyberpunk 2077 characters. For those of us who can't or won't move on, it gives us something to ponder as we start yet another playthrough.
Always liked her character. She’s a force of nature whilst being completely vulnerable at the same time, she’s basically scared shitless despite her demeanour, and as V you either save her or destroy her. Would have loved her as a ‘companion’ (in the sense that we get River, Judy etc). It would have been great to dig deeper into Militech and what the hell is going on between them and Arasaka. I think she was wasted, especially since I kinda always got the sense there was supposed to be more to her from the gameplay demo that they showed way back before release (much like T-Bug), as you covered in the video. Amazing work!
I’ve watched for a bit now and you always do these characters the justice they deserve. I think this analysis is great, but V’s line at Meredith’s body- about it being someone from before the heist- sets in how quick the life turnover is in Night City. Finding her felt foreboding, even if her story wasn’t fleshed out as much as in this video.
Corpo Dommy Mommy would have been a good relationship to pursue, especially if you keep finding Militech secrets and getting together with Mommy Meredith for more information liaisons, which result in gifts from mommy in exchange for more secrets to advance mommy's career. ;)
I feel like the most likely reason Meredith was cut was because of the endings. With Meredith importance at Militech there is no way she wouldn’t have an ending. If she had a long-term romance or more quest outside of the prologue that would have to come up. Maybe they ran out of development time and decided to cut her ending.
I played corpo both my playthroughs. I didn't need the money for the deal but my guy was a professional and a netrunner. He figured that this was a part of the deal, which he would honour, but he also knew how corpos work so he did exactly as he agreed to- however, the daemon on the shard wasn't what he agreed to so he cleaned it before he passed it over. At that point I hadn't met anyone that Maelstrom had screwed over, but Meredith sold me out so I got her first and honoured both bargains simultaneously. She knew the game, she went to the jungle thinking she was a gorilla. Turned out she was just a monkey and got crushed. Oh well, should've been better at her job or at least not tried to screw me over. Thanks for playing Meredith, and ultimately making space for someone better.
I do think Meredith and all the plot related to her is all that is left of what was supposed to be the Corp lifepath storyline. You can kinda sense the shape of what each of the lifepaths was supposed to be. I think the second act was supposed to branch out into to the three different lifepaths and then meet up at a similar third act, with different people supporting your final missions, depending on the path you were on. Witcher 2 had a similar structure, with a very different second act, depending on your choices in the first act. It seems the Nomad path was the most finished, as you get plenty of missions with the Aldecaldos and a full fledged romance option in Panam. The Streetkid path had a little more than the corpo path, with Judy also being fledged out and hints of the combat chip dolls and Moxies probably being your support for the final raid on Arasaka. The corpo path seems the least finished, with all being left is the bits with Meredith in the opening. You were probably meant to team up with Militech and encounter a lot more characters and stories from that corp. CDPROJEKT probably just scrounged up what they had of the different lifepaths, their missions and characters and juryrigged them into the storyline we see in the game now.
I think we originally were supposed to be able to work with each of the factions. Each time we interact with them, they invite us to work together including MaxTac, Militech, and the Tiger Claws. We also join the nomads (Aldecaldos) so it's possible there could've been a chance to have an ending with each of the factions
In the main game, Militech is basically canon fodder for V. They guard the border, and you find them in various places in the city, where you kill them for fun and profit. But there are so many signs that they were supposed to be a larger threat, they can't be ignored. But like a lot of other things, CDPR cut them and left enough raw edges that you feel disappointment over the possibilities left unused. What would a Militech ending have looked like? Or a Meredith romance option? Things we'll sadly never see. What we get in Phantom Liberty are possibilities for bringing back Meredith as V's inside contact, who could either help or hinder them in the main quest. And the triangle of Myers/Militech/Hansen is never really explored. Unless he's lying, in Firestarter Hansen talks about helping Myers with a problem months earlier. Militech props up Hansen with supply drops. But publicly, the NUSA considers Hansen a deserter, and Hansen puts down Myers at every opportunity. There's so much here, that could have tied firmly into the main story, but never was
There is also the thing that the Militech building on corpo plaza has... a weird amount of (normally inaccessible) fully modeled insides. So, yeah, prolly safe to assume that Militech was supposed to play a way larger role at some point.
I suspect Militech would have had a bigger role if the original hero options remained in place and Morgan Blackhand had a bigger role in the game. He was after all the big badass of Militech. He was also the one who was actually responsible for the nuke on saka tower. I think the scene we see with Johnny being interrogated by Saburo before getting soulkilled was initially intended for a Morgan Blackhand engram. After all we know Silverhand was soulkilled by Spider Murphy and probably died when we see him get thrown off that balcony. Great work Lydi can’t wait for the AOT analysis’s.
Ohhhhh that’s a very good point about Blackhand. HMMMM… I hope we see him in the next cyberpunk game. He’s fascinating! I would’ve preferred him to Johnny as the engram in V’s head lol! And YAAAAA AoT is gonna be so much fun! 🤩
@@lydiscott I can't remember where I read that (sound familiar?), but in some background story about the creation of the video game from the tabletop game, it was said that the original ceator didn't want Morgan to play a big role in the video game for reasons I also can't remember. So CDPR had to work around that, and that probably also rules out that Morgan will be in the sequel game.
Guess im not alone who felt her story was cut short, and cut militech content could maybe explain why is main story quest line so short compared to all the other content in game
I'd be willing to bet that Arasaka will take a back seat in the sequel, and will likely be replaced by Militech. CP2 ends with the Blackwall being breached (it's Militech's starring role in 2077), and then Netwatch and rogue AIs become the villains in CP3. This would allow for player choices to be acknowledged without having to write completely around them, since Arasaka's struggles can be shown in text or little vignettes, but largely kept behind the scenes until all of 2077's endings converge into one usable reality. It also means they've successfully primed us to hate Militech, so when CP2 is announced we'll all be excited to dive into the main story and bring them down* just like we did** with Arasaka.
I honestly think she was just a cut "fixer" and the no-tell motel scene was what you got after doing all of her contracts. All of the other fixers give you an iconic piece of equipment and you can pick up Sir Phallustiff which is iconic from the room.
Meredith was a missed opportunity, no doubt. Your videos have become the highlight of my weeks when they release. Hopefully, when I can afford it, I, too, shall join the Hotdog Man Club! You're awesome! Keep up the amazing work!
I had massive expectations for her since that 2018 trailer dropped... thought she was going to be THE Corpo companion since Street Kid has Judy and Nomad has Panam...
Another thought. In the Tower ending Miltech and Night Corp in 2079 are quite cozy in their domination of Night City. Given the Adam Smasher files indicating he was trying and failing to stop Militech and Night Corps working together, this makes me wonder if a faction or the whole of Militech was working with the Mr. Blue Eyes comspiracy to control Night City wifh the AI brain rewriting tech combined with Militech's muscle, which comes to fruition in the Tower ending.
It actually makes sence that Meredith would be parther if we choose corporate life. Well after playing this game and learning a lot of cyberpunk stories, i wish that devs had released this game in 2022 cuze there is soo much content and stories that they could have added and made game a complete masterpiece. It still is but complete storyline from Morgan blackhand, Rach guy who broke 78% of net, Jhonny's whole attack in Arasaka tower (one mentioned in actual game is incomplete and some actually believe that it was just Jhonny's imaginary story cuze if anyone noticed he was just one shotting each and every arasaka soldier, but the fact is that when Smasher first attacks him, jhonny loses his control and goes cybersyocis while Smasher brutally killed him in 1 shot. Again if anyone remembers the scene when smasher encountes jhonny first time there is a story gap as all attention was shifted to rogue in helicopter and we cannot know how jhonny was even able to made all the up towards helicopter surrounding with smasher and arasaka soldiers in bottom floors of buildings.) and all would made it even better and engaging.
I fell hard for her on first sight, glad we were able to follow up after helping her. Wish she had more involvement in the story such as being an ally with corp ties and maybe even as a full romance option. Outside that it drives me batty when there's a ton cut out plotlines because dev time. I get it but still.
had no idea about meredith ending up in the ocean like that until recently. i usually decline the money chip, kill royce & co, and she still always ends up living so i was surprised to see that she dies omg. great video tho, her story was defo cut way too short! would love to see a video about kerry :)
You can take the money, don't tell Jackie to sit and it will continue as if you started a fight. Once the quest is over you can remove the virus from the chip and cash it out.
Man, this is wild. I used to follow you in your cosplay days many years ago. I’ve been down the Cyberpunk lore rabbit hole for months and stumbled on one of your vids and then your face popped up. Crazy seeing you here! Love the content and hope to see more!
I thought she was so cool and I felt so flattered/lucky I got the motel scene on accident my first playthrough. I was hoping we got to see more of her.
Awsome movie as always. Its interesting to see that Meredith was a streetkid and rised from bottom to a high rank in a megacorpo, considering her tattoos (i may be wrong but a lot of people are theorycrafting about this). Maybe that kind of backstory makes her more ruthless then other corpo rats. BTW i would love to see in the future a video about Songbird. Best wishes !
Meredith is genuinely one of my favourite characters in the game. She's tough, no nonsense, but also has a hidden tender side that you see if you accept her one night stand. I really wish they had done more with her character.
I always felt like that storyline ended abruptly. This makes it make sense. But it never occurred to me that Alex might have been yhr remnants of T-Bug's storyline. Makes too much sense.
Not sure how i found your channel. Probably because i started playing a new Solo campaign to relive stress and the algorithm just knows. Lol. Anywaya great essay on Meredith and the Militech Mole. Always wondered if it was really Anthony or what. Gj!
Meredith is another character I wish was in V's life more, even if it was just as an employer, you know , she had a few gigs for us. Just more time to interact with her and possibly learn about her. Id have loved it if she were a romance option. Thats what is love to see in CP 2. Give us Romanceable Merideth.
There's an additional Meredith appearance after the heist. In V's apartment you can catch a news fragment of Meredith giving a speech in which she talks about how Militech is donating tech to the NCPD.
So if you watch TV broadcasts in Night City, if you side with Meredith, she is promoted in Militech and speaks on behalf of the company. Look around in the game, not long after the heist and she should be shilling for em. Also if she is the corpo dommy mommy, Judy is for street kid sapphics, and Panam is for nomad dudes, where does that leave male street kids, and female nomads? I can see River being a male nomad, but pretty sure he is a lawman which sadly isn't an option, same with Kerry being a rocker boy? If looking around at the major characters you meet throughout the game, I could see Takemura as a male partner for corpos (but he is with someone he hints) For female nomads? Well I hear a lot of people bring up Mick or Saul. I think Saul would be interesting cause you could potentially side with him against Panam and just be a shitty friend to her. For a male option for street kids players I am at a loss, unless we are counting River since as a cop he would be familiar with the streets.
OMG I missed those broadcasts! That’s actually awesome, good for Meredith! 🤣 and honestly I will say, I was let down by all the male romance options for this game. Kerry feels like drunken uncle vibes and River feels like a lot was cut from his story. Would’ve loved to have romanced Saul though lololol OR Takemura!
18:32 OMG I never thought of how Judy is the “Street Kid Love Interest” Panam is the “Nomad Love Interest” but there’s no “Corpo Love Interest” even though Meredith Stout could’ve fit that bill, perfectly!
Way back before Cyberpunk released, me and a friend were talking about the role play perspective of the game and we agreed that Meredith would be the corpo romance option (this was back before all the delays and content cutting).
Just as the Street Kid Lifepath had a unique Fixer, I thought it would have been easy to cast Meredith as a Fixer-analogue for the Nomad Lifepath. Giving V a few gigs..easily taken away from Regina or The Padre, would have made their, um, climactic final meeting a lot more natural and logical inside the overall story. I agree that the VA for Meredith and Misty did an amazing job. However it seems as though CDPR has a habit of creating wonderful, unique characters and then underusing them, even throwing them away far earlier than we want to see them go. Agreed that Phantom Liberty turned the magic of Cyberpunk 2077 up to eleven.
Not only does she feel like a potential romance character that was cut off too soon, I could definitely see an extended quest line with her and her ties to Militech providing an additional ending route similar to Panam and The Aldecaldos in The Star ending, this time storming Arasaka with her and a team of Militech corposoldiers.
It would have been an interesting alternative corpo ending. Though it’s kinda hard to imagine what would come after that to differentiate it from the other endings. Especially now that we have the PL NUSA ending
That would have been a direct re-enactment of the actual storming and bombing of arasaka tower by Johnny and Morgan black hand. Militech gave them the bomb
Ooohhh that would’ve been an awesome option!
Unfortunately, odds are pretty high she would get killed by Smasher right before the fight, as happens to Saul or Rogue
Considering the build up for another corpo war between Arasaka and Militech this idea seems plausible. The towe being the kickoff for that war.
Corporate gods willing, Meredith will return in the sequel.
May Mammon’s blessing be with ye
Doesn't she die if you chose to not side with her ? I don't think she'll return because it would invalidate choices player could have made in 2077
@@mordor1779
Well, V also dies in most of the endings (actually she/he dies in every ending ... just not always right away). Still V is said to return in the sequel.
CDPR needs to either canonize the first game (which would be a bad choice) or let us import our save files from 2077.
Cyberpunk 2: The Search for More Money!
Unlikely since she can die.
meredith is my biggest crush in game, always felt a bit sad when its very easy to skip over what little she has
“I want a woman who will actually just sell me in order to climb the corporate ladder…presumably using my body as a literal step”
I'm hoping a Modder will take up the mantle and add some more content with her. Having her trying to climb the corporate ladder using V ...
I hate her, I might even hate her most of all characters in game - no wait, I don't hate her as much as Dexter. When I made a reddit post about how furious I was that the game does not allow me to kill her, most people seemed to assume it is because she pegs you, but it's simply just because she is an insufferable garbage human being. I wonder if people who are attracted to her are masochists or something.
@@tazgecko always loved this idea but she does her job so well for her short appearance, what we have is enough closure ingame for me at least :3
Picked up the game recently so could be missing a beat or two. Would guess that they didn't want any of the love interests too mixed up with the corporations. Makes some of the ending actually hostile towards some of those possible partners
Due to my inability to pick up on hints, I thought she was inviting V to the motel in order to discuss a hidden business deal since he had proven himself a useful asset kinda like how the meeting place with Dex after the heist is a motel.
V walking in on a nearly naked woman going "So what's the biz?"
That seems to be a bit of a common theme, as I had the same reaction as did a few others I know.
"She is remembered long after her last appearance, for a variety of reasons."
That chuckle
Haha we know 😅😂
I like how corpo V can react to her intimidation attempts, mocking her attempts at being ruthless while being cornered and scared herself. For me corpo V is the only one who is reasonably prepared to the game events.
Not just prepared, i felt that Corpo V was the only version of V had any real reason to go full send into the Heist as we saw, in kind of a "It's personnal" way
Well Street Kid Vi is a little thug and Nomad Vi is a random Nomad. Run of the mills goons you find everywhere in the streets
Corpo V is an Arasaka spec ops with a massive background of roaming the world killing people, with access to the latest tech and classified information. He is so far above the other paths in terms of skills it's insane
Since I loved the Nomad life-path most, I ended up helping Meredith out. Kinky ending of her questline aside, I had initially believed there would be something more to her story. She talks to V like they are going to meet again, and that could have been rad. It's a shame how little we got to see of that kinky sadist.
I always got the feeling that Meredith was supposed to be the opposition force to takamura in her own main quest line idea. Where goro is full of sage wisdom and wannabe samurai ideals, and emphasis on trusting the honor of his modern dimyo. Meredith is all brash, loud and angry action forcing all others to heel to her will (in more ways then one.) By climbing up the greasy pole of corpo advancement. Tear down her superiors so she can take there place, and exert there power to fix v. at first as mutual benefit of v is unbroken and militech gets the relic to reverse engineer, but as the romance builds its in no small part cause she loves you. Godamn that’d be a hell of a option in the end choice.
...Senator Clay, that sounds fucking awesome.
💯💯💯 Why couldn't we get this!?
"Corpo dommy mommy" is not an option, and the game is unequivocally worse for it.
I never thought about how underrepresented is the global Militech-Arasaka conflict in the Cyberpunk story until now, and having that pointed out is awesome. One thing left for us is a gig from Padre, where Valentinos prepare to play a "Militech" assault on an Arasaka facility commissioned by Arasaka itself. "Not my board, not my game" is a kind of closure that devs offer us, however, should Meredith's line extend, it might very well be a part of it.
I'm so glad this video was able to present that idea for you 😄! And ahhh yes, It's frustrating how little they explored that gig/plotline in the game.
“Corpo dommy mommy” is not a phrase I thought I would ever hear
making up new terminology since 2017
I have a huge weakness for mean women with big egos, its not a shock Meredith's one of my favorite side characters
Especially when they’re in over their head, that’s always such a fun character.
Same here my man same here. Pretentious egotistical women are really fucking hot.
Meredith literally was in over her head because you can find her body in the river (?) wearing cement shoes and her head shaved. Horrid way to go :/
@@palapeura375 Which is why we make sure Mommy Meredith doesn't end up that way
Erica Lindbeck is one of the more underrated VAs working today. I still half refuse to believe Meredith, Misty, and Futaba from Persona 5 (among others) are all the same person.
Love the idea of all these different powers being involved in the Heist, just adds more dramatic irony to V and Jackie Welles walking into the proverbial lion’s den unawares. We already have NetWatch, the VD Bois, Arasaka of course, probably Blackwall AIs…if Militech wasn’t taking an interest I’d be more surprised 😂
Always remember
Venus in furs has a main quest marker, not a side quest one
Meredith is one of my favorite world-building characters. So much is done with such little presence.
Unsolved Plotlines sounds like an excellent late-night series
What I am hoping for is one day cdpr will release the full sdk on development for cyberpunk thus allowing people to fully restore cut content or at least try to fully restore it.
As for what the full content entailed, I have a couple theories.
My main theory is Stout was supposed to act as a sort of corporate fixer as well as an alternative path for the main quest. The ying to rogue's yang. The building you mention was likely the area we zone in to where we talk with her and others about jobs tied to militech. As for the jobs, I suspect that some of the fixer missions in others areas might have been for missions she gives. There is also a few areas in the bad lands that are full of militech but yet they are doing absolutely nothing in some cases. If you get all her missions done then you finally get that one night stand only it ends up being a relationship.
Eventually when you get to the ending choice you can choose to call her. Now separately here is something important to consider. Each of the ending is in some way tied to a path. The nomad path is tied to the aldacados. The street kid path is tied to going on your own. The corpo path I suspect was supposed to be the stout ending. The silverhand ending is if you go with rogue. Then you have the suicide and devil ending which are just meant to be bad endings. As for the corpo ending, I suspect it featured part of the phantom liberty ending with you heading off to get surgery. Later just like in that ending you have someone trying to convince you to stay only instead of reed you have stout. Stout offers you a spot working for militech and if you choose to stay you become a new exec at militech. If you choose to go back to night city you find out everyone else has moved on thus you are now alone.
I kinda feel like the Netwatch guy, Bryce Mosley, you interact with in pacifica is in a similar position. Being an introduction character to some cut content for the corp he's part of. He's a lot of personality crammed into his, what, five minute on-screen appearance? He also says he has a feeling you'll meet again too. And he's the only npc I can think of in the game that sends you text messages checking up on you if you're slow at progressing the quest if you cut a deal with him.
He also straight up saves V's life by pointing out the virus or whatever Placide put into him (or it would've been if the chip doesn't save V anyway lol). Making him an example that not everybody who works for a corp is all bad. You can also find the body of someone with a nametag that says Bryce Mosley on it, hinting that he's not all that he appears to be.
I prefer Corpo background V, so Meredith’s snafu provides not only an excellent view into typical corporate culture but also one of the prime methods of exploring how your V feels about corpos and the people who work under them. Is there empathy? Contempt? Even indifference, as V is more interested in obtaining the recon bot and doesn’t care about the situations of those in their way?
Yes that's very true. My corpo V took great satisfaction in beating her at a game she knew at least as well, reasoning that those instincts don't just fade and the opportunity would be too good to pass up. But I let her play my nomad V like a cat with a mouse - that character came out of the situation used, abused and abandoned, which also seemed appropriate.
Love me some Meredith.
I don't know if you watch Sam Bram's lore videos but he theorized that Militech is prepping for war, which might explain their low profile in game.
OHHHH I believe it!
It's not even a theory. Phantom Liberty clearly shows them escalating situation in the city (in Moon route of DLC) and in the new ending you can clearly see how different NC is in just about a year, with Militech being present.
I mean, with Arasaka coming back and NUSA looking to bring the rest of the free states into the fold, I wouldn't be surprised if Militech's cooking something up under our noses.
1:24 "Scaroused" - Excellent Futurama reference!
One reason to align with Meredith is a chance to beat Oda with Sir John (sparing him to aggravate the humiliation). Absolutely hilarious.
The characterization of Alex yearning to retire to Monte Carlo is reminiscent of when T-Bug says during the heist prep that she wants to retire to a "luxury Creten Villa". This is possibly a sign these characters were once the same person.
The only romance that pretty much stopped after the No-Tell Motel meetup. A lot of people have wanted more for that storyline, as other romances in the game are longer. And finding out that Myers was Millitech makes me not giving her SoMi (allowed her to die on her own terms), not taking her vow and not shaking her hand after the events of Phantom Liberty even more pleased (as there was something about Myers I couldn't trust).
She didn’t even step on me 😢
If I remember correctly, while watching one of the many UA-cam videos and interviews that the CD Project Red was doing someone said that Meredith Stout was a romance option for the Corpo Life path.
I do believe the theory that the life path content was cut up and rushed.
HMMMM that’s super interesting! Damn that’s a shame that we didn’t get that though 😔
Personally I think it's pretty clear the corpo life path was the one they focused on first before the decision to cut up the lifepaths (meredith probably simply wasn't going to be integral to story progression in the same way judy and panam, at least until later), it has the most affectual unique options, it gives you more in world history in both base and PL, and you're actually old, old friends with Jackie before the game starts, Jackie feels very forced in both other lifepaths, you just sorta become best friends in a montage for some reason and with the story so corpo heavy neither of the other lifepaths give us the player as much insight into the story
See that's exactly what I wanted with the life path stuff! When I pick Corpo I want to do corpo missions and have some progression in the corpo world. Same with if I'm a street kid how about have a series of missions involving gang wars where you can take over one of the main gangs. It would have added so much replayability if every life path was different like that. They wouldn't have even needed to rush it because you could always add extra life paths after release. I guarantee everyone who loves the game would play through every life path at least once if they were like that.
Personally Meredith should've been the "tutorial" for romances, Also Happy Together should've been in the prologue instead, or atleast that initial conversation you can have with Barry about the cars should been in the prologue
Both Meredith Stout and Sandra Dorsett had larger stories intended.
Meredith's opening text message that leads to the Venus in Furs encounter suggests to me that something was definitely cut. The message reads "Militech played out as I hoped. Thank you, and remember - we don't know each other.", but this doesn't really make sense when one considers Meredith's involvement in CP2077's quests up until this point.
There are two parts to this - first is "Militech played out as I hoped". Meredith doesn't really go into detail as to her motivations around identifying the mole. It's briefly discussed in Dex's initial briefing that she's on the hook for the lost convoy, but V and Meredith don't have to discuss this at all. Her next steps aren't discussed either, but yet the line "Militech played out as I hoped" suggests that Meredith had discussed what her next steps would be with V after The Pickup. Why else would Meredith think that V is aware of (or is remotely interested in) the outcome of a larger goal of hers (her 'hopes')?
I suspect that this awareness would have come from V's involvement in a Militech-focused quest chain, with the overall goal (at least initially) being Meredith's advancement at Militech, with V providing covert assistance ("remember, - we don't know each other").
This would probably take the form of at least one quest that acted as a 're-introduction' to Meredith and Militech, as her level of exposure in Act 1 is both short (and more importantly) optional. Following this reintroduction, Meredith's involvement in the broader "Militech questline" (if there was any further Militech questline at all) could largely cease, transitioning to a questline more specific to Meredith (or nothing at all) - "Thank you, and remember - we don't know each other" suggesting both that V is going to remain involved with Militech, but also that Meredith won't be interacting with V further as part of that continued involvement. Alternatively, "we don't know each other"' could be Meredith admitting that she knows V and Militech are likely to come to blows in future.
I don't think that the additional questline would have been something on the level of Phantom Liberty's main quest line, but more like Panam or Judy's quest chains - 3-5 quests in other words. I would lean toward 5 (including the 'reintroduction') rather than 3, as Panam (3 quests) had more presence in the Anders Hellman questline, which meant that the player had had more exposure to her prior to starting her own quest chain, compared with Judy's 5 (which were all rather short)..
I still remember my first playthrough, man. I was expecting so much from the characters in that quest like Jackie, her and Brick. At least I got Brick's shotgun in PL.
I didn’t even know you could get his shotgun lmao
@@lydiscott The Black Market merchant is an ex-Maelstrom who sellsit. It's called Order and its name is quite ironic considering Royce's Iconic is called Chaos.
I feel robbed... Meredith is my favorite side character in 2077, full stop. My first playthrough was as a Streetkid and I had this dream of getting An In with the corporate world through her. She's the only (canon) character I've completely exhausted on ao3. AUGH
Would be nice if they went back and finished the cut content, repackaged as another expansion, though they've already said they're done and moving on. Pity. For all its faults, 2077 is one of my favorite places to be, and I could never have enough of it
Such a shame they’re done. Ahhhhh I hope they carry over some of that cut content to the sequel.
4:48 idk if it's just me, but even when I refused her deal, I still got the ending where she is the one waiting outside the factory.
I got a weird ending too.
Was not prepared for her ending. She was . . . very brave.
Another character in cyberpunk that deserved more screen time but we got that unexpected meet at the no tell motel 😂😅
Was just finishing up the T-bug and dexter videos, and this got posted. Nice timing haha
She's on fire man.
God at this point I just hope orion is just cp2077 with all the plot lines finished and cut features restored
I don't know what it is about this game, it has so blatant flaws but i just can't not fall in love with it. So im glad that i found a channel that points these things out while also giving me more backstory and insights. Thanks a lot for these videos! C:
Thank you for watching! Totally agree. While there’s things about it that speak to its flawed development, it’s still awesome. Never get tired of just wandering around Night City or meeting new characters. It’s a game that’s keeps you coming back to it.
500+ hours and I still dicover new things about this. I never knew of the interiour of the Militech building. I also love your theory because it makes so much sense.
Not gonna lie, she scared the absolute bejeezers out of me when I went in to shake her hand and then next minute I found myself on the floor. I had no idea what was going on, only that I was in some deep shit.
Everyone keeps saying they felt scared, which is weird because I felt…something different
Yeah it was a rude awakening for my nomad v in my first playthrough lol
These videos are just great.
Hope you continue.
Would love to see lore on Alex, the members of Samurai, and the twins.
Had to edit to throw in Padre.
Thank you so much for watching! Oooh all very good ideas!
Really wish to know more about Denny and Henry for sure.
I'm obsessed with the world of Cyberpunk. I wish we could've kept Meredith as a contact and possible gig liaison.
Awesome video, thank you so much! Subbed!
Ps. Dex is a d…chebag 😁 I wonder if there’s any way to dump him in the beginning of the heist?
The fact that the president is able to incapacitate the merc that ends up killing smasher always struck me as a mistake.
If she were an actual romance option I would have chosen Meredith. Don't get me wrong Panam's awesome but like....damn Meredith's fine lol.
Something that’s also interesting to note that wasn’t mentioned in this video is that the op where Johnny nuked Arasaka was a Militech op. In Morgan Blackhand’s wiki page, he orchestrates the op on behalf of militech, where as we only see Johnny’s side of it, and we are told that Johnny is an unreliable narrator
Just finished Cyberpunk after getting it a couple weeks ago and just found this channel. I am loving these Fiction Forensics episodes! Great premise for videos and so much potential for other games/movies as well. Thanks for putting these up!
If you do all of the fixer missions, and the NCPD scanner missions, the Militech ones are really intriguing! Lots of shady assassinations taking out anyone who messes with them, even testing new weapons on homeless camps. There is also the Reporter mission to the old Militech Bunker for Mr Hands, which makes Netwatch try and take out V with a hit squad. I think you're on the money tho, this game was supposed to be a lot bigger, and sadly the Militech storyline seems to be the causality of running out of time/the overwhelming technical difficulties that CDPR ran into.
It still impresses me to this day after 8 playthroughs and over 1500hrs in Night City that Erica Lindbeck, the actor that voices Meredith Stout, is the same person who voices Misty and Spider Murphy. Shows how talented she is to make voice such different characters so convincingly. It's like when I found out that Peter Blomquist, the actor who plays Micah Bell (Red Dead 2) is the same actor who plays Dr. Harlan Fontaine (LA Noire). Both of these actors have incredible range.
I do hope your channel continues to do well and I've particularly enjoyed this series on Cyberpunk 2077 characters. For those of us who can't or won't move on, it gives us something to ponder as we start yet another playthrough.
that giggle while saying “for a variety of reasons…” yeah the same image popped into my head
Always liked her character. She’s a force of nature whilst being completely vulnerable at the same time, she’s basically scared shitless despite her demeanour, and as V you either save her or destroy her. Would have loved her as a ‘companion’ (in the sense that we get River, Judy etc). It would have been great to dig deeper into Militech and what the hell is going on between them and Arasaka. I think she was wasted, especially since I kinda always got the sense there was supposed to be more to her from the gameplay demo that they showed way back before release (much like T-Bug), as you covered in the video. Amazing work!
I’ve watched for a bit now and you always do these characters the justice they deserve. I think this analysis is great, but V’s line at Meredith’s body- about it being someone from before the heist- sets in how quick the life turnover is in Night City. Finding her felt foreboding, even if her story wasn’t fleshed out as much as in this video.
I played Corpo V where they knew about the chip but went along with her plan.
I really wanted her to make an appearance in the Phantom Liberty story. Or at least see her at the Black Sapphire gala event.
YES even just a non speaking cameo
Corpo Dommy Mommy would have been a good relationship to pursue, especially if you keep finding Militech secrets and getting together with Mommy Meredith for more information liaisons, which result in gifts from mommy in exchange for more secrets to advance mommy's career. ;)
Meredith followed by rogue were my two favorite female charaters in the game.
She definitely leaves a lasting impression. I couldn’t sit down for days 😐
I feel like the most likely reason Meredith was cut was because of the endings. With Meredith importance at Militech there is no way she wouldn’t have an ending. If she had a long-term romance or more quest outside of the prologue that would have to come up. Maybe they ran out of development time and decided to cut her ending.
I played corpo both my playthroughs. I didn't need the money for the deal but my guy was a professional and a netrunner. He figured that this was a part of the deal, which he would honour, but he also knew how corpos work so he did exactly as he agreed to- however, the daemon on the shard wasn't what he agreed to so he cleaned it before he passed it over. At that point I hadn't met anyone that Maelstrom had screwed over, but Meredith sold me out so I got her first and honoured both bargains simultaneously.
She knew the game, she went to the jungle thinking she was a gorilla. Turned out she was just a monkey and got crushed. Oh well, should've been better at her job or at least not tried to screw me over. Thanks for playing Meredith, and ultimately making space for someone better.
I do think Meredith and all the plot related to her is all that is left of what was supposed to be the Corp lifepath storyline. You can kinda sense the shape of what each of the lifepaths was supposed to be. I think the second act was supposed to branch out into to the three different lifepaths and then meet up at a similar third act, with different people supporting your final missions, depending on the path you were on. Witcher 2 had a similar structure, with a very different second act, depending on your choices in the first act.
It seems the Nomad path was the most finished, as you get plenty of missions with the Aldecaldos and a full fledged romance option in Panam. The Streetkid path had a little more than the corpo path, with Judy also being fledged out and hints of the combat chip dolls and Moxies probably being your support for the final raid on Arasaka.
The corpo path seems the least finished, with all being left is the bits with Meredith in the opening. You were probably meant to team up with Militech and encounter a lot more characters and stories from that corp.
CDPROJEKT probably just scrounged up what they had of the different lifepaths, their missions and characters and juryrigged them into the storyline we see in the game now.
I think we originally were supposed to be able to work with each of the factions. Each time we interact with them, they invite us to work together including MaxTac, Militech, and the Tiger Claws. We also join the nomads (Aldecaldos) so it's possible there could've been a chance to have an ending with each of the factions
In the main game, Militech is basically canon fodder for V. They guard the border, and you find them in various places in the city, where you kill them for fun and profit. But there are so many signs that they were supposed to be a larger threat, they can't be ignored. But like a lot of other things, CDPR cut them and left enough raw edges that you feel disappointment over the possibilities left unused.
What would a Militech ending have looked like? Or a Meredith romance option? Things we'll sadly never see. What we get in Phantom Liberty are possibilities for bringing back Meredith as V's inside contact, who could either help or hinder them in the main quest. And the triangle of Myers/Militech/Hansen is never really explored. Unless he's lying, in Firestarter Hansen talks about helping Myers with a problem months earlier. Militech props up Hansen with supply drops. But publicly, the NUSA considers Hansen a deserter, and Hansen puts down Myers at every opportunity. There's so much here, that could have tied firmly into the main story, but never was
Meredith shoulda been a romance option with her own ending. Side with militech to nuke arasaka tower for the second time
There is also the thing that the Militech building on corpo plaza has... a weird amount of (normally inaccessible) fully modeled insides. So, yeah, prolly safe to assume that Militech was supposed to play a way larger role at some point.
I suspect Militech would have had a bigger role if the original hero options remained in place and Morgan Blackhand had a bigger role in the game. He was after all the big badass of Militech. He was also the one who was actually responsible for the nuke on saka tower. I think the scene we see with Johnny being interrogated by Saburo before getting soulkilled was initially intended for a Morgan Blackhand engram. After all we know Silverhand was soulkilled by Spider Murphy and probably died when we see him get thrown off that balcony.
Great work Lydi can’t wait for the AOT analysis’s.
Ohhhhh that’s a very good point about Blackhand. HMMMM… I hope we see him in the next cyberpunk game. He’s fascinating! I would’ve preferred him to Johnny as the engram in V’s head lol! And YAAAAA AoT is gonna be so much fun! 🤩
@@lydiscott I can't remember where I read that (sound familiar?), but in some background story about the creation of the video game from the tabletop game, it was said that the original ceator didn't want Morgan to play a big role in the video game for reasons I also can't remember. So CDPR had to work around that, and that probably also rules out that Morgan will be in the sequel game.
I found the name of that weapon hilarious. There need to be more with such names.
Lmao agreed!
I really wish we got more time with Meredith, she had so much potential for additional stories.
Guess im not alone who felt her story was cut short, and cut militech content could maybe explain why is main story quest line so short compared to all the other content in game
I think part of it-besides potential resource management issues-is that 2077 takes place on the eve of another corpo war.
I'd be willing to bet that Arasaka will take a back seat in the sequel, and will likely be replaced by Militech. CP2 ends with the Blackwall being breached (it's Militech's starring role in 2077), and then Netwatch and rogue AIs become the villains in CP3. This would allow for player choices to be acknowledged without having to write completely around them, since Arasaka's struggles can be shown in text or little vignettes, but largely kept behind the scenes until all of 2077's endings converge into one usable reality. It also means they've successfully primed us to hate Militech, so when CP2 is announced we'll all be excited to dive into the main story and bring them down* just like we did** with Arasaka.
Really love these videos. There's so so much to dig into with Cyberpunk.
I honestly think she was just a cut "fixer" and the no-tell motel scene was what you got after doing all of her contracts. All of the other fixers give you an iconic piece of equipment and you can pick up Sir Phallustiff which is iconic from the room.
Meredith was a missed opportunity, no doubt. Your videos have become the highlight of my weeks when they release. Hopefully, when I can afford it, I, too, shall join the Hotdog Man Club!
You're awesome! Keep up the amazing work!
I had massive expectations for her since that 2018 trailer dropped... thought she was going to be THE Corpo companion since Street Kid has Judy and Nomad has Panam...
Oh man you blew my mind with the corpo love interest angle
Another thought. In the Tower ending Miltech and Night Corp in 2079 are quite cozy in their domination of Night City. Given the Adam Smasher files indicating he was trying and failing to stop Militech and Night Corps working together, this makes me wonder if a faction or the whole of Militech was working with the Mr. Blue Eyes comspiracy to control Night City wifh the AI brain rewriting tech combined with Militech's muscle, which comes to fruition in the Tower ending.
It actually makes sence that Meredith would be parther if we choose corporate life.
Well after playing this game and learning a lot of cyberpunk stories, i wish that devs had released this game in 2022 cuze there is soo much content and stories that they could have added and made game a complete masterpiece.
It still is but complete storyline from Morgan blackhand, Rach guy who broke 78% of net, Jhonny's whole attack in Arasaka tower (one mentioned in actual game is incomplete and some actually believe that it was just Jhonny's imaginary story cuze if anyone noticed he was just one shotting each and every arasaka soldier, but the fact is that when Smasher first attacks him, jhonny loses his control and goes cybersyocis while Smasher brutally killed him in 1 shot. Again if anyone remembers the scene when smasher encountes jhonny first time there is a story gap as all attention was shifted to rogue in helicopter and we cannot know how jhonny was even able to made all the up towards helicopter surrounding with smasher and arasaka soldiers in bottom floors of buildings.) and all would made it even better and engaging.
Indeed a miss opportunity for a corporate romance, waiting for you songbird analysis
I love her email after your "meeting" sometimes two people meet each other at the wrong time...Man, if I had a nickel..
I fell hard for her on first sight, glad we were able to follow up after helping her. Wish she had more involvement in the story such as being an ally with corp ties and maybe even as a full romance option. Outside that it drives me batty when there's a ton cut out plotlines because dev time. I get it but still.
had no idea about meredith ending up in the ocean like that until recently. i usually decline the money chip, kill royce & co, and she still always ends up living so i was surprised to see that she dies omg. great video tho, her story was defo cut way too short! would love to see a video about kerry :)
You can take the money, don't tell Jackie to sit and it will continue as if you started a fight. Once the quest is over you can remove the virus from the chip and cash it out.
Man, this is wild. I used to follow you in your cosplay days many years ago. I’ve been down the Cyberpunk lore rabbit hole for months and stumbled on one of your vids and then your face popped up. Crazy seeing you here! Love the content and hope to see more!
Aw hey thanks so much! That’s an awesome coincidence 😄
I would love to get missions from Meredith.
I thought she was so cool and I felt so flattered/lucky I got the motel scene on accident my first playthrough. I was hoping we got to see more of her.
Awsome movie as always. Its interesting to see that Meredith was a streetkid and rised from bottom to a high rank in a megacorpo, considering her tattoos (i may be wrong but a lot of people are theorycrafting about this). Maybe that kind of backstory makes her more ruthless then other corpo rats. BTW i would love to see in the future a video about Songbird. Best wishes !
Meredith is genuinely one of my favourite characters in the game. She's tough, no nonsense, but also has a hidden tender side that you see if you accept her one night stand. I really wish they had done more with her character.
It seemed more like V was the one who's tender side was showing in that encounter...
Her standing completely upright in the water is far more horrifying than what I expected
I always felt like that storyline ended abruptly. This makes it make sense. But it never occurred to me that Alex might have been yhr remnants of T-Bug's storyline. Makes too much sense.
It’s an intriguing idea, right? Gotta read up on it more, Reddit is bound to have a great thread on this lol
Not sure how i found your channel. Probably because i started playing a new Solo campaign to relive stress and the algorithm just knows. Lol.
Anywaya great essay on Meredith and the Militech Mole. Always wondered if it was really Anthony or what.
Gj!
Meredith is another character I wish was in V's life more, even if it was just as an employer, you know , she had a few gigs for us. Just more time to interact with her and possibly learn about her. Id have loved it if she were a romance option. Thats what is love to see in CP 2. Give us Romanceable Merideth.
loved this
just got this video in my recommendations and.. it's time to do some catchin' up
There's an additional Meredith appearance after the heist. In V's apartment you can catch a news fragment of Meredith giving a speech in which she talks about how Militech is donating tech to the NCPD.
I absolutely love these videos, keep them up
So if you watch TV broadcasts in Night City, if you side with Meredith, she is promoted in Militech and speaks on behalf of the company. Look around in the game, not long after the heist and she should be shilling for em.
Also if she is the corpo dommy mommy, Judy is for street kid sapphics, and Panam is for nomad dudes, where does that leave male street kids, and female nomads?
I can see River being a male nomad, but pretty sure he is a lawman which sadly isn't an option, same with Kerry being a rocker boy?
If looking around at the major characters you meet throughout the game, I could see Takemura as a male partner for corpos (but he is with someone he hints)
For female nomads? Well I hear a lot of people bring up Mick or Saul. I think Saul would be interesting cause you could potentially side with him against Panam and just be a shitty friend to her.
For a male option for street kids players I am at a loss, unless we are counting River since as a cop he would be familiar with the streets.
OMG I missed those broadcasts! That’s actually awesome, good for Meredith! 🤣 and honestly I will say, I was let down by all the male romance options for this game. Kerry feels like drunken uncle vibes and River feels like a lot was cut from his story. Would’ve loved to have romanced Saul though lololol OR Takemura!
18:32 OMG I never thought of how Judy is the “Street Kid Love Interest” Panam is the “Nomad Love Interest” but there’s no “Corpo Love Interest” even though Meredith Stout could’ve fit that bill, perfectly!
We need more of her 🙏🏻
I love this video. It’s great ideas were laid out. I’m looking forward to more videos like this.
This was awesome! I WISH Meredith was a love interest. I am glad to see how many people love her, too 🖤🖤
it almost feel like she was to be a corpo romance option for V
How about an analysis of Sebastian ‘Padre’ Ibarra, the hypocritical fixer?
Way back before Cyberpunk released, me and a friend were talking about the role play perspective of the game and we agreed that Meredith would be the corpo romance option (this was back before all the delays and content cutting).
“I’ll be the first to admit”
- shaped by stories
Just as the Street Kid Lifepath had a unique Fixer, I thought it would have been easy to cast Meredith as a Fixer-analogue for the Nomad Lifepath. Giving V a few gigs..easily taken away from Regina or The Padre, would have made their, um, climactic final meeting a lot more natural and logical inside the overall story. I agree that the VA for Meredith and Misty did an amazing job. However it seems as though CDPR has a habit of creating wonderful, unique characters and then underusing them, even throwing them away far earlier than we want to see them go. Agreed that Phantom Liberty turned the magic of Cyberpunk 2077 up to eleven.