The fact that The Devil ending has Soburo using his own sons body as a vessel just reinforces the fact that Yorinobu was a victim just like anyone else in Night City.
Yep. He used Adam Smasher because he was the ONLY person that was no afraid of taking down any corporation (for the wrong reasons, but still). It is ironic that Yorunobu’s only credible ally was the monster on a leash, since the rest of humanity/elite would rather have his father up forever.
@@kingol4801 Why did Smasher allied with Yorinobu? What could a beyond psychopath like him possibly want? It can't be money cuz then Saburo would've hired him instead as he's the head of the empire so ofcourse he's the one with the most money and influence.
I think the saddest thing about yorinobu is that his sister, the one person in the world he actually really cares about, has been lying to him, and has betrayed him. Hanako has chosen to side with her father, a father who planned to kill yorinobu from the start with relic. Remember that biochip was designed for the purpose of transferring saburo's souls into a body of a blood relative.
Not only that....she's an accomplished netrunner who spent the decades between the bombing and 2077 working on the Relic tech. She was probably the one who convinced her father to bring Yori back into the fold because she saw the need for a genetic match to permit digital copies to return to a bio form, per her father's wish. She lied to her brother for decades.
I only disagree about transfering his soul, because as soon as you "download" your brain and turn it into data, your soul is shattered. The market slogan is save your soul, but in reality you sold your soul for "immortality".
@@josephbelton1890Your soul is NOT shattered. Your brain is *FRIED.* by the overworking/overheating. This isn't a fantasy environment with fairytales. It uses high tech. Replicating your physical brain. For instance that's why V was changing and was afraid of it, because it was more and more turned into Silverhand's physique.
Yorinobu is also not the looming threat to V. If he wanted to he could have sent wave after wave of assassins after V until V was dead, beyond the first time where they are arguably more after Takemura than V, Yorinobu doesn't do that.
That's a game feature I want. Assassin's sent after V. Take out a organized crime big shot? You get several waves of assassin's sent after you. Saka elites throughout the game at various points. Maybe even conditioned Cyberpsycho Assassin's like Petre Horvath after you do the Peralez questline.
That's true. It would make sense that the first wave of assassins were after Takemura, since I'd imagine Yorinobu doubts Takemura believes the poison cover up
Those first Assassin droids were sent by Takamura to convince V the family turned on him. That's why the droids weren't really attacking and following a scripted look of attack. He planned the whole thing to take Yorinobu out by the hands of V. To keep his hands clean and take the throne or help Saburo take Yorinobu body. Remember, his background is acting.
Hanako isn't really that bad either, the game points out a few times that the Arasaka kids are all kind of limited in their life by Saburo's plans. They all kind of fall in a spectrum of grey morality.
@@nukima11 pretty ironic that you imply that the dude who created this cyberpunk universe isn’t smart while not realizing that including a betrayal option would be an idiotic choice that wouldn’t even make sense. There was no guarantee that Yorinobu would help V if they betrayed Hanako, V wasn’t even capable of betraying anyone at that point, Yorinobu probably wouldn’t take too kindly to you doing anything to his sister even if you did betray her to help him, and even if V was capable of betraying Hanako and stopping her without Yorinobu caring they’d still have to deal with a ton of Arasaka soldiers including Takemura who just successfully helped them kill the legendary Adam Smasher. Idiotic take on your part tbh and New Vegas has nice choices but it’s writing over all isn’t all that great.
@cannibalbunnygirl Except Hanako is the one who made this whole scheme possible. She is a very skilled netrunner, and was one of few who actually understood what Alt's creation of Soulkiller would lead to, and was the project head for the Secure Your Soul project. Alt's version stripped out the soul and just left a husk with the former inhabitants memories, which Arasaka used for interrogation, after which the husk would fade away. It was Hanako's work that made the changes that both kept the subject alive and made more permanent copies as stored engrams.
In the new Phantom Liberty ending, it is heavily implied that Yorinobu did his best to destroy his father's company from within, causing Arasaka to finally leave Night City. V even remarks how they might have underestimated Yorinobu.
@sambram even beforehand, in the vanilla game you get several news stories in the background heavily impling that Yorinobu is tanking arasaka stock from within while making "bad desicions" on purporse
It also shows that its not necessarily a good thing as Militech then moves into Night City. With Arasaka on the decline there no longer is a counterweight to Militech's domination of North America and beyond.
I want to know what Hanako's plans were in all this. On the face of it she's loyal to the family, but I suspect she's got her own designs to run the company. She seems to view Yorinobu as an obstacle in this but I'm not sure how Saburo fits in. Maybe she was just happy to be close to the top but for some reason I don't believe that's all she's after.
@@SineN0mine3 I always saw Hanako as being comfortable in remaining the power behind the throne. Saburo is the face of the company and that means that any aggression targeted towards the company is typically done with his face in mind. Hanako never really has to worry about that. Her father values her advice, she lives in luxery, she has a big stake in the company, she keeps a reputation as the 'nice Arasaka', and nobody has any reason to want specifically her dead for corporate reasons.
Yorinobu was in the process of writting a poem. In Japan, there was a custom of leaving a poetic short sentence on a deathbed, “Jisei no ku (death poem). He is also wearing a mofuku or funeral robe.
Small detail but if Yori really wanted Hanako dead she would have been when V and Goro get ganked at the hideout. We briefly see Smasher carrying Hanako's unconscious body to an AV before we collapse. If Yori wanted her dead you think he would tame an animal like Smasher from killing her and doing bad things to her cadaver? No, he wanted her safe and told Smasher to spare her and her alone.
Very true, would've been all too easy to off her there and then. It still bugs me how unclear her cause of death is in the other endings. I'll try and research it further somewhen
@@shinrugal I think Alt zapped her, she's the only remaining board member not complicit with Yorinobu's scheming and the only possible threat to her eliminating Mikoshi for good.
I actually want an option in the devil ending when you talk more with yorinobu and V says that when he gets rid of the biochip he helps yorinobu destroy arasaka
One of Phantom Liberty's endings reinforces this. Yorinobu tanks Arasaka Corp. with Hanako eliminated and from the outside it looks like his incompetence did it but he very likely tanked the company on purpose to destroy his father's legacy (and the technology that would let him return). In short the whole incompetent playboy image was a smokescreen distraction. It also makes sense for Yorinobu's motivations to be survival because V and Songbird are the same, he just didn't have as much screen time as the other two sadly.
This tides up with his background too, he have a double major in Bioscience and Economics. He knows about the real meaning behind the "experimental" relic and how to torpedo Arasaka in order to really make it fall. At the end of the quest where you get the Samurai's Bootlegs even Johny admits how the bombing on Arasaka tower did pretty much nothing in overall perception of the world... Yorinobu understand this and tried to take it down from within
Yorinobu's long term goals may not have been clearly stated as altruistic but just the fact that in most endings he managed to rid the world of a tyranical man who goes against human nature for the sake of maintaining power through fear makes him a hero in my eyes
@@fronk3653nah. He's not. He's as evil as his father given that in the cyberpunk universe, everything revolves around corporations whether people like it or not, in the end the people are still going to suffer by the whims of the people on top. Another case of rich people dictating how poor people live under the guise of being morally correct.
I would excuse everything he does for 1 single invention. Immortality. Add to the souls transfer chip cloning and everyone is immortal. You can have a backup of yourself and even if you die, pop another you. Sometimes, greatness comes with a cost, to me, its justifiable I would say. At first only those with a lot of money can do it, slowly, it becomes mainstream.
I think Yorinobu, when he killed Saburo, was also acting in self defence. "The heart should break but once" doesn't mean "Another family spat." Saburo was basically saying that he was about to have Yorinobu killed. Or rather, probably Soul-Killer-ed so that Saburo could take his body. Yorinobu, at that point, had one and exactly one moment to act.
Saburo also literally says he cant forgive Yorinobu for "his treason". So yeah, Yorinobu was gonna die/be soulkilled definitely if he didnt kill Saburo during the Heist.
Let's not forget that Saburo intended to slaughter thousands of workers to get back at Militech for the siege of AHQ back in 2023, possibly even the whole city at it. His actions would have started yet another corporate war because we all know Militech wouldn't allow such a brazen act to go without equal or greater retaliation. Yorinobu may have not thought about it at the time, but he pretty much spared the whole world another pointless war.
The simple fact that Yorinobu kills (or depending on the end, at least TRIES to kill) Saburo earns him special consideration in my book. Whatever his motives, getting rid of that poisonous old #### would have AUTOMATICALLY made the entire world a better place. I also have the idea that while Yorinobu might have previously thought about killing his father, the actual act was in anger / on impulse, without serious forethought. His behavior right afterwards, and his interaction with Takemura, points to someone trying to adlib and deflect his way out of the situation - at least until he can think of how to properly handle it. Actually, all things considered, pity there wasn't an ending in the game that involved finally coming to some sort of deal with Yorinobu. Thinking about this more, it is actually rather surprising that there isn't. He MAY not be much more trustworthy than his sister or father, but it's hard to see how he could possibly be worse.
True, surprising we never got to meet with him though out the whole campaign. Other than at devil ending. We were just convenient scapegoat to coverup him murdering his father. Plus you would think he would try to reach out to us though back channels, maybe he more fazed because he did not plan to kill his father and he making shit up as he goes
@@TheTitandog70 I imagine he was so busy with bigger problems executing his unplanned coup that by the time he might even have thought of that, it's too late.
Is Yorinobu's attempted revolution actually a better outcome than the admittedly shitty status quo? I feel like without more information on how the world would end up after a potential second corporate war between Arasaka and Militech, it's hard to say.
@@Kryto_Gaming Hmmm. That depends on Militech's response(s) to any 'Fall Of Arasaka: or 'Arasaka Civil War' scenario. The smart move would likely be to sit back, eat popcorn and watch - because practically everybody else in the world will be looking to settle scores and/or grab their own piece. Plenty of time to move in and assert control once the dust settles and they have a clear picture of the field.
Siding with Hanako; the look on her face changes dramatically After the meeting with Arasaka oligarchs. It is disturbing and telling of the poor choice to side with her
Immoral? Catastrophic? Yes. Poor choice absolutely no. Being in good graces of Arasaka family is very beneficial and she actually finds you useful, she even hires you as her equivalent of Smasher if you decide to come back
@@DehydratedDarkness With the devil ending, if you actually accept the Arasaka deal (via Takemura if he is still alive in your game), you actually become immortal BUT a property of Arasaka corporation. This way, with V skill set which you just proved to be better than Smasher, Arasaka could build/get a new body/cybernetic, put your engram in it to transfer your soul, and V would become the new military right hand of Arasaka leader. We can imagine than V wouldn't accept that fate, but the relic could have a kill switch that only Arasaka could have a hand on. Also if you have played Corpo V, you know that once you get rejected by Arasaka corp, you loose all your cyberware advantage. In that case V wouldn't be able to betray Arasaka.
@@Mister-Teajust did the Devil ending and when they gave me the contract to sign...I was like " Nah, fuck that " at that point rather die my own way ( 6 months) than be The Corpo bodyguard.
Not the best ending though. Maybe the best ending if you're a fan of Panam but if you don't buy into the cult of Panam worship then it's not the best ending
@@elseggs6504 I wouldn't want the aldecaldos as family. I really don't like that questline. It's the best ending to you and the OP but 'best' is subjective
@@cannibalbunnygirl I don’t think best is subjective. The actual best ending is supposed to be the secret one where you go to mikoshi by yourself. If you go with nomads Saul gets killed, if you go with rogue then she gets killed, and if you go with Arasaka well that just turns out to be the worst possible choice imaginable. The secret ending is supposed to be the best because nobody dies and V ends up in the situation they wanted where they’re at the top of Afterlife.
@@niceto_meet_you2528 I think that's the closest to the best but I mean some people might prefer the suicide. That's why it's subjective. If someone hates rogue or Saul it's definitely objective 😂
What I find even more disturbing about Saburo is how calm and collected he is as he talks with Yorinobu. Still treating this (canonically) 82 year old man as if he were just still a rebellious teenager. (In case anyone reading this was unaware, the Arasaka family extended their lifespans pretty much indefinitely. However, Saburos is still rotting due to the natural failures of whatever they are using to keep him alive). After that entire time, still pretending to seemingly care for Yorinobu… he’s 100% willing to use his own son as a meat puppet in the devil ending. Presumably, once he’s used up Yorinobus body, he’ll move on to another… then another… then another… etc…
It truly is haunting to realize even in his dying moments, his love for his son was fake. That caressing his cheek while being choked to death... just another manipulation tactic. Truly a heartless man.
I want new ending where Yorinobu just directly contracted V, and told V about his father's plan, but due to his father's AI in the tower, he was not unable to help V.
Perhaps it should tie into the secret ending. We somehow find yori and he pieces together what happened with us, he wants to help us somehow. I do really want us as players to realize the truth of yori, to see what johnny has to say about it
This is from a huge essay I'm writing on the game. It may answer the question in 25:40 From what I figured, Yorinobu’s tragedy goes something like this: The day Yorinobu graduates, Saburo calls onto him and explains his vision for Arasaka Corporation, and the role the family would play in it when the Relic project came to fruition. Either he or his older brother would give up their body to his father and marry Hanako, to continue his vision and keep the ties inside the family. Yorinobu appalled by the plan, tries to convince Hanako to run away with him vowing to destroy Arasaka and his father’s sick schemes, founding the Steel Dragons. But after the Fourth Corporate War, Yorinobu noticing not even a nuclear bomb would be enough to destroy Arasaka, he decides to return to his family and destroy the corporation from the inside. In 2077 he somehow contacts NetWatch, who are in a feud with the Voodoo Boys and need to contact the AI Alt Cunningham. Yorinobu offers them the Relic 2.0 prototype with the engram of Johnny Silverhand. Anders Hellman delates the deal to Saburo, reason why he comes to Night City; and after using the name of Yorinobu’s mother to scold him, Yorinobu snaps and murders his father. Then as new CEO of Arasaka, tries to destroy the company from inside out, causing intrigues between the parties and accusing Militech of his father’s murder to start a war. However, at the moment he was going to try a coup at his directors, murdering them during a board meeting, his sister, Hanako Arasaka, appears out of nowhere accompanied by the witnesses of Saburo’s murder, miraculously defeating his coup forces and forcing Yorinobu to surrender, and have his father reborn though his body. When V arrives, finding Yorinobu at the floor wearing a night robe with a huge sweep of cloth behind him, he thinks to be talking with Hanako as he quotes: “These violent delights have violent ends”, meaning, he did it all trying to save Hanako, the sister whom he loved. He is quoting one of the most recognizable lines of Romeo and Juliet. These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness And in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene VI) And ironically Yorinobu is actually doing what Johnny did for Alt in Never Fade Away. The villain whose V sees as a tyrant in truth did it all for love, contrary to what V is doing in the Devil’s path. The Arasaka that V thinks to be destroying is in reality being saved. His long gown, however, seems to be a refence to Lady Macbeth. I am not sure, as her nightgown is not huge like Yorinobu’s. In the scene Lady’s Macbeth is sleepwalking trying to clear invisible bloodstains from her hands. If this is correct, Yorinobu is sleep deprived due to the guilt for all the lives he vainly sacrificed or would sacrifice in the day of the coup.
Soulkiller didnt exist when Yorinobu graduated so unless Saburo has the power to see the future, the planning to takeover Kei or Yorinobu body doesnt make sense. Pretty sure the reason Yorinobu cut ties and went on to create the Steel dragons was because he was told of all the blackmail and assassinations performed by Arasaka to reach their position and the plans Saburo had with the whole making America bend the knee to him
Regarding the gown, I will relate information I've seen elsewhere in the comments. Basically, Yorinobu knew he was at the equivalent of his deathbed. The Coup failed, and he would be gone before evening's end. The Japanese traditionally write a Poem here, and may first don a robe specially designed for, one's Funeral. (A "Jisei no Ku" and "Mofuku," respectively, for poem and robe, and yes Mofukus are styled like the one in question.) To be as against his father as he could, a man who despised the West for all it was, to idolise a keystone of Western poetry and have their work be the crown jewel of one's final words would be one last pitiful laugh to make. The robe is there to signify he knew the situation, what would be his final hour is upon him. And once he wears the signifying robes, the dead man does his best to fulfill tradition in the most tongue-in-cheek manner he could, the only way his ethics would want him to do so. It feels the sleep deprivation and loose connection to Lady Macbeth, then, comes natural as a worthy addition to mention, as he just might have been thinking of just that parallel some time before V comes in, where he has all the blood and none of the glory he sought for in his hands, and the moment of writing is at hand. After all, in a place like Night City, to be sleep deprived in a position of such power with all the medical marvels they have, wouldn't it be only a choice and a choice alone for a man like him to experience it? With that logic, the lines were not drawn by themselves, but by his design, and what culminates as his real last laugh in the end of things ends up far more depressed and visible than that poem could ever aspire to make. Maybe, to reach somehow for the degree of Sorrow the star crossed lovers inspired with their suicides, given the tragic surrendered fates each sibling is condemned to in this ending? I cannot say, but it is an extra link to explore if one wished. My real question is if a rabbit hole spawns from there, and where such a line might end, but god dammit I already spent an hour merging your idea with the improved context and i don't want to waste 4 more to going down the line.
I really wanted DLC to help save him from his fate, he was indeed a hero in the game and could have had more focus in the game. Maybe in the future we'll find out that he has been transferred to a chip and we can save him somehow.
When Jackie slotted the Relic you see his eyes turned blue for a second, most likely indicating that the Relic downloaded his engram... he just didn't get revived. If the writers know better, they'll have the player make a choice in the DLC. Do you bring back Johnny or do you bring back Jackie?
@@nukima11 we meet Jackie's engram. It was pulled from his body post mortem. That's why it's so fractured. To see it tho you have to have Delamain take his body anywhere but to his mother at the Coyote. Then side with Hanako.
@@RangerJosey Good point.👌 Spit-ballin... wouldn't that have technically been more of a corrupted version since Arasaka did not have access to the relic in V's head? The Relic should have a version as well, IMO. Anyways, it's ultimately all up to the writers and set cannon at the end of the day.
Yorinobu is a true rockerboy, and a natural one at that. He was born with a diamond encrusted silver spoon in his mouth, but in spite of that he managed to overcome the conditioning of the world he had been born into and chart his own course. That alone is an incredible feat of character, but he didn't stop at leaving the family. The more Yorinobu saw of the world, the more he understood the evil that his father had wrought upon it, and the unique position he was in to change that. He basically sold his soul to return to the fold with one purpose: to bring about that change. Like, I'm gonna be honest, I know Johnny has strong and genuine feelings about the corps, but Yorinobu is in a whole different league of rockerboy. He's just missing the band!
The Convo between Yori and Hellman suggests "them" being unready to bring the Relic to market, despite Arasaka already doing precisely this. Seems to me that the real issue was cost. Not that it was too high, but that it was too low. Arasaka was sitting with a monopoly on technology that in Cyberpunk's world should cost very little to deploy but had tremendous value. They were pricing it to be exclusively for the rich, because the rich of CP2077 have exponentially more collective wealth than the poor. Make the relic cheap enough for anyone, and you'll have razor thin margins, maybe profiting just a few billion, even if everyone on the planet buys in. Maintain a monopoly exclusively targeting the rich, and you can rake in untold trillions. My theory is that Yorinobu wanted this technology to go mainstream. That Yori wanted Helman to "defect", and was selling the Relic to Netwatch to have them, as a neutral party, facilitate a multi-pronged assault on Arasaka's monopoly by producing budget knock-offs from every corp that could make them. This adds a stronger double meaning to Saburo's line about "selling our future" to westerners. Netwatch's motive stays the same. They still wanted Jonny as bait in a trap for Alt. Yori may idolize Jonny, but per his dialogue about his father, I think he would not have much respect towards the *engram* of Jonny, and appreciate the poetry in using Jonny's Engram to strike such a blow against Arasaka.
Love this theory! I also think holding the engrams of the rich and celebrities specifically would be power over the masses in and of itself. The marketing influence that celebrities have is huge. And holding power over their immortal personalities forever pretty much means you can get them to say whatever you want and millions will listen
Wasn't it that Relic 1.0 was the one that was sold? And Relic 2.0 was the version that V got stuck in their head? One was a simple memorystorage, the other a nanite overwrite.
Makes sense, who did Hellman run to after things got strange at Arasaka? Kang Tao, one of their competitors. And Hellman even tried to get V to go with him to Kang Tao. Makes you wonder what Hellman was really doing.
Agreed with everything else beyond the caveat that they never wanted to sell it at all (which makes your theory even better); when you talk to Hellman you ask "How do you put a price on immortality?" and Hellman says that you can't, that it was intended to be an in-house item only, restricted to Arasaka high ups (meaning the board and maybe the likes of Hellman and especially loyal and useful figures like Takemura). As such the actual immortality part beyond the "Secure your Soul" public parts was never meant to be sold directly. If Yorinobu puts that out on the public, everyone could look into it, and the public outcry would show up about its potential uses before Saburo's real plan goes into effect, putting a buffer potentially between Yori and Saburo.
There are messages later (during and after the parade) talking about the issues that were having with the Secure Your Soul program (the modified Soulkiller version, at least). So yeah, it was used for those who could afford it, but it was far from ready.
You gotta hit up the deep lore. Kei killed Yorinobu. With Soulkiller. He was later cloned and implanted in a clone body. The Yorinobu in cp77 is a clone. (Alt's DNA was also found in the cloning machine) We don't find Johnny's body because a woman named "Angel" who looks suspiciously like Alt had his body smuggled out of Arasaka in the case of an Arasaka nuke that was in the tower but never set off.
Spider Murphy was the one that killed Kei in the lore, revenge for Johnny and others during the War (if the final part of Johnny's flashback where they used Soulkiller on him was true - it's not, Spider was the one who used it on him after Adam Smasher insta-killed him - then Kei would have been the guy confronting Johnny, not Saburo, but Johnny's ego won't setter for second place) so most likely that's still Saburo, and that part of Mike's theories are wrong. Mike may be voiced by the Pondsmith himself, but those are all intentionally misleading to some degree, combining deep lore with flat out falsehoods equally. The Angel part however is most likely correct, there's also another theory that Johnny is still alive, that the Engram we get is just a copy, and Angel/Alt brought Johnny back to life in a cloned body and used the Soulkiller chip still in his neck - which was the main reason Saburo had Smasher recover his body, given Spider had wiped Soulkiller from Araska's computers before the bomb went off, so they needed the copy Spider had used on Johnny to restore it - to bring him back mentally as well. If so we could potentially meet "the real" Alt and Johnny in Phantom Liberty or (more likely) a sequel.
@@thadeusilva8907 It's in Firestorm, I think the Shockwave book. Which is weird, because I thought that Firestorm at one point was declared non-canon, but apparently it isn't, because a lot of elements of it keep cropping up in 2077. At this point, there's way too much that happens within the Arasaka Tower that night. It's like within moments of Johnny getting blasted in half and Spider just chucking Alt's data out into the Net, she re-pieced herself and used cloning tech that Arasaka had in the tower to put herself in a clone body, but Yorinobu was also cloned at that time too. Meanwhile, Smasher and Morgan are having a duel to the death, and moments later, a mini-nuke goes off. The timer on that nuke is starting to feel more and more like an episode of Dragon Ball Z.
FYI, I’m sure you’ve gotten this comment already, but just in case: the Phantom Liberty ending only reinforces the idea that Yorinobu intends to sabotage Arasaka. The man is what Johnny wanted to be fr fr 😔✊🏻
This is something I remember thinking in my first playthrough of the game. The game keeps forcing me to act like Yorinobu is the enemy, but I always thought: "Why do I have a problem with this guy? He killed his dad, who wasn't my friend. He hasn't done anything to me. Seems like him being an enemy is pretty forced."
The game forces V to feel a certain way most of the time, unfortunately. I never really feel like I get to choose what they feel about something, only a vague 'say this angry thing or this other angry thing'
Because the one telling you he's an enemy is Goro, and he's speaking from the PoV of an Arasaka loyalist. And he keeps spinning that Yorinobu needs to fall for you to be cured of the Relic. Its forced because its coming from a biased party, even if Goro himself isn't a bad guy.
I didnt feel like he was an enemy. More like an obstacle. I think the logic was basically this: We search for a way to get rid of the chip. Arasaka made the chip. We are promised that Arasaka can remove it. But our only link to the company is Takemura, who is in hiding because Yorinobu wanted him dead. So we help Takemura talk to Hanako so stuff can get cleared up and at that point we are already offered the deal: Help to get rid of Yorinobu and Arasaka will help. Even though Im pretty sure V doesnt care in the slightest that Yorinobu killed Saburo, Yorinobu still pinned the blame on them and sent assasins after them to tie up loose ends. Seems pretty reasonable then to see him as the enemy. Especially since, as I already said, you want help from Arasaka and the current head of It wants you dead for all you know.
the writing in this game isnt the best. for another example, being unable to simply become an engram and then force yourself back into your body. its just forced narrative that they expect you to accept
@@LamborghiniDiabloSVPursuithonestly, I don’t really like Goro. I know he saved our life, but like he was only using us as a means to an end. Hell if you want to extrapolate further, the whole game is V getting played. If not by Dex, then by Evelyn, if not by Evelyn then the Voodo boys and even Johnny to an extent. Especially in the dlc with So Mi and Reed.
I think Yorinobu does want to cause a Corpo War against Militech, although maybe not fully fledged or only short termed. In one of Padre's gigs V is looking into a Valentino den to avenge a murdered cop. The place is full of Militech stuff, and if V searches further, it seems like the Valentinos are hired to attack Arasaka at some point... hired by Arasaka, that is! When V tells Padre, he tells them to better stay out of it. If V stays around, corps do indeed show up, but I'm not sure if it's Arasaka or Militech. I think there might have been more little fishy encounters like this, but I can't remember anything specific right now. So my theory, additional to all the rest, is that Yori wants to weaken Arasaka from within and at the same time Militech is provoked into a Corpo War, or the other Arasaka higher ups are provoked into it by Yori's staged "Militech" attacks. Only that weakened-from-within Arasaka will lose to Militech, because Yorinobu will make sure of that.
I replayed that mission today for the Heywood gigs video. It adds a little more to the context of this video so annoying that I didn't pick up on it before finishing this one. I will link it back to this somewhat in the Heywood video though
This mission is really when it hit me that Yorinubu was gonna kill Arasaka, I didn't catch it on the heist and kinda followed the dialog choices before
@@SamBramI think there’s also more context going on here. I think we’re all focusing a bit too much on the corporations without looking at the bigger picture. It’s implied throughout the story that the Black Wall AIs are starting to make moves. The voodoo boys are seeking out alt cause they think a war is coming and want to be on the winning side. It’s implied that night corp is controlled by AIs from behind the black wall and are manipulating night city politics through Peralez. Then there’s netwatch. A corpo V is not convinced that Netwatch is helping Yorinobu out of corrupt self interest, that’s because Netwatch is probably reacting to Johnny and his connection to alt. There is a shadow war going on that’s hidden behind a smokescreen that’s corporate intrigue. There’s even radio chatter about how orbital air stock was rising cause the stock AIs appear to be predicting some kind of new global conflict. Hell, when Alt breaches Mikoshi she pretty much confirms she’s gathering footsoldiers for a brewing conflict. I think soul killer and Saburo’s actions are informed by more than just immortality, the program might also be related to Arasaka’s fear of the AIs. Why does Arasaka focus on soul killing netrunner for example? They can just take a bunch of homeless people off the street and such, but instead they soul kill and capture people with experience navigating the landscape of the net. This might also explain Hanako’s decisions. She may see Saburo as a necessary evil because Arasaka needs to be strong in order to combat the AIs.
He is doing that to have a second super power to help him keep Arasaka from getting stronger. It would be more believable that America's corpo military wants to push them back out of the NUSA.
I don't think the game saw Yorinobu as a villain. I think that he was supposed to be the red herring, the one who we think is the danger but the real danger is actually "innocent" Hanako. Honestly, I thought it was brilliant how the writing led you in one direction only to lead you to another. As for V not regretting killing Yorinobu in the Devil ending, I think the point of that is that they didn't want to believe that siding with Arasaka and going against everything they believed in was all for nothing. Yet it was all for nothing. They handed Saburo power and gave Night City to him on a silver platter. The ending did shock and disturb me but it never occurred to me that Saburo was planning this all along and told Yorinobu several times. It puts the whole game in a different perspective.
Honestly, none of the major players in the base game (bar Saburo, obviously) can be called villains in the traditional sense. The city itself seems to be the villain, if anything else. Everyone else is just vying for position.
None of the players are innocent. One of the few things Takemura says that I agree with is that everyone has a share of the blame. They all have blood on their hands to a greater or lesser degree.
@@syntaxusdogmata3333 You're right, no one is innocent in this game whether corpo, media or solo. Everyone just does what they can to survive in a cruel world, but that doesn't justify some of the more heinous actions.
Yorinobu was absolutely acting in self defense killing his father, what's more I think he did set up the heist. Either his father confronts him, giving him the chance to get hands on, or the chip gets to Netwatch and he's no longer at risk.
I think killed Saburo was more a heat of the moment thing, as someone else said. And the idea that he set up the heist seems pretty convuluted. He already stole the relic from the company, why go through extra effort just to have someone else steal it from his penthouse? It does really make sense. From NetWatch, the Voodoo Boys, Evelyn, DeShawn, V and Jackie, there are far too many moving pieces and uncontrolled variables for Yorinobu to make such a plan work. And again, why have someone steal something he had already stolen?
@tron9683 I guess we'll never know, but it's possible that he knew about (or organized) the heist. That would make V and Jackie perfect fall guys for the murder. And bringing Saburo there in the timeframe potentially could be achieved by confiding to Hellman (and some low-level Arasaka employees intrigues). Seems like a plan where too many things can go wrong (and they did) but someone, who thinks he can 5D chess other people, could potentially think they could pull it off. If he did do it, well... technically he pulled off something with acceptable results. The fact that things went wrong for him way further down the road is another story
I think it was long held resentment over something not discussed. What is important is less the dialog, but the expressiveness. What comment is it that sets him off and changes his expression? When Saburo blames Yorinobu for making his mother cry. Nothing about the business, or mistakes or legacy, but 'Good thing your mother isnt here now'. Even that phrase. Not the wife's name, but 'Your mother'. I got impression from that one line that Yorinobu took after and followed mother while other two followed Saburo. The reaction of Yorinobu is one who blames the father for the mother's suffering and I suspect death as well.
@@tron9683 I feel like getting someone to steal that chip from would be like an exit plan for Yorinobu to get that chip elsewhere and almost absolve himself of the responsibility
@tron9683 I don't believe he planned it but more so set up the conditions for it to be stolen from him deliberately. He wanted johnny back in the world since blowing up saka stuff was his bread and butter. I think he chose to sell to netwatch hoping the voodoo boys would catch wind
Here’s a thought. What if Evelyn Parker and yorinobu plotted the theft of the relic from his room in the beginning? Yorinobu leaks the tiny bit of information out into the world, gets the attention of the voodoo boys, then Evelyn makes sure to contact them to try to get this relic. The reason for wanting Johnny silver hand is a back up plan in case it gets slotted. Then yorinobu might have an additional ally. Few points to this, Adam smasher and yorinobu are both out of the room conveniently at the same time. It’s entirely possible that yorinobu heard that his father was coming and quickly headed back to his penthouse to prevent the heist from failing. To further facilitate this. Before takemura even started to scan your location smasher was already looking directly at you. And we know that ppl don’t need to talk verbally to have a conversation in cyberpunk. So smasher notifies yorinobu the location of the thieves and before takemura can complete the scan yorinobu specifically says that’s not necessary. A very oddly convenient timing. Another little tidbit that lends credence to this. Is when yorinobu says to V “It’s you.” Iirc yorinobu and V NEVER interact even once in the game before that ending. So it’s strange that yorinobu would know V based on appearance alone.
Think simpler. What if their plan wasn't to steal the relic, rather create scapegoats for the assassination... and slotting of Johnny into Saboru via the Relic... so he can destroy Arasaka from the top down, AS SABORU? Johnny said that he couldn't imagine a worse fate than someone having their identity erased and replaced by another... well it appears Yorinobu planned worse for his father, by doing just that... using a personality that wants nothing more than to destroy the legacy of the person he is replacing. If that ain't the ultimate revenge against his father for what he planned to do to him, IDK what is.
Well one thing that’s flawed is when takemura is scanning during the heist, it’s not yorinobu that tells him it’s unnecessary, saburo is the one who states that it’s not needed because he’s with his son, but I also think they knew from alt Cunningham they needed a body to slot the relic and that was meant to implant Johnny into saburos body. Would be most logical id think.
@@mmauchin iirc the relic that Johnny was stuffed inside was the only copy that arasaka had. And Johnny was soul killered post mortem which is why his memory is so shoddy and patchworked. Johnny Relic was pretty much the framework and prototype that Arasaka based its relic program on. But yeah forgot saburo told takemura to leave. So the only way my theory would even be remotely considered viable, is maybe yorinobu knew just how conceited, arrogant and narrow-minded his father was since saburo was 150 at time of death and yorinobu was 82 at that time. So at most yorinobu would’ve know his father for 77 years and be able to easily predict his father. Cus the fucked up thing is. Saburo was born 1927. And yorinobu was born in 1995. So someone who was a part of the greatest generation which is before the silent generation sired a millennial child. And we can see the difference in values and thought process from just gen x to millennials.
Yorinobu and V never meet. But he is aware V was there, regardless if he saw him hiding, he has a lot of resources. I'm sure he was sipping his morning coffee when an assistant ran up and showed him a pic V the guy who broke in to the tower and lived
When I played the devil ending, I was genuinely surprised that I couldn't turn on Hanako and help secure Yorinobu as the head of Arasaka in order to save V. This just made that feeling even more concrete.
@@EroticOnion23 According to Maximum Mike on Morrow Rock Radio Saburo spent a large amount of time in a rejuvenating pod referred to a casket, that helped to keep him "young" (or rather alive). Maximum Mike incidentally happens to be voiced by Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the setting.
I never really saw him as a bad guy, questionable maybe, but not bad, and if you play the devil ending when he is beaten on his knees at the tower, it becomes clear that he had indeed good intentions, not as much for the poor or anything, but rather taking down this evil tyrannical empire, and it makes V look like an absolute idiot as you basically help the bad guys. P.S. This may be or may not be the case, but i think Johnny's engram was picked intentionally, the guy literally dropped a nuke, a NUKE on a tower to fight the same evil Yorinobu wants to stop. Johnny is the ultimate rebel, bows to no one and wants Arasaka destroyed more than anyone, he can incite the masses and probably turn most of Night City into a rebellion. Even though Johnny failed in life...the fact remains he will go to anything lenghts to fight, an unbending, unbreakable spirit and someone who cannot be broken is very bad new for any corporation.
If Yorinobu wanted to take down Arasaka, why not slot Johnny’s engram into Saburo? Why not head directly for the freezer where he’d hidden the chip and slot it into him right there? Of course, V and Jackie had already stolen it, so his plan would have gone off the rails, but that might have made for an equally entertaining story!
@@JosieJOK They have the know-how to take it out. Plan goes down the drain if it wasn't the same problem V had where it would kill them when they do so.
@@JosieJOK Honestly Saburo was likely too old to handle the transition, it would have killed him. It's meant to be slotted into a empty husk, Hellman is quite surprised that it worked on V. And the side effects are pretty brutal.
Not to say you're wrong, but I think its revealed in deep lore that Johny wasn't actually the one to drop the nuke, rather it may have been morgan blackhand. He's an unrealiable narrator and its speculated that arasaka may have planted false memories in his engram. But i still understand your point
I can only imagine how shocked Johnny would be to figure out he had more in common with the son of the very corporation he tried to destroy than he did with a small time street punk. Imagine if they made a movie? Feel like that would definitely be the route.
I just wanna know how Michiko Sanderson goes from being a Militech collaborator and CEO of Danger Girl to leading a faction of Arasaka under her maiden name again. Complicent with Yorinobu? Similar plan? Is her husband still alive? Why does the Mox logo look so simalar to the Danger Girl logo? I need another 'Red' release so bad. I HAVE QUESTIONS!
In a nutshell: They wanted Hanako as an Arasaka hardliner and the villain of the story, so they had Michiko take over books!Hanako's position as the leader of the liberal Saka faction.
I like how Yori’s body language shifts between “I can’t forgive treason” and “your mom would be disappointed” in the talk with Saboru. He goes from “ok old man finish talking and leave” to, “oh H your gonna bring up my fucking mom you old bastard?!” Real quick
One of things I always liked about the game story is that you're just a small-time social climbing punk who stumbled onto a situation you thought would go your way but you were way over your head and paid dearly for it. Your mostly peripheral to what's going on at Arisaka and the only meaningful contact you have with them is through your interactions with Goru, and only then you're just a pawn in a family power struggle who has been discarded when no longer needed, the only time you have any power in the outcome is that the end of the game, which is the only time you really have any control over your fate. It's pretty consistent with the themes of the series and the cyberpunk genre in general, characters rarely if ever are better off and are sometimes worse off when they started. I think that's the reason why a lot of people didn't like The edge runner ending, it was consistent with cyberpunk ethos, the innings of the game and the show we're not about winning power and Glory but more about going out on your own terms and leaving a legacy behind. A very good subversion of the whole power fantasy crap we see in pop-culture these days.
You were small time at the beginning but you weren’t really in over your head. Everything would have went perfectly fine if Saburo never showed up. Even then it would have been somewhat ok if Yorinobu never killed killed his father.
@@cosmickirby580 true, one that could be said to be closest to happy was the nomad ending. You may likely die but you'll be surrounded by a surrogate family and maybe with the love of your life, you finally get what really matters in life, and you get to leave the hell that is knight City.
I'm a bit late but I believe that both the sudden turn to aggression towards Militech, his hatred for Arasaka, and that one Heywood mission where you find a full-fledged false flag in preparation from Arasaka is that Yorinobu was going to have the entire Arasaka Corporation commit "suicide by Militech." There would be no vacuum, only a winner.
That's the way I saw it as well, or he would initiate a 5th corporate war so terrible that both sides are destroyed, a long term ploy to attempt to give the soul of the city/the country/the world back to the people.
I think the real villain is not giving us a choice to refuse to put the relic in our heads or flat out refuse to do the heist. Would have been so much cooler to be on a mission to help revived Jackie/Johnny instead. Had you refused to take the chip. Also if you return to Konpeki Saburo's body is still there. 😂
Exactly. At the moment Delamain drops V off, there could have been a choice between Dex, Evelyn Parker, or even just dumping the chip altogether (free play). I get that those who love the story think that it's this deep, insightful thing. For a graphic novel or movie, it would be. For a video game, it robs all agency from the player. As V, I only get the choice of how my character dies. The railroaded story is why, despite an awesome setting and gameplay loop, I personally rate CP 2077 as one of the worst games ever. It has definitely become a "guilty pleasure" game where I wander around Watson doing all the gigs and police scanner missions before quitting just before the Heist mission.
@@nolgroth if a game not giving you complete control of the story and making you follow a general plotline is your grounds for saying it’s one of the worst games ever, then you must hate like 95% of all games ever made.
If you refused either of those things there would literally be no plot. The entire events of the game are fundamentally kicked off by you doing the heist. You are basically saying they should have made two entirely different versions of the game just to satisfy your urge to avoid storylines.
There's not much any choice you have in cyberpunk, many gigs that V had was better to be left alone, things would have much better if he didn't participate Arasaka and Johnnys intended to do, as they would be good as gone as well after 2 years
The new ending from Phantom Liberty confirms his endgame was always to topple Arasaka from within, and he actually succeded in running the corporation to the ground in the two years after original endings, even if V wasn't involved at all in the final confrontations in this timeline. So yeah it seems all endings except one will culminate in Arasaka falling. It's just hard to see it for the player considering we meet him while he murders his father and we naturally assume he was this power-hungry son.
Basically, the view from the bottom was one that would never allow for the view of what Yorinobu had in mind. A couple mercs walk in with no context and see a guy off his father, not many other ways to see what happened.
I never thought about this but could the fact that Adam Smasher was Yorinobu’s personal guard be a ploy from his father, Saburo. Maybe, Adam wasn’t protecting Yorinobu as much as he was keeping tabs on him for the Emperor. AS could be YA’s jailer not his protector, and YA killing SA didn’t bother him because one way or another, Yorinobu and Saburo were both going to die, only one of them would emerge victorious through the relic. AS alluded to his knowledge of the Relic system and Mikoshi in Edgerunners when he propositioned David Martinez…he could have covertly been in on the whole scheme…🤔💭
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. But even if it wasn’t, Smasher is an opportunist and a horrible borg and I wouldn’t trust that one as far as I can throw him.
They should add an "Angel" ending thats excessivly hard to get where you betray Hanako last minute safe Yorinobu who then sends you ot the space station to fix you up but for that you need to use verry specific options the entire game and then we get a scene where its specifically mentioned that he still knows V exsists and its essentially a more "positive" version of the Devil Ending though it might be a little too "Hopeful" for a game such as this
the better option would be having 2 choices at the Devil ending, betraying Hanako last second and killing her at the board meeting, V would still need to fight through the tower, but at the end you find Yorinobu waiting for you at Soulkiller, who explains what he always wanted to do and thanking you for helping him, the rest would go the same as either "Path of Glory" or "New Dawn Fades", except adding a news report at the end about an anonymous merc who (indirectly...?) destroyed Arasaka
Knowing this about Yorinobu makes the Dont Fear the Reaper ending that much more satisfying. Truly, he and Silverhand shared the same goal. Id wager that had Johnny and Yorinobu ever got to meet, there would be an alliance for sure. A shame that we never got a chance to choose to actively help Yorinobu, but I suppose that would have completely changed the games plot. It also makes V's forced complicity with Takemura that much worse. He only saved V to attempt to take out Yorinobu and bring honor to a man who would only ever rule with malice and literally violate his own son.
@@tron9683 can you blame him thought? he was literally picked up from the worst place in his life at such a young age, picked by saburo himself. thats gotta make some serious mental manipulation in the future
When I found out Yorinobu's plan during one of the possible paths to the ending, it made me even madder at the ending. At first it was just because the protagonist can't avoid dying. But then, I was mad at the protagonist and Silverhand for STOPPING Yorinobu from destroying Arasaka.
@@tropicturtle9021 Bonus Points: In the Don't Fear the Reaper ending Hanako is killed during V's one-man assault on Arasaka when Alt takes control of the security systems.
I think you overlooked something huge that very much changes theories. Look at Yorinobu from a relations with family standpoint. Truly cares for Hanako. With this in mind, lets go back to Konpeki and events there. How I perceived things first time. I saw him as one who was rebelling against old ideals and the nationalism. Keep in mind not knowing anything about the relic. But what stood out to me is how his demeanor and expression changed at mention of the mother! At this point he becomes angry. The reason Saburo was killed was because of nothing more than familial love. It is a common aspect in story as to wife and children suffering under an oppressive father, particularly in Japan based narrative. So why was Saburo killed? Yorinobu blamed him for what happened with his mother. The rest with knowing the plan? I agree with. 'Your purpose is my legacy' mentality.
I think that he would be only a back up of his plan of immortality and a clone instead being the primary one, but such a feat is strangely not possible for him in 2077. I can say that in our universe that human cloning while more complicated than for dolly the sheep is very much possible and would be very likely be in practice if not for issues of mortality.
@@gabrielclark1425 a clone is in many ways just a twin, it would have a consciousness to override in much the same way palpatine planned, essence transfer in two franchises pretty much.
One of the few times I've seen theory crafting actually hit the nail on the head and be further reinforced down the line. Phantom Liberty outright confirmed this with one of the broadcasts talking about Yorinobu being a saboteur.
Love the video, thanks SO MUCH for doing a deep dive on this. This has been my biggest puzzle about the plot so far, and I remember asking you about this a while ago, as Yorinobu's parallels to Johnny really seemed to pile up after you play through it a few times. Regarding a few points. While I do think that Yorinobu did learn about his father's plans, and that helped to motivate his plans to defect, I don't think that makes it mutually exclusive from him also just genuinely being disgusted with the way Arasaka runs things. In fact I would say growing up with the knowledge that he was the "spare kid" with his older brother allowed to continue the bloodline (a very traditional thing), but for him to end up as the replacement daddy, would easily turn someone to hate the corporation at every level. He even mentions that when he is talking about fear. He's clearly been observing how everyone in the corpo world react around his father, and he finds all of it disgusting. He even talks when V looks up at the monitor with all the Araska fights going on, about trying to free them from tyrannical rule. He seems genuine when he speaks about trying to liberate all of Arasaka (and maybe the various regions of the planet under direct Arasaka control too?) from that tyranny. Yes it also means he gets to live, but again, you can have more than one motivation for doing things. One thing I noticed while watching this, that I hadn't noticed before, is how biblical Suburo's phrasing is, when talking to Yorinobu, and then in the aftermath of the Devil ending. When he says "I can forgive anything, but betrayal? No." That's literally the one thing that you can't be forgiven from in biblical terms. The only ultimate sin that you can't ask for forgiveness for in at least christian mythology, is simply not obeying/believing in the sky daddy's authority and right to rule. Mass murderer? No problem, deathbed conversion and you get into heaven. Serial rapist/pedo? No problem, ask for forgiveness, you get into heaven. But if you simply do not agree, and never repent? Straight to hell. Obedience is #1. Same with Suburo. And then, after, when he's giving his speech on the monitor, he talks about giving his son life, and that son giving it back to him. Heavily implying the biblical child sacrifice angle of geezus. So yeah, Surubo DEFINITELY has a god complex. And I see now way that things won't end up WAY worse with him in charge post Devil ending.
I don't remember when I first thought to make this video but it's been cooking away in my brain for a while. No doubt reading some of your older comments helped that along. (It wouldn't be the first time either!). I totally agree with having multiple motivations. Given that knowing he was a Saburo vessel back then is still a bit of an 'if' there's defo some, if not a lot of general hatred for the corp in there as well! As for Saburo having a god complex. That is an awesome analogy. One I will try to remember if I ever get around to a Saburo deep dive. He's a brilliantly tyrannical character and deserves his own video.
@@SamBram Yeah, my personal understanding of Yorinobu's comment about Fear, was that that moment was likely where his father told him what his role would be. It seems to be open knowledge in the family, as Hanako is clearly aware of Yorinobu's fate, given the chip. Seems reasonable to me that everyone kind of always knew in the inner family. It's very interesting though if you think about it. Hanako's motivations, on the surface, appear to be the most empathetic, altruistic (if you could call it that), of the Arasaka characters. She tells you that she wants her brother unharmed (you think because she loves him, and maybe on some level she does), she says she wants to try and curb the violent tendencies of her family. But in the end, she knowingly, and willingly slots her daddy's engram into her brother, killing him. Which makes it feel more like self-preservation to me. I'm quite confident that if Yorinobu had died, Hanako would've ended up the new vessel. Whereas Yorinobu wanted to preserve her as she is, untainted by the engram, and also save himself. Basically to cut out the cancer at the heart of their family, but to save him and his sister. So it seems that the love is maybe not equal going both ways.
In a way, the other endings are that, as he remains alive as far as I know in all other endings, with Arasaka in an even more vulnerable position and Soulkiller and Mikoshi gone, ready for his reforms.
@@nicholasthurmond4006the closest we got to a good ending is either the one where you give Johnny the body, or the one where you leave the city with panam. Both are pretty hopeful despite everything, and both have you finally leaving the damned city.
Great, nice to see somebody paid attention on the plot that was actually unfolding in the background of V's story! I remember being really kind of annoyed when there was almost no commentary on how great this aspect of the whole story was, and how it was told in a way that you actually had to pay attention during the game to understand things that were happening outside of V's own fate. After all, the story was basically about V and Jackie managing to stumble into this massive drama and becoming collateral damage in the process... one of them just takes longer to accept their death.
The image that always came to mind when I see Yorinobu in that robe is a child wearing his dads suit add that to the positioning of his embrace with Hanako he looks like newborn swaddled in his mothers lap. In that moment he is reborn as Saburo.
Yorinobu's actions essentially changed the world, likely for the better. Saburo was a monster, and his death could lead to a much better, unified Arasaka, and a more stable NC.
This is why I think cyberpunk excels so much further than any other of its contemporaries as far as the story goes.. almost nothing is definitely told to the player here, everything is ambiguous enough to be compelling n intriguing while also spinning off dozens of wild theories about what is and isn’t happening here.. I, for one, whole heartedly agree with the sentiment of this video.. people say ur decisions don’t have consequences in cyberpunk, but ur decision on what ending u decide to go through with, completely changes the entire fabric of night city and it’s future.. but because it’s not explicitly told to the player people completely miss it, it goes right over their heads I can’t stress it enough, cyberpunk IS most definitely the next Gen rpg it claimed to be, just not in the way people expected.. it’s not a futuristic wircher 3, or a sci fi gta, it’s a culmination of everything that came before it, combining rpg, immersive sim, and narrative elements we’ve seen before in a completely new way.. I just can’t say enough good things about this game, it’s without a doubt one of the best, most well rounded, games ever made
I think the "problem" people have with the endings is that they are only focused on what happens to "their" characters, it's a sentiment I see a lot when discussing videogames. People only care about the main character having a happy ending and if that is not the case they just call everything bad. Once you get past V and their short stint in the cyberpunk world you realize there's a lot more stuff going on behind the scenes that really makes this game interesting.
Firstly, love your channel Sam. Secondly, this theory video honestly checks out and really makes sense so well done. If you'll ask me, I think Yorinobu having aged and pampered as a tactical persona from a young age understood what his future holds in his father's company. You definitely can see the features resemblance between the two, so I bet Yori was even conceived in order to literally continue his father legacy. But the only thing that doesn't checks out is the Netwatch angle, and somehow I belive the deal with them was red herring meant to lure the Voodo Boyz, who planned to flush Alt's AI. But then again, how would Yorinobu could know all that? Both factions are known for their secretive and elusive natur. So my question is: Was it a long shot to rise the resistance against Araska and burn it to the ground or just an attempt to save his own skin by foiling Saburo's contingency plan to use the chip on him? Guess we'll never truly know, but what I'm sure is that Yorinobu is the real engine for this narrative and mabye even the professor Snape for Saburo's Voldermort.
the Devil ending is the worst one for the world. But gives so much more context than every other ending. My jaw was dropped the entire time watching the worst case scenario play out. Absolutely fantastic writing
Also, I read on the Cyberpunk Wiki that Kei Arasaka may not be dead, Spider Murphy (yes that Spider Murphy) downloaded an engram of his consciousness onto a blackbox using Soul Killer and buried it in the desert to leave him in perpetual torment.
I wish that Cyberpunk Orion would have a continuing story involving both endings of Arasaka. It would be cool to confront Saburo again and expose him for his fear of death.
It really says it all when Saburo decides to take his son's body (wiping his mind in the process) over simply creating a better engineered clone of himself or an immortal robotic body. It proves he wanted to completely get rid of any opposition to his power, Yorinobu being the biggest threat an all. And it also puts a lot of undertones concerning his and Yorinobu's relationship with Hanako (let's not forget she's almost 80 years old by the time the events of the game happen), and makes them very... interesting.
I love how, in the loading screen after you've finished the parade mission, Yorinobu threatens to "punish those who dared lay a hand on the Arasaka family" and then does literally absolutely nothing about it whatsoever. I used to think Yorinobu was simply utterly incompetent and ill-fitted for his role as a CEO of a megacorp, but his speech about "becoming the bomb" convinced me that it was all on purpose. I wonder what kind of interaction Yorinobu and Johnny could've had together, as I now think he chose that engram specifically because he knew they shared the same goal.
Honestly from the moment I heard about how Soulkiller worked... I figured that Saburo wasn't at all afraid of death because he already made an engram of himself to slot into Yori.
Actually have a little something I'd like to add to this theory. I've suspected the game has that kind of bent. I don't know how deliberate it is but it seems to frame the worst villains as not so bad and heroes as the bad guys. They make allusions about immortality but make it clear that these constructs are not the real person. Netwatch framed as the police for the internet. But you find out from their terminal that they actually wanted to talk to alt, too. So their goal is the same as the voodoo boys.
I'd definitely argue that past the heist, all the fallout of after the relic is taken makes V have a bias against Yorinobu, since it's the fallout of his murder of Saboru that kills all their allies from act 1, as well as causes their slow death, and their opinion during act 1 being viewing him as just another big corpo in the end (Street and Nomad) or a traitor turned coward (Corpo, but you could also argue that life path has former view as well)
Honestly the devil ending shoulda had more options one where you destroy saka with Yorinobu after discovering the truth. We could even side with Militech some more and have more of a relationship with Meredith stout. A rocky relationship that is transactional at first but develops into something more.
19:59 "The Emperor himself's personal diary... How will anyone ever crack that godlike level of encryption!? Sealed for the ages I bet." "Actually it's going to be super easy. Barely an inconvenience." "Oh! Really?" "Yeah you see this see this small time merc just starting out is going to do it with a bottom of the line cyberdeck. 4 character sequence, no problem. A gradeschooler could have done it. Essentially the 2077 equivalent of 'boomer uses 1234 for everything'."
(About halfway through the video), Makes me think maybe in phantom liberty, how seeing they said the expansion is looped in with the main story, Yori is going to be included into that story, maybe he could be another ending path. Would be interesting at that, and seeing more Yori in the game would be welcomed at least for me.
Something that I wanted expanded on was Mishiko implication, we know from a dialogue with Takemura that she leads one of the Arasaka factions as she's more progressive than Hanako and less rebellious than Yorinobu but it seems that she was allied with him throughout the entire ordeal. No idea if Yorinobu was really planning on killing her when he ordered to deal with the board members. Antoher small detail is that Mishiko survives in all scenarios in comparison to Hanako and Yorinobu who can cease to exist depending on the ending you choose
You definitely make some points. I actually never played the honako ending so i never saw that last interaction with yorinobu. But honestly im sold. I think your right.
I think Yorinobu did set up the heist, like everyone says, it’s way too perfect to be a coincidence, the only hiccup was Saburo showing up unexpectedly, and Yorinobu thinking the heist had already taken place
Watching this just made me realize Yorinobu could have been planning on using Jonny's engram on himself. Putting Jonny in the best position to bring down Arasaka, until we messed that up. If you pick this ending is there anyway to stop Hanako?
Post phantom liberty here: During that dlc, Johnny mentions Militec will wipe the floor with Arasaka in a head to head showdown, and in the temperance ending we see militec troops and propaganda all over the city. Yorinobu could be declaring war on militec because he knows militec will win
What bothers me is yor and haniko seem to be swapt in rolea from the table top game to the video game. But being as mike pondsmith was involved directly with the story it makes me wonder what is going on. But i also hope the fear the reaper ending is cannon and tha jhonny jonied alt And so on so we can see what happens.
What is it about the Aussie accent that makes to it so soothing and easily absorbed to listen to in longer formats. You and Perun are legends. Thanks for your dedication to this game, its flawed but also a underrated masterpiece.
No offence m8 ..... But speaking as Brit and native English speaker ..... you need either to listen more carefully or not jump to conclusions on limited info. Sam Bram is obviously a BRIT, if he is an Aussie then i want to know where the hell his accent comes from since he sounds prototypically south midlands to mid south east UK, i terms of accent. If he was a lill more working classed it would be easier to be more specific as middle class accent have a tendency towards RP (Received English) forms which flattens our regional distinction in accents. If you listen its pretty easy to distinguish UK and Aussie accents, also Kiwi too, in same way its pretty easy to tell a Jersey accent from a New York one ...... If you listen.
Yorinobu was the “good guy”, whatever that may mean. He wanted to stop the corpos by any means, he could’ve fell into his fathers ways while still trying to stop the corpo ways. V on the other hand became seen as a valuable asset for Arasaka. They would’ve demanded more of V had he been stable enough to go back home, hence why they go through the trouble of putting him on an engram. In the end, the game makes you take a long look at V which seems to me that V has become more like Soburo than he cared to admit.
I believe the robe is a representation of the fear he feels when speaking about his father, he said he blew in his face but it had no effect on him, it had an effect on the others
A war could do even more damage to Arasaka if he purposefully plays it to ensure maximum damage to Arasaka. He did, after all, talk about becoming the bomb in one of the endings since Johnny's physical bomb didn't do the trick. I think his ultimate end goal was always the total destruction of Arasaka. So if he gains control he's going to continue to undermine it until his father's legacy is gone.
In the Polish original version of the interaction network Yorinobu and Netwatch, it was NETWATCH that asked for Silverhand engram, not the contrary... it looks like something was missed in translation, I believe their intent was to get to Alt all alomg.
@@SamBram Right, then the Voodoo Boys managed to get intel o this deal. They then hired Evelyn to get a BD scroll of the place for them. They were obviously gonna attempt to get the relic themselves, but Evelyn got ambitious, and saw this as a major payday. So Evelyn finds her a fixer (being Dex) to put this heist together, and we all know how it went from there. Yorinobu had his original plan to sell to Netwatch, but everything changed once the Voodoo Boys got involved.
I like setting up The Devil ending and never actually going through with it. You pay your debt with Takemura and, through your choice of the various endings, cut the chains that tie bind him to Arasaka, even if he hates you for it. It also clears the game board for Yorinobu to have no obstructions in destroying his fathers legacy.
I don't think Yorinobu becomes a hero just because of his plans to bring down Arasaka. If he knew about heist, he wouldn't have let you get nearly killed. If we assume bodyguard did in fact see them, they would only be kept alive so Yorinobu can execute his intention to kill father but otherwise would be swiftly eliminated after because they may retain recording of him strangling the dad. They simply failed at eliminating them. With his dad dead, it's more likely he didn't perceive dad's engram as a major threat anymore.
I’d say trying to systematically destroy a despotic mega corporation that played a huge part in irreversibly fucking up the word is pretty heroic. He did it for personal reasons, but it’s still ultimately a good thing he was trying to do.
@@tropicturtle9021 And he kept on it even after saburo was done and he was THE only boss. So after the ending it is absolutely not personal matter, but rather a part of his plan.
Yorinobu is as a Hero as johnny is. Bringing down arasaka the big evil is good and all but at some point it becomes less of doing good and bringing peace but vengeance. He's a rebel at best
I think it's interesting to think that if Yorinobu had slotted the relic and Saburo had taken over his body then that would have left Silverhand in control of Arasaka and he would have absolutely demolished it from the inside.
The more I think on it, the more sure I am that the horrifying truth was that yorinobu was a clone. A body literally made to one day become soburo. Initially he may have wanted to train his son to be him, but with mikoshi found something even better. I think the line "I have my son life" might be a double meaning, meaning that he literally created his sons life. I've think learning that I exist solely to be a means of immortality, in one form or another would be traumatizing to say the least. I think its possible only Keith is truly a biological son of saburo, with both yorinobu and hanako being some sort of test tube babies born through michiko, ergo their closeness.
I think going to war with Militech after the Johnny ending makes complete sense. Yorinobu kills his dad and takes control of Arasaka - that's 1 megacorp under his control to dismantle, but that'd leave a massive vacuum for Militech to come in and fill. Using his father's death as a false flag operation to go to war with Militech would make for a massive chance to take out 2 of the biggest corps in the world in 1 massive bloody wave. Militech could get absolutely harsh PR (not that PR matters in 2077) and a war under younger authority with a uniting banner of daddy's death could unleash hell upon the braindead corpo geriatrics at Militech. Tbh, Arasaka seems to also be ahead in the arms race with Militech by this point in the timeline too, and I could totally see Yori scuttling his own ship after sinking MT.
He might be trying to cause a conflict so devastating that the aftermath has humanity reorganize society completely. A great reset of a sort. Much like how it took western europe two back to back wars of unparalleled devastation to finally stop killing each other, he might want to burn it all down to make way for something new.
I always thought Soburo was the obey and think as I do or bad things happen to everything you care about then to you if you don't fall into line type. Yorinobu only snapped after his mother was mentioned up being disappointed in him so he loved or respected her and the way Soburo talks about her I think he made her disappear and his son knows or suspected it.
The fact that The Devil ending has Soburo using his own sons body as a vessel just reinforces the fact that Yorinobu was a victim just like anyone else in Night City.
I would tell Jonny and Street kid V Yorinobu chose his parents the same way you chose yours
Gears of War fans rise up ⚙️
I didn't think deeply into this as I have now. Wow.
Yep. He used Adam Smasher because he was the ONLY person that was no afraid of taking down any corporation (for the wrong reasons, but still).
It is ironic that Yorunobu’s only credible ally was the monster on a leash, since the rest of humanity/elite would rather have his father up forever.
@@kingol4801 Why did Smasher allied with Yorinobu? What could a beyond psychopath like him possibly want? It can't be money cuz then Saburo would've hired him instead as he's the head of the empire so ofcourse he's the one with the most money and influence.
I think the saddest thing about yorinobu is that his sister, the one person in the world he actually really cares about, has been lying to him, and has betrayed him. Hanako has chosen to side with her father, a father who planned to kill yorinobu from the start with relic. Remember that biochip was designed for the purpose of transferring saburo's souls into a body of a blood relative.
Not only that....she's an accomplished netrunner who spent the decades between the bombing and 2077 working on the Relic tech. She was probably the one who convinced her father to bring Yori back into the fold because she saw the need for a genetic match to permit digital copies to return to a bio form, per her father's wish.
She lied to her brother for decades.
@@dshoutz1553where’d you read that she’s a net runner?
I only disagree about transfering his soul, because as soon as you "download" your brain and turn it into data, your soul is shattered. The market slogan is save your soul, but in reality you sold your soul for "immortality".
@@josephbelton1890Your soul is NOT shattered. Your brain is *FRIED.* by the overworking/overheating. This isn't a fantasy environment with fairytales. It uses high tech. Replicating your physical brain. For instance that's why V was changing and was afraid of it, because it was more and more turned into Silverhand's physique.
Never trust a daddies girl
Yorinobu is also not the looming threat to V. If he wanted to he could have sent wave after wave of assassins after V until V was dead, beyond the first time where they are arguably more after Takemura than V, Yorinobu doesn't do that.
That's a game feature I want. Assassin's sent after V. Take out a organized crime big shot? You get several waves of assassin's sent after you. Saka elites throughout the game at various points. Maybe even conditioned Cyberpsycho Assassin's like Petre Horvath after you do the Peralez questline.
I think that was intentional tbh. Cuz I really do believe the theory that Yori wanted Johnny back out in the world.
That's true. It would make sense that the first wave of assassins were after Takemura, since I'd imagine Yorinobu doubts Takemura believes the poison cover up
It actually makes LOTS os sense... Takemura even says he is a hunted man afterwards. He kept in hiding all the time, not V.
Those first Assassin droids were sent by Takamura to convince V the family turned on him. That's why the droids weren't really attacking and following a scripted look of attack. He planned the whole thing to take Yorinobu out by the hands of V. To keep his hands clean and take the throne or help Saburo take Yorinobu body. Remember, his background is acting.
Siding with Yorinobu by double crossing Haniko should be an option.
A story is only as smart as its writer. New vegas style choices for this game would have been pretty tight... Mods may fix that later.
Hanako isn't really that bad either, the game points out a few times that the Arasaka kids are all kind of limited in their life by Saburo's plans. They all kind of fall in a spectrum of grey morality.
@@nukima11 pretty ironic that you imply that the dude who created this cyberpunk universe isn’t smart while not realizing that including a betrayal option would be an idiotic choice that wouldn’t even make sense. There was no guarantee that Yorinobu would help V if they betrayed Hanako, V wasn’t even capable of betraying anyone at that point, Yorinobu probably wouldn’t take too kindly to you doing anything to his sister even if you did betray her to help him, and even if V was capable of betraying Hanako and stopping her without Yorinobu caring they’d still have to deal with a ton of Arasaka soldiers including Takemura who just successfully helped them kill the legendary Adam Smasher. Idiotic take on your part tbh and New Vegas has nice choices but it’s writing over all isn’t all that great.
@cannibalbunnygirl
Except Hanako is the one who made this whole scheme possible. She is a very skilled netrunner, and was one of few who actually understood what Alt's creation of Soulkiller would lead to, and was the project head for the Secure Your Soul project. Alt's version stripped out the soul and just left a husk with the former inhabitants memories, which Arasaka used for interrogation, after which the husk would fade away. It was Hanako's work that made the changes that both kept the subject alive and made more permanent copies as stored engrams.
@@nukima11 I doubt mods will be able to fix it tbh. The tools available aren't anywhere near as extensive as what's available for bethesda games.
In the new Phantom Liberty ending, it is heavily implied that Yorinobu did his best to destroy his father's company from within, causing Arasaka to finally leave Night City. V even remarks how they might have underestimated Yorinobu.
Loved that new addition!
@sambram even beforehand, in the vanilla game you get several news stories in the background heavily impling that Yorinobu is tanking arasaka stock from within while making "bad desicions" on purporse
YES! I loved that soooo much
It also shows that its not necessarily a good thing as Militech then moves into Night City. With Arasaka on the decline there no longer is a counterweight to Militech's domination of North America and beyond.
@@Reeves776 at least militech doesnt have soulkiller haha
I'm now convinced Saburo only took his son back because the other son died and he didn't want a female body
I want to know what Hanako's plans were in all this. On the face of it she's loyal to the family, but I suspect she's got her own designs to run the company. She seems to view Yorinobu as an obstacle in this but I'm not sure how Saburo fits in.
Maybe she was just happy to be close to the top but for some reason I don't believe that's all she's after.
@@SineN0mine3 I always saw Hanako as being comfortable in remaining the power behind the throne. Saburo is the face of the company and that means that any aggression targeted towards the company is typically done with his face in mind. Hanako never really has to worry about that. Her father values her advice, she lives in luxery, she has a big stake in the company, she keeps a reputation as the 'nice Arasaka', and nobody has any reason to want specifically her dead for corporate reasons.
How do you know Saburo isn't inside of her body as well?? Playing all sides
"When Bomb does not succeed... *become bomb* "
One of the best lines in the game.
He was trying to become an eminence in shadow
AllahuAkbaaaaaaar
"When X fails, become the thing that fails".
Kek.
@@TheRealXartaX i give him a pass since he's speaking in broken english
@@AntiMullahs Naw, Yorinobu is Japanese. BANZAIII
Jackie Welles: Alright V, let's search for the relic, but keep it quiet.
V at the top of her lungs: IT LOOKS LIKE YORINOBU LEFT US A PARTING GIFT!
Yorinobu was in the process of writting a poem. In Japan, there was a custom of leaving a poetic short sentence on a deathbed, “Jisei no ku (death poem). He is also wearing a mofuku or funeral robe.
ROT IN HELL KUSO AMA
Wow
Small detail but if Yori really wanted Hanako dead she would have been when V and Goro get ganked at the hideout. We briefly see Smasher carrying Hanako's unconscious body to an AV before we collapse. If Yori wanted her dead you think he would tame an animal like Smasher from killing her and doing bad things to her cadaver? No, he wanted her safe and told Smasher to spare her and her alone.
Very true, would've been all too easy to off her there and then. It still bugs me how unclear her cause of death is in the other endings. I'll try and research it further somewhen
@@SamBram It could be suicide once she realizes that her father isn't coming back and her role in the family is essentially over and done with
@@shinrugal I think Alt zapped her, she's the only remaining board member not complicit with Yorinobu's scheming and the only possible threat to her eliminating Mikoshi for good.
@@SamBram same here. It's likely Alt targeted her given Yorinobu's account of events
I heard that Smasher is Yorinobu's bodyguard.
I actually want an option in the devil ending when you talk more with yorinobu and V says that when he gets rid of the biochip he helps yorinobu destroy arasaka
Siding with him at the last moment? Sounds good to me
Every time there is a Relic glitch in the end of the game, thats Johnny trying to take control of V...What would Johnny do here?
If I had known his designs on Arasaka earlier I'd have turned on Hanako and crew if I could.
@@MrVirus9898 no tf it aint
@@SamBram His cyber dad would have taken his body regardless.
One of Phantom Liberty's endings reinforces this. Yorinobu tanks Arasaka Corp. with Hanako eliminated and from the outside it looks like his incompetence did it but he very likely tanked the company on purpose to destroy his father's legacy (and the technology that would let him return). In short the whole incompetent playboy image was a smokescreen distraction. It also makes sense for Yorinobu's motivations to be survival because V and Songbird are the same, he just didn't have as much screen time as the other two sadly.
This tides up with his background too, he have a double major in Bioscience and Economics. He knows about the real meaning behind the "experimental" relic and how to torpedo Arasaka in order to really make it fall. At the end of the quest where you get the Samurai's Bootlegs even Johny admits how the bombing on Arasaka tower did pretty much nothing in overall perception of the world... Yorinobu understand this and tried to take it down from within
Yorinobu's long term goals may not have been clearly stated as altruistic but just the fact that in most endings he managed to rid the world of a tyranical man who goes against human nature for the sake of maintaining power through fear makes him a hero in my eyes
He is a hero.
@@fronk3653nah. He's not. He's as evil as his father given that in the cyberpunk universe, everything revolves around corporations whether people like it or not, in the end the people are still going to suffer by the whims of the people on top.
Another case of rich people dictating how poor people live under the guise of being morally correct.
@@Graymeyne bro didn't watch the video
@@fronk3653He’s not a hero, it’s just that his father is worse than him.
I would excuse everything he does for 1 single invention. Immortality. Add to the souls transfer chip cloning and everyone is immortal. You can have a backup of yourself and even if you die, pop another you. Sometimes, greatness comes with a cost, to me, its justifiable I would say. At first only those with a lot of money can do it, slowly, it becomes mainstream.
I think Yorinobu, when he killed Saburo, was also acting in self defence. "The heart should break but once" doesn't mean "Another family spat." Saburo was basically saying that he was about to have Yorinobu killed. Or rather, probably Soul-Killer-ed so that Saburo could take his body. Yorinobu, at that point, had one and exactly one moment to act.
Saburo also literally says he cant forgive Yorinobu for "his treason". So yeah, Yorinobu was gonna die/be soulkilled definitely if he didnt kill Saburo during the Heist.
Saburo also said he was glad that yorinobus mother wasn't alive to see this, which makes too much sense now
Saburo likely only sees his children as pawns in a scheme to control the world
Let's not forget that Saburo intended to slaughter thousands of workers to get back at Militech for the siege of AHQ back in 2023, possibly even the whole city at it. His actions would have started yet another corporate war because we all know Militech wouldn't allow such a brazen act to go without equal or greater retaliation. Yorinobu may have not thought about it at the time, but he pretty much spared the whole world another pointless war.
The simple fact that Yorinobu kills (or depending on the end, at least TRIES to kill) Saburo earns him special consideration in my book. Whatever his motives, getting rid of that poisonous old #### would have AUTOMATICALLY made the entire world a better place. I also have the idea that while Yorinobu might have previously thought about killing his father, the actual act was in anger / on impulse, without serious forethought. His behavior right afterwards, and his interaction with Takemura, points to someone trying to adlib and deflect his way out of the situation - at least until he can think of how to properly handle it.
Actually, all things considered, pity there wasn't an ending in the game that involved finally coming to some sort of deal with Yorinobu. Thinking about this more, it is actually rather surprising that there isn't. He MAY not be much more trustworthy than his sister or father, but it's hard to see how he could possibly be worse.
True, surprising we never got to meet with him though out the whole campaign. Other than at devil ending. We were just convenient scapegoat to coverup him murdering his father. Plus you would think he would try to reach out to us though back channels, maybe he more fazed because he did not plan to kill his father and he making shit up as he goes
@@TheTitandog70 I imagine he was so busy with bigger problems executing his unplanned coup that by the time he might even have thought of that, it's too late.
Is Yorinobu's attempted revolution actually a better outcome than the admittedly shitty status quo? I feel like without more information on how the world would end up after a potential second corporate war between Arasaka and Militech, it's hard to say.
@@Kryto_Gaming Hmmm. That depends on Militech's response(s) to any 'Fall Of Arasaka: or 'Arasaka Civil War' scenario. The smart move would likely be to sit back, eat popcorn and watch - because practically everybody else in the world will be looking to settle scores and/or grab their own piece. Plenty of time to move in and assert control once the dust settles and they have a clear picture of the field.
Man is literally Go Shirakawa in the Far Future.
Siding with Hanako; the look on her face changes dramatically After the meeting with Arasaka oligarchs. It is disturbing and telling of the poor choice to side with her
Immoral? Catastrophic? Yes. Poor choice absolutely no. Being in good graces of Arasaka family is very beneficial and she actually finds you useful, she even hires you as her equivalent of Smasher if you decide to come back
@@DehydratedDarkness With the devil ending, if you actually accept the Arasaka deal (via Takemura if he is still alive in your game), you actually become immortal BUT a property of Arasaka corporation.
This way, with V skill set which you just proved to be better than Smasher, Arasaka could build/get a new body/cybernetic, put your engram in it to transfer your soul, and V would become the new military right hand of Arasaka leader.
We can imagine than V wouldn't accept that fate, but the relic could have a kill switch that only Arasaka could have a hand on. Also if you have played Corpo V, you know that once you get rejected by Arasaka corp, you loose all your cyberware advantage. In that case V wouldn't be able to betray Arasaka.
@@Mister-Teajust did the Devil ending and when they gave me the contract to sign...I was like " Nah, fuck that " at that point rather die my own way ( 6 months) than be The Corpo bodyguard.
@@DehydratedDarkness Living as a slave is a good ending in your mind? When there were so many other options available?
@@TheSuperRattwhat other options? How fast you want to die? There are no "good options" if your goal is to just live
To me it doesn't seem accidental that the "best" ending where you leave with the nomads is the one where yorinobu has taken over.
Not the best ending though. Maybe the best ending if you're a fan of Panam but if you don't buy into the cult of Panam worship then it's not the best ending
@@cannibalbunnygirl You get to leave together with a happy Judy, Sakas are in shambles as they deserve and youre out with your newfound family
@@elseggs6504 I wouldn't want the aldecaldos as family. I really don't like that questline. It's the best ending to you and the OP but 'best' is subjective
@@cannibalbunnygirl I don’t think best is subjective. The actual best ending is supposed to be the secret one where you go to mikoshi by yourself. If you go with nomads Saul gets killed, if you go with rogue then she gets killed, and if you go with Arasaka well that just turns out to be the worst possible choice imaginable. The secret ending is supposed to be the best because nobody dies and V ends up in the situation they wanted where they’re at the top of Afterlife.
@@niceto_meet_you2528 I think that's the closest to the best but I mean some people might prefer the suicide. That's why it's subjective. If someone hates rogue or Saul it's definitely objective 😂
What I find even more disturbing about Saburo is how calm and collected he is as he talks with Yorinobu. Still treating this (canonically) 82 year old man as if he were just still a rebellious teenager.
(In case anyone reading this was unaware, the Arasaka family extended their lifespans pretty much indefinitely. However, Saburos is still rotting due to the natural failures of whatever they are using to keep him alive).
After that entire time, still pretending to seemingly care for Yorinobu… he’s 100% willing to use his own son as a meat puppet in the devil ending. Presumably, once he’s used up Yorinobus body, he’ll move on to another… then another… then another… etc…
It truly is haunting to realize even in his dying moments, his love for his son was fake. That caressing his cheek while being choked to death... just another manipulation tactic. Truly a heartless man.
I want new ending where Yorinobu just directly contracted V, and told V about his father's plan, but due to his father's AI in the tower, he was not unable to help V.
Perhaps it should tie into the secret ending. We somehow find yori and he pieces together what happened with us, he wants to help us somehow. I do really want us as players to realize the truth of yori, to see what johnny has to say about it
This is from a huge essay I'm writing on the game. It may answer the question in 25:40
From what I figured, Yorinobu’s tragedy goes something like this:
The day Yorinobu graduates, Saburo calls onto him and explains his vision for Arasaka Corporation, and the role the family would play in it when the Relic project came to fruition. Either he or his older brother would give up their body to his father and marry Hanako, to continue his vision and keep the ties inside the family. Yorinobu appalled by the plan, tries to convince Hanako to run away with him vowing to destroy Arasaka and his father’s sick schemes, founding the Steel Dragons.
But after the Fourth Corporate War, Yorinobu noticing not even a nuclear bomb would be enough to destroy Arasaka, he decides to return to his family and destroy the corporation from the inside. In 2077 he somehow contacts NetWatch, who are in a feud with the Voodoo Boys and need to contact the AI Alt Cunningham. Yorinobu offers them the Relic 2.0 prototype with the engram of Johnny Silverhand. Anders Hellman delates the deal to Saburo, reason why he comes to Night City; and after using the name of Yorinobu’s mother to scold him, Yorinobu snaps and murders his father.
Then as new CEO of Arasaka, tries to destroy the company from inside out, causing intrigues between the parties and accusing Militech of his father’s murder to start a war. However, at the moment he was going to try a coup at his directors, murdering them during a board meeting, his sister, Hanako Arasaka, appears out of nowhere accompanied by the witnesses of Saburo’s murder, miraculously defeating his coup forces and forcing Yorinobu to surrender, and have his father reborn though his body.
When V arrives, finding Yorinobu at the floor wearing a night robe with a huge sweep of cloth behind him, he thinks to be talking with Hanako as he quotes: “These violent delights have violent ends”, meaning, he did it all trying to save Hanako, the sister whom he loved. He is quoting one of the most recognizable lines of Romeo and Juliet.
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume.
The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately.
Long love doth so.
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
(Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene VI)
And ironically Yorinobu is actually doing what Johnny did for Alt in Never Fade Away. The villain whose V sees as a tyrant in truth did it all for love, contrary to what V is doing in the Devil’s path. The Arasaka that V thinks to be destroying is in reality being saved.
His long gown, however, seems to be a refence to Lady Macbeth. I am not sure, as her nightgown is not huge like Yorinobu’s. In the scene Lady’s Macbeth is sleepwalking trying to clear invisible bloodstains from her hands. If this is correct, Yorinobu is sleep deprived due to the guilt for all the lives he vainly sacrificed or would sacrifice in the day of the coup.
Soulkiller didnt exist when Yorinobu graduated so unless Saburo has the power to see the future, the planning to takeover Kei or Yorinobu body doesnt make sense.
Pretty sure the reason Yorinobu cut ties and went on to create the Steel dragons was because he was told of all the blackmail and assassinations performed by Arasaka to reach their position and the plans Saburo had with the whole making America bend the knee to him
@@noxy4966 Soulkiller was grabbed by Arasaka in 2013, Yorinobu graduated university in 2016
yoo nice catch on the bathrobe I missed that
make this into a video essay i'm too lazy to read all this but i'm interested
Regarding the gown, I will relate information I've seen elsewhere in the comments.
Basically, Yorinobu knew he was at the equivalent of his deathbed. The Coup failed, and he would be gone before evening's end. The Japanese traditionally write a Poem here, and may first don a robe specially designed for, one's Funeral. (A "Jisei no Ku" and "Mofuku," respectively, for poem and robe, and yes Mofukus are styled like the one in question.) To be as against his father as he could, a man who despised the West for all it was, to idolise a keystone of Western poetry and have their work be the crown jewel of one's final words would be one last pitiful laugh to make. The robe is there to signify he knew the situation, what would be his final hour is upon him. And once he wears the signifying robes, the dead man does his best to fulfill tradition in the most tongue-in-cheek manner he could, the only way his ethics would want him to do so.
It feels the sleep deprivation and loose connection to Lady Macbeth, then, comes natural as a worthy addition to mention, as he just might have been thinking of just that parallel some time before V comes in, where he has all the blood and none of the glory he sought for in his hands, and the moment of writing is at hand. After all, in a place like Night City, to be sleep deprived in a position of such power with all the medical marvels they have, wouldn't it be only a choice and a choice alone for a man like him to experience it? With that logic, the lines were not drawn by themselves, but by his design, and what culminates as his real last laugh in the end of things ends up far more depressed and visible than that poem could ever aspire to make. Maybe, to reach somehow for the degree of Sorrow the star crossed lovers inspired with their suicides, given the tragic surrendered fates each sibling is condemned to in this ending? I cannot say, but it is an extra link to explore if one wished.
My real question is if a rabbit hole spawns from there, and where such a line might end, but god dammit I already spent an hour merging your idea with the improved context and i don't want to waste 4 more to going down the line.
I really wanted DLC to help save him from his fate, he was indeed a hero in the game and could have had more focus in the game. Maybe in the future we'll find out that he has been transferred to a chip and we can save him somehow.
He only has that fate if you simp for Hanako. Otherwise, he's chilling
Every ending where you don't side with Arasaka he survived and succeeds in his plan
When Jackie slotted the Relic you see his eyes turned blue for a second, most likely indicating that the Relic downloaded his engram... he just didn't get revived. If the writers know better, they'll have the player make a choice in the DLC. Do you bring back Johnny or do you bring back Jackie?
@@nukima11 we meet Jackie's engram. It was pulled from his body post mortem. That's why it's so fractured. To see it tho you have to have Delamain take his body anywhere but to his mother at the Coyote. Then side with Hanako.
@@RangerJosey Good point.👌
Spit-ballin... wouldn't that have technically been more of a corrupted version since Arasaka did not have access to the relic in V's head? The Relic should have a version as well, IMO. Anyways, it's ultimately all up to the writers and set cannon at the end of the day.
Yorinobu is a true rockerboy, and a natural one at that. He was born with a diamond encrusted silver spoon in his mouth, but in spite of that he managed to overcome the conditioning of the world he had been born into and chart his own course. That alone is an incredible feat of character, but he didn't stop at leaving the family. The more Yorinobu saw of the world, the more he understood the evil that his father had wrought upon it, and the unique position he was in to change that. He basically sold his soul to return to the fold with one purpose: to bring about that change.
Like, I'm gonna be honest, I know Johnny has strong and genuine feelings about the corps, but Yorinobu is in a whole different league of rockerboy. He's just missing the band!
Wish we had more freedom to support him. I think that could've made for an interesting ending.
The Convo between Yori and Hellman suggests "them" being unready to bring the Relic to market, despite Arasaka already doing precisely this.
Seems to me that the real issue was cost. Not that it was too high, but that it was too low. Arasaka was sitting with a monopoly on technology that in Cyberpunk's world should cost very little to deploy but had tremendous value. They were pricing it to be exclusively for the rich, because the rich of CP2077 have exponentially more collective wealth than the poor. Make the relic cheap enough for anyone, and you'll have razor thin margins, maybe profiting just a few billion, even if everyone on the planet buys in. Maintain a monopoly exclusively targeting the rich, and you can rake in untold trillions.
My theory is that Yorinobu wanted this technology to go mainstream. That Yori wanted Helman to "defect", and was selling the Relic to Netwatch to have them, as a neutral party, facilitate a multi-pronged assault on Arasaka's monopoly by producing budget knock-offs from every corp that could make them.
This adds a stronger double meaning to Saburo's line about "selling our future" to westerners.
Netwatch's motive stays the same. They still wanted Jonny as bait in a trap for Alt. Yori may idolize Jonny, but per his dialogue about his father, I think he would not have much respect towards the *engram* of Jonny, and appreciate the poetry in using Jonny's Engram to strike such a blow against Arasaka.
Love this theory! I also think holding the engrams of the rich and celebrities specifically would be power over the masses in and of itself. The marketing influence that celebrities have is huge. And holding power over their immortal personalities forever pretty much means you can get them to say whatever you want and millions will listen
Wasn't it that Relic 1.0 was the one that was sold? And Relic 2.0 was the version that V got stuck in their head? One was a simple memorystorage, the other a nanite overwrite.
Makes sense, who did Hellman run to after things got strange at Arasaka? Kang Tao, one of their competitors. And Hellman even tried to get V to go with him to Kang Tao. Makes you wonder what Hellman was really doing.
Agreed with everything else beyond the caveat that they never wanted to sell it at all (which makes your theory even better); when you talk to Hellman you ask "How do you put a price on immortality?" and Hellman says that you can't, that it was intended to be an in-house item only, restricted to Arasaka high ups (meaning the board and maybe the likes of Hellman and especially loyal and useful figures like Takemura). As such the actual immortality part beyond the "Secure your Soul" public parts was never meant to be sold directly. If Yorinobu puts that out on the public, everyone could look into it, and the public outcry would show up about its potential uses before Saburo's real plan goes into effect, putting a buffer potentially between Yori and Saburo.
There are messages later (during and after the parade) talking about the issues that were having with the Secure Your Soul program (the modified Soulkiller version, at least). So yeah, it was used for those who could afford it, but it was far from ready.
You gotta hit up the deep lore.
Kei killed Yorinobu. With Soulkiller. He was later cloned and implanted in a clone body. The Yorinobu in cp77 is a clone. (Alt's DNA was also found in the cloning machine) We don't find Johnny's body because a woman named "Angel" who looks suspiciously like Alt had his body smuggled out of Arasaka in the case of an Arasaka nuke that was in the tower but never set off.
Spider Murphy was the one that killed Kei in the lore, revenge for Johnny and others during the War (if the final part of Johnny's flashback where they used Soulkiller on him was true - it's not, Spider was the one who used it on him after Adam Smasher insta-killed him - then Kei would have been the guy confronting Johnny, not Saburo, but Johnny's ego won't setter for second place) so most likely that's still Saburo, and that part of Mike's theories are wrong. Mike may be voiced by the Pondsmith himself, but those are all intentionally misleading to some degree, combining deep lore with flat out falsehoods equally.
The Angel part however is most likely correct, there's also another theory that Johnny is still alive, that the Engram we get is just a copy, and Angel/Alt brought Johnny back to life in a cloned body and used the Soulkiller chip still in his neck - which was the main reason Saburo had Smasher recover his body, given Spider had wiped Soulkiller from Araska's computers before the bomb went off, so they needed the copy Spider had used on Johnny to restore it - to bring him back mentally as well. If so we could potentially meet "the real" Alt and Johnny in Phantom Liberty or (more likely) a sequel.
Where did you get this cloning part? The Angel part I know, but not this...
Also the "Alt" we find in the Net is not the real Alt or at least only a small portion of Alt
@@TheSpartan21029 that AI tells you straight up. "I use her engramatic data"
@@thadeusilva8907 It's in Firestorm, I think the Shockwave book. Which is weird, because I thought that Firestorm at one point was declared non-canon, but apparently it isn't, because a lot of elements of it keep cropping up in 2077.
At this point, there's way too much that happens within the Arasaka Tower that night. It's like within moments of Johnny getting blasted in half and Spider just chucking Alt's data out into the Net, she re-pieced herself and used cloning tech that Arasaka had in the tower to put herself in a clone body, but Yorinobu was also cloned at that time too. Meanwhile, Smasher and Morgan are having a duel to the death, and moments later, a mini-nuke goes off.
The timer on that nuke is starting to feel more and more like an episode of Dragon Ball Z.
FYI, I’m sure you’ve gotten this comment already, but just in case: the Phantom Liberty ending only reinforces the idea that Yorinobu intends to sabotage Arasaka. The man is what Johnny wanted to be fr fr 😔✊🏻
This is something I remember thinking in my first playthrough of the game. The game keeps forcing me to act like Yorinobu is the enemy, but I always thought: "Why do I have a problem with this guy? He killed his dad, who wasn't my friend. He hasn't done anything to me. Seems like him being an enemy is pretty forced."
The game forces V to feel a certain way most of the time, unfortunately. I never really feel like I get to choose what they feel about something, only a vague 'say this angry thing or this other angry thing'
Because the one telling you he's an enemy is Goro, and he's speaking from the PoV of an Arasaka loyalist. And he keeps spinning that Yorinobu needs to fall for you to be cured of the Relic.
Its forced because its coming from a biased party, even if Goro himself isn't a bad guy.
I didnt feel like he was an enemy. More like an obstacle.
I think the logic was basically this:
We search for a way to get rid of the chip. Arasaka made the chip. We are promised that Arasaka can remove it. But our only link to the company is Takemura, who is in hiding because Yorinobu wanted him dead. So we help Takemura talk to Hanako so stuff can get cleared up and at that point we are already offered the deal: Help to get rid of Yorinobu and Arasaka will help.
Even though Im pretty sure V doesnt care in the slightest that Yorinobu killed Saburo, Yorinobu still pinned the blame on them and sent assasins after them to tie up loose ends. Seems pretty reasonable then to see him as the enemy. Especially since, as I already said, you want help from Arasaka and the current head of It wants you dead for all you know.
the writing in this game isnt the best. for another example, being unable to simply become an engram and then force yourself back into your body. its just forced narrative that they expect you to accept
@@LamborghiniDiabloSVPursuithonestly, I don’t really like Goro. I know he saved our life, but like he was only using us as a means to an end. Hell if you want to extrapolate further, the whole game is V getting played. If not by Dex, then by Evelyn, if not by Evelyn then the Voodo boys and even Johnny to an extent. Especially in the dlc with So Mi and Reed.
I think Yorinobu does want to cause a Corpo War against Militech, although maybe not fully fledged or only short termed. In one of Padre's gigs V is looking into a Valentino den to avenge a murdered cop. The place is full of Militech stuff, and if V searches further, it seems like the Valentinos are hired to attack Arasaka at some point... hired by Arasaka, that is! When V tells Padre, he tells them to better stay out of it. If V stays around, corps do indeed show up, but I'm not sure if it's Arasaka or Militech.
I think there might have been more little fishy encounters like this, but I can't remember anything specific right now.
So my theory, additional to all the rest, is that Yori wants to weaken Arasaka from within and at the same time Militech is provoked into a Corpo War, or the other Arasaka higher ups are provoked into it by Yori's staged "Militech" attacks. Only that weakened-from-within Arasaka will lose to Militech, because Yorinobu will make sure of that.
I replayed that mission today for the Heywood gigs video. It adds a little more to the context of this video so annoying that I didn't pick up on it before finishing this one. I will link it back to this somewhat in the Heywood video though
This mission is really when it hit me that Yorinubu was gonna kill Arasaka, I didn't catch it on the heist and kinda followed the dialog choices before
@@SamBramI think there’s also more context going on here. I think we’re all focusing a bit too much on the corporations without looking at the bigger picture. It’s implied throughout the story that the Black Wall AIs are starting to make moves. The voodoo boys are seeking out alt cause they think a war is coming and want to be on the winning side. It’s implied that night corp is controlled by AIs from behind the black wall and are manipulating night city politics through Peralez. Then there’s netwatch. A corpo V is not convinced that Netwatch is helping Yorinobu out of corrupt self interest, that’s because Netwatch is probably reacting to Johnny and his connection to alt. There is a shadow war going on that’s hidden behind a smokescreen that’s corporate intrigue. There’s even radio chatter about how orbital air stock was rising cause the stock AIs appear to be predicting some kind of new global conflict. Hell, when Alt breaches Mikoshi she pretty much confirms she’s gathering footsoldiers for a brewing conflict. I think soul killer and Saburo’s actions are informed by more than just immortality, the program might also be related to Arasaka’s fear of the AIs. Why does Arasaka focus on soul killing netrunner for example? They can just take a bunch of homeless people off the street and such, but instead they soul kill and capture people with experience navigating the landscape of the net. This might also explain Hanako’s decisions. She may see Saburo as a necessary evil because Arasaka needs to be strong in order to combat the AIs.
He is doing that to have a second super power to help him keep Arasaka from getting stronger. It would be more believable that America's corpo military wants to push them back out of the NUSA.
I don't think the game saw Yorinobu as a villain. I think that he was supposed to be the red herring, the one who we think is the danger but the real danger is actually "innocent" Hanako. Honestly, I thought it was brilliant how the writing led you in one direction only to lead you to another. As for V not regretting killing Yorinobu in the Devil ending, I think the point of that is that they didn't want to believe that siding with Arasaka and going against everything they believed in was all for nothing. Yet it was all for nothing. They handed Saburo power and gave Night City to him on a silver platter. The ending did shock and disturb me but it never occurred to me that Saburo was planning this all along and told Yorinobu several times. It puts the whole game in a different perspective.
And Hanako never needed V to convince the board, she already had Saburo's engram for that. She used them to clear the way to Yorinobu.
@@tron9683 Another nail in the metaphorical coffin.
Honestly, none of the major players in the base game (bar Saburo, obviously) can be called villains in the traditional sense. The city itself seems to be the villain, if anything else. Everyone else is just vying for position.
None of the players are innocent. One of the few things Takemura says that I agree with is that everyone has a share of the blame. They all have blood on their hands to a greater or lesser degree.
@@syntaxusdogmata3333 You're right, no one is innocent in this game whether corpo, media or solo. Everyone just does what they can to survive in a cruel world, but that doesn't justify some of the more heinous actions.
Yorinobu was absolutely acting in self defense killing his father, what's more I think he did set up the heist. Either his father confronts him, giving him the chance to get hands on, or the chip gets to Netwatch and he's no longer at risk.
I think killed Saburo was more a heat of the moment thing, as someone else said. And the idea that he set up the heist seems pretty convuluted. He already stole the relic from the company, why go through extra effort just to have someone else steal it from his penthouse? It does really make sense. From NetWatch, the Voodoo Boys, Evelyn, DeShawn, V and Jackie, there are far too many moving pieces and uncontrolled variables for Yorinobu to make such a plan work. And again, why have someone steal something he had already stolen?
@tron9683 I guess we'll never know, but it's possible that he knew about (or organized) the heist. That would make V and Jackie perfect fall guys for the murder. And bringing Saburo there in the timeframe potentially could be achieved by confiding to Hellman (and some low-level Arasaka employees intrigues). Seems like a plan where too many things can go wrong (and they did) but someone, who thinks he can 5D chess other people, could potentially think they could pull it off. If he did do it, well... technically he pulled off something with acceptable results. The fact that things went wrong for him way further down the road is another story
I think it was long held resentment over something not discussed. What is important is less the dialog, but the expressiveness.
What comment is it that sets him off and changes his expression? When Saburo blames Yorinobu for making his mother cry.
Nothing about the business, or mistakes or legacy, but 'Good thing your mother isnt here now'.
Even that phrase. Not the wife's name, but 'Your mother'.
I got impression from that one line that Yorinobu took after and followed mother while other two followed Saburo.
The reaction of Yorinobu is one who blames the father for the mother's suffering and I suspect death as well.
@@tron9683 I feel like getting someone to steal that chip from would be like an exit plan for Yorinobu to get that chip elsewhere and almost absolve himself of the responsibility
@tron9683 I don't believe he planned it but more so set up the conditions for it to be stolen from him deliberately. He wanted johnny back in the world since blowing up saka stuff was his bread and butter. I think he chose to sell to netwatch hoping the voodoo boys would catch wind
Here’s a thought. What if Evelyn Parker and yorinobu plotted the theft of the relic from his room in the beginning? Yorinobu leaks the tiny bit of information out into the world, gets the attention of the voodoo boys, then Evelyn makes sure to contact them to try to get this relic.
The reason for wanting Johnny silver hand is a back up plan in case it gets slotted. Then yorinobu might have an additional ally.
Few points to this, Adam smasher and yorinobu are both out of the room conveniently at the same time. It’s entirely possible that yorinobu heard that his father was coming and quickly headed back to his penthouse to prevent the heist from failing. To further facilitate this. Before takemura even started to scan your location smasher was already looking directly at you. And we know that ppl don’t need to talk verbally to have a conversation in cyberpunk. So smasher notifies yorinobu the location of the thieves and before takemura can complete the scan yorinobu specifically says that’s not necessary. A very oddly convenient timing.
Another little tidbit that lends credence to this. Is when yorinobu says to V “It’s you.” Iirc yorinobu and V NEVER interact even once in the game before that ending. So it’s strange that yorinobu would know V based on appearance alone.
Think simpler. What if their plan wasn't to steal the relic, rather create scapegoats for the assassination... and slotting of Johnny into Saboru via the Relic... so he can destroy Arasaka from the top down, AS SABORU? Johnny said that he couldn't imagine a worse fate than someone having their identity erased and replaced by another... well it appears Yorinobu planned worse for his father, by doing just that... using a personality that wants nothing more than to destroy the legacy of the person he is replacing. If that ain't the ultimate revenge against his father for what he planned to do to him, IDK what is.
Well one thing that’s flawed is when takemura is scanning during the heist, it’s not yorinobu that tells him it’s unnecessary, saburo is the one who states that it’s not needed because he’s with his son, but I also think they knew from alt Cunningham they needed a body to slot the relic and that was meant to implant Johnny into saburos body. Would be most logical id think.
@@mmauchin iirc the relic that Johnny was stuffed inside was the only copy that arasaka had. And Johnny was soul killered post mortem which is why his memory is so shoddy and patchworked. Johnny Relic was pretty much the framework and prototype that Arasaka based its relic program on.
But yeah forgot saburo told takemura to leave. So the only way my theory would even be remotely considered viable, is maybe yorinobu knew just how conceited, arrogant and narrow-minded his father was since saburo was 150 at time of death and yorinobu was 82 at that time. So at most yorinobu would’ve know his father for 77 years and be able to easily predict his father.
Cus the fucked up thing is. Saburo was born 1927. And yorinobu was born in 1995. So someone who was a part of the greatest generation which is before the silent generation sired a millennial child. And we can see the difference in values and thought process from just gen x to millennials.
Yorinobu and V never meet. But he is aware V was there, regardless if he saw him hiding, he has a lot of resources. I'm sure he was sipping his morning coffee when an assistant ran up and showed him a pic V the guy who broke in to the tower and lived
For real, he was anti-Saburo all the way. This ending is truly "horrible", for everything that happens to V and Yorinobu becoming the man he hates.
When I played the devil ending, I was genuinely surprised that I couldn't turn on Hanako and help secure Yorinobu as the head of Arasaka in order to save V. This just made that feeling even more concrete.
Yeah, weird. There is no one around to stop us, and even if we just shot her dead...door to mikoshi is still wide open, hellman is still here.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907I wish we could kill Hanako in the building after we meet her.
Wait, Yorinobu is 82 years old?! I thought he was in his 20's maybe 30's! That's more surprising than everything else in this video!
And Hanako is 78 years old, that's one fine GMILF!
Yep. I too was surprised, Cyberpunk really does go a long way with Cybernetic Augmentations.
Saburo is also like 180 but looks 80??...🤨
@@EroticOnion23 According to Maximum Mike on Morrow Rock Radio Saburo spent a large amount of time in a rejuvenating pod referred to a casket, that helped to keep him "young" (or rather alive). Maximum Mike incidentally happens to be voiced by Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the setting.
Kerry is around the same age too. The rich have cybernetics to help them stay and look young.
I never really saw him as a bad guy, questionable maybe, but not bad, and if you play the devil ending when he is beaten on his knees at the tower, it becomes clear that he had indeed good intentions, not as much for the poor or anything, but rather taking down this evil tyrannical empire, and it makes V look like an absolute idiot as you basically help the bad guys.
P.S. This may be or may not be the case, but i think Johnny's engram was picked intentionally, the guy literally dropped a nuke, a NUKE on a tower to fight the same evil Yorinobu wants to stop. Johnny is the ultimate rebel, bows to no one and wants Arasaka destroyed more than anyone, he can incite the masses and probably turn most of Night City into a rebellion. Even though Johnny failed in life...the fact remains he will go to anything lenghts to fight, an unbending, unbreakable spirit and someone who cannot be broken is very bad new for any corporation.
If Yorinobu wanted to take down Arasaka, why not slot Johnny’s engram into Saburo? Why not head directly for the freezer where he’d hidden the chip and slot it into him right there? Of course, V and Jackie had already stolen it, so his plan would have gone off the rails, but that might have made for an equally entertaining story!
@@JosieJOK They have the know-how to take it out. Plan goes down the drain if it wasn't the same problem V had where it would kill them when they do so.
@@JosieJOK Honestly Saburo was likely too old to handle the transition, it would have killed him.
It's meant to be slotted into a empty husk, Hellman is quite surprised that it worked on V. And the side effects are pretty brutal.
Not to say you're wrong, but I think its revealed in deep lore that Johny wasn't actually the one to drop the nuke, rather it may have been morgan blackhand. He's an unrealiable narrator and its speculated that arasaka may have planted false memories in his engram. But i still understand your point
I can only imagine how shocked Johnny would be to figure out he had more in common with the son of the very corporation he tried to destroy than he did with a small time street punk. Imagine if they made a movie? Feel like that would definitely be the route.
I just wanna know how Michiko Sanderson goes from being a Militech collaborator and CEO of Danger Girl to leading a faction of Arasaka under her maiden name again. Complicent with Yorinobu? Similar plan? Is her husband still alive? Why does the Mox logo look so simalar to the Danger Girl logo? I need another 'Red' release so bad. I HAVE QUESTIONS!
In a nutshell: They wanted Hanako as an Arasaka hardliner and the villain of the story, so they had Michiko take over books!Hanako's position as the leader of the liberal Saka faction.
That analysis of Saburo’s act of taking his son’s body going against human evolution and instinct to nurture our children was brilliant.
I like how Yori’s body language shifts between “I can’t forgive treason” and “your mom would be disappointed” in the talk with Saboru. He goes from “ok old man finish talking and leave” to, “oh
H your gonna bring up my fucking mom you old bastard?!” Real quick
One of things I always liked about the game story is that you're just a small-time social climbing punk who stumbled onto a situation you thought would go your way but you were way over your head and paid dearly for it. Your mostly peripheral to what's going on at Arisaka and the only meaningful contact you have with them is through your interactions with Goru, and only then you're just a pawn in a family power struggle who has been discarded when no longer needed, the only time you have any power in the outcome is that the end of the game, which is the only time you really have any control over your fate. It's pretty consistent with the themes of the series and the cyberpunk genre in general, characters rarely if ever are better off and are sometimes worse off when they started. I think that's the reason why a lot of people didn't like The edge runner ending, it was consistent with cyberpunk ethos, the innings of the game and the show we're not about winning power and Glory but more about going out on your own terms and leaving a legacy behind. A very good subversion of the whole power fantasy crap we see in pop-culture these days.
You were small time at the beginning but you weren’t really in over your head. Everything would have went perfectly fine if Saburo never showed up. Even then it would have been somewhat ok if Yorinobu never killed killed his father.
"Wrong city, Wrong people" - johnny silverhand
There are no happy endings except getting out
@@cosmickirby580 true, one that could be said to be closest to happy was the nomad ending. You may likely die but you'll be surrounded by a surrogate family and maybe with the love of your life, you finally get what really matters in life, and you get to leave the hell that is knight City.
@@cane6074 Which is something that makes Street Kid even worse. V DID leave, but was forced to come back.
@@niceto_meet_you2528 you would've been detected eitherway, both Adam Smasher and Takemura have already scanned you and Jackie
I never did the devil ending but this is an awesome take on an angle of the game i never thought about. Yorinobu is Johnny Silverhand 2.0
Love this
I'm a bit late but I believe that both the sudden turn to aggression towards Militech, his hatred for Arasaka, and that one Heywood mission where you find a full-fledged false flag in preparation from Arasaka is that Yorinobu was going to have the entire Arasaka Corporation commit "suicide by Militech."
There would be no vacuum, only a winner.
That's the way I saw it as well, or he would initiate a 5th corporate war so terrible that both sides are destroyed, a long term ploy to attempt to give the soul of the city/the country/the world back to the people.
A great video as usual and MAD props for 'barely an inconvenience.'
I was frantically searching the comments for anyone else who caught that top tier reference.
I think the real villain is not giving us a choice to refuse to put the relic in our heads or flat out refuse to do the heist. Would have been so much cooler to be on a mission to help revived Jackie/Johnny instead. Had you refused to take the chip.
Also if you return to Konpeki Saburo's body is still there. 😂
Except V would of been dead because of Dex. The relic saved V for a long while.
Exactly. At the moment Delamain drops V off, there could have been a choice between Dex, Evelyn Parker, or even just dumping the chip altogether (free play).
I get that those who love the story think that it's this deep, insightful thing. For a graphic novel or movie, it would be. For a video game, it robs all agency from the player. As V, I only get the choice of how my character dies.
The railroaded story is why, despite an awesome setting and gameplay loop, I personally rate CP 2077 as one of the worst games ever. It has definitely become a "guilty pleasure" game where I wander around Watson doing all the gigs and police scanner missions before quitting just before the Heist mission.
@@nolgroth if a game not giving you complete control of the story and making you follow a general plotline is your grounds for saying it’s one of the worst games ever, then you must hate like 95% of all games ever made.
If you refused either of those things there would literally be no plot. The entire events of the game are fundamentally kicked off by you doing the heist.
You are basically saying they should have made two entirely different versions of the game just to satisfy your urge to avoid storylines.
There's not much any choice you have in cyberpunk, many gigs that V had was better to be left alone, things would have much better if he didn't participate Arasaka and Johnnys intended to do, as they would be good as gone as well after 2 years
The new ending from Phantom Liberty confirms his endgame was always to topple Arasaka from within, and he actually succeded in running the corporation to the ground in the two years after original endings, even if V wasn't involved at all in the final confrontations in this timeline. So yeah it seems all endings except one will culminate in Arasaka falling. It's just hard to see it for the player considering we meet him while he murders his father and we naturally assume he was this power-hungry son.
Basically, the view from the bottom was one that would never allow for the view of what Yorinobu had in mind. A couple mercs walk in with no context and see a guy off his father, not many other ways to see what happened.
I never thought about this but could the fact that Adam Smasher was Yorinobu’s personal guard be a ploy from his father, Saburo. Maybe, Adam wasn’t protecting Yorinobu as much as he was keeping tabs on him for the Emperor. AS could be YA’s jailer not his protector, and YA killing SA didn’t bother him because one way or another, Yorinobu and Saburo were both going to die, only one of them would emerge victorious through the relic.
AS alluded to his knowledge of the Relic system and Mikoshi in Edgerunners when he propositioned David Martinez…he could have covertly been in on the whole scheme…🤔💭
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.
But even if it wasn’t, Smasher is an opportunist and a horrible borg and I wouldn’t trust that one as far as I can throw him.
There are definitely Smasher relic somewhere in Mikoshi vaults
They should add an "Angel" ending thats excessivly hard to get where
you betray Hanako last minute
safe Yorinobu who then sends you ot the space station to fix you up
but for that you need to use verry specific options the entire game
and then
we get a scene where its specifically mentioned that he still knows V exsists
and its essentially a more "positive" version of the Devil Ending
though it might be a little too "Hopeful" for a game such as this
the better option would be having 2 choices at the Devil ending, betraying Hanako last second and killing her at the board meeting, V would still need to fight through the tower, but at the end you find Yorinobu waiting for you at Soulkiller, who explains what he always wanted to do and thanking you for helping him, the rest would go the same as either "Path of Glory" or "New Dawn Fades", except adding a news report at the end about an anonymous merc who (indirectly...?) destroyed Arasaka
Knowing this about Yorinobu makes the Dont Fear the Reaper ending that much more satisfying. Truly, he and Silverhand shared the same goal. Id wager that had Johnny and Yorinobu ever got to meet, there would be an alliance for sure. A shame that we never got a chance to choose to actively help Yorinobu, but I suppose that would have completely changed the games plot.
It also makes V's forced complicity with Takemura that much worse. He only saved V to attempt to take out Yorinobu and bring honor to a man who would only ever rule with malice and literally violate his own son.
Takemura is corp all over really. He's a pretty decent guy, but he's fanatically loyal to monsters.
Very 'samurai'.
@@Philweasel RIght, Takamura was always honest about who he was and what he was about. His unconditional loyalty to Saburo was his biggest flaw.
@@tron9683 can you blame him thought? he was literally picked up from the worst place in his life at such a young age, picked by saburo himself. thats gotta make some serious mental manipulation in the future
@@Mentallyheldyeah i can blame him, he is an adult and has seen what corpos had made to night city
@@adrianhebreros my brother in christ, he was effectively groomed since a young age, that shit persist even when your a adult
Rewatching Saburo's death scene made me think that he knew Yorinobu was about to kill him all along.
Not unlikely. Why wouldn't they just find out what happened.
When I found out Yorinobu's plan during one of the possible paths to the ending, it made me even madder at the ending. At first it was just because the protagonist can't avoid dying. But then, I was mad at the protagonist and Silverhand for STOPPING Yorinobu from destroying Arasaka.
If it makes you feel any better, yorinobu succeeds in literally every ending except the one where you side with Arasaka.
@@tropicturtle9021 Bonus Points: In the Don't Fear the Reaper ending Hanako is killed during V's one-man assault on Arasaka when Alt takes control of the security systems.
I think you overlooked something huge that very much changes theories. Look at Yorinobu from a relations with family standpoint. Truly cares for Hanako.
With this in mind, lets go back to Konpeki and events there. How I perceived things first time. I saw him as one who was rebelling against old ideals and the nationalism. Keep in mind not knowing anything about the relic. But what stood out to me is how his demeanor and expression changed at mention of the mother!
At this point he becomes angry. The reason Saburo was killed was because of nothing more than familial love. It is a common aspect in story as to wife and children suffering under an oppressive father, particularly in Japan based narrative.
So why was Saburo killed? Yorinobu blamed him for what happened with his mother. The rest with knowing the plan? I agree with. 'Your purpose is my legacy' mentality.
I think that he would be only a back up of his plan of immortality and a clone instead being the primary one, but such a feat is strangely not possible for him in 2077. I can say that in our universe that human cloning while more complicated than for dolly the sheep is very much possible and would be very likely be in practice if not for issues of mortality.
I think it had something to do with needing a functioning consciousness to rewrite according to the Relic's engram.
Especially since cloned replacement organs are a very commonplace thing by the time of Cyberpunk RED (2045)
@@gabrielclark1425 a clone is in many ways just a twin, it would have a consciousness to override in much the same way palpatine planned, essence transfer in two franchises pretty much.
One of the few times I've seen theory crafting actually hit the nail on the head and be further reinforced down the line. Phantom Liberty outright confirmed this with one of the broadcasts talking about Yorinobu being a saboteur.
Love the video, thanks SO MUCH for doing a deep dive on this. This has been my biggest puzzle about the plot so far, and I remember asking you about this a while ago, as Yorinobu's parallels to Johnny really seemed to pile up after you play through it a few times.
Regarding a few points. While I do think that Yorinobu did learn about his father's plans, and that helped to motivate his plans to defect, I don't think that makes it mutually exclusive from him also just genuinely being disgusted with the way Arasaka runs things. In fact I would say growing up with the knowledge that he was the "spare kid" with his older brother allowed to continue the bloodline (a very traditional thing), but for him to end up as the replacement daddy, would easily turn someone to hate the corporation at every level. He even mentions that when he is talking about fear. He's clearly been observing how everyone in the corpo world react around his father, and he finds all of it disgusting. He even talks when V looks up at the monitor with all the Araska fights going on, about trying to free them from tyrannical rule. He seems genuine when he speaks about trying to liberate all of Arasaka (and maybe the various regions of the planet under direct Arasaka control too?) from that tyranny. Yes it also means he gets to live, but again, you can have more than one motivation for doing things.
One thing I noticed while watching this, that I hadn't noticed before, is how biblical Suburo's phrasing is, when talking to Yorinobu, and then in the aftermath of the Devil ending. When he says "I can forgive anything, but betrayal? No." That's literally the one thing that you can't be forgiven from in biblical terms. The only ultimate sin that you can't ask for forgiveness for in at least christian mythology, is simply not obeying/believing in the sky daddy's authority and right to rule. Mass murderer? No problem, deathbed conversion and you get into heaven. Serial rapist/pedo? No problem, ask for forgiveness, you get into heaven. But if you simply do not agree, and never repent? Straight to hell. Obedience is #1. Same with Suburo. And then, after, when he's giving his speech on the monitor, he talks about giving his son life, and that son giving it back to him. Heavily implying the biblical child sacrifice angle of geezus. So yeah, Surubo DEFINITELY has a god complex. And I see now way that things won't end up WAY worse with him in charge post Devil ending.
I don't remember when I first thought to make this video but it's been cooking away in my brain for a while. No doubt reading some of your older comments helped that along. (It wouldn't be the first time either!). I totally agree with having multiple motivations. Given that knowing he was a Saburo vessel back then is still a bit of an 'if' there's defo some, if not a lot of general hatred for the corp in there as well!
As for Saburo having a god complex. That is an awesome analogy. One I will try to remember if I ever get around to a Saburo deep dive. He's a brilliantly tyrannical character and deserves his own video.
@@SamBram Yeah, my personal understanding of Yorinobu's comment about Fear, was that that moment was likely where his father told him what his role would be. It seems to be open knowledge in the family, as Hanako is clearly aware of Yorinobu's fate, given the chip. Seems reasonable to me that everyone kind of always knew in the inner family. It's very interesting though if you think about it. Hanako's motivations, on the surface, appear to be the most empathetic, altruistic (if you could call it that), of the Arasaka characters. She tells you that she wants her brother unharmed (you think because she loves him, and maybe on some level she does), she says she wants to try and curb the violent tendencies of her family. But in the end, she knowingly, and willingly slots her daddy's engram into her brother, killing him. Which makes it feel more like self-preservation to me. I'm quite confident that if Yorinobu had died, Hanako would've ended up the new vessel.
Whereas Yorinobu wanted to preserve her as she is, untainted by the engram, and also save himself. Basically to cut out the cancer at the heart of their family, but to save him and his sister. So it seems that the love is maybe not equal going both ways.
Imagine if they made a yurinobu ending
i would have liked that. It still annoys me that there is no "good ending" to Cyberpunk despite how complex the plot is.
In a way, the other endings are that, as he remains alive as far as I know in all other endings, with Arasaka in an even more vulnerable position and Soulkiller and Mikoshi gone, ready for his reforms.
@@nicholasthurmond4006 good endings are over done. The secret ending is the best we can get that actually fits with the world of cyberpunk.
@@nicholasthurmond4006the closest we got to a good ending is either the one where you give Johnny the body, or the one where you leave the city with panam. Both are pretty hopeful despite everything, and both have you finally leaving the damned city.
@@nicholasthurmond4006i actually like no good ending. I m tired of MARVEL shiet ending where everyone is happy
Great, nice to see somebody paid attention on the plot that was actually unfolding in the background of V's story! I remember being really kind of annoyed when there was almost no commentary on how great this aspect of the whole story was, and how it was told in a way that you actually had to pay attention during the game to understand things that were happening outside of V's own fate. After all, the story was basically about V and Jackie managing to stumble into this massive drama and becoming collateral damage in the process... one of them just takes longer to accept their death.
All these Cyberpunk 2077 videos are getting my super hyped for Phantom Liberty. Not long now!
The image that always came to mind when I see Yorinobu in that robe is a child wearing his dads suit add that to the positioning of his embrace with Hanako he looks like newborn swaddled in his mothers lap. In that moment he is reborn as Saburo.
Yorinobu's actions essentially changed the world, likely for the better. Saburo was a monster, and his death could lead to a much better, unified Arasaka, and a more stable NC.
This is why I think cyberpunk excels so much further than any other of its contemporaries as far as the story goes.. almost nothing is definitely told to the player here, everything is ambiguous enough to be compelling n intriguing while also spinning off dozens of wild theories about what is and isn’t happening here.. I, for one, whole heartedly agree with the sentiment of this video.. people say ur decisions don’t have consequences in cyberpunk, but ur decision on what ending u decide to go through with, completely changes the entire fabric of night city and it’s future.. but because it’s not explicitly told to the player people completely miss it, it goes right over their heads
I can’t stress it enough, cyberpunk IS most definitely the next Gen rpg it claimed to be, just not in the way people expected.. it’s not a futuristic wircher 3, or a sci fi gta, it’s a culmination of everything that came before it, combining rpg, immersive sim, and narrative elements we’ve seen before in a completely new way.. I just can’t say enough good things about this game, it’s without a doubt one of the best, most well rounded, games ever made
I think the "problem" people have with the endings is that they are only focused on what happens to "their" characters, it's a sentiment I see a lot when discussing videogames. People only care about the main character having a happy ending and if that is not the case they just call everything bad. Once you get past V and their short stint in the cyberpunk world you realize there's a lot more stuff going on behind the scenes that really makes this game interesting.
Firstly, love your channel Sam.
Secondly, this theory video honestly checks out and really makes sense so well done.
If you'll ask me, I think Yorinobu having aged and pampered as a tactical persona from a young age understood what his future holds in his father's company.
You definitely can see the features resemblance between the two, so I bet Yori was even conceived in order to literally continue his father legacy.
But the only thing that doesn't checks out is the Netwatch angle, and somehow I belive the deal with them was red herring meant to lure the Voodo Boyz, who planned to flush Alt's AI.
But then again, how would Yorinobu could know all that? Both factions are known for their secretive and elusive natur.
So my question is: Was it a long shot to rise the resistance against Araska and burn it to the ground or just an attempt to save his own skin by foiling Saburo's contingency plan to use the chip on him?
Guess we'll never truly know, but what I'm sure is that Yorinobu is the real engine for this narrative and mabye even the professor Snape for Saburo's Voldermort.
the Devil ending is the worst one for the world. But gives so much more context than every other ending. My jaw was dropped the entire time watching the worst case scenario play out. Absolutely fantastic writing
Also, I read on the Cyberpunk Wiki that Kei Arasaka may not be dead, Spider Murphy (yes that Spider Murphy) downloaded an engram of his consciousness onto a blackbox using Soul Killer and buried it in the desert to leave him in perpetual torment.
I wish that Cyberpunk Orion would have a continuing story involving both endings of Arasaka. It would be cool to confront Saburo again and expose him for his fear of death.
It really says it all when Saburo decides to take his son's body (wiping his mind in the process) over simply creating a better engineered clone of himself or an immortal robotic body. It proves he wanted to completely get rid of any opposition to his power, Yorinobu being the biggest threat an all.
And it also puts a lot of undertones concerning his and Yorinobu's relationship with Hanako (let's not forget she's almost 80 years old by the time the events of the game happen), and makes them very... interesting.
I love how, in the loading screen after you've finished the parade mission, Yorinobu threatens to "punish those who dared lay a hand on the Arasaka family" and then does literally absolutely nothing about it whatsoever.
I used to think Yorinobu was simply utterly incompetent and ill-fitted for his role as a CEO of a megacorp, but his speech about "becoming the bomb" convinced me that it was all on purpose.
I wonder what kind of interaction Yorinobu and Johnny could've had together, as I now think he chose that engram specifically because he knew they shared the same goal.
Honestly from the moment I heard about how Soulkiller worked... I figured that Saburo wasn't at all afraid of death because he already made an engram of himself to slot into Yori.
Actually have a little something I'd like to add to this theory.
I've suspected the game has that kind of bent. I don't know how deliberate it is but it seems to frame the worst villains as not so bad and heroes as the bad guys. They make allusions about immortality but make it clear that these constructs are not the real person.
Netwatch framed as the police for the internet. But you find out from their terminal that they actually wanted to talk to alt, too. So their goal is the same as the voodoo boys.
Incredible video thank you for making love this game even more can't wait for the DLC content
I'd definitely argue that past the heist, all the fallout of after the relic is taken makes V have a bias against Yorinobu, since it's the fallout of his murder of Saboru that kills all their allies from act 1, as well as causes their slow death, and their opinion during act 1 being viewing him as just another big corpo in the end (Street and Nomad) or a traitor turned coward (Corpo, but you could also argue that life path has former view as well)
I really wish there was endings where you side with Yorinobu.
Honestly the devil ending shoulda had more options one where you destroy saka with Yorinobu after discovering the truth. We could even side with Militech some more and have more of a relationship with Meredith stout. A rocky relationship that is transactional at first but develops into something more.
19:59
"The Emperor himself's personal diary... How will anyone ever crack that godlike level of encryption!? Sealed for the ages I bet."
"Actually it's going to be super easy. Barely an inconvenience."
"Oh! Really?"
"Yeah you see this see this small time merc just starting out is going to do it with a bottom of the line cyberdeck. 4 character sequence, no problem. A gradeschooler could have done it. Essentially the 2077 equivalent of 'boomer uses 1234 for everything'."
(About halfway through the video), Makes me think maybe in phantom liberty, how seeing they said the expansion is looped in with the main story, Yori is going to be included into that story, maybe he could be another ending path. Would be interesting at that, and seeing more Yori in the game would be welcomed at least for me.
Something that I wanted expanded on was Mishiko implication, we know from a dialogue with Takemura that she leads one of the Arasaka factions as she's more progressive than Hanako and less rebellious than Yorinobu but it seems that she was allied with him throughout the entire ordeal. No idea if Yorinobu was really planning on killing her when he ordered to deal with the board members.
Antoher small detail is that Mishiko survives in all scenarios in comparison to Hanako and Yorinobu who can cease to exist depending on the ending you choose
You definitely make some points. I actually never played the honako ending so i never saw that last interaction with yorinobu. But honestly im sold. I think your right.
Man Yorinobu clearly cared so much for his sister, but she really just casually zeroed him in the end. F.
I think Yorinobu did set up the heist, like everyone says, it’s way too perfect to be a coincidence, the only hiccup was Saburo showing up unexpectedly, and Yorinobu thinking the heist had already taken place
Watching this just made me realize Yorinobu could have been planning on using Jonny's engram on himself. Putting Jonny in the best position to bring down Arasaka, until we messed that up. If you pick this ending is there anyway to stop Hanako?
No. Once you step on finals...there is no going back, scripted rails are straight and unbreakable.
Well, he was planning to sell it off to Biotechnica, or rather that was the excuse to get Saburo in the room with him.
Post phantom liberty here: During that dlc, Johnny mentions Militec will wipe the floor with Arasaka in a head to head showdown, and in the temperance ending we see militec troops and propaganda all over the city. Yorinobu could be declaring war on militec because he knows militec will win
What bothers me is yor and haniko seem to be swapt in rolea from the table top game to the video game. But being as mike pondsmith was involved directly with the story it makes me wonder what is going on. But i also hope the fear the reaper ending is cannon and tha jhonny jonied alt And so on so we can see what happens.
I always loved Yorinobu. I was really sad that there was never an option to side with him because he was objectively right and trying to do good
Your channel is underrated dude
What is it about the Aussie accent that makes to it so soothing and easily absorbed to listen to in longer formats. You and Perun are legends.
Thanks for your dedication to this game, its flawed but also a underrated masterpiece.
No offence m8 ..... But speaking as Brit and native English speaker ..... you need either to listen more carefully or not jump to conclusions on limited info.
Sam Bram is obviously a BRIT, if he is an Aussie then i want to know where the hell his accent comes from since he sounds prototypically south midlands to mid south east UK, i terms of accent. If he was a lill more working classed it would be easier to be more specific as middle class accent have a tendency towards RP (Received English) forms which flattens our regional distinction in accents.
If you listen its pretty easy to distinguish UK and Aussie accents, also Kiwi too, in same way its pretty easy to tell a Jersey accent from a New York one ...... If you listen.
Yorinobu was the “good guy”, whatever that may mean. He wanted to stop the corpos by any means, he could’ve fell into his fathers ways while still trying to stop the corpo ways. V on the other hand became seen as a valuable asset for Arasaka. They would’ve demanded more of V had he been stable enough to go back home, hence why they go through the trouble of putting him on an engram. In the end, the game makes you take a long look at V which seems to me that V has become more like Soburo than he cared to admit.
I believe the robe is a representation of the fear he feels when speaking about his father, he said he blew in his face but it had no effect on him, it had an effect on the others
A war could do even more damage to Arasaka if he purposefully plays it to ensure maximum damage to Arasaka. He did, after all, talk about becoming the bomb in one of the endings since Johnny's physical bomb didn't do the trick. I think his ultimate end goal was always the total destruction of Arasaka. So if he gains control he's going to continue to undermine it until his father's legacy is gone.
Would be cool if we could've side with Yorinobu.
Yorinobu is the only Arasaka member that knows how it feels to nit having much.
In the Polish original version of the interaction network Yorinobu and Netwatch, it was NETWATCH that asked for Silverhand engram, not the contrary... it looks like something was missed in translation, I believe their intent was to get to Alt all alomg.
Very interesting! That would defo pretty much confirm the theory. Makes more sense them requesting Silverhand than Yorinobu choosing him
@@SamBram Right, then the Voodoo Boys managed to get intel o this deal. They then hired Evelyn to get a BD scroll of the place for them. They were obviously gonna attempt to get the relic themselves, but Evelyn got ambitious, and saw this as a major payday. So Evelyn finds her a fixer (being Dex) to put this heist together, and we all know how it went from there. Yorinobu had his original plan to sell to Netwatch, but everything changed once the Voodoo Boys got involved.
I like setting up The Devil ending and never actually going through with it. You pay your debt with Takemura and, through your choice of the various endings, cut the chains that tie bind him to Arasaka, even if he hates you for it. It also clears the game board for Yorinobu to have no obstructions in destroying his fathers legacy.
I don't think Yorinobu becomes a hero just because of his plans to bring down Arasaka. If he knew about heist, he wouldn't have let you get nearly killed. If we assume bodyguard did in fact see them, they would only be kept alive so Yorinobu can execute his intention to kill father but otherwise would be swiftly eliminated after because they may retain recording of him strangling the dad. They simply failed at eliminating them. With his dad dead, it's more likely he didn't perceive dad's engram as a major threat anymore.
I’d say trying to systematically destroy a despotic mega corporation that played a huge part in irreversibly fucking up the word is pretty heroic.
He did it for personal reasons, but it’s still ultimately a good thing he was trying to do.
@@tropicturtle9021 And he kept on it even after saburo was done and he was THE only boss. So after the ending it is absolutely not personal matter, but rather a part of his plan.
Yorinobu is as a Hero as johnny is. Bringing down arasaka the big evil is good and all but at some point it becomes less of doing good and bringing peace but vengeance. He's a rebel at best
Yorinobu is the hero that Night City needs, but not the one it deserves
I think it's interesting to think that if Yorinobu had slotted the relic and Saburo had taken over his body then that would have left Silverhand in control of Arasaka and he would have absolutely demolished it from the inside.
The dlc pretty much confirm yorinobu destroys arasaka on purpose
Yorinobu are working alone to blow up Arasaka from the inside, that is why he needs Ace up his sleeve to perfected his plan, and his Ace card is V.
The more I think on it, the more sure I am that the horrifying truth was that yorinobu was a clone. A body literally made to one day become soburo. Initially he may have wanted to train his son to be him, but with mikoshi found something even better.
I think the line "I have my son life" might be a double meaning, meaning that he literally created his sons life.
I've think learning that I exist solely to be a means of immortality, in one form or another would be traumatizing to say the least.
I think its possible only Keith is truly a biological son of saburo, with both yorinobu and hanako being some sort of test tube babies born through michiko, ergo their closeness.
I think going to war with Militech after the Johnny ending makes complete sense. Yorinobu kills his dad and takes control of Arasaka - that's 1 megacorp under his control to dismantle, but that'd leave a massive vacuum for Militech to come in and fill. Using his father's death as a false flag operation to go to war with Militech would make for a massive chance to take out 2 of the biggest corps in the world in 1 massive bloody wave. Militech could get absolutely harsh PR (not that PR matters in 2077) and a war under younger authority with a uniting banner of daddy's death could unleash hell upon the braindead corpo geriatrics at Militech. Tbh, Arasaka seems to also be ahead in the arms race with Militech by this point in the timeline too, and I could totally see Yori scuttling his own ship after sinking MT.
He might be trying to cause a conflict so devastating that the aftermath has humanity reorganize society completely. A great reset of a sort. Much like how it took western europe two back to back wars of unparalleled devastation to finally stop killing each other, he might want to burn it all down to make way for something new.
I always thought Soburo was the obey and think as I do or bad things happen to everything you care about then to you if you don't fall into line type. Yorinobu only snapped after his mother was mentioned up being disappointed in him so he loved or respected her and the way Soburo talks about her I think he made her disappear and his son knows or suspected it.
A possible start of his rebellion? What if thing that made him snap in the beginning was the truth about his mother death?
I hope in sequel games they keep yorinobu alive in canon