In Night City you can not only get rich or hunt cyber psychos, but also find great love. However, the possible romances of Cyberpunk 2077 cause discussions among players again and again, especially the male partners – they are pretty well hidden and don’t play a big role in the story – don’t worry, you can still find them with our love guide.
Many fans would have hoped for a larger selectionas is common, for example, in the Bioware games. A certain corpo with neck implants in particular captured the hearts of the community: Goro Takemura, who plays an important role in V’s story. Now a developer explains why it didn’t become a romance option.
Why is there no Takemura romance?
Who im a while Cyberpunk-Reddit or Youtube is on the way, inevitably comes across many posts that ask more or less the same question: Why is V not allowed to hook up with Takemura, even though the two can clearly flirt with each other? Many would welcome a male romance which actually plays a role in the plot.
As is the case with the female options Judy and Panam. It is hardly surprising that these two have also become your most popular partners. Takemura is even suitable for story reasons:
Warning: the following paragraph contains spoilers
If you save the cyber samurai during the mission “Search and Destroy” and at the end you choose the Arasaka path (“The Devil”), you will even unlock a real ending with Takemura. For some fans, another sign that a romance would definitely have made sense.
Fans are not alone with their Takemura love, like Lead Quest Designer Pawel Sasko in his weekly Twitch-Stream Narrated: Even the playtesters who gave feedback during development asked for a possible relationship with Takemura.
There were several reasons against it
His English (and Japanese) voice actor Rome Kanda also shows up on twitter always enthusiastic about this idea. But CDPR decided against it anyway – according to Sasko, because it would not have felt right. To a corresponding question in the chat, he replies:
“I can tell you a little bit about the Takemura thing behind the scenes. (…) We asked ourselves very early within the team whether he should have his own romance. Our QA said, hey, don’t you think? that there should be something?
We had a lot of discussions about how that could be done. And then we came to the conclusion that because of its role in the story, it wouldn’t feel right. We were worried it would be weird. Also, not all players are fans of Takemura, for some he is still a servant of Saburo. And while it might have been interesting as a romance, as designers we just couldn’t find a point in the story where it would have fit. ”
In doing so, he sparked some indignation among fans of the character. After all, so much that shortly afterwards another Quest designer, Philipp Weber, made it clear: That falls a little short. He writes:
“Pawel is only partially right. The romance was judged not to be feasible because Takemura came up very late in development. This meant that we mainly had to tell the story with Arasaka and didn’t have much time and budget left over during development to incorporate complete scenes for a romance. Only under these circumstances did we judge it to be unworkable, from a creative point of view we found it very appropriate. That is why the hints, messages and so on are also involved. “
With that, of course, he has rekindled hopes for a DLC that deepens the relationship. It is already known that new content will come through the expansions, even if there are no dates for free and larger DLCs yet. We already have a few very clear wishes, apart from romances:
more on the subject
Cyberpunk 2077: 4 things the DLCs have to deliver
Why other characters didn’t become romance either
Other characters like Ripperdoc Viktor or the Militech Manager Meredith Stout Many players would have wished for options – with Meredith V can at least enjoy a one-night stand, but not enter into a full-fledged relationship. But Sasko explains why CDPR deliberately limited the options:
“Our main goal is that the quality of the game is good. You can’t make all characters into romances because it gets weird when the game is just a series of romances and you can start a relationship with anyone at any time . “
He didn’t say whether there might be a compromise in the future that would give players a little more choice – or deepen existing romances. Editor Natalie would be delighted after the relationship with River left her badly disappointed:
more on the subject
Romances destroyed the open world for me
how do you see it? Do you want more choice, more depth, or something completely different in relationships? Does a good romance give you more immersion or do you do without it anyway? Please write us in the comments.
