I am dying, and this game has helped me.
My name is Erik, and I am dying.
I have Stage IV cancer. And though it is in a holding pattern, and I could live six more months or six more years, it is this growth and my body turning on itself that will take my life.
Perhaps foolishly, I saddled up last month for one more visit to Night City. I just finished another completionist playthrough, and as I write, V is sitting atop the Basilisk with PanAm beside him.
V has just six months and faint hopes, with a ticking time bomb in his head; about the same as me. And like me, he is clawing back normality and trying to claim every single day.
But the enormity of that task — normalcy — is a job in and of itself. It's damn hard work. You need people beside you. You must learn to truly live despite being draped with both a death sentence and its uncertainty.
I cried like a baby several times this run, and at the end, I was heaving so hard I lost my breath. But it was not just sorrow, it was also from empathy — the writers of this game (esp. the ending and all of Phantom Liberty) know somehow), truly know what it is to be dying and the desperation that drowns you to just have more time.
And that empathy, being seen and being understood, was also oddly positive. It was like a digital hug from Poland. And It meant the world to me; it has allowed me to have more courage the past few days to actually claim more agency and live my life.
For that gift, and the thousands of hours of joy that CDPR has given me across half a dozen games, I thank you.
I’m Erik, and while I’m dying, I’m also very much alive: no tomorrow is promised, make your today count.
Peace, chooms