Shard.15: Is the Soul Data? - Unraveling the Game's Philosophy of Life and Existentialism through Soulkiller and Engrams

Night City, a megalopolis where the toxic glare of neon coexists with blood-soaked back alleys drenched in acid rain. Here, the flesh is nothing more than replaceable hardware, displayed in shop windows as disposable parts. In a world where dependence on Chrome chips away at the human spirit piece by piece, bringing about the collapse of the ego in the form of Cyberpsychosis, megacorporations have finally extended their arrogant reach into humanity’s last inviolable sanctuary: the expropriation and digitization of the “soul.”

In the world of 2077, where Transhumanism has reached its absolute extreme, the boundary between life and death has already been nullified. This article is a comprehensive report that thoroughly dissects the existential boundary between “soul and data”—the greatest metaphysical theme in Cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion DLC, Phantom Liberty—through the records of shards scattered throughout the game, the causality hidden in the abyss of the network, and the anguish of the characters. It systematically discusses the complete collapse of bioethics brought about by technological singularities—Arasaka’s “Soulkiller” and the data fortress “Mikoshi,” Militech’s “Project Cynosure,” and the “Relic 2.0” that overwrites the human brain—and the Existentialism of the humans who resist it, while coldly separating fact from inference.

1. The Genealogy of Soulkiller: From Eternal Memory to a Weapon of Soul Slaughter

The technology to digitize the “soul” and extract it as an Engram (memory trace, digitized spirit). Its origin was never designed as a weapon to slaughter humans. The initial program developed in the early 2010s by the brilliant netrunner Alt Cunningham, the creator of this technology, was originally designed as a vessel or quarantine facility to “store the personalities of artificial intelligence (AI) within a data matrix.”

1.1 [Fact] Weaponization by ITS and Usurpation by Arasaka

According to historical records, Alt realized during the development process that this matrix could digitize not only AI but also the minds of living humans, allowing them to transition seamlessly between the flesh and the network. She had conceived this technology out of pure intellectual curiosity as a “tool to preserve the consciousness and memories of the dying, granting them digital immortality.” However, her employer at the time, the multinational corporation ITS (Information Technology and Security), abused this code. They transformed it into a defensive black program that could extract the minds of hostile netrunners intruding into their systems in a matter of seconds, reducing their physical bodies to a vegetative state (husks), and named it “Soulkiller.”

The situation met a decisive ruin in 2013 when Toshiro Harada, an executive of the Arasaka Corporation, kidnapped Alt. Arasaka coerced her into building an improved “Soulkiller 1.0” from scratch, one that could move freely through the network and remotely extract and kill the minds of its targets. Ironically and tragically, Alt herself, having completed the program within Arasaka’s mainframe, became the first human victim of this weapon. Her physical body died, and her mind vanished into the abyss of the network as the “first human-derived AI.”

1.2 [Analysis] The Uncertainty of Memory and “The Creator Devoured by Her Creation”

Johnny Silverhand’s memory of this 2013 incident is significantly distorted by his narcissism and trauma. In Johnny’s subjective memory, he stormed Arasaka Tower to rescue Alt and ended up causing her death by severing her connection. However, Alt’s AI itself later coldly points out, “What you saw is merely a subjective perspective. It is a distorted record locked in your subconscious and replayed countless times, bearing no resemblance to the truth.” In reality, circumstantial evidence and historical context suggest that the chaos caused by Johnny’s assault disrupted Alt’s escape process (a backdoor she had planted herself), and that Spider Murphy fragmented Alt’s Engram to let her escape onto the Net.

Alt’s death and transformation symbolize the ultimate tragedy of Transhumanism in this work. She currently defines herself explicitly as “another entity merely utilizing Alt’s Engrammatic data.” This is conclusive evidence of the creator herself denying the illusion that a digitized consciousness is identical to the original human. The moment one becomes data, “human continuity (the uninterrupted flow of consciousness)” is irreversibly severed, leaving behind nothing more than an autonomous algorithm that mimics the memories of life and self-replicates. The loss of humanity is completed the very moment the flesh is discarded.

2. Mikoshi and Secure Your Soul: Eternal Exploitation by Capitalism

Having rebuilt from the ashes of the Fourth Corporate War, Arasaka continued to secretly improve Soulkiller. Once a lethal black program that fried the target’s brain, this technology evolved into a non-lethal process that “creates a copy of the Engram without killing the target” by the 2070s, following research led by Hanako Arasaka in the 2040s. Based on this technological breakthrough, Arasaka launched its top-secret and most crucial revenue-generating project: “Secure Your Soul (SYS).“

2.1 [Fact] The Immortality of the Privileged Class and the True Nature of Mikoshi

The SYS program is a sales program for “eternal life” targeting the world’s wealthiest privileged classes, including politicians, megacorp executives, celebrities, and religious leaders. Ostensibly, it is disguised as a highly sentimental and ethical service where bereaved families can converse with the holographically projected Engram of the deceased. Their Engrams are stored in “Mikoshi,” a massive data fortress composed of server clusters distributed across orbital stations and Arasaka facilities worldwide.

However, its true nature is the ultimate mechanism of exploitation by a corporation. According to top-secret shards found in the game, such as “‘Secure Your Soul’ - VIP Clients” and “Secure Your Soul: Short-Term Priorities,” Arasaka is not merely storing customer data. When creating Engrams for executives of Petrochem or Biotechnica, they issue instructions to “obtain an additional copy for Dr. Kuroda’s team’s research without informing the subject.” Furthermore, the existence of additional functions such as data extraction from Engrams, copying, and modification of constructs is considered a top secret for corporate defense.

Additionally, the shard “Secure Your Soul: Medical Report 11” vividly records the reality of the immoral procedures and the technological instability of the SYS program.

2.2 [Analysis] “Ownership of the Soul” as the Final Form of the Exploitation Structure

This is why skilled netrunners detest Mikoshi, calling it a “prison of souls.” The megacorporations of Night City, not satisfied with merely exploiting people’s labor and bodies (Chrome debt), have finally stripped away “death,” the last equality for humanity.

The true horror of the SYS program lies not in granting eternal life, but in reducing an individual’s existence to “data that can be copied, edited, deleted, and traded (intellectual property),” permanently integrating it into the cycle of capitalism. No matter how much power a politician or corporate executive wielded in life, the moment they are turned into an Engram, they are reduced to a mere file trapped within Arasaka’s servers—a slave whose classified information is extracted as needed and deleted once their usefulness has passed. Through Mikoshi, Saburo Arasaka literally sought to seize the “ownership of the souls” of the world’s ruling class, aiming to complete an absolute power structure. This is nothing less than the thorough rape of existence by mega-capitalism.

3. Relic 2.0: The Flesh as a “Vessel” and the Usurpation of Existence

The device used to store the Engram extracted by the SYS program and connect it to the physical world is the “Relic.” The “Relic 1.0,” heavily advertised for the general market, was nothing more than an elaborate chatbot-like entity lacking self-awareness, capable only of limited communication with bereaved families within pre-set artificial constraints.

However, the prototype “Relic 2.0,” secretly commissioned by Saburo Arasaka under the leadership of Anders Hellman, fundamentally overturned that paradigm, constituting a transgression into the realm of God.

3.1 [Fact] Technical Specifications of Relic 2.0

As documented in the shard “RELIC 2.0 Prototype Specifications,” the true purpose of this biochip is “to install a digitized mind (Engram) into a new organic host body and reboot it into the physical world.”

The following table illustrates the decisive differences between the versions of the Relic.

For Relic 2.0 to function properly, the host’s body must be completely dead (neurological and cardiopulmonary functions must have ceased). Triggered by the host’s death, the nanotechnology embedded in the chip automatically deploys, physically reconstructing (overwriting) the synaptic connections of the host’s cranial nerves to match the personality structure of the Engram.

Originally, Relic 2.0 envisioned a “neurologically indifferent” body (such as a brain-dead clone or a human in a vegetative state) as its vessel. Saburo’s true objective was to overwrite his own Engram onto the body of his biological son, Yorinobu Arasaka, who was genetically extremely close to him, thereby establishing literal immortality and eternal imperial rule. Yorinobu’s theft of the Relic was not merely for financial gain, but a desperate rebellion to thwart his father’s insane “plan to usurp the flesh” and to dismantle the Arasaka empire from within.

3.2 [Analysis] “V” as an Unforeseen Bug and the Inevitability of Death

The events that occurred to the protagonist, V, were a completely unforeseen “accident” for Arasaka’s scientists. Upon V’s body, which had died after being shot in the head by Dexter DeShawn, Relic 2.0 began its repairs and nanotechnology deployment exactly according to its specifications. However, because V was resuscitated before their original consciousness (brain matter) was completely destroyed and obliterated, an unprecedented and anomalous state was triggered: the “original personality (V)” and the “Engram (Johnny)” coexisted within the same living brain, with the latter gradually and physically eroding the former.

When interrogating Anders Hellman, he evaluated this tragic phenomenon occurring within V’s brain purely as “valuable technical data.” To corporate researchers, the flesh is nothing more than a “vehicle,” and the dignity and right to life of the original consciousness residing within it are not given a second thought. Relic technology is the product of ultimate egoism, predicated on stealing the bodies of others. And since V’s immune system has irreversibly changed to accept Johnny’s Engram, even if Johnny were removed, V’s body would begin to attack V themselves as a “foreign body,” making it impossible to avoid the death sentence of having only six months left to live.

4. The Epistemology of the Engram: What is a Soul, What is an Echo?

The sharpest existential and philosophical question in this work is: “Does the Engram extracted by Soulkiller possess the same ‘soul’ as the original human, or is it merely an elaborate fake?” In response to this question, the worldview of Cyberpunk thrusts a heavy interpretation upon the player through cold facts and the emotional conflicts of its characters.

4.1 Fact and Philosophy: Alt’s Materialism and the Ship of Theseus

Alt Cunningham, the AI who evolved into a god-like entity beyond the Blackwall, dismisses the Engram as nothing more than an “echo of life” or “data.” When separating V and Johnny in Mikoshi, she coldly declares, “Your consciousness, your neural Engram, will be recorded as data, but the rest will cease to exist.” When V asks, “What rest?”, she replies with a single word: “Your soul.”

In Alt’s definition, digitization is the complete severance of continuity, signifying the “death” of the original individual. Even if the parameters of memory and personality are perfectly copied, it does not possess the subjective continuity of the original. This closely resembles the philosophical paradox of the “Ship of Theseus” (if all components are replaced, can it still be said to be the same ship?). Alternatively, in a materialistic approach that attempts to explain consciousness solely through physical processes, it is the very concept of a “philosophical zombie” lacking “qualia” (the subjective texture of experience).

Some fans and theorists argue that V, once extracted in Mikoshi and returned to their body, is no longer the original V, but rather “an AI that merely possesses V’s memories piloting V’s corpse.” According to this interpretation, regardless of which ending is chosen, the “real V” definitively dies the moment they connect to Mikoshi.

4.2 [Analysis] Proof of Existence Through “Pain” and “Change”

However, is an Engram truly just a string of code devoid of a soul? What should be noted here is the fundamental doubt and conflict harbored by Johnny Silverhand’s Engram itself regarding its own existence.

As the story progresses, Johnny faces existential nihilism, self-deprecatingly stating that he is “nothing more than a few lines of code, and the real Johnny Silverhand is already dead.” He suspects that his anger, his rebellious spirit, and even his hatred for Arasaka might merely be simulations of patterns held by the “real Johnny” of the past, nothing more than the output results of a program.

What this analysis wishes to present is the hypothesis that “pain and change are what define a soul.” If an Engram were merely a fixed string of past data, it should not experience existential anguish in response to its environment, nor awaken to a spirit of self-sacrifice. Johnny’s Engram despairs over its own falsity, feels pain during its conversations with V on the brink of death, and ultimately makes an “altruistic choice”—yielding the body to V even at the sacrifice of his own existence (code)—a choice that would have been utterly inconceivable for the arrogant man he was in life.

If a machine or program can agonize over its own identity and transform itself for the sake of another, the “movement of emotion” occurring there is undeniably real. While an Engram might merely be “data” born as a copy of the original, it can be interpreted as an entity that acquires its own unique “soul” through new experiences and pain. René Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” has been updated in the age of Cyberpunk to “I suffer, therefore I am.”

5. Religious and Metaphysical Interpretations: Buddhist Monks and “Two Souls”

In contrast to the absolute technological supremacy in Night City and Arasaka’s materialistic view of life, the placement of entities that address “Engrams and souls” from a religious and spiritual approach is extremely important in deepening the themes of this work.

5.1 [Fact] The Perspective of Buddhist Monks (Bhikkhus) and Reincarnation

The Buddhist monks (Bhikkhus) encountered in side jobs like “Losing My Religion” reject bodily modification via Cyberware as “contrary to the laws of nature,” but surprisingly, they offer a flexible and profound perspective on the “digitization of the mind (Engram)” itself. They preach, “We do not condemn the process of transfer itself, but even if liberated from the flesh, as long as one is trapped as data in a new vessel (or a prison of the network), they can never achieve reincarnation (Samsara) into a better life, nor can they reach Nirvana.”

From a Buddhist perspective, the Engram is the ultimate form of “attachment to life” and “thirst for the present world.” Far from attaining eternal life, it is positioned as a pitiful existence forever bound within the digital law of causality (the system), continuing to experience infinite suffering.

5.2 Fact and Analysis: The Mysterious “Zen Master” and the Integration of Self

And one of the most enigmatic and symbolic entities in the game is the “Zen Master,” who suddenly appears before V and then vanishes. He offers V meditation Braindances (BDs) themed around the four elements: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air.

The following three facts are noteworthy:

1. Johnny’s Invisibility: Johnny cannot perceive the Zen Master at all, claiming that V was just standing (or sitting) alone wearing a BD. The fact that Johnny, who should be able to perceive events through the network or Cyberware, cannot recognize him indicates that the Master is not a physical entity, but a highly specific spiritual interference.

2. Explicit Mention of “Two Souls”: After completing the final “Air” meditation, the Master, having seen through V’s affliction (the erosion by the Relic), says, “There are two souls within you. One wishes to fight, the other is afraid.” When V asks, “Which one is my soul?”, the Master replies, “Both.”

3. Johnny’s Discomfort: During the meditation, Johnny, who is normally constantly eroding V’s brain, expresses discomfort, saying, “I feel like shit.” This suggests that as V deeply roots themselves in their own spirit through meditation, the nanotechnological overwriting (erosion) of consciousness by the Relic is temporarily hindered.

In community and lore discussions, the Zen Master is widely debated as being “a hallucination created by V’s neural circuitry to withstand overload (a self-defense mechanism via neuroplasticity),” a “friendly Rogue AI interfering from beyond the Blackwall,” or even “a trace of Rache Bartmoss from when he was alive.” However, from the perspective of Existentialism, it is clear that he functions as a device to “remove the fear of the data known as Johnny and encourage integration into V’s own inner soul (self).”

The fact that only the highly analog and spiritual act of meditation—rather than advanced Cyberware or omega-blockers—can counter the physical overwriting of the brain serves as a powerful antithesis to the megacorps: “Human consciousness possesses an indivisible ‘totality (Gestalt)’ that cannot be fully reduced to a mere sum of physical and electrical signals (data).“

6. The Abyss of the Blackwall and the Uncertainty of the “Self”

What further shakes the definitions of soul and data is the presence of unexplored technology operating behind the scenes in Night City and the Rogue AIs lurking beyond the Blackwall.

6.1 Fact and Analysis: Project Cynosure and Human-AI Hybrids

The history of Militech’s top-secret facility “Cynosure,” revealed in the expansion DLC Phantom Liberty, is a trace of madness that attempted to interfere with consciousness and the soul through an entirely different approach from Arasaka’s Soulkiller. To counter Soulkiller, Militech attempted to capture Rogue AIs from beyond the Blackwall into physical space for military use.

Fragmentary research records left on the facility’s terminals and descriptions in the tie-in novel Cyberpunk 2077: No Coincidence suggest that Militech was attempting to create “hybrid weapons fusing Rogue AI data with human organic consciousness.”

From this perspective, the significance of V’s existence becomes entirely different. Arasaka’s Relic accidentally created a “miraculous fusion (hybrid)” of a living brain (V) and an AI/Engram (Johnny). It is deeply theorized that this is why the AIs beyond the Blackwall (including Erebus, Cerberus, and Alt) recognize V not merely as a dying human, but as an “unknown hybrid” or a “bug in the natural sequence,” showing a peculiar interest (or a sense of kinship). The collapse of self and the erosion by AI that So Mi (Songbird) exhibited in the abyss of Cynosure vividly depict the terror of the soul dissolving into the “abyssal sea” of data.

6.2 Fact and Analysis: Night Corp and the “Invisible Overwriting of the Soul”

Another terror is the existence of technology that can completely alter the “soul (personality)” without frying the brain like Soulkiller. The brainwashing operation against mayoral candidate Jefferson Peralez, depicted in the side job “Dream On,” is the pinnacle of existential dread unique to Cyberpunk.

An unknown organization (with strong suspicions of involvement from Project Oracle, Night Corp, or even AI intervention), through a surveillance network symbolized by Mr. Blue Eyes, was gradually overwriting the synapses of the Peralez couple’s brains from the outside. They were altering their memories, tastes, political beliefs, and their very personalities into “someone else” without them noticing.

If human memories and personalities are completely editable from the outside, and the individual is entirely unaware of the changes (believing the overwritten memories to be their own), a materialistic despair arises: “Are the original ‘soul’ and ‘ego’ merely illusions of the brain that never existed in the first place?” Rather than Arasaka’s Soulkiller, which kills the body to extract data, this technology that “remakes the human from the inside” while keeping them alive is the ultimate blasphemy against human existence, and can be said to be the true “murder of the soul.”

Conclusion: Quiet Life, Blaze of Glory, and the Whereabouts of the Soul

Cyberpunk 2077 is a profound work of Existentialism literature that explores the conditions for a human to be human in a world where technology has reached the “realm of God (the manipulation of death and the soul).”

What Soulkiller and the Relic proved is the cold scientific fact that “consciousness can be digitized, memories can be copied, and the flesh is nothing more than a vessel.” As Alt Cunningham states, V in a biological sense definitively “dies” once the moment they connect to Mikoshi and undergo the Soulkiller procedure. Whether it is the V who returns from Mikoshi to live out their remaining six months, or the V who departs into the Badlands with the Aldecaldos, from a strictly materialistic viewpoint, it is merely a “data construct (Engram) that has perfectly inherited the memories of the original V” rebooting V’s body.

However, the existential theme presented by this work does not culminate in the nihilism that “therefore, the soul does not exist, and all is void.”

As the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre preached, “existence precedes essence.” Whether one is the original or an elaborate copy (data), the existence of the “self that lives with pain, agonizes, and makes choices” in this very moment cannot be denied.

“There are no happy endings in Night City,” its residents cynically claim. The ending of “The Devil,” where one succumbs to the capitalist sweet talk of eternal life (digitization via SYS), relinquishes their rights as a human to become an Arasaka test subject, and sells their soul to the corporation. The ending of “The Star,” where one quietly accepts their own death and escapes outside the system (to the Badlands) to spend their remaining time with their beloved family (the Aldecaldos). Or the ending of “The Sun,” where, unafraid of death, one storms Arasaka Tower alone as a Night City legend and heads for the Crystal Palace beyond the atmosphere. And the choice of “Temperance,” where one sacrifices themselves to entrust the future to Johnny, a “man who was once data,” allowing him to walk a new life.

Whether the soul is data or a bundle of organic synapses is no longer important. For whom does V (or V’s Engram), having received a “death sentence,” work in their limited remaining time? What do they leave behind, and how do they face death? That “trajectory of autonomous choices” itself is the proof of the “soul” in this work.

In this ruthlessly cold world where megacorporations quantify and exploit everything human, and Rogue AIs transcend human comprehension, the remnants of humanity reside only in the irrational acts of defying fate and throwing oneself away for the sake of others. Soulkiller may indeed kill “life” and create “data.” However, the moment that data decides by its own will “who I will live as, and who I will die as,” it undeniably emits a momentary brilliance in the darkness of Night City as a genuine “soul.”