If the Cyber Knight survives long enough, they may get an chance to retire. This opportunity will come in the form of a long and dangerous Storyline which concludes with an offer or opportunity to retire as a mercenary and enter a new life.
The Storyline will be long and complicated. For example, the Daedalus Bloc story has 10 jobs. The opening Dialog before the first job will make clear that this is a major storyline which could be a rare opportunity. At the end of the storyline, Dialog will explain the retirement opportunity. The Cyber Knight will have 30 days to decide whether to take it.
Taking Retirement[edit | edit source]
If the Knight decides to quit the mercenary business, they may take a limited number of teammates with them. In Daedalus Bloc, the limit is 6 people retiring, including the Cyber Knight and optionally the Face. The Knight has the choice of whether to bring the Face with them, filling one slot. The rest of the slots will be assigned to members of the Squad based on their Loyalty and on their Level. If not enough squad members meet the qualifications for Loyalty and Level, some of the slots may be unfilled and a smaller number of mercs will join the Cyber Knight in retirement.
The remaining mercs in the Squad are left to seek their own fortune or fate. Their fates will be influenced by their backstories, their career decisions, their tags and their experiences. Information on the fates of many of the mercs may be learned in the end.
Declining Retirement[edit | edit source]
If the Cyber Knight decides not to take the opportunity to retire, they and their Squad can continue in the dangerous mercenary lifestyle. Perhaps another rare chance at another life may present itself eventually. (At this time, there is only one retirement story, but others will be added in the future.)
If the Cyber Knight accepts retirement, an earlier game save can be loaded, allowing the team to experience both retirement and continuation.
Retirement Slides[edit | edit source]
After accepting retirement, a sequence of slides will display, depicting the fates of many (but not necessarily all) of the mercs. The Cyber Knight gets a description of their new life, as it had been offered at the end of the retirement story. If the Face joined the Knight, they are generally described as working closely with the Knight in this new life. Each of the other retiring mercs are assigned to one of a small number of roles based in part on their backstory and tags. Each gets a slide explaining their success in a new role outside of the dangerous underworld they left behind.
Most or all of the mercs left behind will also get slides. Each merc is evaluated on their Loyalty, their backstory, their tags, and whether they have unresolved business. Based on this, they are assigned fates, either good or bad. Those with low Loyalty may resent being left behind.
In addition, every merc retiring or not, except the Knight and the Face, can get additional details based on their backstory and tags.
Game Difficulty Setting[edit | edit source]
Some players find that the first retirement story happens too early in the game. By default, retirement cannot occur until at least Team Power Level 6. It often occurs shortly after meeting that requirement.
There is Retirement Team Power Level setting in Game Difficulty to specify the minimum requirement for retirement. The slider can be set as low as 4 and as high as 10. Setting it higher will allow the player to experience more of the non-retirement Storylines before being urged to retire.