Is it really Keanu’s fault?

I see a lot of people in comment sections, videos and some forums theorize about the whole skip between the lifepath choice and the big heist job symbolized by the now infamous montage scene. One common reason is that CDPR rewrote the game as to include more and more Johhny Silverhand and put more on a spotlight on him when they finally got Keanu Reeves on board.

As montage goes it would be already awful, but when it algo skips important gameplay-related elements (Jackie's & others relationship, meeting the Fixers, getting the reputation high enough so Dexter would eye for the BIG job in Act 1 etc.). Perhaps all of act one would be this setup and would culminate in the Konpeki Plaza mission. There is no Johhny Silverhand at this point in game.

Then awful things happen, Johhny finally shows up and then he's with you through the rest of the game. In practice, it really feels act 1 is just a little bump in the road to introduce you to him. Perhaps CDPR really give others the shaft to focus on their Big League Star.

Or did they? I had a real life job experience the other day and that got me thinking about this.

Keanu Reeves, as a famous star and highly popular recently due to Internet antics and his John Wick role (not to mention past roles) most certainly has a very tight schedule. So when he got on board with the project the developers had to get as most as they could get done that involved him: motion capture, voice lines and anything else he was needed for.

That was number 1 priority, everything else could wait a little more until his active part in the project was finished. And so they did. But then, for whatever reason they couldn't delay the game any more and were forced to put together the final product with what they had. Johhny is with you from Act 2 to the end so they would be able to put them together even if it meant cutting some loose ends in the final version of main jobs or transfering some plot points to side jobs.

But they didn't have the first part any near to a decent point. So the Montage was born. It's less about rewriting the game to focus on Johhny, although it pretty much looks like that's the case, and more about coupling up what they could in a rush for release. They had a lot of material for the mid game up to the end point and would be able to piece together something "finished", but not so much for the introduction part.