Cyberpunk 2077 / Tropes M to R

You can view the main page HERE!

Tropes A-B HERE!

Tropes C HERE!

Tropes D-F HERE!

Tropes G-L HERE!

Tropes S-Z HERE!

Phantom Liberty HERE!

---

M

• Machine Worship: Many Psycho gangs have the end goal of turning themselves into machines. The Maelstrom in particular treat cyberpsychosis as a path to enlightenment through detachment from the human condition.
• Macross Missile Massacre:
  • Smart weapons in a nutshell. Assault rifles and submachine guns fire mini-missiles with impressive Roboteching capabilities, shotguns fire whole packs of missiles at once, and certain iconic models may even allow you to target multiple opponents simultaneously.
  • The Basilisk hover tank is fitted with a cluster homing missile launcher after the Aldecaldo clan really gets to work on it. It's ready to go by the time the Endgame rolls around, and is put to use in the Star ending, during the assault on the tunnel construction site.
• Made of Explodium:
  • Do not attack Mecha-Mooks in melee. Their destruction unleashes either a massive electrical discharge, a powerful explosion, or both. The damage of each is sufficient to One-Hit Kill anyone in the blast radius, V included.
  • Be very careful around gas tanks, boilers and the like. A single fist punch is enough to make them go boom, one-shotting everything in a large area around them. Fortunately for V, enemies don't mind taking cover behind them. Unfortunately for V, enemies don't hesitate to target the tank if V gets too close to one.
• Made of Iron:
  • Humans can augment themselves with armored cyberware and health boosters that render them extremely durable even against powerful firearms. Boss fights can involve emptying the strongest shotguns point blank into the enemy and only seeing the health bar go down by a small fraction.
  • Vehicles in this game are ridiculously sturdy. Crash one into a wall at 200 KPH and the worst that'll happen is that its hood goes flying. T-boning another car at top speed will rarely even dent the door, let alone affect the driver in any way. Motorbikes are even more impressive in this regard, capable of continued operation at maximum performance after crashes that should turn them into compacted cubes of metal, plastic, and rider. The only thing that will make a vehicle go boom in this game is either copious amounts of heavy fire or a grenade or two.
• Magikarp Power: A netrunner's initial quickhack options aren't all that useful in combat, but put some points in the relevant perks and craft some advanced quickhacks and you'll quickly end up with the most powerful, most versatile character build in the game.
  • The Cold Blood perk tree can start off as fairly underwhelming, since it gives V a very minor speed boost after killing an enemy (up to three times with upgrades). However, going further down the skill tree can grant V very useful boons, some of which also stack such as armor, attack speed, melee damage, healing rate, or quickhack cooldown. The wear-off timer can be extended, more Cold Blood stack levels can be added, and the wear-off timer expiring can be made to only lose one Cold Blood stack level than the entire stack. Some, while they don't stack, are also very useful and activate as soon as one stack is acquired, such as an immunity to ailments, more stacks, higher headshot damage or more damage resistance, allowing V to become a terrifying Lightning Bruiser.
• Magnetic Weapons: The "Tech" weapons, relying on magnetic accelerators, allow you to use Charge Attack that can punch through walls.
• Malevolent Masked Men: The Scavengers wear holographic masks displaying simplistic, cartoony faces as their visual cue.
  • Tyger Claws mooks frequently wear menpō (face guards covering the lower half of the head).
  • MAX-TAC officers, police authorized to use lethal force, wear helmets that cover the entire top halves of their head.
  • Trauma Team troops wear gas masks at all times to make sure they can access patients without risking exposure to airborne pathogens or toxins.
• Mana: A netrunner's RAM bar is essentially the scifi equivalent of a mage's mana supply. Every quickhack consumes a certain amount of RAM when used. If you empty your RAM, you have to wait for it to replenish before you can continue to use quickhacks.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Night City is a technological beacon as per the genre, but some things are hard to explain with just advanced tech:
  • One Cyberpsycho gig has V track a ritual where a bunch of dead gang members surround a woman lying on a freezer. Investigating around the area will lead to flashes of noise before the woman herself eventually springs back to life and attacks V despite having been dead up to that point. Neither V nor Silverhand can explain what exactly happened there.
  • One mission has V and Takemura spot a stray cat while doing reconnaissance, when V points out that most animals disappeared from Night City a long time ago, Takemura will jokingly suggest that it's a Bakeneko, a cat spirit that spreads misfortune and is able to revive the dead. The cat also seems to see Johnny, following after him when he rolls off the balcony. While this is easy to dismiss at that time, what appears to be the same cat will later appear in Johnny's memory of 2013 some fifty years earlier, during what was likely the greatest moment of misfortune in his life: as he lays bleeding out having failed to save Alt from being kidnapped by Arasaka, right before he'd embark on his first raid on Arasaka in a rescue attempt that ended with him inadvertently killing her.
  • When exploring a serial killer’s memories to track the location of his lair V can see images of his deceased mother such as her shadow behind a curtain but when the blinds are drawn she’s nowhere to be seen. While this might be explained away as the memories being a dream, the rest of the memories are relatively mundane with little in the way of fantastical elements.
  • Peralez’s entire quest chain has their memories being altered by a shadowy organization with no hints as to who it might be. While initially pegged as a Corpo conspiracy it takes on a more Existential Horror vibe the longer the quest goes, especially when V gets a phone call and seemingly gets hacked by an inhuman voice. Johnny surmises that it was a rogue AI that was responsible but ultimately, it’s left ambiguous who the mastermind is.
  • Misty’s tarot readings are noticeably accurate in the endings with her referencing death (of a sort) in Temperance ending and good fortunes in the Sun ending.
  • The Zen Master. He appears completely physically real, if a bit enigmatic, at first. But at the end of his storyline, after his final meditation lesson, he not only disappears as per usual, but leaves his robes and altar pendant behind. Not only that, but Johnny doesn't seem to know what V was talking about when they tell him about a zen master teaching them meditation.
• Mecha-Mooks: Although not nearly as numerous as human enemies, you'll run into your fair share of hostile combat robots, ranging from humanoid security androids to flying attack drones to massive walking tanks. They're generally Made of Explodium but give huge amounts of XP and have an absurdly high chance to drop legendary crafting components.
• Meet the New Boss: If V chooses to allow Maiko to take over Clouds in Judy's quest chain, the conditions end up exactly the same and there's effectively no change in management. On the other hand, she’s correct in that Judy’s plan accomplishes nothing but getting reprisals from the Tyger Claws. And at the very least it seems unlikely she’ll do things like rape catatonic Dolls then toss them to Fingers like the previous boss did, and even puts said rapey-human-traffickey boss in V's and Judy's path to do with as they please as a show of good faith.
• Mega City: Night City's individual high rises are like small towns of their own, including the mega building apartment complex you live in.
• MegaCorp: It wouldn't be cyberpunk without them. Multi-national corporations have "diversified" into having controlling interests in almost all aspects of daily life, with the Arasaka Corporation in particular having a stranglehold on multiple industries. At one point, when viewing a dossier on a corporate agent, it includes the text "Under international corporate law the bearer is immune from criminal jurisdiction."
• Mental Shutdown: This is the fate of Evelyn Parker, who ropes you into the ill-fated Relic heist in Act 1. If you follow up on her afterwards, you discover that her brain implants had been hacked by the Voodoo Boys, after which she was sold off to a street gang for "use" in snuff porn. Even if you manage to rescue her, she is so traumatized, she retreats completely into her mind and remains unresponsive, before eventually committing suicide.
• Misaimed Marketing: In-universe. The women's bathroom in a Tyger Claws casino has a Mr. Stud advertisement.
• Mission Control: Various characters will regularly pop up on your HUD based phone to offer new jobs, give you info on your missions, or dictate your new marching orders if they're your employer. "The Heist" mission also has T-Bug act as this for V and Jackie.
• Mock Hollywood Sign: A promotional image reveals one for the affluent North Oak neighborhood.
• Modern Stasis: There had been some technological and aesthetic changes since 2013 (the earliest point we see) and 2077 (when the Konpeki Tower heist happens). Yet while a few political borders have moved and Night City looks more futuristic, it's nothing groundbreaking and society is basically the same. Johnny is frequently disgusted by just how little changed in the fifty-odd years he was dead.
• Modular Epilogue: Zig-zagged. While the main part of the epilogue is always the same (the only potential difference is which love interest makes an appearance), the ending calls you get from your friends will be different, depending on how far you've gotten into their respective personal quests. The only exception is "The Reaper" ending, where all characters will be devastated by V's suicide, no matter their previous relationship.
• Moment Killer: Relic Malfunctions can happen at any time, including right in the middle of phone calls and even romance dialogue cutscenes. Needless to say that V suddenly cursing and coughing up blood while their vision distorts is highly effective at killing any sort of moment in an instant.
• Money for Nothing: The only commodity in Night City that makes sense to invest in is top-tier cyberware, and even that can be found in the world if you know where to look. Everything else can be crafted regardless of crafting skills (ammo and grenades) or is either useless (most types of clothing), too expensive for what it does (weapons and armor), or both of the latter (vehicles). The result is an exploding bank account once you're decked out in your favorite cyberware at the start of the midgame. It's probably why CDPR came up with the Autojock achievement for buying all vehicles in the game.
• Money Sink: Buying apartments and vehicles serves little purpose (since you already start out with one of each, the apartment can be fast-travelled to, the car is indestructible and can be summoned to your location), but are the only things to spend large amounts of money on besides cyberware.
• Monster and the Maiden: A female/feminine V and Johnny Silverhand. She's a human mercenary, while he's a Virtual Ghost. He can't interact with the world directly, but he can give V advice and encouragement. Their partnership starts off through an accident, and they don't really get along for a long time, but they can grow closer together if the player so desires, and even give their lifes for each other.
• More Dakka: As of the 2.0 update, the iconic Problem Solver submachine gun has a buffed fire rate of over 20 shots per second, making it the most voracious ammo gobbler in the game. That's about twice as fast as the next gun in line, the Defender LMG, with its 11 shots per second.
• Multiple-Choice Past: While not as impressive as the initial plans, the "Lifepaths" featurette presents V's possible backgrounds: an inner-city gangbanger, a disgraced corporate agent or a Nomad whose clan fell apart. Each of them comes with its own set of prologue missions and additional gameplay options, but they all join up with V befriending (or being reunited with) Jackie and the two of them working together as Edgerunners.
• Multiple Endings: The game has several endings, some of which are unlocked by completing sidequests. They are all based around who you ally with to gain access to Arasaka's facility to split Johnny from your brain.
  • "The Devil": You join forces with Hanako Arasaka to oust Yorinobu from the corporation and restore the Saburo-loyalists' control, in exchange for medical care. You defeat Yorinobu, but collapse shortly thereafter and are taken to an Arasaka clinic. The Relic is removed (and Johnny's code supposedly erased), you spend months in recovery, but to no avail— the Relic has done too much damage and you'll be dead by winter. You are given a final choice: Let Arasaka turn you into an immortal virtual ghost like Johnny, or walk away to enjoy freedom for however much time you have left.
  • "The Star": You raid Arasaka with the help of the Aldecaldo nomads, allowing Alt to digitally extract Johnny using 'Saka hardware. Following the split, you choose to keep your body while Johnny goes to cyberspace. However, as above, you'll ultimately live months at the most. You leave Night City with the Aldecaldos, hopeful that a solution to your dying psyche can be found in the remaining time with your new family.
  • "The Sun": Johnny temporarily takes control of V's body to enlist the help of Rogue, raids Arasaka alongside her and ultimately completes his quest for revenge, though at the cost of Rogue's life. Alt successfully splits Johnny from your mind, and he remains in cyberspace. You take over managing the Afterlife bar as a well-regarded edgerunner, but once again, with weeks or months to live. You sign up for one last job: robbing a luxury casino on a space station. Whether you come out of it alive, you don't care; after all, your number was called a long time ago.
  • "Temperance": In either the Star or the Sun path, you choose to remain in cyberspace instead of Johnny, while he takes over your body. This incurs much less brain damage due to not having to work against the Relic, and Johnny is projected to live a full natural lifespan. He eventually leaves Night City, in search of a new life thanks to the second chance you gave him.
  • "The Reaper"/"Path of Least Resistance": Rather than put any of your friends in danger for your sake, and unwilling to aid Hanako, you decide to leave on your own terms and shoot yourself in the head.
  • "(Don't Fear) The Reaper": If you befriend Silverhand and spend a few minutes waiting on the ending-choice dialogue menu, he proposes assaulting Arasaka Tower solo. Agreeing means a very long, difficult fight with no allies, hordes of foes, increasingly lower maximum health as the Relic reaches critical state, and if you die even once, you get a variant of the Reaper ending. If you survive the whole way, though, you carve out your legend by doing something never done before: invading an Arasaka stronghold alone, definitively bringing an end to Adam Smasher himself, and, unlike everyone else who gets a drink named for them at the Afterlife, living to tell the tale. The rest of this ending follows a variant of the Sun or Temperance (depending on whether you retain your body or give it to Johnny).
  • "The Tower": Available only with the Phantom Liberty DLC, if you helped the Americans recapture Songbird alive. You choose to take the FIA's offer of American medical treatment... only to end up in a coma for two years. When you wake, Johnny's erased and you'll live a natural lifespan... but due to the Relic's damage, you can't use any combat cyberware, ending your edgerunner career. The passing years have hit your friends hard, with many forced to join corps, go on the run, and/or leave Night City. Panam and River in particular want nothing to do with you for various reasons, Judy left Night City and got married and has no desire to rekindle a romance if there was one, and while Vik, Misty and Kerry are pretty much just as friendly towards V as before, they all have their own commitments that make them less readily available. The city itself has seen little real change; while Yorinobu successfully damaged Arasaka from the inside, the other corps simply move into the positions it once occupied, not only letting Night City continue on as the Wretched Hive it is, but also leaving its future uncertain with an emboldened NUSA on the horizon. Oh, and to add insult to injury, your apartment got seized for unpaid rent and all your stuff was sold off. V finds themself weakened, homeless, jobless, and with even their reputation fading away. They melt into a crowd, having secured a long life but at the cost of almost everything else. On the plus side, Reed does personally offer you a desk job with his agency, and Misty gives some helpful advice and perspective on how V can adapt to their new life going forward.
• Multiple Game Openings: Depending on which lifepath you choose for V at character creation, the first half of the prologue features a completely unique storyline: the Nomad V smuggles a contraband item into Night City with Jackie; the Corpo V gets entangled in a political scheme within Arasaka, then fired by their superiors covering their asses^note and they already know Jackie from way back; and the Streetkid V tries to steal the same car as Jackie but both get busted by the police. Either way, it's followed by a universal Training Montage and the first proper mission.
• Mundane Utility: Of the four types of forearm cybernetics available, the Gorilla Fists are the only one that offer attribute boosts; specifically, to Body. Each quality tier boosts the strength progressively more. This makes them useful for boosting the ability to pry doors open, more effectively brace heavy weapons while firing, or doing dialogue checks against Body. It doesn't help with perk requisites, though.
• Mythology Gag: The promotional materials are packed with references to the pen and paper RPG.
  • The female cyborg poster in a window in the teaser trailer is based on the cover art for one of the Cyberpunk pen-and-paper rulebooks.
  • V's glowing popped collar matches the one seen on the cover of the 2.0.2.0 version of the tabletop game.
  • The appearance of celebrity Lizzy Wizzy is a reference to the cover art of the "Chromebook vol. 1" sourcebook.
  • The Voodoo Boyz are now a gang of mostly Afro-Caribbean netrunners, having taken the name of an "earlier gang" — their Cyberpunk incarnation was a culture-appropriating bunch of rowdy white kids, and Mike Pondsmith stated in an interview he prefers CD Projekt's version.
  • Ads for the "Mr Stud" penile implant play in the elevator. It's an actual piece of cyberware/bioware you could get in the tabletop game.
  • The concept of brain uploading software goes as far back as the first edition of the tabletop game, where the Soulkiller program was an important element of the metaplot and Johnny Silverhand's backstory.
  • One sidequest has V come across the mortal remains of Rache Bartmoss, still in the disguised-as-a-refrigerator cryogenic chamber he'd been in since initially flatlining in the tabletop game's metaplot. One of V's reply choices to Johnny also nods to Rache's near single-handed wrecking of the Old Net in the tabletop games, as well.
  • "Maximum Mike", the host of Morrow Rock Radio, is named after and voiced by Mike Pondsmith, creator of the Cyberpunk tabletop games. The rumors he spreads on the radio are all based on published tabletop material.
  • The song "Friday Night Firefight" is titled after the chapter on combat rules in the pen-and-paper game rulebook.
  • Flavor text on the pieces of unique clothing sets named after the character classes in the pen-and-paper game (Solo, Netrunner, Badge, Fixer, Techie, Nomad) comes from the quotes for each of the classes in the rulebook.
  • The revamped skilltree for Version 2.0 adds in skill with portraits featuring David, Lucy and Rebecca that roughly fits the characters.
    • David's skill "Edgerunner" involves being able to exceed your Cyberware Capacity at the cost of health while also potentially entering a berserk state in combat. During said state, V will start laughing maniacally much like David did during the throes of Cyberpsychosis.
    • Rebecca's skill "Die! Die! Die!" improves recoil and fire rate with shotguns, LMGs and HMGs with lower stamina.
    • Lucy's skill "Finisher: Live Wire" adds a Finishing Move to monowires that restores health and RAM.
    • Other 2.0 perk names include "Burn This City", a lyric from the anime's opening theme, and "Built Different," after a memorable line David says in the fifth episode.
  • 2.0 also adds in David's personal Sandevistan, the Militech "Apogee" Sandevistan, as a Tier 5 cyberware.

N

• Named After Somebody Famous: All cocktails on the Afterlife's menu are named after an Edgerunner who made it big enough to be allowed inside and died during a run. Jackie ends up having his own entry on the menu after the biochip heist.
• Neck Snap: This is the method performed when successfully sneaking up an enemy from behind. It instantly kills the victim when the action is done. The non-lethal version simply knocks the victim out into unconsciousness instead. However, you still have to move their corpses away from plain sight of their allies, otherwise they will be alerted to your killings and the stealth option will be rendered useless, forcing you to improvise your plans. This can potentially prove very useful when dealing with certain enemies such as cyberpsychos, provided you have the right cyberware and quickhacks. However, certain bosses, such as Adam Smasher, will not allow you the opportunity to perform this method on them so you'll have to settle things the old-fashioned way.^note Patch 2.1 gave players the option to stealth takedown Adam Smasher, but this trope is still averted for him; since Smasher no longer has a biological neck to snap, V has to resort to sabotaging his core hardware piece-by-piece, taking a chunk of Smasher's health bar each time.
• Nerf:
  • Update 1.3 took the nerf bat to a wide range of game features, but quickhacks were hit hardest. Most notably, the legendary Ping's trait of allowing hacking enemies through walls was removed^note one can still hack devices through walls, though, so if the place has cameras, enemies can still be targeted indirectly, and the popular Contagion combat quickhack had its damage reduced to the point of uselessness. All enemies (not just netrunners) now also run a trace program to pinpoint V's location the moment the player uses any non-covert quickhack, making quickhacking essentially useless for stealth combat. On the non-quickhack front, all legendary cyberware that could previously be found in the open world was removed as well, forcing players to grind street cred until they can purchase it at a ripperdoc's.
  • Update 1.5 attempted to fix the hilariously broken Socketed Equipment by reducing the number of mod slots in clothing items, lowering mod effectiveness (Armadillo's maximum armor rating for instance was capped at 75, down from 270), restricting certain mods to certain clothing slots, and disallowing the installation of high-quality mods in items of lower quality. Changes were also made to weapon modding, but these were much less impactful overall.
  • Update 2.0 does this to the "Beat on the Brat" questline as all enemies now scale to V's level instead of their levels being fixed. In previous patches, the final boss of the questline was a nightmare to deal with even on lower difficulties to the point Gorilla Arms and specific Strength and Cool perks were a necessity. Not so much the case with Patch 2.0, where V can kick his ass much more easily, and while he'll obviously be more difficult on higher difficulties, you won't need specific cheese methods or builds to get the upper hand.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The 2018 gameplay trailer seen at E3 did not have any true gameplay. The PR team had it put together to drum up hype for the actual game, which had barely gotten out of the planning stages by that point.
  • That "Samurai" jacket V is seen wearing in most trailers? You only get it near the end of the game, and only if you do Silverhand's quests.
  • Perhaps to make a change from the earlier gameplay demos, Jackie never owns — or goes out to buy — a Quadra Turbo, instead having a Valentino-themed Arch motorcycle. However, later on in the game, V will eventually get the opportunity to buy one for themselves.
  • T-Bug never betrays V and is dead before V gets to the meeting with DeShawn after the heist.
  • "Wake the fuck up, samurai. We have a city to burn." The most famous line from the advertising never appears in the game.
  • The Diner trailer features someone who never appears in the game talking to V and it implies one can buy a house or shooting from cars while driving. While Patch 1.5 a year after release finally allows the player to rent other apartments, a house with a pool is still not possible. Shooting from cars was only possible in pre-determined sequences and only ever as the passenger up until Patch 2.0.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Not just V reacts a bit dumbfounded when the young, wealthy Russian ripperdoc who owns the Charter Hill clinic reveals that she actually enjoys being in Night City. Turns out she finds it fascinating how folks shoot each other in the streets or have to pay through their noses for basic medical services, both of which one apparently finds Only in America.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Muamar calls one of your rides a "luxury sports tank". It's a pretty fitting description for a car with the exterior of a fancy limo, the engine of a supercar, enough armor to shrug off anything short of antitank missiles and built-in machineguns.
• No Antagonist: The main conflict driving the story is the biochip slowly taking over V's brain, and their race against time to get themselves untangled from Johnny and save their life. The closest thing to a Big Bad the game has would be the Arasaka corporation and the entire exploitative, soulless system governing Night City, but even then dismantling it isn't V's goal. If they'll take down the Arasaka tower in the "Sun" or "Star" endings, it's mostly as a means to get to Mikoshi and save themselves, not due to any personal vendetta or heroic goals.
• Noble Demon: Goro Takemura works for the most tyrannically oppressive corporation in the world as bodyguard to none other than its sinister CEO. However, he carries a distinct level of honor and principle not commonly seen among those working for Arasaka, and he allies himself with the player to bring Yorinobu to justice and can eventually become V's friend.
• No-Gear Level: Zig-zagged. At the start of "Automatic Love", V is asked to deposit all their weapons before entering Clouds. The mission can be cleared non-lethally, and V can pick up weapons inside, either from knocked out enemies or just lying around. Similar thing happens in the gig "A Lack Of Empathy". Played straight however with the "Sweet Dreams" sidequest where V will wake up in the Scav haunt from the prologue mission, stripped of both weapons (minus those available as cyberware) and clothing.
  • In all cases, V will keep their cyberware, including their cyberdeck (if installed). So while the player may be without their full arsenal, they can still have a formidable arsenal of implanted weapons, armor, and Quickhacks.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Saburo Arasaka came very close to disowning his son Yorinobu in the past, but choose not to in order to spare his daughter the pain of seeing her brother be cast out. Yorinobu repaid Saburo by conspiring against him and murders him once he discovers that knew of his plans.
  • Though whether this even counts as good to begin with is quite debatable. It's unclear if Saburo actually even cared about Hanako's feelings or was simply manipulating her the way he attempts to manipulate everything and everyone around him to his agenda. Every part of Saburo's family exists to serve a specific function in a manner thats transaparently abusive, with Yorinobus actions being an attempt to escape his father's grasp or retaliate.
• Non-Action Big Bad: You don't get to fight neither Saburo nor Yorinobu, depending on which one you see as the real Big Bad. Saburo is an elderly man, and while Yorinobu used to be in a bosozoku gang, he likely wouldn't stand a chance against a One-Man Army like V. The closest you can get to fighting them are boss fights against Oda, Hanako's bodyguard, and the very last battle of the game, Adam Smasher.
• Nonstandard Game Over:
  • During the heist, if you fail to hide after klepping the biochip, Adam Smasher will walk into the room, knock you to the floor, and stomp on your head.
  • In "Search and Destroy", if you don't knock on the door four times as explicitly instructed, a bomb will go off, killing you on the spot.
  • If you die during "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", the game will end immediately and the credits will start to scroll, with other characters acting as though you were Driven to Suicide and some even calling you out for your Stupid Sacrifice. This is because this particular mission is treated as a Suicide Mission, and a preferable way to check out than simply eating your gun.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In the "Bullets" side mission, the MaxTac team's lieutenant tells V that they enjoy killing just like her and suggests that they join her team. The player can decide whether V thinks the same.
• Noodle Incident:
  • According to the Maelstrom boss Royce, Dexter DeShawn played an important role in Pacifica's downfall, but neither V nor the player ever learn the specifics.
  • Rogue mentions having done past dealings with Arasaka, including (to her deepest regret) working with Adam Smasher. It's this that compels her to help V and Johnny hunt him down.
  • How Jackie and Corpo V met. All we're told is that it involved Jackie saving V's life.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The Basilisk tank isn't a main battle tank but a transport vehicle, and is also obsolete compared to Militech's latest product line. It is, however, head and shoulders above the vehicle capabilities of banditry that maraud across the Badlands, and also floats handily over minefields used by Militech and others to bottleneck and suppress smuggling routes, or ones left over from the Corporate and Unification Wars. For these reasons, a dissident faction in the Aldecaldo nomad clan led by Panam Palmer seek to smash'n'grab one that's being convoyed through the area by Militech for sale to a third-world country. Once assembled, Wraith bandits choose the worst time ever to attempt to wipe out the Aldecaldos while the Basilisk is loaded with live ammo and being put through the testing rounds, and the established leadership of the clan concedes the contention about it.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: Due to the Gray-and-Grey Morality of the setting, most choices are unpleasant Mortons Forks, but in some cases, some choices lead to marginally better outcomes.
  • In one quest, a couple of NCPD officers ask V to check on their comrade Barry, who is also V's neighbor. Talking to Barry, you learn that he's in severe depression after the one-two punch of watching a child be murdered (and the guilty party allowed to get away with it due to their connections) and losing his closest friend, Andrew. V can either wash their hands of the entire situation right there (even telling Barry to suck it up and deal) or they can be sympathetic and visit Andrew's grave. If they do, they will find out that Andrew was a tortoise — when Barry tried opening up to his fellow cops, one of them mocked him for it, and he felt so alone that talking to a tortoise was his only release. If you go back to his cop friends and let them know, the cop who mocked Barry will instead open up and reveal that he's been dealing with similar trauma.
  • A bartender will ask V to tail his wife, convinced that the times she's come home late, combined with the fact their son looks nothing like him are due to infidelity. After tailing her, V will find out that she's meeting a strange man in a rundown building. V can simply walk out without learning more. If they stay and listen, however, the wife will explain that the man is her ripperdoc, and that she's meeting him in secret because every aspect of her body is artificial — her hair, her skin color, eye color...everything. She underwent such drastic work to escape from a sordid past life, but her old face had hereditary influence over their son anyway. If you explain this to the bartender and tell him that his wife truly loves him, both will thank you later on.
  • In the Reaper ending V kills themself mainly to keep anyone else from dying for their sake. Instead, it just leaves their friends depressed and grieving with Panam and Kerry even angrily pointing out that it just proved they weren't thinking of their friends and what their death would do to them.
  • The same could apply for the Temperance ending where V gives up their body to Johnny. While this does give him a second chance at life most of V’s friends are unaware of what happened and Panam and Rogue, who do know, cast doubts on the decision, as neither are aware that V gave up their body to Johnny and instead assume he coerced V or took over by force; the former vows revenge against Johnny and promises to ‘rip V out of Johnny’s head’ while Rogue’s opinion on Johnny tanks to the point that she tells him to never come back to Night City. Johnny's comments in the game's completion window even lampshades this, outright stating V's sacrifice was for someone (himself) who doesn't deserve it.

O

• Obvious Rule Patch: In the release version of the game, quickhacking basically turned into an instant "I win" button once you got your hands on some epic-tier quickhacks, let alone legendary ones. No other combat style was safer or more versatile, but most importantly it was far, far more useful for stealthy players than the actual stealth skill tree could ever hope to be, making the latter completely superfluous. CDPR took note and reacted with a massive nerf to the stealth aspect of quickhacking that restored some semblance of balance to the skill trees. Quickhacking is still an extremely powerful combat asset, but nowhere near as broken as it once was.
  • In early versions of the game, with a high Technical skill it was possible craft armor mods with values so high that V was essentially impervious to all but the most powerful attacks. Later patches would limit the number of mod slots on clothing, while substantially lowering maximum obtainable armor values from mods.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • Things that happen between the introductory Lifepath mission and the Sandra Dorsett rescue are shown as a quick, non-playable montage, hinting at several setups and outcomes of potentially awesome things we aren't allowed to see or play through (including a Bar Brawl).
  • Johnny’s brief escape from Adam Smasher in his playable flashback isn’t shown apart from Johnny firing at him a few times to no effect and then he’s suddenly up on the roof.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: One of the random lines from passersby in response to violence is just an annoyed-sounding "Not again!" ...which can lead to this trope if it's, for example, in response to a screaming, underwear-clad woman destroying plastic lawn flamingos with a comically oversized vibrator.
• Older Than They Look: Due to cybernetic modifications and advanced medicine, many characters who are comparatively old only look like they are in their late thirties. Vik Vector, for example, is at least seventy years old but looks like he's about forty.
  • All members of the Arasaka family look about half their actual age. Saburo and Yorinobu are canonically 158 and 82 years old.
  • All members of Samurai (except Johnny, of course) are still alive despite being young adults in 2023, meaning they're around 80-90 years old. They still look like they're in their mid-thirties/forties (Kerry, Denny, Henry) or, at the most, mid-fifties (Bes Isis/Nancy), nowhere near their actual ages.
  • Rogue is also still here, running the Afterlife and working as the city's best fixer. She's roughly the same age as the Samurai members, and looks to be in her fifties.
  • Flavor Text on loading screens says that by 2077, medical technology has advanced to the point of slowing the aging process...to those that can afford it, anyway.
• One-Hit Kill: Possible, but difficult to accomplish without alerting every enemy in the area. Several weapons are capable of them when regularly upgraded, fully modded, and supplemented by perks, including Legendary-quality sniper rifles, a Projectile Launch System loaded with tranquilizer rounds, the "Comrade's Hammer" unique pistol, revolver/shotgun headshots, and certain quickhacks, but most are not viable for stealth gameplay. After 1.5 quite a bit of the Ninjitsu tree is dedicated to letting you do this with thrown knives.
• One-Hit Polykill: Tech rifles have a Charged Attack that can penetrate cover, walls and enemies. Killing two or more enemies with the same Tech rifle shot unlocks an achievement.
• One-Letter Name: The customizable main character is simply referred to as "V". A story mission reveals that their actual name is Vincent (if male) or Valerie (if female), with V stating that they only allow very close friends to use that.
• One-Man Army:
  • V can and will tear through entire gangs by themselves. Many side missions like Crimes in Progress and Bounties more or less require the player to tear through groups of enemies consisting of half a dozen or more gunmen and melee enemies, many of whom likely have cybernetic enhancements or body modifications like Maelstrom or the animals. Doing a healthy amount of side missions can easily put the player's body count in the triple or quadruple digits.
  • Exaggerated in the (Don't Fear) the Reaper ending where V stages a solo assault on Arasaka tower, killing every single guard inside and even defeating Adam Smasher. And all of this while being on their last legs due to how far the Relic has spread. There's a reason they become a Living Legend afterwards.
  • Johnny Silverhand also counts. In his playable flashback he's strong enough to match a high level V and in the ending where the player enlist's Rogue's help he takes over V's body for the attack, proving just as deadly as them.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: Intelligence is the only stat that can impact a sidequest's resolution. Without it, some sidequests can only end negatively such as being forced to destroy Delamain's core or his rogue personalities instead of merging them together or not being able to identify the possibility that a replacement liver has been sabotaged. Quickhacks, an Intelligence skill, is also better for stealth than the actual stealth tree since it only needs line-of-sight^note And did we mention that the legendary-class version of Ping lets you hack without direct line of sight? which includes remotely controlling cameras, won't immediately set off the alarms in case an attack doesn't oneshot, works on enemies that are immune to grabs including higher level enemies, robots, and bosses, actually works once a fight does break out, and time slows to a crawl while scanning and choosing which virus to torment your enemy with. Stealth quickhacking was so stupidly overpowered that CDPR nerfed it to oblivion with the 1.3 patch, turning it into more of a tool for ambushes and open combat instead^note without doing anything to make the actual stealth skill tree more useful, unfortunately.
• One Nation Under Copyright: It's implied that by 2077, Miltech has effectively taken control of the United States, given that the federal government is either comprised of former employees or bureaucrats under their payroll. This includes the infamous Elizabeth Kress who was president of Militech before becoming the President of the New United States for 50 years (2019-2069) only stepping down to be replaced by former Militech CEO Rosalind Myers. Both of Which have pushed for Reunification of the Divided States of America via military action, of course with weapons supplied by Militech.
• Only Six Faces: While most NPCS have diverse appearances, the gangs of Night City only have a handful of models each. This is less noticeable with Maelstrom, the Scavs, and to a lesser extent the Tyger Claws, as their faces are frequently obscured, but is very noticeable with the Valentinos and 6th Street Gang.
• Optional Boss: The vast majority of bosses are optional, with most being either part of side missions or avoidable by making certain decisions in the main story. Only a grand total of two bosses must be fought with no way around it.
• Optional Sexual Encounter: V can romance and have sex with male and female characters regardless of V's gender, though two of the four major romance options will only be available to male or female V respectively. Somewhat surprisingly limited; outside of the four romances, there are four joytoys^*prostitutes that V can purchase the services of, and one character they can have a one night stand with.
• Organ Theft:
  • The Scavenger gang makes their living by extracting and selling people's organs and cyberware, the latter being even more valuable. The first mission (post lifepath-specific introduction) involves rescuing one of their kidnappees.
  • Some shards and out of game information also points to Trauma Team, who come to save her once you activate an emergency beacon function, harvesting from dead or dying patients. Namely those late on payments.

P

• Pacifist Run: It is possible to go through the game without killing, if not necessarily without fighting, as the game offers multiple ways to neutralize enemies without killing them. Blunt weapons are categorized non-lethal and there are mods you can acquire that remove the lethality from your normal ordinance, meaning that weapons ranging from 4-gauge shotguns to frag grenades will become capable of putting down enemies without killing them. Any missions that require absolutely, definitely blowing up a few dozen people are entirely optional and, at worst, lock you out of select endings. The talking "Skippy" gun pokes fun at the choosing to fight nonlethally, as you're still brutalizing enemies pretty badly either way.
• Painting the Medium: In Johnny's flashbacks, and when you allow him to take over V's body and in the "Temperance" ending, the UI changes from yellowish orange to purpleish blue. Likewise, Johnny's version of the "Quest Updated" icon fits the clunkier Retraux style of 2023.
• Parrying Bullets: Several years after the feature was initially showcased, update 2.0 finally introduced the ability to deflect incoming bullets with blade weapons. It consumes a lot of stamina per deflection, so trying to parry half a dozen goons wielding automatic weapons won't end well for you, but it sure makes blade-focused melee builds a whole lot more survivable in open combat, especially against smaller groups of enemies. The ability can also be upgraded to reflect bullets back at the shooter for massive damage, often enough to kill them outright with a good hit, meaning you can take out ranged attackers with a sword or Mantis Blades without even moving an inch from your position.
• Permanently Missable Content: Absolutely everywhere.
  • Some missions become unavailable after a certain point, such as a funeral from a quest giver who moves location after a different mission.
  • Iconic crafting schematics disappear along with the body of the boss enemy that dropped them if you fail to pick them up before leaving the area. Overlooked one or more schematics? Enjoy that gaping hole in your Wall of Weapons for the rest of the game. Some of these sub-bosses are hidden in main missions where the mission parameters discourage you from engaging them, so you might miss some schematics or weapons without even realizing it.
  • Related to the above, many iconic weapons are tied to certain main story characters and can only be picked up at specific points during specific missions. Miss your chance and they become unobtainable. To add insult to injury, some require serious Violation of Common Sense to acquire, like Saburo Arasaka's personal katana being found in the opposite direction of where you're supposed to run for your life.
  • And another one on this topic: iconic gear can be disassembled like any other. Fail to pay attention during a disassembling spree and that unique gun/sword/outfit is gone for good. The iconic knife Stinger has it even worse thanks to the Dagger Dealer perk that allows you to throw knives. This can be done exactly once per knife, so if you decide to throw Stinger for whatever reason, you'll never get it back in this playthrough. Thankfully, that last part at least was finally fixed in update 1.5, which made it so that thrown knives automatically return to V's hand after a brief cooldown. The game will now also prompt you if you attempt to dissasemble a legendary or iconic weapon, as as well as any equipment that you are currently weilding.
  • Shoot enough people with everyone's favorite Lethal Joke Item Skippy and it'll eventually initiate a quest to return the gun to its original owner. If you do so, Skippy's gone for good with no way of getting it back. The gun even has another example of this trope before that with its choice between a non-lethal and an extremely lethal firing mode. The one you pick only lasts for about 50 kills before Skippy permanently switches to the other one, taking many a player by surprise either way.
    • Retroactively with patch 1.6 if you turn in Skippy before you complete the Cab retrieval missions, you can miss out on conversations between Skippy and the car's AI you get as a reward.
  • It's very easy to cut off any chance at romancing your favorite Love Interest just by making one wrong dialogue choice at some point in their personal quest chain, with the consequences often only becoming apparent much later in the game.
  • The Don't Fear The Reaper ending hinges on making a string of specific dialogue choices in a certain conversation with Johnny, which occurs during a quest which is itself optional. Miss even one and you're locked out of this ending for good. Thankfully, there is a subtle indicator which can be used to determine if you're on the right path, though it's not until a later quest: during "Holdin' On", Kerry will ask Johnny (temporarily in control of V's body) whether the two of them get along, to which Johnny will reply in the affirmative or the negative; Johnny responding in the affirmative indicates that you're on the right track to unlock the ending.
  • You can fail "Riders on the Storm" simply by taking too long to do it in an aversion to almost every other mission in the game. If you do so, or if you side with Saul against Panam later on then you're permanently locked out of both Panam's romance option and the entire Aldecaldo ending path.
  • Do anything other than rain fire on Maelstrom in "The Pickup" after meeting with Militech, and you'll miss out on the chance at the one-night stand with Meredith Stout and the iconic melee weapon she leaves behind in her hotel room.
  • Telling Claire anything other than to focus on the race during the aftermath of 'Beast in Me' second to last race and not chasing the crashing car in the final race will lock you out of getting one car the Type 66 "Cthulhu". for free...though if Claire kills Sampson, Regina will somehow get it and put it up for sale.
  • The achievement for the Devil ending requires that Takemura is still alive at this point. If you failed to account for this, usually by not knowing the option even exists, the only way to unlock the achievement and watch the "official" version of this particular ending is to either load a save from very long ago, or start a whole new game from scratch.
  • In "Beat on the Brat", initiating the boxing match with Arroyo's champion Buck by choosing the Body check dialog option which convinces him to bet his rifle is the only way to obtain the gun. It's an iconic variant of the SPT 32 Grad sniper rifle named "O'Five".
• Photo Mode: Includes a lot of character positioning and poses (with "You're breathtaking!" pose as Ascended Meme), picture settings, and up to 5 stickers.
• Pinball Projectile: The "power" weapon projectiles can bounce off obstacles, allowing you to hit opponents behind cover. Weapons in this category either require a piece of hand cyberware called a Ballistic Coprocessor, or an integrated Ricochet Engine (or none in the case of the Kongou pistol). To see where it will ricochet, you will need to install a cyberware module into the Kiroshi ocular system called a Trajectory Generator pre-1.5 patch or invest a perk point in the Tech/Engineering perk tree's "Draw The Line" perk in 1.5 and above (ricochet trajectories still happen regardless of eye cyberware setup). The 1.5 update also introduced muzzle brake attachments that can enhance the ricochet angles or damage (as well as buff other performance aspects of the weapon it's affixed to). One particular case is the Babaroga for pistols, where even the most basic Common-tier version will outright double the damage that ricochet projectiles inflict; the top-tier Legendary version will triple the damage. Affix it to a Hand Cannon and see what it does.
• Pistol-Whipping: This is an optional Quick Melee tactic if you're carrying a firearm and a hostile NPC is close enough to you to get within melee range. You can strike them with the frame of your firearm to inflict some damage, but it's not as powerful compared to Halo's near-instant kill variant of this trope, and you have to bash them a few times until they're actually dead. It's more of an emergency move during battle if you're not carrying or using a melee weapon or not having arm implants installed in your body. There is a certain perk that allows your player character to stagger hostile NPCs while bashing them with your gun, leaving them open for a takedown. Unfortunately, it's not a viable tactic to use during boss fights as they usually have a lot of health and take way too much gun-bashing to even try.
• Platonic Prostitution: The "Clouds" dollhouse promises to fulfill their clients deepest desires. As V can find out in "Automatic Love", those desires don't have to inherently be sexual in nature; sometimes, like in V's case, they can be something as simple as talk and reassurance, which V's doll is happy to provide for them.
• Poor Communication Kills: In his questline, Kerry is pissed off by the Us Cracks band including a cover of one of his songs in their tour, and asks V's help to cancel their Night City's concert through saboage and threats, which eventually leads to Kerry and V confronting the band in person. It actually turns out that they genuinely thought they were allowed to make this cover (Us Cracks and Kerry belong to the same label, who told Us Cracks it was okay without consulting Kerry first), are appaled once they learn the truth, and will gladly cancel the concert.
• Powered Armor: Royce, no matter how the Flathead deals goes south, uses an exoskeleton that provides greater strength and armor. A similar exoskeleton can be encountered in two of the Cyberpsycho Sighting sidequest: one manned by a construction worker driven mad by its control implants, and a nomad that was abducted alongside Saul having been tortured and forced in by the Wraiths. And Adam Smasher has this integrated into his own physical body, his brain being the only biological part of him remaining.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The roles from the tabletop RPG have been eschewed for a "fluid class system" with a trio of Solo, Netrunner and Techie skill trees to freely invest in and combine. The Attractiveness attribute has been removed (as V is as attractive as the player wants to make them) and the slow-paced Improvement Point system has been replaced with a more typical XP bar.
• "Psycho" Strings: A techno version is used when Yorinobu Arasaka snaps and murders his father Saburo.

R

• Rage Breaking Point: The event that led to the murder of Saburo Arasaka was this. Saburo was in the process of cryptically declaring that he's disowning his son Yorinobu for stealing the experimental advanced Relic, the key to effective immortality that Saburo was developing for himself. Saburo invoked Yorinobu's mother, stating it's good she is not around to see this, and that "the heart should break but once". Yorinobu snaps, and starts strangling his decrepit father.
• Rainbow Pimp Gear: Formerly in full effect due to the often-garish clothing items and their single "armor" stat, before an update mostly removed clothing stats in favor of armor coming only from cyberware. Generic NPCs look equally as mismatched. Weapons are not exempt, the best examples being the Cocktail Stirrer and the Kongou, powerful Iconic weapons, the former being a completely hot pink katana, the latter being a gun with a shiny silver finish and neon pink accents.
• Ranged Emergency Weapon: The Budget Arms Slaught-O-Matic is a fully automatic pistol that holds 36 rounds, but unlike the Militech M-10AF Lexington, it cannot be reloaded once its magazine has been depleted, and is simply thrown away permanently after emptying the magazine. Unlike the Tediore weapons from Borderlands 2, the Slaught-O-Matic does not have the feature to digi-reconstruct itself after disposing the gun when its magazine has been fully expended. Its inability to be crafted or upgraded makes it effectively useless as an everyday weapon and its price at 630 eurodollars after being purchased at any Budget Arms Spontaneous Craving Satisfaction Machine renders it a waste of valuable eddies^note although, as of the 1.6 patch, its price has been now reduced to 100 eurodollars, making it slightly more viable; in other words, it is nothing but a Joke Item.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending:
  • The ending where you leave Night City with the Aldecaldos is the closest ending to this; while most of the other endings contain varying glimmers of hope, Panam and V are both in high spirits that one of Panam's contacts can provide a cure for V's still-deteriorating condition in the months they have left to live.
  • "The Devil" is normally a very bleak ending, but if Takemura is alive he will be optimistic that you will one day be given a new body and therefore the chance to walk among the living once more; he even leaves you with the promise of hitting a restaurant with you someday in the future.
  • Despite how bleak "The Tower" ending is, the player can choose to have V be optimistic for the future while speaking with Misty, whether they decide to continue striving to become a legend despite no longer being able to use combat chrome, become a fixer, or leave Night City to find a new purpose in life.
• Razor Floss: The Monowire cyberware is, as the name implies, a monomolecular wire used as a weapon that can instantly dismember most human enemies. It charges while not in use, making its damage fall off quickly with every successive strike, so it's mostly geared towards stealthy players looking for an efficient emergency weapon that doesn't take up an inventory slot. Strangely, despite the wire being Sharpened to a Single Atom, V's idle animation shows them holding it taut with their free hand without cutting their own fingers off, though the addition of special pads on V's hands and fingers with the mods implied they're there specifically to prevent accidental finger-lopping.
• "Rear Window" Witness: In the middle of a botched heist, V and Jackie are forced to hide in a room and witness Yorinobu Arasaka murder his father Saburo Arasaka, the head of the Arasaka megacorporation, in cold blood and hear them discuss how Yorinobu stole a Relic chip (the one holding Johnny Silverhand) from his father to sell it to Netwatch.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • The Maelstrom's creepy red cybernetic eyes are the first sign to be wary around them.
  • When an enemy activates their Berzerk implant, their eyes start glowing orange, warning you to get out of their melee range or else. Two of the Beat On The Brat boxers do this before every attack and can take V down in a single combo thanks to it.
• Relationship Values:
  • The Relic corruption percentage in the stats screen doubles as a meter of how far the Relic has spread in V's body and V's relationship with Johnny (the higher the closer they are). It grows as the game's story progresses, and it can be boosted by choosing the right dialogue options (though don't think it's easy to tell which ones are the correct ones) and completing Johnny's personal side quests.
  • Update 1.5 introduced something of the sort for Night City's fixers. V now needs to complete a number of gigs per fixer before they're offered more jobs, with the current count displayed on the world map when hovering over the respective fixer's icon. Completing any and all available gigs triggers a deeply respectful message from the fixer in question, usually accompanied by a gift like a unique weapon or vehicle.
• Relationship Upgrade: After the sex scene with one of the available romance partners, they will ask if this was a one-time thing, or something more. Choosing the latter will officially start a relationship with that character, allowing you to call them before the Point of No Return, which will make them appear in your epilogue.
• Retcon:
  • In the tabletop game set in 2020, the root causes and pathology of cyberpsychosis were well understood and, if not curable, then at least treatable. Fast forward 57 years, and suddenly cyberpsychosis is far less well understood, and treatments are experimental at best and outright myths at worst. When the game came out in the 1980s, it was pretty much a way to increase Body Horror and limit players from just having everything, by threatening your character with removal by GM Fiat. Thirty years later, with more real-world knowledge about limb replacement, it may sound ableist and offensive to people with real world psychological issues and disabilities. The shift in the video game from the tabletop — that cyberpsychosis isn't a singular condition but instead a bunch of factors like defective tech, psychological trauma, and drug use — updates it to modern times while tying it into the setting's statements about corporate greed and recklessness. (It also saves CDPR from creating new dialogue and animations for a low-Humanity V, or figuring out if that's even possible given their condition, but that's surely a coincidence.)
    • Though version 2.0 of the game reintroduced the concept of cyberware tolerance, so how much is an adjustment to modern values and attitudes and how much was an in-lore explanation for the absence of such a mechanic in the original release is up in the air.
  • Likewise, Johnny Silverhand was killed by Adam Smasher via becoming Half the Man He Used to Be. In the flashback the biggest damage done is Johnny's mechanical arm being shot and he's instead shown being uploaded as the Virtual Ghost that becomes V's companion.
  • Pre- to post-release example: Various promotional materials stated that V is 23 years old, but in the game proper, they're 27.
  • The artbook states that Johnny was in his late forties when he died, but in-game he died at 33.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Prior to v2.0, the various revolvers were generally the only handguns worth carrying around, mostly because they were your only half-decent chance at instakilling enemies silently from a distance. Semiauto handguns, barring a few iconics like Lizzy or Skippy, rarely qualified as more than an Emergency Weapon. The changes v2.0 made to the gunplay and related perks made semiautos much more viable overall, but particularly for stealth builds after revolvers became incapable of mounting suppressors, giving both handgun categories specialized niches where they excel.
• Rewatch Bonus: When you first get to the Afterlife with Jackie, you may catch a conversation between a woman and her rather cagey-sounding partner. On the second playthrough, you might notice that it's actually Panam, and her "partner" is the man who betrayed her on a mission and stole her truck.
• Ridiculous Repossession: If a person fails to pay a debt, they may end up with limbs and organs being repossessed. If you have a 200,000 Eddie cyberarm with powerful muscle fibres, inbuilt weapons, and light up skin patterns, that can be easily replaced with a 2,000 Eddie model that's basically a tube with some motors installed. And with modern technology, liver nodes grow back very quickly.
• Romance Sidequest: There are four possible romance routes for V, with two of them available in a single playthrough. Starting a relationship with any of them requires completing their personal side quest and choosing the right dialogue options. Male V can romance Panam or Kerry, while female V can get with Judy or River.
• Rotten Rock & Roll: The Rockerboy/girl movement encouraged violent rebellion against the corporations ruling the world. It culminated in the 2023 attack on the Arasaka Tower led by Johnny Silverhand, the face of the movement and the most well known rockerboy, in which he detonated a small atom bomb in the upper part of the Tower and killed tens of thousands of people who either died in the immediate blast or due to radiation sickness. With that being said, it's not like the reasons they've had to oppose Arasaka and other corpos were trivial, and some would consider their means justified given the overwhelming power and influence that the corpos have. The bomb itself was supposed to fall down into the basement and detonate, causing the building to fall, but the elevator got stuck, by accident or by sabotage, causing the civillian casualities to skyrocket. Johnny also sounded the alarm in the Tower before the bomb was set, giving the employees inside the chance to evacuate, so it's not like he was crazed and wanted to kill as many people as he could.
• Ruins of the Modern Age:
  • The Badlands surrounding Night City are littered with ghost towns, rusting trailer parks, and abandoned corporate assets (like warehouses and railway terminals) that were written off to save costs. Many of these look like they'd be left to rot since the Fourth Corporate War, if not the Collapse that shattered old America.
  • Pacifica, and especially Dogtown in Phantom Liberty, is a crumbling ode to corporate excess. Unfinished malls and hotels still have rusting construction gear left behind, while extravagant vanity projects are left to rot or be used by squatters (and gangs).
• Rummage Sale Reject: The average fashion in 2077 Night City is this, with garish and mismatched colors galore; the only people who avert this are usually corpos, in uniform, or Nomads out in the wastelands.
• Rushmore Refacement: One of the talk show hosts on televisions jokes that Saburo Arasaka might be planning this, considering his not-so-secret intent to run roughshod over American culture.