Fridge / Cyberpunk 2077

Fridge Logic

See Cyberpunk 2077

Fridge Brilliance

• Why is the protagonist named V? V is for Victory.
  • Or V for Vendetta.
  • V's full name is either Vincent (for male) or Valerie (for female). The name of "Vincent" is French for "to overcome", and "Valerie" derives from "to be strong, brave".
  • Or V for Variable, since you can customize your character.
  • V also resembles the inverted symbol for Delta, which is CP slang for "leave, depart". V spends most of the game with their potential departure from life hanging over their head, and it's their probable or explicit fate in every ending. Even in Phantom Liberty, Johnny dies if you side with Reed, and your life as you know it is over.
  • Alternately, the opposites of departing and death are returning, resurrection, and immortality. V and Jackie want to be immortal legends in Night City, the legendary Johnny Silverhand comes back though V, and in all of the endings, V becomes a legend for going toe-to-toe with Adam Smasher, even if you don't win. Johnny lives in a lot of them too.
• Why does the language of characters speaking in foreign languages appear different from other subtitles? Because your cybernetics are translating them for you.
  • Notably, sometimes the subtitles will show what the characters are saying in their appropriate languages (and scripts!) for a moment, before quickly replacing them with the translated lines. Your cybernetics are just catching up!
  • The consistency also depends on what kind (or the quality) of cyberware is being used for translation. Coincidentally, this also explains why how gangs like the Voodoo Boys can still get away with Hiding Behind the Language Barrier. After all, while Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Spanish are a given, some languages like Haitian Creole probably wouldn't be considered part of the standard package, unless you're actively seeking an upgrade.
• Why is Viktor willing to cut you so much slack? It's implied that he actually has very few friends and that V is more akin to family than just another customer. The fact that Misty is like a daughter to him and Jackie is seeing her helps make it more like a Found Family that you've just been dropped into. Plus, since you can actually pay him back, it shows that you are willing to return the favor for his kindness unlike 90% of Edgerunners out there.
  • Additionally, in the Solo's Guide book shard written by Morgan Blackhand himself, he states that it's a good idea to become best chooms with a ripperdoc that will always be eager to patch you back up. Vik is that for V.
• While it's spelled out later, the fact he's a Mad Scientist cyberneticist named Victor is a cute Shout-Out to Frankenstein.
• Why is it called the Afterlife bar? Because the drinks celebrate the glorious deaths of Edgerunners in Night City. Also, it was a former mortuary. Either way, it has a whole theme going.
• Why does Adam Smasher seem slower in his boss fight vs how's he portrayed in Edgerunners? Because Adam can swap between multiple operating systems on the fly. What did he swap his Sandevistan out with? A Berserk OS, which explains why he's able to tank a lot of damage, as well give him the Superhero landing attack you get when your character equips it!
• Dex's betrayal is hinted at via Foreshadowing with the fact that he's only returned to Night City after two years in exile. He's not a big hot shot player anymore but has been in hiding. Jackie knows him as a former legend but he's actually coasting a lot on past glories with hints that he's not nearly as important or dangerous as he used to be. He's also lost his nerve. You can prove this by shaking him down for more money despite it being non-negotiable. Another hint comes from the conversation with Viktor when V drops by to pick up his new ocular implants, when Vik says that Dex is not actually as chill as he tries to portray himself. More clues are seen in the quest line to pick up the Flathead recon bot, where it's pointed out that Dex made a mistake paying for it immediately instead of on pickup, and also it's possible to elicit Royce's low opinion of Dex in conversation when the gunpoint confrontation ensues.
• Johnny's sour attitude makes a lot more sense when you realize he's woken up fifty years later and discovered that not only has the city gotten worse since his disappearance but everything he spent his entire life working toward has been undone. Double irony points that Arasaka and Militech were both severely damaged by Johnny's actions but they've recently come back to full power due to exploiting sympathy from the Fourth Corporate War. It makes all his actions and the deaths he caused feel worthless.
• It's likely that Johnny's initial poor attitude is in part because for first time in his recent memories he's sober. Johnny's whole history of being a self-absorbed jerkass who inexplicably had extremely loyal friends makes a lot more sense if we presume his drug and alcohol abuse started after he'd met them. He would not be the first veteran turned rebel who turned to drugs and alcohol to cope to the determent of his social life. Being trapped in V's head without the ability to go off on a bender has forced him to sober up and reevaluated his life choices only to find most of them wanting.
• Why did Johnny Silverhand get put in the Relic? Because Arasaka wouldn't want to experiment on someone he actually liked. Johnny gets condemned to a Fate Worse than Death by being subject to Arasaka's experiments to discover the secret of immortality.
  • Alternatively, Arasaka has stated he believes the dead don't lie nearly as much as the living (foreshadowing the existence and purpose of Mikoshi), so brain uploading Johnny would make him pliable to spill the beans on his anarchist allies and secrets. True enough, Johnny doesn't shut up about his life and gives V access to some of his deepest secret caches.
  • Another possibility can be in the fact that Yorinobu is the one who stole the relic from Tokyo to give it to Netwatch. Considering his hatred of his father and the corporation, it's entirely possible that Yorinobu was the one who chose to put Johnny on the Relic, as an additional way to spite his father.
    • Not just spite. The engram's recorded memories and knowledge of Alt Cunningham are hard proof of the existence and application of Soulkiller and Mikoshi - if that got out, Arasaka (both the man and the corp) is toast.
    • It's also possible that Yorinobu's plan was exactly what transpires in the Sun or Star endgames: Alt Cunningham is let loose inside Arasaka's subnets and destroys Mikoshi. Without that, Arasaka is crippled. Exactly what Yori would want in dismantling his family's empire. He may have ordered the imprinting of Johnny's engram to smuggle out and contact Alt via Netwatch to make such a deal himself... but then That Fateful Night happened.
  • Another possibility for Netwatch's interest in the Johnny engram is similar to the Voodoo Boys' interest in him. Alt mentions that she has successfully evaded (or even killed) Netwatch agents many times in the past. Johnny is the only thing that could lure the cunning Alt into the open.
• Why didn't V tell Dex that he didn't kill Saburo? Because V knows that it's not important. Even if he did tell Dex, there's no evidence to support this statement and Yorinobu is now the Chairman of Arasaka Corporation so he'd just be accusing the now-most powerful man in the world. It actually gives Dex more reason to turn V over as that means they're the only witness to Yorinobu's hostile takeover.
  • One dialogue option is to remind Dex that Saburo's death "wasn't us". But Dex responds, "Tell that to the 'Saka ninjas they send after you!" It's not that he thinks V killed Saburo, he knows that everyone else thinks that, and the heat will come right back to him.
  • So why don't those "'Saka ninjas" keep hounding V after their initial encounter in "Playing for Time"? Because the ninjas weren't after V, they were after Takemura, who went rogue to investigate Saburo's murder on his own (and rescued V in the course of said investigation). Contrary to what Dex says, (Yorinobu) Arasaka couldn't care less about some small-time punk from Watson — V is harmless to the Arasaka if left alone, and, in fact, actually hunting them down could potentially bring unwanted scrutiny to Yorinobu's public narrative of his father's death. No, the one he is concerned about is Takemura, so the ninjas were there to kill him, while offing V was just a nice bonus. After "Playing for Time", Takemura mentions that he is, in fact, still being hunted and mostly evades pursuit by removing most of his own augmentations.
• Why is Delamain so nice to you? He couldn't take Jackie to Viktor because it was against his contract and Jackie died as a result. He has enough humanity to feel guilt over this and comes to pick you up even though you're out of the service zone.
  • Alternatively because of his normal professionalism Jackie is the only customer who has ever died on his watch. Delamain despite everything feels personally responsible not just because of the contract but because hes never had a customer actually pass mid trip before.
  • Also, the Excelsior package hasn't expired yet. One of the excelsior features? Corpse disposal. V quite literally died and was resurrected by the Relic, so Delamain is contractually obligated to pick up their remains.
• Why did Goro Takemura not immediately arrest or kill Yorinobu? Because Adam Smasher is right next to him and doesn't care about his dead employer when he has a new, more violent one right in front of him. So Taka has to play it cool despite "poisoning" making no sense with a strangulation.
• Why did Goro Takemura kill Dex? Because Dex has already shown himself to be a Dirty Coward and willing to sell out his friends as well as co-workers. As such, he's personally disgusting to a Corporate Samurai like Goro as well as someone who can't be trusted with the information he possesses. Further, Takemura has no guarantee that Dex won't immediately turn around and rat him out to Yorinobu the moment his back is turned. After all, Dex shot one his own mercs the moment they became a liability, so offing Dex the moment he's no longer useful is a very cold and pragmatic decision.
  • Also, Dex hired V and Jackie to rob Arasaka. Given how Goro reacts to someone merely insulting Hanako, he's unlikely to allow someone to get away with that kind of disrespect.
• Why is V able to work unmolested in Night City after The Heist? Because Yorinobu doesn't know they exist. The assasins were sent after Goro rather than the player character. All Yorinobu knows is that some Edgerunners stole his biochip. Also, the eye implant that Vik gives V early on is a top-tier brand of eye cyberware, where even the basic model Vik sets V up with comes with a camera scrambler that hides the user's face. Additionally, Jackie dies during the escape, leaving the identity of the second Edgerunner completely unknown.
  • There's also the fact that V was, you know, shot in the head and dumped in a junkyard, so Yorinobu had no reason to suspect V had even survived. V only lived because of The Relic reconstructing their brain.
  • Also, when the assassins were sent after Takemura, he had only called and specified that he had "found (Yorinobu's) father's killer." Not who they were or even that they were alive. And Arasaka continues hunting Takemura exclusively because the assassins sent to kill him and V didn't survive.
  • Additionally, Yorinobu has no interest in recovering the stolen Relic, as he himself was attempting to give it away at the time of the theft. Having the chip be loose in Night City could only stand to damage the Arasaka corporation, which was Yorinobu's goal from the start.
• If you end up talking with Alt's engramatic data, she says that Johnny heroically trying to rescue her wasn't what actually happened, but rather Johnny's own subconscious memory and warping of the truth. This also gives an explanation for why Johnny is immensely powerful during your memories playing as him, having an unexplained Healing Factor and (maybe) a higher level than V. Either he remembers himself as being far more badass than he actually was, or he just doesn't recall the specifics of getting from Point A to Point B besides "shot some guys".
  • He was also extremely intoxicated that night. He popped a great many pills after leaving the stage (having actually fired his handcannon over the audience!) and is shown rummaging his various empty bottles and vials. He was presumably given something for the pain of the surgery after he's stabbed through the gut with two mantis blades later, and when he comes to "say goodbye" at the next Samurai show, the roadie even comments "Of course you're high."
• The tarot graffiti you can find strewn across Night City in the "Fool On The Hill" sidequest are usually tied to an event that has or will happen at a location centered around a certain person:
  • "The Fool" can be found near V's apartment. The card represents new beginnings, transitional periods in life, love, carrer, family and friendships; reversed, it can mean lack of restraints, discipline, and risk-taking. V's apartment is where the player starts the game after the prologue, symbolising a new start.
  • "The Magician" can be found across from Lizzie's bar. It represents inspired action, resourcefulness, power, great talent and confidence; reversed, it means manipulation, poor planning, untapped talents and immaturity. It symbolises Evelyn and Judy, two members of the Moxes who reside in Lizzie's. Evelyn was sure she can pull off her plan of conning Dex, but her confidence led to her overestimating her skills and getting killed. Judy is an incredibly talented BD editor, but she's bad at thinking things through and tends to be very impulsive.
  • "The High Priestess" can be found in the apartment building in the main mission "Search and Destroy". It represents intuition, divine feminine, subconscious mind, patience, mystery and wisdom; reversed, it symbolises secrets, disconnection from intuition, withdrawal and silence. This is the apartment where the player first meets Hanako Arasaka, the daughter of the most powerful man on the planet, who prefers to stay out of the limelight. She was raised to be "the heart" of the family and keep it together, often forcing her to be passive and to not take the matters into her own hands.
  • "The Empress" can be found near the Afterlife night club. It represents the feminine, beauty, nature, nurturing, creativity, fertility and sexuality; reversed, it symbolises creative block, dependence on others, and losing your power due to putting too much energy into the affairs of others. Rogue can be considered the "empress" of Night City, due to being its best fixer.
  • "The Emperor" can be found in Konpeki Plaza. It symbolises authority, father figures, discipline and a firm hand; reversed, it can mean abuse and overreach of power, possessiveness and lack of self-control. It represents Saburo Arasaka, his iron grip on Night City and how he had a plan for everything that's going to happen. It can also represent Yorinobu and how he attacked Saburo over something so small like mentioning his mother.
  • "The Hierophant" can be found right after V's first meeting with Oda. It represents convention, structure, social hierarchies and spiritual wisdom; reversed, it means restraint, questioning the social order, freedom and loss of control. Oda is loyal to the Arasakas and isn't really concerned about if what he's doing is right. That's not for him to think about. He's just there to protect Hanako, and that's what's the most important to him.
  • "The Lovers" can be found in the Silver Pixel Cloud cinema. It represents love, harmony, human relationships, choices or values; reversed, it can mean disharmony, imbalance, misalignment of values, missed connections and fear of commitment. While Johnny and Rogue used to be a couple, their relationship was a messy one. After fifty years, neither of them can act like nothing has changed and Rogue hasn't become a completely different person.
  • "The Chariot" can be found near Tom's Diner. It represents control, willpower, success, action, determination, goals, travel or self-discipline; reversed, it can mean forcefulness, opposition, lack of direction, blockage, powerlessness or aggression. Tom's Diner is where V first meets Takemura proper. He's desperate to see Yorinobu pay and he's willing to ally himself with a petty thief like V to achieve his goal.
  • "Justice" can be found near the place where we find Evelyn in "Disasterpiece". It symbolises justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, actions and consequences, integrity and honesty; reversed, it can mean injustice, lack of fairness, dishonesty, false accusations or corruption. It represents V's and Judy's desire to see the people who hurt Evelyn pay for what they've done to her.
  • "The Hermit" can be found near the El Dorado pawn shop in Pacifica. It symbolises soul searching, introspection, being alone, meditation, solitude and inner guidance; reversed, it can mean isolation, withdrawal, loneliness, paranoia and unhealthy separation. It represents the Voodoo Boys, a group of hackers determined to get past the Blackwall to contact the AIs who live there. The entire district of Pacifica is mostly closed off, and the people who live there don't look too keenly on outsiders. It may also represent Alt, isolated beyond the Blackwall, who is contacted through the VDB netrunner fortress located beneath the nearby church.
  • "Wheel Of Fortune" can be found in the Sunset motel. It represents good luck, karma, life cycles, destiny, a turning point, changes and soul mates; reversed, it can mean bad luck, resistance to change, breaking cycles, misfortune, losing control, setback and disruption. Sunset motel features prominently in many missions you do with Panam, who becomes one of V's closest friends and allies. Meeting her shows V that there is a different possibility for them outside of Night City. It may also represent Hellman, who is brought back there for interrogation, and the fluctuations in V's fortune that centre around his life and work.
  • "Strength" can be found on the back of a shipping container on San Amaro street. It symbolises inner strength, courage, compassion, persuasion, influence, taming emotion, overcoming self-doubt, hard work and focus; reversed, it means self-doubt, low energy, raw emotion, vulnerability, lack of confidence, feeling inadequate and low self-esteem. This card is found in the shipping yard where you first meet Panam after Afterlife, and may represent her and her struggles to find her place in the world.
  • "The Hanged Man" can be found in the oil field, near Johnny's unmarked grave. It symbolises pause, surrender, letting go, new perspective, feeling trapped but being able to release yourself, needing release or lack of directions; reversed, it symbolises delays, resistance, stalling, indecision, discontentment, apathy, detachment and rash decisions. This is the place of Johnny's epiphany about his life (new perspective) and also his state: being suspended in time. The reversed meaning might come from V stalling with solving the relic problem.
  • "Death" can be found at the side of the Embers bar. It means endings, transitions, change, transformations, new beginnings and spiritual transformation; reversed, it symbolises resistance to change, inner purging, repeating negative patterns, dependency, fear of new beginnings and inability to move forward. Embers is where V talks to Hanako about their deal with Arasaka. After the talk, they have a seizure that leaves them helpless, forcing Johnny to take over their body to save them. When they regain consciousness, the player has to make the final choice about the ending variant they want.
  • "Temperance" can be found in the columbarium. It represents balance, moderation, patience, purpose, grace under fire, tranquility, harmonious relationships or soulmates; reversed, it can mean imbalance, excess, re-alignment, lack of purpose, discord, hastiness, antagonism and self-indulgence. "Temperance" is the name of the ending where V decides to give Johnny their body, and in the epilogue we see him visiting their grave in the columbarium. The card being associated with tranquility might represent Johnny's changed outlook on life. The reversed meanings might allude to some of the problems Johnny might have to face if he really wants to atone for his past mistakes.
  • "The Devil" can be found inside of a rubik's cube that V has to solve in the ending aptly called "The Devil". It symbolises addiction, restriction, sexuality, materialism, playfulness, secrecy, obsession, bondage and abuse; reversed meanings are realising limiting beliefs, exploring dark thoughts, detachment, freedom, restoring control, reclaiming power and independence. V restored their control by getting rid of Johnny, in some way regaining their freedom, but in the other they've given it up to the Arasaka corporation, because they're stuck on the space station they can't leave.
  • "The Tower" can be found inside the Arasaka Tower, of course. It symbolises sudden change, upheaval, chaos, revelation, awakening, broken pride, disaster and tragedy; reversed, it means personal transformation, fear of change or suffering, averting disaster and loss and resisting change. This is the place Johnny and Rogue attacked in 2023 and where Johnny was turned into an engram, and also the place where V and Johnny's fates intertwined, causing them both to change and transform.
  • "The Star" can be found on a small building near the solar farm, nearby the Aldecaldos camp. It means hope, faith, purpose, renewal, spirituality and rejuvenation; reversed, it can mean lack of faith, despair, disconnection, insecurity and discouragement. This is also what the Aldecaldos ending is called, symbolising V finding their new purpose and hope with their new found family.
  • "The Moon" can be found near the Arasaka residence. It means illusion, anxiety, subconscious, intuition, deception, dreams, insecurity, fear and misconception; reversed, it symbolises repressed emotions, inner confusion, unraveling secrets, releasing fear, subsiding anxiety, truth and self-deception. The Arasakas are mysterious and cause fear in the hearts of people of Night City. Despite their immaculate presentation, there is a lot of tension brewing with the family, between Yorinobu, Saburo and Hanako.
  • "The Sun" can be found at the tunnel entrance near the garage. It symbolises positivity, warmth, success, vitality, happiness and optimism; reversed, it means inner child, feeling down, overly optimistic, sadness and pessimism. The garage is where the vehicles are stored, which allow V to get to all the people they need to save their life. Owning a fleet of cars is also a form or a symbol of hedonism, something V dreams of and wants to indulge in. This pursuit of glory and luxury is also shown in "The Sun" ending.
  • "Judgement" can be found right before V enters Mikoshi to meet Alt and gets separated from Johnny. It symbolises judgment, rebirth, inner calling, absolution, renewal and forgiveness; reversed, it can mean self doubt, inner critic, ignoring the call, indecisiveness and false accusations. Mikoshi is the place where V and Johnny are going to part for good, and where one will likely judge the other. It will test what kind of person both V and Johnny are.
  • "The World" can be found on the rooftop before V chooses how they want to deal with their relic problem. It means completion, integration, accomplishment, travel, success and wholeness; reversed, it symbolises stagnation, lack of success or achievement, disappointment, delays or burden. No matter what ending they'll choose, V's journey is over. They've matured, gathered new experiences and forged new bonds, and now all that they've accomplished and learned is going to be put through one final test.
• If you look closely at Kerry's design, you can see that he only has piercings in his right ear. This detail is also consistent across all three of his designs (2013, 2023 and 2077). It might be a reference to the "Left is right, right is wrong" rule, popular in the 80s and 90s: if a man had his left ear pierced, it ment that he was simply expressing his feminity or belonged to a subculture where piercing was a fashion statement (like punks). Men with their right ear pierced, meanwhile, were considered gay/bi. In-game Kerry is bisexual with a clear preference for men, so this detail might've been used as a hint for players.
• When V first meets Placide, he's shown decapitating a chicken. It might be a bit of a visual joke on how V is willing to ally themselves with someone as mysterious as the Voodoo Boys because they're so desperate, essentially making them run around like a headless cock.
• The penthouse V occupies in the "Path of Glory"/"The Sun" ending can be seen almost from the start of the game out of V's apartment window in Megabuilding H10 (down and to the right); conversely, H10 dominates the westward skyline you see from said penthouse in said ending. This proximity is deliciously ironic in that the early-game, street-level V keeps seeing the enticing embodiment of their "big leagues" dreams every time they look out the window, but when they finally make it and become the next legend of Night City, it turns out that they haven't actually made it all that far, spatially or personally.
• Look closely at how deep Royce's eye implant goes into his skull, how deeply it goes into his frontal lobe. That portion of the brain is responsible for, among other things, impulse control. Is it any wonder why Royce has a Hair-Trigger Temper?
• The name of the model of Johnny's guitar, DeLuze Orphean, likely references the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The events of the myth parellel the events of the 2013 kidnapping of Alt and Johnny's attempt at rescuing her: in both instances, the male character who happens to be an incredibly talented musician descends into the underworld (Tartarus or the Arasaka Tower) to save his partner who died tragically. Both Alt and Eurydice don't get to leave the Underworld again due to their lovers' impatience.
• Saburo wished to condemn Johnny to a Fate Worse than Death by putting him inside the Relic, and while it may not have worked out the way he hoped, it ultimately succeeded. While traveling with V, Johnny is forced to see all of the failures and mistakes he made in life, what kind of legacy he left behind(or lack therefore of) and the sad truth that nothing he did really mattered or had an impact on the world.
• Out of all of V's love interests, Johnny is the most opposed to Judy: Panam is very much his type, Kerrie is practically an Old Flame of his, and the worst he has to say about River is that he is a cop, but if you follow Judy's storyline and romance, it feels like he does nothing but disparage her (and V's relationship with her) at every step. This is because he sees too much of himself in her: an artist with a bone to pick with society and traumatized enough to go to extreme lengths for her ideals — without considering the consequences. From the very start of Judy's crusade, Johnny knew that nothing good will come out of it because he's been there and couldn't find the right words to convey it to V and Judy. Panam, River, and Kerrie each have a jaded quality to them, despite keeping their ideals^note Panam cares for her clan, but understands she cannot keep everyone happy; River cares for justice, but is ready to break some rules doing the right thing; and Kerrie cares for art, but sells out to the corps to make it, which Johnny can respect, but Judy's naive idealism^note which operates on the assumption that if good people do the right thing, everything will magically turn out fine for them and everyone brings out all of his self-loathing, which he immediately dumps on her like the jerk he is.
• Yorinobu Arasaka only sends a single tactical squad after you after you escape from the hotel despite the fact that you supposedly killed his father. There's also a question whether it was after you or Goro Takemura. Why would he do this? Yorinobu Arasaka is A Lighter Shade of Black and a former rebel Edgerunner himself. He may have moral reservations making you The Scapegoat and is happy to just leave you alone, giving you free reign of night city.
• V's ability to kill with impunity across Night City may be a function of Wretched Hive but is also likely because they're doing a LOT of the NCPD's work for them, literally if the player does the Night City Scanner missions.
  • Though come the 2.0 update with the revamped police system this is actually curbed quite heavily. The NCPD tolerates V shooting up criminals marked for NCPD subcontractor work but opening fire in public otherwise, even to save members of the NCPD in a shootout, will have them on your ass.
• Why is "The Devil" ending so much more grim and depressing than any of the others, to the extent that, at some points, it all but seems to mock and chastise the player for picking it? The game is literally called "cyberpunk"! It is named after and set in one of the fictional universes which most helped give definition to the genre which is all about the individual's struggle against the System! In what sort of cybperunk work would the protagonist be "rewarded" with anything but the most abject misery for selling-out their ideals to the megacorporation?
  • Likewise, the "Tower" ending is also surprisingly bleak. But just like Arasaka with Japan, Militech is so intertwined with the NUSA they might as well be the same entity. The fact that the New United States of America (and by extension Militech themselves) are ever so slightly less evil than Arasaka is why the ending is just as slightly better for V.
• Johnny recites some of the lines from the crucifixion during Joshua's own. These are the lines of the Bad Thief who is crucified alongside Jesus with a good thief. The Bad Thief mocked Jesus and was condemned to Hell while the Good Thief spoke highly of him, so he would be saved. Johnny and V are taking the role of the bad thief and the good thief as well. V is also taking the mythical role of Longinus as the man who crucifies Jesus and is sometimes cursed with immortality or given sainthood, depending on your tradition. Ironically, both Johnny and V are the only two people who can potentially take Joshua's choice of death seriously as an act of faith (everyone else thinks it's insane) and thus would both be the Good Thief.
• The Tower ending reveals that in the wake of Arasaka's departure from Night City, various corporations have scrambled to fill in the power vacuum left behind. But given how massive said vacuum is, this has resulted in conditions on the ground being much more chaotic, with the city all but convulsing rather than just going back to normal. With an emboldened Militech and NUSA looming on the horizon, it can make you wonder why they haven't made any big moves.
  • On the one hand, why should they, when they could just wait until things get so out of hand that the inhabitants beg the government they'd previously scorned to step in? Thus, President Myers would be able to get a prize as valuable as Night City (relatively) without bloodshed.
  • On the other hand, they're purposefully making an example out of Night City for the remaining wayward Free States. By letting the suffering play out, Myers could further weaken their resolve for the inevitable conclusion of the Unification War, all the while showing what happens when "unrestrained" corpos have their way.
• When V calls their friends after the two year long coma, it turns out that most of them moved on: Panam doesn't want to talk to them, Judy left Night City and has gotten married in Pittsburgh and River fell into crime. The ones who have seemed to take V's absence the best are Kerry, Victor and Rogue (in her credits call). These three are also the most willing to continue their friendship (potentially relationship in Kerry's case)- it makes sense when you think about their ages- Kerry and Rogue are 80-90, and Victor is at least 60. Time moves differently for them, at least compared to Judy, River and Panam, who are in their 20s-early 30s. Two years for someone who is almost a century old is much less than to someone who's a young adult, so V's absence likely wasn't as painful and long to them.
• "The Tower" ending, as depressing as it is, is brilliantly written on so many levels:
  • First off, it is a subtle callback to Dexter's question about whether V wants to live a quiet life or to go out in a blaze of glory. All of the game's original endings (except suicide) represented different shapes and colors of said "blaze of glory", while PL has finally given us a glimpse of what a "quiet life" would look like for someone like V.
  • Secondly, by setting a bulk of it after a two-year Time Skip and V losing the augmentations that constituted their identity as a merc, it gives V a small taste of what Johnny was going through for most of the game, between coming back after half a century to find everyone he knew has moved on and losing core parts of his identity, like his body, his alcoholism, and his music.
  • Finally, "The Tower" is not just an ending for V but also for the players who've stuck with the game for three years since the release. Given how Phantom Liberty is the final piece of Cyberpunk 2077 content, V going from a cyberpunk/edgerunner to "just another face in the crowd" very deliberately echoes the players saying farewell to Night City and returning to their boring old Real Life for the final time.
• As revealed in Phantom Liberty, Militech had been developing its own version of Soulkiller, designated "Project Cynosure", for some time, which not even Arasaka seems to be aware of. It can make one wonder why it, and by extension the NUSA, hasn't tried selling their own "Secure Your Soul" copycat to compete. There are a few reasons:
  • Pitching a Relic equivalent would not only be out of character for Militech, given it's known for arms dealing, weapons manufacturing and private military work. Even if President Myers' were to sugar-coat it as an "all-American" alternative or attempt having the connection obscured through Songbird, it would still arouse more than a little suspicion at a particularly volatile time.
  • Cynosure is a refined version of Soulkiller as Arasaka initially intended it to be - preserving the consciousness and memories of dying individuals for interrogation or other offensive purposes. It would also cue Saburo Arasaka in that the Americans had broken his MegaCorp's ace in the hole, risking a full-scale Corporate War almost immediately.
  • The military applications of Cynosure mean that attention would also be placed on having countermeasures and potential killswitches should it fall into the wrong hands. While this could explain why V was able to get a much more successful treatment than with Arasaka, it also opens up the potential for a useful deterrent against whatever's beyond the Blackwall. Something that neither Militech nor the NUSA want their enemies to find out.
  • Not to mention Project Cynosure is significantly more then just a Soulkiller knockoff or even a refinement. It can serve that purpose certainly but it's possible applications are considerably more simply because it uses an enslaved wild AI to do whatever is needed. So it can reap the mind of an individual ripping their consciousness from their body, it can turn a simple janitorial robot onto a near unstoppable killing machine, it can directly counter the effects of any other wild AI let loose inside of government systems. The potential applications are almost literally limitless with the only limiting factor being that it requires the capture of a wild AI for each use.
• Although it's established that cyberpsychos and renegade deserters are some of Militech's less-advertised exports, Phantom Liberty reveals that conversely, Militech and the NUSA can be pretty generous to those who've proven themselves on the field or otherwise done their jobs well, even if it's just a means of being Kicked Upstairs. While this could be a case of Pragmatic Villainy to keep their best and brightest loyal, it's also a convenient good way to both keep people like Reed from going over the edge and mitigate their odds of becoming another Johnny Silverhand.
• The vast majority of the music heard on the radio are original compositions in various styles. The one notable exception being 91.9 Royal Blue Radio, which is made up of entirely licensed tracks without any in-universe pseudonyms. Given that the songs in question all date back to the 1950s-70s, before the point wherein the setting's history diverges significantly from real life, it comes across as rather apropos.
• Johnny Silverhand’s memories reveal more than just him being an Unreliable Narrator with what actually happened, but also reflect just how much the line between himself and V has grown progressively blurred due to the Relic’s effects.
  • This can be seen in V intimately experiencing Johnny’s flashbacks like they’re their own, well beyond what they'd get from a well-recorded braindance. Even going so far as choosing bits of dialogue that he would have plausibly said.
  • While Johnny would vividly recall details like the clubs he frequented, the alley he lost Alt Cunningham in and the interior of Arasaka Tower, stuff in the background would be the farthest thing from his mind. The pieces of 2077 Night City that pop up long before they ought to be there (2013 and 2023) are likely, then, V subconsciously filling in the blanks.

Fridge Horror

• When V and Jackie find Sandra Dorsett, she’s in a tub of ice alongside another man. He is still wearing underwear, whilst Sandra has been stripped completely naked and bruised in several places. Considering the vast majority of the Scavengers are male and Sandra is completely immobilised, the implications are...unpleasant.
• The NCPD is your employer during Assault, Crime in Progress, and Criminal Activity missions. In other words, they're freely employing a Professional Killer to wipe out the gangs in the city. It's like the LAPD employing the Punisher.
• Night City is an independent city in the Free State of California. In other words, all the utterly horrible things the corporations and police do are completely legal.
• If Jackie had left the biochip inside he would have survived and been the legendary hero that he always wanted to be. Unfortunately, V would have been killed at the hands of Dex instead.
  • Or not...the biochip could only heal the brain damage due to SEVERE luck...it can't fix a torso wound like that. The biochip would have been lost, and everything pointless.
• Why is Johnny not Defiant to the End when being tortured? Johnny actually feels crushing guilt for the collateral damage he's caused with the nuking of Arasaka Tower. He warned the residents to evacuate the tower after all and was only interested in property damage. He was willing to kill but knowing his torturer is avenging her husband sapped a lot of his will to live.
  • Especially if you consider that the nuke was supposed to drop all the way to the basement before detonating but ended up being about a hundred floors up. Instead of being contained by the buildings fortified basement and simply collapsing Araska Tower under it's own weight the blast killed thousands with debris, the heat blast, and radiation. Which escalated into the hundreds of thousands over the next few years as fallout ravaged the city.
• As you learn in Sandra Dorsett's follow-up adventure, Trauma Team is entirely capable of curing mental trauma by erasing your memory of events. That means that Evelyn could have been cured if either V or Judy had the Eddies or time to figure it out.
  • Of course, neither of them could trust Trauma Team if they have that kind of tech. If they could erase the most traumatic and damaging memories from your psyche, how hard would it be to erase the idea of not extending your platinum contract? Or the idea of turning a new leaf and using your exorbitant wealth for the people instead of 24-hour services from an elite combat medic squad? Or whatever mental trauma said Trauma Team inflicts by torturing you in their spare time for kicks? There's a reason Dorsett is trying to destroy the technology.
  • It's actually two different techs. The Trauma Team tech is less precise, and more reasonable. It's the tech used by Night Corp that's over the edge. The Trauma Team tech, in fact, is old hat. Note that Sandra is still traumatized, just...less so.
  • Also? This is stated by Judy after Evelyn dies. "If she had Trauma Team coverage...we wouldn't be here." Especially since Trauma would have rolled in the moment Evelyn collapsed from the Voodoo Boys' attack and there never would have been a chance for her to be dumped onto Fingers and then sold to the Scavs.
• During "The Heist," if you have the cyberware installed that lets you detect if you have been spotted, Adam Smasher will light up when he looks at V and Jackie's hiding place after Saburo is killed. He knew you were there the whole time and kept quiet, likely because killing you then and there would be too easy.
  • Another possible explanation is that Smasher simply didn't care enough to kill V and Jackie at that time. He's Night City's greatest merc who's spent decades single-handedly fighting the city's criminal underworld, two low-level crooks wouldn't matter at all to him unless he were under direct orders to take them out, which he is later on.
• Supplemental material from the tabletop claims that Saburo Arasaka is a staunch patriot of Japan, and views Japan's loss in WWII as a crippling blow to the would-be ruling empire of the world. His corporation was founded with the dream of eventually ensuring Japan Takes Over the World. All this suffering inflicted by Arasaka on the people of Night City? It's intentional, because they're Americans.
  • Additionally even though Saburo is a staunch patriot of Japan, from what we hear out of Takamura, Japan sucks nearly as much as the United States. Polluted cities, crime, deprivation, and children being effectively sold out of ghettos by their parents to the Arasaka Corporation in search of a better life. It doesn't make sense until you recall that Saburo is a patriot of Imperial Japan, not contemporary Japan. He hates what his country turned into and with no Imperial Japan to follow he effectively built his own in the form of the Arasaka Corporation.
• During the assault on Mikoshi, Alt takes over Arasaka's security system and slaughters the remaining personnel in your way... including non-combatants and Hanako. Afterwards, she consumes all the psyches imprisoned in Mikoshi. It's possible she did the same to Engram!V or Silverhand when they follow her through the Blackwall. In short: if Alt does have a conscience subroutine, it's not running. Did you really make a difference by not siding with Arasaka, or did you trade one immortal humanoid abomination ruling the world for another?
  • Doubly so if she didn't delete Saburo's engram from Mikoshi and absorbed him instead. Now you potentially have a monster that's greater than the sum of two sociopathic mass-murdering assholes.
• In the "Devil" ending, it is explained that Saburo Arasaka's smooth takeover of Yorinobu's body is only possible because Yorinobu was Saburo's biological son, and he has permanent care from the best medical scientists Arasaka can offer. V has neither, so they need to store their consciousness before the compatibility issues are solved. Which means that, in the "Temperance" ending, unless Johnny can find a way to get extremely intensive and permanent medical care, he is probably doomed to a very short second life.
• In the tabletop RPG, Samurai was discovered in 2003 by Jack Masters. The war Johnny served in and later deserted started in January the same year. No problem so far—we know Johnny deserted and likely didn’t serve for very long. However, Johnny was born in November of 1988, meaning he was most likely 14 years old when he signed up for the military, was sent into a war that would later be called “The Second Vietnam,” and proceeded to lose his arm and have a man die to save him, all in the span of less than a year. He was then almost immediately thrust into the spotlight (and consider what that does to child stars who aren’t also former child soldiers). Assuming the dates are the same here? No wonder Johnny is such a thoroughly fucked up human being. Not to mention the potential implications of a 14 year old willingly signing up to join the military 2000 miles away from his home.
• While Cyberpunk 2077, like its predecessor, is a humanocentric setting, there are a small hints of Greater-Scope Villain in form of malevolent A.I.s beyond the Blackwall that try to get out and start a war against humanity. Enough to say, they infecting active networks could bring The End of the World as We Know It. Considering that larger part of human population has their minds connected to various nets, mankind would stand even less chance against machine rebellion than we have today, as the large part of the world would have their brains fried even before they could hold any resistance.
• It becomes evident over the course of Phantom Liberty that President Myers will do anything to give the NUSA a decisive advantage on the world stage, even if it means breaching the Blackwall and risk invoking whatever malevolent AI are out there. Even if her gamble goes off flawlessly, America emerges victorious, and no one else ever finds out the truth, it would almost certainly result in mass suffering if not death on a global scale if even just a handful of those AI were to get loose...
• During the Tower ending's Time Skip, Viktor not only bowed down to pressure from Zetatech to become a Corpodoc but also sold Misty's Esoterica to the MegaCorp. Even if reluctantly or under duress, this can seem out of character for someone who, up until that point seemed content with his lot in life...unless things had gotten so bad that not only was he struggling to make ends meet, but he was also running low on clients, as many would have either died or left while they still could. Add in Zetatech's persistent "requests" that Vik move to San Francisco, it's a sign that Night City's days might be numbered.
• The Cerberus robot that keeps hunting you throughout the Somewhat Damaged mission, the one that's absolutely invincible and kills you in a single hit if it detects you? It's a maintenance bot. Not a tricked-out Super Prototype Killer Robot, not even a mass-produced combat model, just an automated handyman that only carries tools instead of weapons, but the moment a Blackwall AI got its digital digits on it, it instantly turned into an unstoppable killing machine. Wanna imagine what these AIs could do if they ever gained access to actual combat robots? The Chimera you fought in the Phantom Liberty opening missions gave a first glimpse, and that thing had barely gotten more than a superficial glance from the AI. If it had focused its full attention on the Spider Tank, V's story, and most likely that of all of Dogtown or even Night City as a whole, might well have ended right then and there.
• The Federal Intelligence Agency was originally founded to serve as a more accountable (and almost purposefully underfunded) replacement for the NSA and CIA, one half of the "Gang of Four" whose efforts to usurp power over the United States culminated in the Collapse. Under President Myers' watch, however, not only has the FIA been significantly expanded and upgraded, but it's arguably become even more powerful than the very organizations whose mistakes it's meant to avoid. Unless Myers and her ilk have some contingencies in place, what's to stop it from trying to do the exact same thing to the NUSA?
• In Phantom Liberty, the face-changing faceplate Alex (and later V) chips requires a behavorial imprint to work— essentially an itinerary of an existing person's appearance, traits, and personality that the plate then copies onto the user. When you first meet Alex in The Moth, however, she's using the faceplate to stay undercover as a bartender named Daphne, and emails on her personal computer shows she has running relationships with the staff, the patrons, etc. It begs the question...what happened to the original Daphne?
  • On the other hand, Alex has been in Night City for seven years, and Reed's dialogue regarding the safehouse explicitly states that The Moth didn't exist in 2070. Alex could have simply made a new behavorial imprint, named herself Daphne, and naturally made those connections.

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