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WMG / Cyberpunk 2077

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Pre-Release Theories

     Pre-release theories 

The woman with the scythe arms in the teaser trailer will be the recruitable cyberpsycho.
They've already got the concept and the model, so it'd be surprising if she wasn't.
  • Jossed. Information released tells that the woman will not be appearing in the game.

The woman in the teaser trailer is the main player character
She'll basically be the game's version of Geralt.
  • Jossed. As information released tells that the woman will not be appearing in the game and that the main character will be customizable.
  • Though the woman does not appear, her blade augmentation does. It's entirely possible to create a female V that resembles her.
    • And SUPER-Jossed in that said woman winds up being a target for V in a side mission, which has them take her down along with the Max-Tac squad she was recruited into and now leading.

The game will have a Karma Meter in the form of an empathy score.
It was such a part of the game. Sure the player may be tempted to get more cool stuff but if that EMP score goes down...
  • Jossed: Cyberpsychosis is not something V deals with in-game and completing Regina Jones' questline reveals Cyberpsychosis itself is a Conspiracy Theory pushed by the media, with the real cause being multiple co-morbid factors only 'tangentially' related to cybernetic implants - i.e. more to do with defects of crappy Gen-1 models, addiction to drugs, etc.

Ciri from the Witcher series will appear in the game.
In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Ciri reveals to Geralt she traveled to a world where “People there had metal in their heads. Waged war from a distance, using things similar to megascopes. And there were no horses, everyone had their own flying ship instead.” All this hints that she was in the Cyberpunk universe and might appear in the game as a cameo or recruitable ally.
  • Could be just a simple reference to the developers' next project though.
    • Could be a cameo like Max from Sam and Max being in Jedi Knight.
  • Jossed. They've gone on record to say that there will be no Ciri cameo whatsoever.
  • She does get a very small nod, as the number 1 High Score in the Roach Race minigame is held by a Z 1 R 343 L, implying Ciri aced the game during her time in NC.

Someone in this game will be Putting on the Reich
In this kind of setting, that's usually something that says "I AM EVIL".
  • and given... recent events, the idea of a neo-nazi group operating openly is becoming less and less far-fetched. Bet they'd be anti-cyberwear on top of everything else.
  • What has been presented with the setting so far, either World War 2 has been forgotten due to a poor education, the gang would flimsily/inaccurately try to imitate the style and beliefs due to said hilariously inaccurate education or simply would not even raise an eyebrow from others, due to how many other variants of freak live in Night City.
  • The Original Pn P had the Red Chrome Legion gang, described as "A militant skinhead gang that will terrorize anyone different from themselves.", along with the Inquisitors gang who's focus is being anti-cyberware, but being fine with Bioware.
  • Semi-confirmed with Arasaka, who take after Imperialist Japan (as in the allies of the Nazis); Saburo seeks to rule the world through fear, the same way the Axis sought to crush its enemies through fear. In the Devil ending, he possesses his own son and effectively becomes a god, to the outrage of the public.

Social media will not only cover a lot of backstory on people and do some world building, but also have to do with side missions
For example, something like you're investigating a murder and you have to check on someone's Facebook page or Twitter if they posted anything that leads them to possible suspects.
  • Given this setting: it'll likely be you searching for the victim's handle through BBS boards and the like.
    • From a game developer standpoint, I'd just have the character use their phone in-story without forcing the player to figure things out themselves for a mission. It'd be hard to create a convincing mission segment where you personally track down a person or culprit without them saying something obvious like: "Takin a ride with my homie after SMOKING this mf lolololol #ImAtWallStreet". I would just leave any important messages for the player to interpret at their leisure.
  • Confirmed: One mission involves searching the web for a cult leader's public website, to get information on his victims.

Each character class in the game will be essentially a different, pre-established character in their own right.
In the past CDProjekt Red set themselves apart from the Bioware formula by having a pre-established protagonist in their Witcher-series, rather than a generic one with a customizable appearance. But Cyberpunk is said to have a customizable protagonist, so how can they keep the best parts of Witcher's approach while still giving the player options? Simply give each of the character classes of the game a distinct voice and personality, as well as different relationships with some of the game's NPCs, giving them different limitations and advantages for resolving different quests beyond just some soulless stats. The player still gets to customize the character's name, appearance, sex and so on, but when it comes to the dialogue options, they have to pick from ones that match the character's established personality. Not only would this be a serious step forward from the generic protagonist-syndrome, but the replay value would be enormous.
  • Jossed, the game is classless, with Techie, Solo, and Netrunner being skill trees one can invest in.
  • On the other hand, something like this might still be planned with the three different backgrounds the player can pick from, Nomad, Street Kid and Corporate. Each background has their own prologue.

The protagonist is a radical cyberpunk individualist who renounces permanent identity.
As an alternative to the previous WMG, the main character could be an extreme cybernetic body modifier who has rejected stable identity entirely and freely switches between gender, appearance, and with the aid of brain implants, even skills and personality traits. This could allow in-universe justification for changing a character class during gameplay, and could explain the "cost" that CDPR at one point alluded to such a choice; by doing so, you basically erase your character's current relationships with the NPCs, since they no longer recognize you as the same person, and you may no longer be able to hang out with same people or do the same quests when you've gone from a street samurai to a corporate climber, or vice versa.
  • Jossed: V doesn't really change too much barring them letting Johnny take over their mind in the "Temperance" ending, and V itself is a nickname which is short for Vincent and Valerie for a Male and Female V respectively.

Night City is a metaphor for Hollywood.
Being a colorful yet horrible place that people nonetheless flock to for the prospect of getting famous and wealthy. It's even located in California.
  • Word of God says that Night City is inspired by Los Angeles and San Francisco, and is geographically situated between both.
    • Given the themes of Cyberpunk 2020 and Night City's role in them, this theory has some solid ground to stand on.

The more cybernetic augmentations the player gets, the more penalties they will accrue.
Cyber-psychosis is a major theme in the original tabletop game and something that is suggested to be a continued problem in this game. As a player installs more cybernetics into their body, the chances of those enhancements betraying them or going haywire will increase. Thus, the player will need to assess how far they are willing to augment their body, and whether the risk of cyber-psychosis is worth it.
  • Jossed, devs have confirmed the player character will not be affected by cyber-psychosis. This may have everything to do with the Bio-Chip's nanomachines replacing the psychotic parts of V's brain with Johnny's.
    • An addendum to the last spoiled speculation - V doesn't get Cyberpsychosis because Cyberpsychosis is a Conspiracy Theory pushed by the media, with the real cause being a bunch of complicated co-morbid issues, with few directly related to the cybernetics themselves (apart from issues handling crappy Gen-1 models)

The events of Cyberpunk 2020 are shifted forward by between 50 and 60 years, such that 2077 is the original 2020s
  • Jossed. The game's Facebook page already revealed that Saburo Arasaka was born in 1919, the same year as in the tabletop game, and his younger son Yorinobu looks noticeably older than the twenty-ish bosozoku he is depicted as in the tabletop game as well.

V has no legal identity, hence the name.
In the world of Cyberpunk, there are individuals who are of a class that is not recognized by official governing systems and have no personal legal identities. V may be one of these people, giving him/her the freedom to move around and through Night City unnoticed and has taken a simple, non-descript name.

If you get rich enough, you can get 'health insurance' that allows you to call in the Trauma Team if you get downed in a fight.
Or you can send out a fake emergency call and watch them tear through your enemies to rescue a non-existent client.
  • Jossed.

The Max-Tac officer from the first trailer will be the main antagonist or a major character of the game
At some point, V will encounter the officer. The player everywhere will instantly have an Oh, Crap! moment as they realize that this is the badass officer from the trailer.
  • Confirmed (sort of), in that V can be tasked with taking down a Max-Tac squad - and the leader isn't the Max-Tac officer, but the recruited cyberpsycho woman with Mantis arms. With said side mission being called "Bullets" to ram home how it's the same Max-Tac squad.

The game's "morality system" runs on the line between a Rebel and a Collaborator.
Now, CDPR has said that there are no clear-cut good and evil choices in this game, but there's still going to be decisions that define your character's path and future. In one extreme there's a rebellious protagonist who wholeheartedly opposes the corporate establishment, while in the other the protagonist seeks to achieve a high position within the said establishment. And in between there's a lone wolf who doesn't care one way or another about the state of the world, they just try to become rich and independent. This WMG is based on the character creation scene from the first published gameplay video, where the player gets to choose V's childhood hero, between Johnny Silverhand, Morgan Blackhand and Saburo Arasaka — a rebellious Rockerboy, a rootless Solo and a ruthless Corporate magnate.
  • Possibly Jossed. E3 2019 build removes the ability to select your childhood hero and instead defaults to Johnny Silverhand.
  • However, the devs have confirmed that the character’s life path choice will play a major role in shaping your character’s worldview and have ramifications for the plot up until the very end. This mostly amounts to additional dialogue choices based on an understanding of specific social circles; Nomad!V empathizes with drifters and other nomads, Streetpunk!V empathizes with the lowly commoners of Night City, Corpo!V understands the dog-eat-dog world of the mentally-ill elite.
  • The morality meter mostly determines V's opinion on whether they tolerate or loathe Johnny, determining if they want him to leave their body or stay.

Johnny Silverhand is Dead All Along or something else.
During the gameplay demo, the radio is playing a new song by Johnny Silverhand. While this doesn't sound weird to newcomers, fans of the table top game will find it strange since not only was Silverhand a hit rockstar during Cyberpunk 2020, the fact he's still active 50 years later in Cyberpunk 2077 and still sounds like a young man is rather strange. This might mean two things:
  • Silverhand is Dead All Along and the one singing on the radio is an Impostor setup by his record company or a Legacy Character by a young singer who has taken Silverhand's name to continue the Rockerboy movement.
  • Silverhand is still alive but has undergone full cybernetics to still sound young and stay active or uses Brain Uploading to transfer his mind into a new, younger body.
  • Confirmed. Johnny Silverhand is a digital ghost.

The Johnny in the trailer isn't physically there
He seems to glitch when talking to V and even adresses V as a samurai, something that would be unlikely seeing as V was probably stripped of identifying factors such as clothing. This relates to the chip Dexter wants, it holds the backed up personality of Johnny, who's now in your head.
  • Confirmed at this point.

The “Key to Immortality” that’s been mentioned will be Brain Uploading
It would explain how Johnny Silverhand apparently survived getting nuked at the end of the Fourth Corporate War to some extent along with his youthful appearance given that the war was 56 years before the game, and why he is not physically present while speaking to V.
  • You can pretty much consider this confirmed; the software for it's been around since before the Fourth Corporate War. It's also a damn rare item, since it was only found in a particularly nasty piece of Arasaka-owned black ICE or in the hands of it's creator's digital ghost, assuming she's still around in the shattered net somewhere.

Depending on the player's choice, the plot will diverge significantly
CDPR already tried doing that once with The Witcher 2, so it would not be out of character for them to do it again. With a bigger budget and fanbase this time, the divergences will be bigger and more drastic, possibly even making Cyberpunk 2077 having multiple games worth of story content in one.
  • Confirmed by reviews, the plot can diverge at many points depending on which missions the player undertakes and the choices they make to complete them. There appears to be a minimum of 6 endings.
    • To elaborate, there are three main endgame paths; you choose which one you want at the end of Act 2, but you need to complete Panam's questline to choose the Aldecados path, and Rogue's questline to choose the Johnny path, while Hanako and the Arasaka path are always available by default. There's also a secret challenge (beat the final dungeon solo with no checkpoints leading up to the boss fight, which is when you finally get one), but it's mostly Rogue's path with some epilogue changes. You get a Last-Second Ending Choice after you defeat the final boss, though the endings you can get from the choice are dependent on the path you took.

Major and minor characters can die at any point, which might change the ending(s)
In the E3 2019 cinematic trailer, V's partner, Jackie, dies after a shootout. This seems to suggest (not yet confirmed) that Anyone Can Die. If so, the game's major events and future missions can be affected, leading to multiple endings.
  • Sorta confirmed - major characters only die in scripted events (such as Jackie always dying at the end of Act I), but there are multiple endings, and in the "Sun" and "Star" endings, you get Rogue (assuming you asked for her help - she survives if V storms the building by themselves) or Saul killed by Adam Smasher (although not before they throw a grenade in his chassis/blast him with a giant rifle respectively, cutting off a chunk of Smasher's HP in one go).
  • confirmed though a huge spoiler for most of the character deaths. Regardless of what you do, Jackie, T-Bug, Dexter DeShawn & Evelyn Parker, who all seems like an important piece of the puzzle will die over the course of the game, most before the actual title splash screen. As explained above Rogue or Saul dies fighting Adam Smasher, if you don't help River, he and his nephew can die, depending on your approach wiht an emotionally fragile neighbor in V's apartment, they may commit suicide. The Militech agent you meet can be found dead if you don't follow certain criteria of the flathead retrieval mission. The Voodoo boys can be massacred by you directly or via Alt. Following the Panam missions and choose the Panam route for the final attack on Arasaka, half of the named Aldecados you've met during the game die before you're even offically inside. If you choose to fight the Tyger Claws for Clouds' independence and not take the deal, half of Clouds staff including the NPCs introduced for that mission's quest line will be killed off screen, You can accidentally kill Ozob if you hit his grenade nose with an electrical attack during the beat on the Brat missions. And depending on the ending you can kill V and/or Johnny.

Johnny will betray us and become Final Boss of the game
Mike Pondsmith said in the interview with YongYea that "[Johnny Silverhand] WILL break your heart", so the possibility of Johnny betraying V (in order to live forever in his/her body) and becoming the last enemy for V to defeat is quite possible (double points for Chippin' In as his boss battle music).
  • Given how the Deep Dive trailer stated that 2077 has a branching story and that player choice will decide if Johnny is your ally or your enemy, this may be a very possible outcome.
  • Might be possible if it’s also possible for a Corpo V to try to get back into the corporate game. Johnny was the quintessential Rockerboy and loathed Corpo culture and everything it stood for.

There will be a trophy/achievement called "Breathtaking" or "You're Breathtaking
Come on! After Keanu Reeves became "Breathtaking Keanu", this must be a given.
  • But in order to get it, you will have to really earn it. Only the best among the best will be able to be TRULY BREATHTAKING.
    • Confirmed. You will have to collect all Johnny Silverhand memorabilia to earn it.

Similar to Gwent from Witcher 3, there will be an extremely popular minigame in Night City that might even make it the leap to real life
Post theories here:
  • A Dungeons-And-Dragons lookalike that is strangely familiar, about monster hunters whose greatest foes are the people who (refuse to) pay them.
  • A game where your betting chips are the rules of the game, symbolic of how the warring corporations make up the rules of the market they play in.
  • A tabletop war game that's all about using costly portals to warp alien armies to specific weak spots.

Tesla's Cybertruck will be added into the game
While the game is looking to avoid cosmetic DLC, Tesla had announced their Cybertruck in late November 2019 and with font similar to that of the game's logo. Coincidence?
  • Could be possible, however the vehicles in the game are powered by a Polluting Gasoline Hybrid known as CHOOH-2, and the Cybertruck is actually an EV.

Hearst Castle!
Is 20 miles north of Night City. Behold a height of 20th Century luxury and excess contrasted against a dystopic 21st. Behold an effective symbol of the gluttony of capitalism. Behold some place that would make sense as a wealthy antagonists house/a really good level to break in or something. In the game is the idea if you hadn't gotten that already.
  • Jossed , You can't see too much north of NC's limits outside of oil fields and sunken shacks, suggesting the area has become an oil marsh if it still existed.

The creator of the Brain Uploading software is still alive
Well, in a sense. Alt Cunningham's meat body has been dead since late 2019; fried when Arasaka used her as the test subject for the Vacant Soulkiller ICE they forced her to create. Her mind's been alive and (mostly) well ever since in the Net. Alt is also the Lost Lenore for one Johnny Silverhand, who's currently residing in V's head. But it seems odd that the corps would airbrush a sixty-year old photo of Alt for use in advertising, or that V would be hired to steal the specific chip with the upload of Silverhand's mind on it. The whole thing feels like Alt's pulling a few strings to have a digital Together in Death going with Johnny. And if they bring down some of the corps responsible for their state along the way (particularly Arasaka), well, all the better.
  • Basically Confirmed, complete with her working with V and Johnny to fry Arasaka's "Secure Your Soul" project - although there is a choice over whether or not Johnny or V stays inside V's body, and which one joins Alt as an AI construct.
  • However She has been heavily altered by 50 years of experience and interact in with other A.I.s behind the blackwall as a construct to the point she's unsure if she's Alt anymore or just remnants of Alt that have been configured into something else.

The Protagonist will get a drink named after them in the Afterlife
Either after a major point in the plot or as part of the epilogue, V will get a drink named after them to celebrate them becoming a legend. If it's the epilogue, The ingredients and mixing of The V will somehow be connected to your deeds and how you ended your game.

The Witcher 4 will be a direct sequel of Cyberpunk 2077, set in the Witcher world, and similar to Shadowrun
In this incarnation, the megacorporations of 2077 discover a way to travel across dimensions. Inevitably, their insatiable conquest of exploitation leads them to the planet that the Witcher series takes place on, where they immediately set up ties with Nilfgaard and Emperor Jan Calveit, trading cyberware for magic (which explains what he did to the zombie-like helmeted soldiers). The player character is a rich idiot with no day job whose parents were big-shots with the megacorporation that is now running Nilfgaard behind the scenes, and decides they liked the idea of augmented super-hunters going up against dragons and demon lords. Using their cybernetics, they sign up with the Nilfgaard-sponsored Cyber-Witchers - and immediately learn to regret choosing such an underrated, thankless, suicidal, and bleak occupation in this [s]exploited[/s]developing new world.
  • This seems unlikely given they would have to get the approval of Andrzej Sapkowski to do it and given the recent legal dispute between CDPR and Sapkowski that is effectively impossible.

Adam Smasher will be the game's version of Nemesis
Johnny Silverhand's killer will relentlessly pursue V, as detailed by GameSpot.
  • Jossed, outside of that scene and a braindance, the only time the player and Adam interact are during the final battle of the game. Which is in an arena area.

Johnny Silverhand was inside a piece of stolen tech
  • His virtual ghosthood is due to the player installing stolen tech, much like Handsome Jack was in Tales from the Borderlands. Whether he tries to take over your body is debatable.

Saburo Arasaka will not be the True Final Boss
He will bet set up as the Big Bad of the game, but if certain conditions are met, something or someone even worse than him will pull an Eviler than Thou.

At some point, Johnny Silverhand Will. Say. 'Whoa'.
Keanu Reeve's latest 'whoa' it will make the Matrix 'whoa' look stupid by comparison.
  • There's at least one sidequest where V can say 'whoa'.
  • Confirmed: He says 'whoa' during the Don't Fear the Reaper job when a mini-mecha jumps from the ceiling of the Arasaka ground floor.

The Fifth Corporate War will break out.
  • Arasaka and Militech will come to blows and Night City will spiral into anarchy. And how much of the city remains standing will depend on V's actions throughout the game.
  • Jossed, but in one ending, the conflict is practically inevitable as Arasaka achieves world domination by selling immortality to the 1%, and Militech is one of the only corporations willing to take them on.

Jackie can/will betray you during the main story
Let's say regardless of life path, Jackie will end up betraying you. It could go double if you are a dick to him. He also could turn on you regardless too.
  • Half-Jossed: He always dies at the end of Act 1.
  • Half-Confirmed: depending on where you sent his body, it may be taken by Arasaka, if it is then you will encounter an engram of Jackie in any ending besides the suicide on the roof ending. This Engram was made to pump any information they could out of Jackie, while it believes it's Jackie having successfully done the heist and everyone has hit the major leagues with him, meaning he may have betrayed you unintentionally due to the information retrieved.

V will die physically during the ending of the game
They will become a legend among legends though due to whatever happened/happens during the end of the game. Maybe their mind can be uploaded and be preserved, possibly for a sequel.

Post-Release Theories (unmarked SPOILERS ahead)

     Theories about the main game's storyline 

In "The Sun/Star" ending, V will find a cure for their condition before its too late
  • In the 2020 tabletop, it's quite possible to remap your DNA for a not-insane amount of eurobucks and humanity cost. Given the chip isn't actively rewriting V's DNA anymore, it would only take one trip to a ripperdoc who knows how to at the least buy them a good bit more time by fixing their DNA.
  • An advert very early on in the game mentions a workaround for MS being found, based on Nanites seamlessly repairing nevrous tissue damaged by the immune system. It's not too far out there that it might be applicable to V's condition. Seeing that the apparatus for the Relic V2 overwriting V's brain is through nannites it controls...

Ciri's meddeling with Cyberpunk's world has somehow gifted Misty with supernatural abilities
It's heavily implied that Ciri visited Cyberpunk's world at some point, and Misty's predictions via tarot cards actually work and change according to the different endings. Maybe there is some connections between those two facts.

Meredith Stout dies, even if you help her
Many people feel it's odd that Meredith Stout's romance ends with just a quickie at the No-Tell Motel, with the player never hearing from her again. We know that if you decide not to help Meredith and betray her in the mission, she'll be murdered and disposed of (as some have found her underwater with concrete shoes on). It could be possible that the reason why you do not hear from Meredith again is due to her screwing up on another task, leading to her death. This would also account for why she decided to hook up with V at the No-Tell Motel: she wanted to go out with a bang.
  • Unlikely: she is later seen giving a press briefing on TV about how the NCPD is now being outfitted by Militech.
    • Doesn't mean she wouldn't be killed some time after that press briefing.

The assault on Arasaka Tower occurred as it did in the tabletop game.
Since we view the incident from Johnny's memory and Alt states that he's an Unreliable Narrator, the events occurred differently to how Johnny remembered them. Namely, they went as was stated in canon. It would also explain why Morgan Blackhand was Adapted Out: Johnny remembers himself as being more badass than he actually was.

Cyberpunk 2077 is set in the same universe as Tenkuu Shinpan.

NCPD are using mercs to thin out corpo soldier ranks
A lot of the "assault in progress" mini-quests have corpo soldiers as the perps. Furthermore, this shard can be picked up after wiping out a Militech squad during such a mini-quest. It makes sense for the police to do so, especially the lower ranking ones who likely aren't on the take from the big corps. If the merc somehow pulls it off, NC will have lost a corpo hit squad (good riddance). If the merc fails, NCPD likely won't be suspects anyway, because there are likely a lot of people with anti-corp ideas who would be willing to act violently.

Dex was going to throw V and Jackie to the wolves from the start... and T-Bug was in on it
There are many hints throughout Act I that Dex is not a good samaritan pulling up young talent from the gutter. It is, in fact, all but stated that his last major job ended with him throwing his crew under the bus to save his skin. While he is very cordial with Jackie and V most of the time, he also clearly manipulates them into ignoring the many risks of the heist with sweet promises of glory (if not cash), which Jackie, at least, swallows hook, line, and sinker. As for V, Dex clearly suspects them of conspiring with Evelyn to screw him over, regardless of whether V tells him about it, which gives him yet another reason to cut them loose.

As for T-Bug, it was also she who recommended Jackie and V to Dex for the Relic heist, and she admits to having worked with Dex before — yet refuses to talk about it with V when prompted at the Afterlife. She does, however, reveal that she intends to retire after this heist and, more importantly, to cut all ties with her old crew. If she knew how Dex operates and that he was going to pull one over V and Jackie, distancing herself from them like this would be her best strategy. Granted, she is killed while trying to get them out of Konpeki, but she may have just as well been more interested in getting the Relic out, rather than her crewmates.

Yorinobu's plan was basically what happens in the Sun or Star ending.
Just why did Yorinobu have the experimental Relic V2 with the engram of Johnny Silverhand burned onto it? Because he wanted to contact Alt Cunningham. He needed Johnny's engram to get Alt's attention (just as the Voodoo Boys did), and needed something big enough to get NetWatch in on it, so he was going to offer the more advanced and secret Relic V2 to entice them. Why did he need NetWatch? Arasaka netrunning resources would be monitored by those who would report the use to Daddy Dearest.

Why did Yorinobu want to contact Alt? To plot with her to destroy Mikoshi on a scale, speed, and level of detail that only Alt could, with him working in realspace to circumvent the Black ICE around Arasaka's subnets with Alt's name literally on it. Alt's reason for wanting Mikoshi destroyed are stated as the story progresses, but Yorinobu would want it destroyed too as a major objective in his goal of destroying Arasaka from the inside. It's the repository of the ghost army of netrunners that Arasaka has enthralled with their perversion of Alt's Soulkiller, it's a major component of the corp's latest and greatest product, the "Secure Your Soul" Relic V1, it's a place where souls get picked apart for intel in a manner far more violative than mere interrogation based on physical torture ever could, and it's part of Saburo's plan to live forever. It's likely what Yorinobu was referring to about his father's "sick schemes" when he was calling Saburo out on That Fateful Night. When some badly timed heist deprives him of the Relic V2 that same night, he has to start improvising. In a possible stroke of luck, the last surviving gonk of that ill-fated heist ends up paving the way to Mikoshi for Alt anyway in a last ditch effort to save their own life.

  • Yorinobu's motivation to destroy Mikoshi could have been much more straightforward: he has found out that Saburo has had an engram of himself stored there, and the most suitable host for him to upload it to after his original body's death was his own son's body. It didn't take a genius to figure out that as long as Mikoshi existed, Yorinobu was only existing at his father's pleasure, so he was basically fighting for his life.
  • Yorinobu also had another possible motivation to specifically pick Johnny: He knew the man back from their time as anti-Arasaka rebels in the 2020s. They never met in person but did get involved in the same schemes in the lead-up to and during the corpo war. If your goal was to burn Arasaka to the ground and you could bring one man back from the dead, why not pick the guy who got closer to it than anyone else before or since?

Adam Smasher can handle all of his cyberload because he's actually no longer alive.
  • Smasher, as a long-time Arasaka employee is just an engram on a Relic chip. Which is why he's still so effective over 50 years after the 4th Corporate War. If he's ever defeated or finally goes psycho, a new body is prepped and the most recent backup engram loaded into it. Smasher has gone through dozens of bodies by 2077.
    • Mike Pondsmith has said that Smasher is a "high-functioning cyberpsycho." Full-borgs like Smasher have their brains isolated in a device called the biopod, which is used to help isolate the user from the sensory overload. His (current) body is a heavily-modified Militech Dragoon, which definitely uses the biopod tech.

Arasaka intentionally stalled Johnny's bomb to prevent it from triggering the bigger bomb.
Long story short, lore reveals that Arasaka kept a large-scale nuke underneath Arasaka tower as a contingency against Militech. But since most of Mikoshi's core staff hadn't evacuated, they had to deal with Johnny's nuke instead of letting it explode 'safely' below-ground like he'd planned, or the actual yield would cause an earthquake and kill even the staff in nuclear bunkers. Arasaka Tower used some of its trade secrets to stop the elevator mid-fall so the nearest employees could get to it - and they ultimately failed to disarm the bomb.
  • Stopping it halfway to make an attempt to disarm it is plausible, stopping it from setting off another nuke isn't. Nuclear bombs don't set off other nukes. A lot of things have to happen in very precisely predetermined ways to make a nuke go off. All a second nuclear device being nearby would do is increase the amount of fallout a bit.

As Militech and other corps battle each other to pick off what is left of Arasaka, an obscure corporation will rise from the ashes and conquer them all.
That corporation will be an obscure biotech firm named VersaLife whose CEO Bob Page will also restart a secret society named MJ-12
  • Night Corp is implied to have ambitions going WAY beyond managing NC...

Militech is secretly backing Panam as a play against Biotechnica.

Everything lines up perfectly for Panam's little rebel faction with the Basilisk heist. They get suspiciously easy access to Militech's secure comms. These comms reveal something they've been looking for is going to be delivered basically to their doorstep. The convoy is VERY lightly guarded by Militech standards (random police scanner encounters with their security forces have way more firepower than that escort). They fail to pursue the Aldecaldos after the Basilisk has been grabbed and only throw Carol out of their comms network with the clear implication that they could have done so at any point if they'd wanted to. This adds up to one thing: Militech wanted the Aldecaldos to have the Basilisk. Why? If they hadn't grabbed the Basilisk, Saul would have been on a trajectory to turn the Aldecaldos into an indentured asset for Biotechnica, operating in Militech's backyard. Sacrificing some guards and an obsolete Panzer seems like a small price to pay for torpedoing that relationship...

Hanako is lying about what convinced her to turn against Yorinobu
The idea that she thought her rescue was an assassination attempt makes no sense if you consider two facts:

1. Adam Smasher showed up.

2. Hanako is still alive.

Smasher is basically the definition of Ax-Crazy. If he was under orders to kill everyone in the building, that's what he would have done. The only way he would have prioritized saving Hanako over killing Takemura and V is if he was specifically ordered to do exactly that. Unless Hanako is a complete idiot, she's lying through her teeth about thinking Yorinobu tried to kill her.

     Future expansions/DLC/sequels theories 

There will be four different DLC campaigns, with each one set after one of the endings

There will be one DLC with Witcher 2 Like Chapter split with Arasaka ending being one and other endings being merged into one via DLC-Prologue which brings you from your ending to the beginning of story

Alt, Saburo, or a twisted fusion of both will be the Big Bad of the sequel, based on a save file bonus
  • First, Alt Cunningham has become a sociopath from half a century as an AI in the death world which cyberspace has become. She slaughters the non-combatant personnel at Arasaka (and poor Hanako); whether it's for revenge or because she can is never verified, but V [[note:or Johnny if you're playing as him]] is disturbed by her ruthlessness. Then she devours the brain-uploaded human minds stored in Mikoshi, leveling her up to astronomical heights. She is implied to even consider consuming V or Johnny if they follow her through the Blackwall. And finally, one sidequest mentions the possibility that Blackwall AI have used their future tech to invent brainwashing devices meant for world leaders; it is entirely possible she is in on it. In essence, you stole the key to world domination from Arasaka, only to inadvertently give it to someone worse.
  • Second, In the Arasaka ending, Saburo Arasaka's brain-uploaded engram will retake control of his company and sell immortality to the top 1%, thereby achieving his dream of world domination by buying it. Naturally, this can't end well.
  • Finally, It's possible that Alt will absorb Saburo's engram instead of deleting him, in order to absorb his secrets. And through him, she will gain a newfound respect for ruling the world through fear. So congratulations, now the two opposing worst aspects of the cyberpunk universe have gotten married and are ready to go full Warhammer 40K grimdark.

V will still be playable in expansions/DLC and the three main endings will be the new "lifepaths" for them
  • Might be really obvious, but may not also be due to the fact that there are endings where V straight up dies or is inactive in some capacity. The three main endings all have a sub-ending where V survives, but only has six months to live. That's how any expansion story will pick off of, likely focusing on V finding a way to treat their condition or relating to Alt/Saburo. More proof of this is that it is currently impossible for V to level up every stat to 20/20 with the level cap at 50 (you can level up a few stats to 20 by minmaxing, but not all) and the existence of an unaddressed mystery sixth stat in the Character screen.
  • To explains things a bit, the three main endings where V is alive (The Devil - Leave Arasaka, The Sun / (Don't Fear) The Reaper, and The Star) represent the three life paths at the start of the game (Corpo, Streetkid, Nomad). This is all supposed to parallel the life path chosen for V in the beginning of the story, but also be the stepping stone to whatever the hinted next big expansion is going to be about. All of these ending match the same timeline: V survives, but has six months on the clock before they may die. The ending ends up affecting who V becomes in the next part of the chapter of the story and possible story arcs:
    • The Devil - Leave Arasaka - Implied from Hanako's credit message, V starts working with Arasaka, effectively becoming (or at least siding with) a 'corpo' in some sense.
    • The Sun / (Don't Fear) The Reaper - V becomes a legendary Night City 'streetkid-esque' edgerunner and has some strong connections in Night City, who now owns the Afterlife.
    • The Star - V becomes a Nomad, having joined Panam and the Aldecados.
  • Other endings where V is considered 'inactive' are 'complete' and will not be continued:
    • V is effectively dead in the Reaper ending and the unsuccessful (Don't Fear) the Reaper ending.
    • V, while still technically alive, they're also technically dead in the alternate Devil ending where they go into Mikoshi. Unless they find a compatible body in the next few months to match the timeline of the other endings, this ending can't be continued.
    • Any ending where Johnny takes over V's body doesn't need a continuation as it's a poetic end to that story. Johnny is confirmed to be wanting to start a new quiet life, clearly a changed man, not wanting to waste the second chance that V gave him. V is considered 'dead' by Johnny as he buys them a grave and Misty describing their state as 'something close to death, but not quite'. There is not much continuation is needed.

V's Mysterious Sixth Stat will be related to manipulating consciousness
  • In the character screen, there is a mysterious sixth attribute (middle, bottom row) that glitches out when you try to hover/click on it and does not get addressed anytime during the story. This sixth stat does not appear until after Act I completes (and V revives from the dead). This is very intentional and not a glitch.
  • Due to the nature of how this stat appears and behaves, it likely has to do with V's operating system and lingering connection to Soulkiller itself (the act of transferring consciousness). Since V has become an engram before in any ending where they survive and the fact that they're the only person ever to get revived by an engram in this manner, perhaps this mysterious attribute has to do with V's consciousness invading other people's so they can perform feats such as taking over/invading people's mind to influence them to do things and other skills related to consciousness manipulation. It won't be as complex as V being able to transfer other people's consciousness to each other or fully transfer their consciousness to another body, but rather they being able to use their experience as an engram to influence enemies by invading their mind and make them do certain tasks.
    • Gameplay application during gigs and such would be V being able to influence a guard to open a gate for them with the access shard they have that V doesn't have access to. For a non-stealth application, V might be able to actually control an enemy and make them shoot their ally without alerting enemies or drawing any attention to themselves. V's body would be catatonic in this state most likely.
    • Dialogue application would be another skill check that V can use to influence people to do what they want by invading their mind and forcing them to what they want.
    • In the Phantom Liberty DLC, they finally add the sixth stat, which represents special skills installed on V's Relic.

Specific locations for future DLC
There are several locations in Night City that have been functionally inaccessible upon release, despite being prominent landmarks in the world. This makes them prime candidates for future expansions, whether as epilogue content or as additional side jobs/gigs for V to tackle before the endgame. In order of likelihood to appear, they are:

  1. The NC Spaceport is visible from anywhere on the shoreline, but the only entrance to the bridge leading to it is currently sealed off, and even if you manage to parkour your way onto the bridge, the game will turn you around with a message "There is nothing for you there... not yet." Given how the spaceport is explicitly labeled on the feelie map that comes with the physical editions, it is by far the safest bet to be expanded in a DLC.
    • Confirmed! The spaceport can be visited as soon as you install Phantom Liberty. It's one of two possible final dungeons for the DLC campaign.
  2. The mysterious walled garden east of North Oak is another safe bet. While not labeled on the feelie map, with no roads leading there from anywhere, its triangular central structure is visible on the in-game map, and approaching its walls on foot will result in the same turnaround and warning as with the spaceport, indicating that the devs have something planned for it.
    • Jossed. Despite still being on the map in 2.0, the grand casino is still as unreachable as ever.
  3. The "Wild Blue" hotel dominates the skyline of Pacifica, but is completely fenced off and conspicuously devoid of any story content associated with it. However, when approaching its entrance from the Imperial Mall's side, V can overhear two NPCs talking about rumors of cyberpsychos being corralled inside, giving a clue to a future quest line.
    • Confirmed: the "Wild Blue" is just the northern side of the much larger "Black Sapphire" tower, which serves as Colonel Hansen and his Barghest's HQ in Phantom Liberty. You infiltrate the hotel on two missions, where it's revealed that most of the hotel is dilapidated and unfinished but the top floors are pure decadence.
  4. The Stadium in Pacifica is labeled on the feelie map, but is presented as having never been completed, with all entrances sealed off.
    • Confirmed: the stadium is a major location of the first story mission of Phantom Liberty, as well as featuring in some later story missions and gigs.
  5. The nuclear power plant in Santo Domingo is labeled on the feelie map, but completely inaccessible in-game.
    • Jossed. Sadly, the plant is still off-limits in PL. The closest we get to it is some random NPC dialogue complaining about radiation poisoning among SD residents, and El Capitan's new side job broadly implicating the plant (among other corpo ventures) in the negligent poisoning of the SD water supply with its runoff.
      • So, three out of five guesses correct.

One of the free DLCs will be alternative outfits for the four love interests + Johnny
Cyberpunk is confirmed to have weekly, free DLCs like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had before. One of the DLCs for Wild Hunt were new outfits for the two love interests and an outfit for Ciri, Geralt's platonic companion. They were quite a hit, so it's very possible CDProjekt will do something similar for the four love interests (Judy, Panam, Kerry and River) and V's platonic companion, Johnny.
  • Partially confirmed: Along with Patch 1.3, an alternate outfit for Johnny was released as a free DLC.

We will get more Takemura content in one way or another.
Takemura was a huge, unexpected hit with the fans, so it wouldn't be surprising if CDProjekt added more content for him in one way or another, anything ranging from a side mission to a full-blown romance arc in a larger DLC.
  • As a result, they'll also add "Rescue Takemura (Optional)" to the mission objectives for Search and Destroy so more players will realize that they can save his life.

The pay-for DLC will add more content for the love interests
While the love interests themselves are very popular and liked, many fans would want to see more content with them. A bigger, pay-for DLC will add either one, long sidequest or a chain of shorter sidequests for each of the love interests.
  • Averted hard. In fact, all of V's love interests drift away in the new Tower ending, which is just cruel.

The next main arc of the story will be the Fifth Corporate War (Arasaka vs Militech) ft. Rogue A.I.s
  • The next main arc of the story will be centered around the building tension between Arasaka and Militech. Eventually this will break out into a full on corporate war, in which V gets caught up in it. In the meantime, the Blackwall is going to be finally be torn down and Rogue A.I.s will begin to run free.
  • There are several implications from the main game:
    • There is a side gig in the game where V gets sent by Padre to find out why a cop's death was covered up and uncovers a complex plot around Arasaka hiring mercenaries to attack themselves under the guise of Militech. Padre and V muse about another war breaking out and Padre suspects that Arasaka is planning something and is using a new war as a cover up. The gig ends with Padre telling V to forget about the gig and that it's out of their hands.
    • The Voodoo Boys imply that the Blackwall will soon be coming down and that the only way for refuge is to contact Alt.
    • Mr. Blue Eyes, a suspected Rogue AI, and affiliated with Militech seems quite interested in Arasaka equipment. No matter which ending V gets, Mr. Blue Eyes will gain Arasaka tech somehow (in the Devil ending he makes a deal with Arasaka and in the Sun/Star/Temperance endings he sends people to steal equipment during the raid). In the Sun ending, he hires V to steal something from Arasaka again.
  • Other Notes:
    • Saburo / Alt will be a key player in the arc, depending on which ending the next arc is siphoning from. Since Alt released all the souls from Mikoshi, it's possible she also absorbed Saburo herself. If Saburo is alive, he will be the one spearheading the secret Arasaka operation.
    • Alt will appear no matter what due to the Blackwall coming down, though how powerful she is depends on the previous ending.
    • Johnny or an engram!V will appear again to help whoever has V's body at the end of the story, due to the wall being torn down.

Pacifica will be expanded upon in the future
About half of Pacifica is currently gated off and inaccessible. It's also the smallest district with least things to do. This video shows that a lot of Pacifica that's beyond the gate is actually pretty finished, including a stadium that's falling apart. There are also a few conversations that the player can find about people going beyond the wall into a so called "Combat Zone", where a Militech Bunker can supposedly be found. It will probably be implemented as a free DLC with a few minor missions like cyberpsycho sightings or a short chain of sidequests with strong enemies for the players who finished the main storyline.
  • On the other hand, the area may also be reserved as an arena for the promised multiplayer expansion somewhere in 2022.
  • Confirmed. This area is called Dogtown, ruled by NUSA deserters who didn't like how their efforts to conquer Night City were rebuffed at the end of the Unification War. The BARGHEST Clan turned Dogtown into some kind of Mad Max terrarium where the residents are dumb enough or desperate enough to seek asylum under military rule, making for some interesting stories.

The first major expansion will expand on the mind control plotline from Sandra Dorsett and Jefferson Peralez's sidequests.
It doesn't take much imagination to connect the two quests together, and there has to be a reason why one of the Peralez couple is among the friends and loved ones that contact V in the end credits, even though their connection to V is minimal. The quest will delve deeper into the conspiracy, presumably perpetuated by the mysterious Night Corp and its pet rogue AIs, and will feature some conspicuously closed areas of the map, such as the stadium and Megabuilding 4 (Four Is Death, anyone?). One possible way to drag V into the mess would have their love interest (or in absence of one, a friend like Misty or Victor) becoming a guinea pig for the mind control experiments.

The next update will be related Takemura's implants and his possible betrayal to V
V can decide who to show mercy or execute between Oda and Takemura in separate events.
  • Oda can be killed or spared in the parade. His death will prevent Takemura from betraying you before you meet Yorinobu behind the door. Since Oda will be able to bring up the fact that you have a genocidal terrorist in your head if you let him live.
  • Takemura and Oda will team up to defeat V, if the latter was spared at the parade.
  • Additionally, both men can also be spared (non-lethal victory) or killed.

If V is still playable in the DLC, their worsening condition will influence the gameplay
The game will add something like shaking hands that make it more difficult to reload, or make the consumable items that aren't boosters restore less health, both as Gameplay and Story Integration and to make the game more challenging for the players, since the DLC takes place post the main story. For players who don't want the added challenge, there will be a consumable that mitigates the negative effects temporarily.

Johnny Silverhand will return in the post-ending DLC
Regardless of the post-ending DLC plot/conflict, Johnny will initially come back in one of two forms:

  • If the player chose the Sun, Star, or (Don't) Fear the Reaper branch that leads to the Sun ending, V will discover that Johnny is still floating around in Cyberspace. Johnny will be able to contact V through their Holo, or nearby electronic devices that have a connection to the net.
    • In the case of the Temperance ending, the roles are reversed. The only difference is that Johnny (as the main character) will now sound and look exactly like V was to the player, but with Johnny's stoic tone. V's engram will have a digitized effect to their voice, not unlike Alt's AI. If the two interact in Cyberspace, Johnny (as the player) will revert back to his Rockerboy voice and appearance.
  • If the player chose the Devil (Return to Earth) ending, it is revealed that although Arasaka was able to successfully remove the Relic chip from V's body, it was able to transfer the majority of Johnny's engram onto V's consciousness. As a result Johnny will eventually be able to communicate and interact with V as before in the main plot line, albeit with some memory loss.
  • None of this will apply if the player chose the Devil (Engram) or Suicide ending since V is either in digital purgatory or dead.

Another DLC theory

Being inspired by the WMG that associates every ending with a DLC, I've come up witha similar, but more linear, theory that would tie the endings together.

  • DLC 1 (The Star): V leaves Night City with the Aldecaldos (and Judy if romanced) to find an alternate cure for V's engram problem. If Judy hasn't tagged along with V, she'll reappear at some point in the story (it would be a waste to have Judy as a passive character), and play a key role in ensuring that V stays alive. The Aldecaldos, Judy and V succeed in their quest, and V decides to go for the big job they had in mind before choosing to look for a cure. This leads to a call from Rogue, asking you to come back to NC because...
  • DLC 2 (The Sun): Mr. Blue Eyes wants to hire you for a heist on the Crystal Palace. After a short preparation phase, which includes convincing Kerry (who was invited to play at a concert) and River (haven't quite figured out how why he should go, but I had two potential love interests in the last one) to go, you're off to the space station. The heist is challenging, but eventually goes off, and the trio leaves and goes back to NC, where V receives a call from either Goro (if alive) or Hanako Arasaka (faked her death). It could also be Yorinobu, since he is aware of how capable you are.
  • DLC 3 (The Devil): Now we're off to Tokyo in order to help resolve the internal struggle within Arasaka corp. The leading faction at the moment is the Taka faction (Yorinobu), while the Kiji (Hanako) and Hato (Michiko) factions also want to take over. You will be arriving under the same pretext as you did at Crystal Palace, with Kerry. This time Judy tags along as a BD specialist, officially to create BDs of Kerry's rockstar experience. You've got a major role to play in Arasaka's power struggle, and ends up deciding who comes up on top of the power struggle. I would hope for all endings to be gray here. After coming back, you get a call from River, needing your help with an investigation.
  • DLC 4 (Don't Fear The Reaper): Who wants to take down a corp in a blaze of glory? I wouldn't cheat anyone out of that. River has called you to help out with an investigation of people mysteriously dying in the badlands (potentially outside NC borders). The police are doing nothing, but River has decided to take the case pro bono. With V's help, River finds out that Biotechnica has created a virus that infects the crops of independent farmers and kills the people eating it. River and V are *pissed* and decide to take it to whereever Biotechnica's US headquarters are located. V calls Panam, who is eager to help because she'll have V's back no matter what, because nomads originate from farmers displaced by megacorps and because fuck Biotechnica. After finding out how to get to the headquarters, they find out that they can only have one person enter. That person is V. After piling up a mountain of bodies, Biotechnica's management is at their knees with the pissed off merc. V is given the choice to either spare them (and sign over the company to the Aldecaldos), kill them and burn the company to the ground or double cross the Aldecaldos and become high management at the company.
  • Epilogue: If V has chosen to become high management with Biotechnica, it has a special ending. Otherwise, V joins whoever they had romanced. If Judy is romanced, they will travel around making BDs of unique experiences. If Panam is romanced, V takes over a high position in the new Aldecaldos run Biotechnica and helps ensure that new Biotechnica won't be as big assholes as they were previously (haven't quite figured out what happens with Biotechnica is torched, but V is staying with Panam). If River is romanced, V leaves with River and his family, starting up a PI firm. Otherwise, V will go back to NC and run Afterlife. If Kerry is romanced, V takes a more passive role as a fixer and manager. If nobody is, V has a more hands on approach.

All the three main DLCs will lead to the Crystal Palace

  • "The Devil": V will get intel from allied Arasaka informants telling them that the solution for their health problems can be found in the Crystal Palace.
  • "Path of Glory": Pretty self explanatory; V gets a deal from Mr. Blue Eyes to do the information heist in exchange for a solution for their illness.
  • "The Star": The Arizona contact the Aldecaldos meet with tells them that they've heard that the Crystal Palace might hold a solution. They pull some strings and organise a shuttle and cover for V.

Depending on the lifepath chosen at the beginning and the chosen ending, V will have two different conversation options in some situations (in the same way the lifepath gives you prompts in some scenes in the base game).

Militech's outfitting of the NCPD will be the core of a DLC campaign
  • Arasaka and Militech have been in the state of near war for almost 50 years at this point, since the end of the 4th Corporate War. With Arasaka rebuilding Night City as it's own free city, into the state it is in 2077 and Militech supporting (read controlling) the NUSA Goverment's attempts at reunification it's possible that the latter is using their foothold with the NCPD to attempt to take the city.
    • There may be narrative bonuses for anyone who managed to keep Stout alive and possibly even romance her, with something extra for those who did do the one night stand with her.

Lucy will appear either in Phantom Liberty or in a future game

The anime series has become a hit amongst critics and fans alike and is one of the reasons why 2077's player base rebounded post-release. Popularity aside, there are a few interesting plot lines that relate to the anime that CDPR can pursue. For one, there's the question of the two Arasaka executives that escaped the final episode's carnage unscathed and what subsequent plans they have related to future equipment related to the cyberskeleton. There's also an opportunity to tell a more personal story related to Lucy processing her grief of losing David.

  • Jossed for PL, at least. No characters from Edgerunners appear in it, though the motif of helping a heavily-augmented netrunner girl escape Night City for the Moon is a major theme in two of the endings.

Vincent and Valerie are two separated and completely unrelated "canon" characters

The sequel to the 2077 will have "non-V" counterpart as a playable character, while the "canon", opposite sex V will be just a backgound story from the first game.

Should V/Johnny V return in a sequel, it'll be to settle unfinished buisness in Night City

Save for "The Devil" ending; V's actions in 2077 have shaken the foundations of Night City and the world of Cyberpunk at large. V may have finally destroyed Arasaka once and for all, or crippled them indefinitely, but V has most certainly created a power vacum In Night City. Other Corporations will inevitably take their place, causing more strife on the streets of Night City. V/Johnny V will likely feel guilty for what they've caused and will return to attempt to write their wrongs from the previous game. However, it's likely that their return will become more of an omen than a prospect of salvation, as the roads to hell are always paved with good intentions. Especially so in the Dark Future of Cyberpunk. And if the "Temperance" ending is canon, this'll be even more true as Rogue and Panam are the only ones who're aware Johnny took over V's body and will not be happy about Johnny V's return.

The sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 will allow you to import your save file

Similar to the import save feature from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and The Walking Dead (Telltale), if you have a save file from Cyberpunk 2077, you'll be able to import the save file and carry on the significant decisions, V made into the narrative of the sequel. This would allow each player to carry on the story of their playthrough from the first game and continue it into the second video game of the Cyberpunk series with each decision having different impacts on the sequel's main storyline.

     Post-Phantom Liberty theories 

The sequel will deal with Cynosure

Should V allign with Reed in the Phantom Liberty mission known as "Firestarter", they will follow Songbird to a Cynosure facility, which is the Militech (and by extention NUSA) version of Soulkiller. We also know that Myers is hell-bent on keeping NUSA on top through continuous research into the Blackwall, which ties back to Project Cynosure. It's highly likely that Arasaka will not survive into the sequel and if it does, it will most likely be much, much weaker.

The title 'Phantom Liberty' refers to the false, fleeting freedoms of cyberware (or in general, power) abuse

The very power that made Songbird a force of nature, both from the AIs she hosted and her own egomania from her netrunning skills, twisted and warped her mind until she no longer had any moral fiber, causing her to use and betray everyone around her, while everyone in turn sought to chain her in a birdhouse for various reasons.

In V's ending, they've lost their powers, their reputation, and even some of their friends, but they're no longer bound to an addiction to chrome, an endless thirst for glory, or the same dark path Songbird took. Liberty came at a steep price, but that liberty is real.

In 'The Tower' ending, you just handed the NUSA the secret to conquering the world
Whether or not this is a good thing depends on your interpretation of the right to bear arms.

V has become a case study for a surgery to permanently remove a person's ability to use military-grade cyberware. In short, a means of easily and permanently crippling the human race from using high-level weapons while preserving their general humanity. By applying this to the majority of the population, they can forcefully halt the world's addiction to chrome, ending the constant gang wars equipped with disproportionately escalating arms and even non-lethally neutralizing cyberpsychos by taking away the very weapons that make them a threat.

On the downside, this might segregate humanity even further into nobles who get to use cyberware and commoners who can not. And the Deus Ex prequels showed that this opens a whole new can of worms.

NUSA deliberately crippled and isolated V.
What happened to V in the Tower ending is very similar to what NUSA did with Songbird. Separate them from their loved ones, promise them a cushy job and bright future and make them dependent on NUSA for their survival. It's never actually specified if NUSA actually used Songbird's cure to help V or whether they simply did the surgery manually. If they separate V from their old life and take away their chroming capability, then V will have very little choice but to go back to Langley, as living in NC without chrome is basically a death sentence. They can even promise a "miracle cure" if V swears to become an agent for them.

The Rabids are long dead.
The original rogue A.I.s were taken down ages ago, what's actually in the other side of the blackwell is post-Humans born out of runners who got trapped outside their bodies when the Blackwall went up. After that happened they fought off and killed the Rabids but didn't make it out unscathed. Most of them and their offspring are by normal human standards unhinged and sociopathic.

A future patch will give the game one final ending: Be The Bomb
In this patch, you decide you've got a city to burn. Multiple cities, in fact.
  • Conditions: Complete the Phantom Liberty storyline, Reed's Path. Collect the components for the Militech Canto and craft. Choose the Devil endgame path. Do something suicidal.
  • Result: V, sick of every miserable thing that the corporations have exploited, decides to forego survival in favor of becoming a legend of legends. They download the contents of their corrupted cyberdeck into Yorinobu's brain, giving the mother of all Arasaka back-doors to the Blackwall AIs. Instantly, every single city dominated by Arasaka is thrown into a cybernetic hellscape as Yorinobu can only helplessly watch before being engramed and dragged beyond the Blackwall, causing Hanako to freak out and order V's death. Her team of elite cyber-runners can't even try to survive an overpowered AI, and V sends Hanako to her brother. V collapses on the floor, finally out of life to spare. The epilogue calls careen between sheer respect for V's one-woman defeat of Arasaka itself, and their unforgivable act of singlehandedly beginning the robot apocalypse.

Sending So Mi into space turns out to be the biggest Cordyceps-like move in history.
There's something strange about So Mi's storyline: why haven't the AIs interfered with their greatest potential sleeper agent? With all the agents they have within Night City, it would be kind of easy to lock down an isolated spaceport.The real reason So Mi was allowed to leave was because she could become an internet connection for the Colonies, the few places left untouched by the AIs and thus capable of continuing corporate civilization after robots take over Earth. Having her act as a Typhoid Mary would ensure they could extend their reach to space instead of being bombarded and corralled on a single planet.The AI within So Mi has been subtly guiding her to find the greatest means of escaping the NUSA while overtly tempting her to give in.

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