Cyberpunk 2077 / Tropes A to B

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Tropes C HERE!

Tropes D-F HERE!

Tropes G-L HERE!

Tropes M-R HERE!

Tropes S-Z HERE!

Phantom Liberty HERE!

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#-A

• 100% Completion: There is no counter for the game at large, but the character menu keeps track of how far you've progressed in the three interconnected subplots of V's merc career, Johnny Silverhand's tale, and V's Relic problem, respectively. However, their meaningfulness is debatable. Aside from that you can unlock achievements by completing all gigs and NCPD tasks in Night City's various districts, with one achievement per district.
• Abnormal Ammo: Patch 2.0 introduced several weapon mods, that effectively allowed Power weapons to shoot armor-piercing, incendiary and explosive rounds.
• Aborted Arc: Several times throughout the game, interesting events occur that seem to initially build up, only to be abandoned and ultimately go nowhere.
  • While investigating the death of Mayor Rhyme for the Peralezes, V finds a lot of evidence that his advisor Holt was involved, or at the very least knew it was going to happen and covered it up, with further implication that the NCPD may have been behind it due to Rhyme cutting their funding. None of this is picked up after the quest that the evidence is discovered, and River explicitly mentions that it was all swept under the rug.
  • On the topic of the Peralezes, V begins to find evidence that the suspicious activity in their homes, and their odd memory issues, is being deliberately engineered by someone for an unclear purpose, and this someone contacts V with a warning not to interfere further just before they meet with Jefferson to reveal their findings. However, regardless of V's choice, none of this is brought up again, and the mysterious caller doesn't come up at any point after this. The only change is how Jefferson addresses V in the end credits: Tell him, and he's a paranoid wreck as the mysterious operator continues to harass him and his wife. Don't tell him, and he is relatively normal, and even asks if V would be interested in more wetwork for him. Word of God on Twitter stated outright that V's role is to make a choice but not witness the consequences regarding that choice for the Peralezes; there IS a grand conspiracy playing out, but V isn’t able to overturn it alone.
  • A more egregious version of this trope shows up during the Nomad heist of the Basilisk from Militech. At V's prompting, the Aldecaldos can reveal they learned about the Basilisk from monitoring Militech comm channels, to which V can reply that the whole setup seems a little too good to be true, what with the convoy carrying the Basilisk essentially driving right by the Aldecaldo camp, practically waving it on the Nomads' doorstep. V's observations are pretty much shot down with little more than the explanation of "well, its too good an opportunity to pass up!", but later in the quest the game hints again at something going on when the Militech comm operators conveniently boot the 'Caldos off their radio channels right after they snag the Basilisk, as if they just noticed they were listening in. Again, this is ignored by the Nomads, and Mitch later reveals he apparently threw Militech off the trail by parking the stolen transport trucks near a rival Nomad camp, and nothing more is made of it.
  • Militech themselves appear several times throughout the game as potential allies. This, plus Militech's well known cold war with Arasaka since the Tower bombing, makes it strange that they fade so heavily into the background. If you work with Militech to retrieve the Flathead, the agent you speak to at the end of that mission makes it clear that they're open to working with V again. By Act 2, it's well known that V is a wanted person by Arasaka and is trying to find leads on several people, but Militech is nowhere to be seen, despite the fact this would be a golden opportunity for them to meddle with their arch-rival's high-profile Relic project. That same agent from the Flathead mission is also the one who gives a speech about how Militech is now the ones who will be outfitting NCPD with a new exoskeleton fleet, but that also never happens. This is only made more notable by the potential for V to have a one night stand with an agent of Militech, Meredith Stout herself, which is the only encounter of its kind in the game, as it's more in-depth than a Joytoy but notably lesser than any of the "full" romances that can be played out in the game.
  • There are multiple gigs that target the same high-level Soviet fixer who's currently doing business in Night City. The Chinese are also involved somehow, plus said fixer appears to be a personal rival of Regina Jones', the NC fixer who hands out these gigs. It all seems to hint at some international shadow war going on behind the scenes, but the whole thing just peters out with no conclusion, never to be mentioned again.
  • Some missions feature setpieces that are implied to have had major impact on the world. However, these are only referenced on radio or TV news and the world at large remains unchanged. Examples include the EMP power outage V causes while kidnapping Hellman (which caused millions of eddies in damage and widespread blackouts) and the sandstorm during Riders of the Storm (which killed or injured hundreds). The blackout is especially egregious, as the intro movie actually shows it taking place. However, for whatever reason, the mission in-game is set to daytime and occurs too far away from Night City for any changes to meaningfully render.
• Absurdly Dedicated Worker: Not by choice. Corpofascism is so powerful that workers can literally be forced to work at their desks until they drop from exaustion, and the workers are so browbeaten and hopeless they meekly submit. In gameplay terms, unarmed employees just there to clean the floors and restock the vending machines are often required by management to pick up a crowbar and rush you because a clause in their contract requires them to defend against any and all intrusion, even if fully armed security staff are already onsite and getting slaughtered by a heavily armed V.
• Absurdly Huge Population: Night City is densely populated with citizens from a variety of ethnicities, cultures, and subgroups due to being an important trade city. It is also economically segregated with a massive homeless population and reliant on trade with Nomads. As a result, people are packed together in a very small space with the Badlands stretching on for vast distances. This is made especially egregious by the presence of "megatowers", each one designed to be a city in itself and meant to house hundreds of thousands of residents, despite their size being only nominally larger than your average skyscraper.
  V: Main issues? Sky high rate of violence and more people living below the poverty line than anywhere else. Can't deny it — it's all true... but everybody still wants to live here.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Mantis Blades and the katanas can easily cut enemies apart.
• Ace Custom:
  • Not only is V able to own several vehicles, but each one has unique visual and performance modifications not found in the models found in the streets. Cars sold by Dakota Smith are all this trope, being heavily modified by Nomads to better handle the scarce resources, hostile bandits and corpo soldiers, and nonexistent roads outside of big cities.
  • During the course of the game, V can acquire Iconic Weapons, modified versions of ordinary guns that boast special effects, extra damage and flashy paint jobs.
    • Special mention must be made of Johnny Silverhand's Malorian Arms 3516 handgun, a one-of-a-kind semiauto pistol designed and built specifically for him. It's one of the few truly unique weapons in the whole game, and the only gun that combines the traits of Power and Tech weapons in a single package.
  • All of Judy's braindace equipment is custom made, except the casings.
  • The Basilisk armoured transport the Aldecaldos steal ends up as this once their techs get to work on it, giving it massively upgraded firepower (an extra gun in its turret and a heavy-duty multi-tube smart missile system), a high-speed booster, and one of the clan's signature fancy paintjobs. It ends up being dangerous enough to solo an entire Militech strike force with a single pilot and come out the other side in one piece.
• Act of True Love:
  • "The Sun" ending is treated like this for Johnny. After everything they've gone through with Johnny, V trusts him enough to give him control over their body to get them to Mikoshi, because they believe they lack the strength to do so themselves. Johnny is clearly very humbled and eager to make V proud.
    Johnny: Thanks [for trusting me], V. I'll get us through this, you'll see. See you on the other side (...) That's right. Even if I gotta burn this whole fuckin' city down!
  • Giving their body to Johnny in the "Temperance" ending is this for V, especially when the player achieves a high relic compatibility. Instead of living out whatever little they have left, they choose to go beyond Blackwall with Alt and give Johnny a chance at a new life and redemption.
    Sacrifice — that doesn't even come close to describing what happened in Mikoshi. Is there a word for trading your life for someone who doesn't deserve it? Brass tacks - this body's got a new owner and he can go straight to hell if he doesn't treat it with respect. You catch all that, V? Shit, somehow I can't shake the feeling you're still here somewhere...
• Action Girl: V can be played as a woman if the player so desires thanks to Character Customization. You fight alongside a few of them (notably Judy and Panam) in a few story missions as well.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Who better to play a rebellious, vengeful mercenary named Johnny than Keanu Reeves?
  • Cherami Leigh has experience voicing characters who are cold and bitter, have cybernetic limbs, and have rather foul mouths.
  • Misty is a character who uses tarot cards to read people's futures, and is also voiced by Erica Lindbeck. There's another game that follows the tarot principle...
  • Similarly, River is a police detective voiced by Robbie Daymond, who also happens to voice Goro Akechi (also a detective) in Persona 5.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Nancy Hartley/Bes Isis's reaction to finding out the mysterious net personality Swedenborg-Riviera that she's pursuing for a news story is actually a simple fortune-teller AI in Pacifica hacked by a prankster netrunner to spout nonsensical anti-corporate rhetoric. Especially if a Netrunner-specced V decides to join in the prank and crank up the nonsense on the AI to eleven when they find the fortune teller bot, so the clueless Bartmoss Collective followers go nuts trying to interpret the extra-ridiculous rhetoric.
• Adapted Out: Despite Morgan Blackhand's importance to the 2023 Arasaka raid and his and Adam Smasher's one-on-one duel, he himself doesn't make an appearance. Instead, the raid is entirely driven by Johnny and rather than being dismembered by an autoshotgun, Johnny and Smasher have the duel on Arasaka's roof.
  • Morgan Blackhand does appear as the author of the "The Solo's Manual"-shard. It also references a certain rockerboy who tried to take on a platoon of corpsec and got flatlined for the trouble. "It didn't make him a solo. It made him dead."
  • Given how Alt clearly states that Johnny's memories are not to be trusted, there is speculation that the events of the tabletop are in fact still canon and Johnny's narcissism simply edited out his contribution, some even placing Morgan's duel during the conspicuous cut between Smasher's dramatic entrance at Arasaka and Johnny arriving at the roof.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Early in the game, when Jackie teases the female V for her frequent substance abuse, she shoots him down by claiming to be "as clean as a cunt in a convent". Apparently, even hard swearing can be given a poetic touch.
• Adjustable Censorship: There's a "Nudity Censor" option that puts mosaic-esqe blurs on explicit nudity or adds underwear to characters who are fully nude otherwise and prevents the player from customizing V's genitalia.
  • Copyrighted music can also be disabled from playing in-game (mostly through in-universe radios). It's likely that both options are intended for streamers, let's play creators, and others playing the game on platforms where not all of the game's content is within the terms of service.
• Advertised Extra:
  • Trauma Team medics are featured prominently in the marketing materials, on merchandise, and the very first released tie-in comic, Cyberpunk 2077: Trauma Team, which was released before the game itself, tells the story of a doctor from one of the units. Despite that, Trauma Team appears in exactly one mission in the game, "The Rescue", the very first one after the prologue. You can also see their AV in "The Heist", when they're rushing towards Konpeki Plaza when V and Jackie try to escape with the Relic, but you don't get to interact with them.
• Advert-Overloaded Future: Night City is completely covered in ads top to bottom. It's hard to walk a couple of meters without running into a tv screen with some incredibly crass advert blaring on it. TV shows can hardly go for a minute without an ad break, and there is even a entire channel on TV called "Just Ads!" which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Aerith and Bob: Night City is cosmopolitan to hyperbole, so this was to be expected. It's especially notable among groups that run the gamut within their membership. For example:
  • The names members of the Aldecaldos include Mitch, Saul, Carol, Scorpion, and Panam. Even if Scorpion is Only Known by Their Nickname, "Panam," isn't exactly common.
  • It's safe to assume that most fixers are Only Known by Their Nickname, but those vary from real-sounding names like Regina Jones to stuff like Mister Hands. Scanning Rogue lists her name as, "Rogue Amendiares," implying that Rogue is either her given name or she had it changed at some point.
• The AI Is A Cheating Bastard: Claire's racing missions are full of this. For starters, the AI drivers exhibit ludicrously obvious rubberbanding. Also, no matter how you placed in the previous race(s), you always start at the very back of the grid, just to give you even more of a disadvantage from the get-go. Last but not least, if you think you're clever and pick a weaponized car to thin out the competition, you'll notice that the other cars are immune to damage, but their weapons can damage your car just fine.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played with:
  • Delamain is nothing but polite and professional to a fault towards V and even manages to snap a joke, but his personality fragments are crazy to the point they mimic real mental issues such as poor anger management, depression and multiple personality disorder.
  • The reason for the existence of the Blackwall is the fear that the A.I.s which thrive in the Old Net will eventually begin attacking humanity, who depend on the Net and Cyberware. Played with the A.I.s you can interact with, Delamain is nothing but polite and genuinly helpful and good-natured, Alt is cold, calculating, unfettered and remorseless.
  • Forcing the personalities to converge into one being causes Delamain to forcefully evolve into a being closer to Alt than his old self and he leaves to go to wander, but he leaves behind a "son" who acts just like the original before the issues. Johnny even points out you may have accidentally created a God.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: V and their allies tend to be this. Criminals, mercenaries and Fixers of all kinds and yet their actions are far less cruel than the ones they go up against. Many of V's side jobs tend to have them working as a Vigilante Man and Fixers, especially Regina and Padre Ibarra, generally send V on missions to put down people Night City could do without, rescue people who’ve gotten in over their heads and/or are being victimized and generally go up against vicious gangs or amoral corporations.
• The Alleged Car:
  • Almost all the cheapest vehicles sold by fixers are either beaten-up junkers in various states of disrepair or things barely worthy of being called cars, with the performance to match. A prime example being the Thornton Galena mentioned below and the Mai Mai, a tiny shoebox of a car with abysmal performance across the board that no self-respecting edgerunner would be caught dead in.
  • The state of the Nomad lifepath's starting vehicle through out that prologue. It, however, is a case of What a Piece of Junk, as its performance rivals that of most of the sports cars in Night City and has good off-road capabilities as it was custom-designed as a Nomad vehicle, and you can retrieve that same car much later in the game from a wandering techie who found it in the city's local landfill, whether by intimidation or paying her off to legally re-acquire it.
• All for Nothing: From Act 2 onwards, V's goal is to find a way to get rid of the Relic before it kills them by finishing to overwrite their brain with Johnny's. How well does it turn out?
  • In the Sun, Star, Devil, and (Don't Fear) the Reaper endings, V succeeds in getting the Relic disabled, but immediately learns the overwriting was extensive enough that they'll still have a couple months to live anyway.
  • The Temperance ending has V willingly accepting to let Johnny keep their body.
  • The bleakest ending of all is by far the Reaper ending, in which V commits suicide.
  • Arguably, the new ending from Phantom Liberty can also be seen as this due to V permanently losing the ability to use combat implants and cyberware. Sure, they no longer have to worry about the Relic killing them, but the idea that they can never become an Edgerunner again is a bitter pill to swallow.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Discussed and lampshaded in the side mission "Holdin' On": Kerry and Johnny talk about their bandmate Denny dating their another bandmate, Henry. Johnny doesn't understand what Denny saw in Henry, due to Henry being a Functional Addict and Denny being the smartest member of the band. Kerry answers that Denny always had a thing for losers, and that Henry was perfect for her, because she got to "rescue him over and over again". Johnny then asks "But why did she never try to fix me?", to which Kerry responds with "Because she'd have to get in line, that's why!".
• Alternate History: Due to being set in the same world as Cyberpunk 2020 by Mike Pondsmith. The setting's history diverges noticeably from ours:
  • Most importantly, viable Brain/Computer Interface technology that allows for fully functional Cyborg prosthesis is already working and in wide circulation by the early 2000s, something that even at the time of the game's development in the 2010s was still very much in a research phase.
  • Many other alternate events, like a The European Union equivalent being established a year earlier than in the real world and as a monetary union right off the bat, also occur.
  • The Soviet Union is still around, being the headquarters of SovOil. It's an ally of the European Economic Community that's abandoned orthodox Marxism-Leninism.
  • The United States collapsed and split in the 1990s, paving the way for the Japanese domination of American economy, at least outside the NUSA.
• Anachronism Stew: One of the more famous examples is a nuclear-powered MagLev train... programmed via cardboard punchcards. Justified, since the aftermath of the 2022 DataKrash virus pretty much set computer technology back about five decades.
• An Aesop:
  • Even under an oppressive system, you can still lead a meaningful and impactful life. Stay true to yourself, uplift other people and find small joys in life and you'll be able to say that you've had a decent run.
  • Dying for a vague ideal just isn't worth it. Risking your life to save/protect your loved ones, who are tangible people, is.
  • No matter how noble the goal you might be fighting for is, it doesn't excuse being abusive and toxic to people who are closest to you.
  • Change is good and a sign and a part of life. Clinging to what you know at all cost will lead to losing your humanity and can be compared to death.
  • Bonds with other people is what makes life worth living and they should never be underestimated.
  • Accept death and mortality, your own and your loved ones. You will grieve, but time will help, and you should keep living your best life to honor your departed loved ones.
  • Eternal life at the cost of your own humanity isn't worth it.
  • Pursuit of fame and glory will only make you want more and more. You will never be satisfied with what you have.
  • You have more people looking out for you and caring for your well-being than you likely think.
  • Even if you won't become well-known or remembered by the whole world, you can still inspire others around you to change their lifes for the better, which is just as, if not more, valuable.
• An Arm and a Leg: Explosives and high-powered weapons like a good old point-blank shotgun blast have a chance to dismember your target. There's even a perk explicitly designed to boost the percentage chance with shotguns for the sake of doing it more often, too.
• Anatomy Arsenal: V can choose between four arm-mounted cyberweapons:
  • The Projectile Launch System, a miniature grenade launcher built into V's left forearm.
  • Mantis Blades, a pair of massive, scythe-like blades built into V's forearms that deploy in a manner resembling praying mantis pincers.
  • Gorilla Arms, forearm replacements that can be used not only for punching people across rooms, but also ripping machineguns out of their turret mounts and carrying them around as well as forcing doors open.
  • The Monowire: a razor-sharp filament that extends from V's wrist. Like the mantis blades, it can be used to slice enemies to pieces, but it has a longer reach and its damage is tied to stealth ability rather than to the blades skill.
• And I Must Scream: What it feels like to be jacked into the net but unable to get out. Throughout their adventures, V will come across netrunners who've fallen foul of security protocols or opposing factions and are stuck in their chairs. The mildest description is that it's like being stuck in a deep hibernation yet fully aware of what's happening to your physical body — so you can be starving to death while being driven mad by the smell of food being cooked not too far away. Others overheat until their bodies cook themselves. Still others wither away as their bodies break down while their minds are trapped in a loop somewhere online.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • Zig-zagged in the Act 1 interlude, which opens with a playable flashback, as Johnny Silverhand, to the 2023 assault on Arasaka Tower. It's later revealed that V is experiencing this memory of Johnny's thanks to the Relic.
  • Downplayed during the Arasaka raid in the "Sun" ending when Johnny temporarily takes control of V's body. The former is the player character, but, since it's the latter's body, the overall gameplay is unchanged. You continue to play as Johnny after connecting to Mikoshi, even talking to V inside cyberspace as if they were an NPC. V once again becomes playable in the "Path of Glory" epilogue.
• An Interior Designer Is You:
  • After finishing certain missions, V will get new items for their house. They will appear in set places, except for the figurine Mitch gives you, which has to be manually placed.
  • Update 1.5 introduced the option to give V's starting apartment a "makeover", or in other words, a 10,000 eddies paint job. The player can choose between six different styles, none of which does anything about the apartment's layout or furniture. One can also purchase up to four additional apartments in various parts of Night City, but while these do look very different from V's initial digs, they can't be customized at all.
• And the Adventure Continues: Only one ending ("Death", obviously) actually definitively ends things for Johnny and/or V. The rest of the endings have V either moving on to continue their search for a cure (or to live what life they have left to the fullest, depending on our interpretation) or Johnny in V's body leaving Night City for a second chance at life. The "Devil" and "Tower" endings definitively result in Johnny's death, but still leave V's fate ambiguous. The "Devil" ending has V choose to become an engram after Arasaka fails to cure them, or return to Earth to live out their last days. The "Tower" ending, meanwhile, has V cured of the Relic, but losing their Edgerunner abilities in the process, forcing them to start over.
• Antepiece: Braindancing serves as this for a plot-related one involving the Relic heist.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Despite the game indicating otherwise, you don't actually need to use non-lethal tactics against cyberpsychos. It is technically possible to actually kill a cyberpsycho with the right weapon, mods and perks, but generally speaking even if you shoot one in the head with an anti-tank rifle — which is actually encouraged since one capture practically forces a Sniper Duel — the game counts it as a non-lethal takedown and the target will be left squirming on the floor alive.
  • Allies are invulnerable and undetectable, so you don't have to worry about getting caught or failing during an Escort Mission.
    • Related to the above, if you roll over in a mission-critical vehicle, that vehicle will almost immediately flip back on its tires by itself, sparing you from having to reload your latest savegame. Normal vehicles don't have this luxury. However the vehicle physic means that apart from physic glitch, you'll have to try if you want to flip your vehicle.
  • After completing Act 1, entering your default Archer Hella for the first time results in it getting hit by a rampaging Delamain taxi and wrecked. Thankfully, right after the cutscene ends (and the relevant quest to get it repaired starts), the local fixer contacts you and offers a car for sale, literally just one level up in the parking garage where the wreck occurs. One of the missions that starts at the beginning of Act 2 ("Heroes") will also reward you with a motorcycle for free depending on how you play the mission out, so that, even if you cannot afford to buy the first car, you won't have to go without some form of wheels for long.
  • Knowing that few players will follow traffic rules, above a certain speed traffic lights will nearly always switch to green when V drives through them. This is both to give the player the right of way to lessen the chance of annoying collisions, as well as to keep their Drives Like Crazy tendencies somewhat immersive.
  • The release version of the game made no difference between iconic and regular gear when it came to disassembling or selling stuff, leading to a lot of permanently lost unique equipment. This was changed in a patch so that trying to mess with an iconic item brings up a pop-up window that asks for confirmation first.
  • The 2.0 update came with numerous improvements to NPC car traffic. Arguably the most impactful one is cars automatically moving to the outside of their lane if you approach at medium-to-high speeds, which clears a corridor wide enough to comfortably drive through (doesn't work for idling cars though, like those waiting at traffic lights). Aside from that, NPC drivers now at least attempt to brake if you cross a street in front of them, instead of just running you over full-tilt like they used to.
  • Rampaging around town, driving the wrong way, causing so much property damage, and killing gangoons and other assorted hostiles, but not actually harming innocents or NCPD, will not attract the law enforcement. However subverted, there is a small chance where a civilian goes vigilante on V. Harming that civilian will have you reported for crime.
  • Enemies that die from any status ailment (poison, fire, shock, etc) will count as k.o.-ed instead of just dead, so if for whatever reason you need to take out an area's goons alive you don't have to worry about your quickhacks or poison grenades destroying them.
• Anti-Hero: V is an Edgerunner, doing dirty work for corpos and higher-tier criminals, their only concern being how much eddies they make in the process. Where they fall on the scale depends on some of the choices players make. At the very least just about everyone they go up against could count as an Asshole Victim in one way or another and some missions like rescuing victims or taking down human traffickers are downright heroic.
  • Pretty much every character in the main cast would qualify, due to their addictions, pragmatism, ties to organised crime, recklesness, willingness to commit violent acts or break the law for their own gain. The only character who isn't directly tied to any crime, violence or vices would be Misty.
• Anyone Can Die: Most notably with Jackie, who received a lot of coverage in trailers and pre-release material, and is dead by the end of Act I. Of course, this was actually spoiled in one of the pre-release trailers, setting players up for this trope in the game proper. Other characters who always die are T-Bug, who gets her brain fried by Arasaka netrunners during the heist, Saburo, who gets choked out by Yorinobu a few minutes earlier, deShawn, who gets shot in the head by Takemura after retrieving a half dead V, Evelyn, who gets hacked into a coma, raped by her boss and sold to Scavengers, and after being rescued she commits suicide due to having memories of everything they did, and Scorpion, who gets killed by the Kang Tao in a raid to get Hellman. Depending on how one views living behind Blackwall with Alt, either Johnny, V or both will die.
  • Depending on player's choices, other casualities are Takemura, who might get saved in "Search and Destroy", but it's so unclearly telegraphed that many players missed it, especially the ones who tried to save Jackie, River gets killed if he rushes the Serial Killer's lair by himself, Hanako will die in "The Sun" and "The Star" endings where Alt brings the Arasaka space station down, or in "The Tower" ending where she's killed in her attempted coup of Yorinobu, Yorinobu himself is bodyjacked and effectively murdered in "The Devil" ending, Rogue will die in "The Sun" ending and Saul will die in "The Star" ending. Meredith Stout will die if you don't follow her orders on the Flathead retrieval, and there are countless other minor NPCs who might die depending on players' choices.
  • In the Phantom Liberty storyline, either Songbird, Reed or Alex can die, depending on which of the four ending paths you pick. The King of Swords ending is the only one where they all live, but Songbird is implied to suffer a Fate Worse than Death in the aftermath.
• Arbitrary Equipment Restriction: A variation with the game's Gun Accessories. There's no real rhyme or reason to what accessories you can slap on which gun. Some power weapons can accept suppressors while others just arbitrarily can't (a prime example being the SOR-22 precision rifle). Some long guns can't mount a scope although they have more than enough space - and most definitely the need - for one, often making them take a backseat in favor of similar guns that can be upgraded.
• Arbitrary Gun Power: All over the place, both due to standard FPS reasons and RPG mechanics.
  • A particularly good example is comparing the Lexington, Unity, and NUE handguns. All three are expressly .45 caliber pistols, so their stopping power should be about the same. But the Lexington can only do a small fraction of the damage per shot of the other two, for no apparent reason other than that it is fully automatic. The NUE and Unity are closer in stopping power, but the NUE is a bit stronger, again for no reason other than that it is a bit slower to fire and has a smaller magazine. Submachine guns, that realistically should be slightly more powerful than pistols (as longer barrel will provide higher muzzle velocity) as a general rule, deal only a small fraction of the damage per shot that pistols do. Saratoga SMG in game can do even less damage, than aforementioned Lexington pistol. Assault rifles in general are slightly more powerful than SMG, but still weaker (in terms of damage per shot) than most of the pistols. And, of course, single shot and slow-firing rifles provide much higher damage per shot than its rapid-fire counterparts.
  • Johnny Silverhand's iconic handgun, when wielded by himself in his flashback missions, is a pure death machine. When V wields it in the game's present day, it's a powerful but nowhere near as game-breaking pistol generally on par with most of the standard handguns of the same level. Of course, Unreliable Narrator is explicitly in force here, so Johnny is probably exaggerating his destructive power.
  • Justified in some cases, like Johnny's handgun or Grad sniper rifle. The former is described as custom job, firing large caliber rounds, generally used by big game hunting rifles, and the latter is a heavy anti-tank rifle.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: One of Claire's four racing missions takes place in the Badlands, an ideal opportunity to break out your favorite Nomad-pimped car. Unfortunately, this race is also the only one that forces Claire's massive truck Beast on you for no apparent reason. Its top-heavy chassis, spongy suspension and low acceleration make Beast one of the worst cars you could possibly sit in for this race, giving the whole thing a lot of Fake Difficulty that could've been avoided if the player was allowed to pick one of the cars specifically built for this kind of terrain.
• Arcology: Par for the course for the codifying franchise of the Cyberpunk genre, the Megabuildings around town (within one which V resides) are arcologies by another name. At least, that's what CDPR apparently intended them to be in the game's conceptional stage. The actual constructs in the game certainly are huge and house a mix of residential and commercial units, but they don't generate their own power and most definitely aren't self-sufficient in terms of food or amenities, disqualifying them from the arcology label.
• Armor Is Useless: Weirdly zigzagged before the v2.0 update. Armor is definitely helpful in mitigating incoming damage, but its Level Scaling was so atrocious that its effectiveness dropped off rapidly as V leveled up. By the time you hit level 25+, the armor values you needed to retain noticeable damage reduction were so high that trying to get by with looted or purchased gear is equivalent to walking around naked. The only way for armor to stay competitive in the late game was through abusing the Item Crafting system, which means anyone who didn't specialize in the Tech skill is basically SOL. Update v2.0 mostly averts the trope, having removed all armor value from clothing save for protective gear such as helmets or bulletproof vests, V's main source of armor being their cyberware now.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Tech rifles have the ability to punch through cover and hit targets on the opposite side.
• The Artifact: Update v1.6 added a transmog feature to work around the Rainbow Pimp Gear effect as you keep switching out your clothes for ones with better stats. Then update v2.0 removed stats from clothing almost entirely, switching the main means of getting armor to Cyberware, making transmog mostly redundant.
• Artificial Atmospheric Actions:
  • In order to make Night City seem alive, the sidewalks and streets are filled with people. Unfortunately, the pathfinding leaves much to be desired, with some civilians crossing the streets only to turn around, walking in circles, walk straight into walls, get stuck on each other, or even through each other.
  • Sometimes you may see civilians conversing with one another... and glitches can cause them to accidentally face the other way.
  • On occasion you can see police officers surrounding someone as if to arrest them. But sometimes the game won't spawn anyone to be "arrested", causing the police officers to instead be staring at thin air.
• Artificial Limbs: Robotic arms, legs and so forth have become commonplace by 2077. There are stores selling them around Night City, and you can add them to yourself if you have the eddies.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • The aforementioned civilian AI leaves very much to be desired. Sometimes, the AI might point guns at you and not open fire.
  • There's about a 50:50 chance that V's car actually ends up near them when you summon it thanks to its shoddy pathfinding capabilities. Half the time it drives off into the sunset instead.
  • Car spawning when summoned gets wonky on busy streets; it's not rare to see the car arrive completely torn apart because it spawned under or inside another vehicle.
  • The driving AI is so lacking that they will almost never leave the rails they're scripted to drive on. This effectively makes car chases with the police non-existent.
  • The police are laughably easy to evade. If you're a couple meters away from them and out of their sight for a couple seconds after being spotted, they'll completely forget about you.
  • Characters that have abnormal factors (such as being paraplegic) don't have their AI flagged or scripted to behave differently. This creates hilarious effects like V seemingly being able to cure paralysis by punching people.
• Artistic License – Religion: Apart from the distinct Torii gate, the Shinto shrine in Japantown is arranged and designed more like a Buddhist temple than what it's supposed to be. It's also attended to by what look like Buddhist monks (although there is a kannushi in attendance as well).
• Ascended Glitch: from Witcher 3, pertaining to Geralt's horse Roach. An arcade game was present as scene filling called "Roach Race" since the game's release, with musical themes from the Witcher game series on it. With the v1.6 update, it was expanded into an obscacle dodge minigame with 8-bit pixel graphics, featuring lampoons of memetic glitches from Witcher 3 such as Roach ending up on rooftops, running on just their front legs, and with the gameplay frame of running away from Geralt.
• Ascended Meme: The "You're breathtaking!" meme from E3 2019 is referenced multiple times: it's one of the photomode poses, it's the name of one of the achievements, and Kerry will respond to a shouting crowd member with this line and associated pose in "Off The Leash".
• A Taste of Power: After stealing the Relic and being betrayed by Dex, the player is put in the shoes of Johnny Silverhand during his assault on Arasaka tower. He has 400 health that regenerates extremely fast, infinite ammo, and a bonafide Hand Cannon that can kill every single enemy in the map in one or two shots. Needless to say, it'll be a while before V can get to this level.
  • In the very first job you do, you down an enemy that's equipped with a heavy machine gun - a monster of a weapon that'll make mincemeat out of pretty much everything, so big you can't even carry it in your inventory. You get to test it by effortlessly blowing away one or two mooks, then the cutscene plays and the gun disappears. It'll be a long time before you get to fire one again.
• Attack Drone: The Flathead, a quadruped spider drone made by Militech that V must retrieve in Act 1. Its purpose is more reconaissance and infiltration rather than anything direct, with a suite of features to that end. The more traditional flying variants show up as well, mostly used by Arasaka and Militech.
• Attack Reflector: As of 2.0, speccing into blade weapons allows you to first parry incoming bullets and later to deflect them to where your reticle is aimed, so ideally back at the shooter or one of their buddies. Doing this while under any Bullet Time effect can make it even more effective if you pick the correct perks.
• Attack Speed Buff: At higher levels, Cold Blood grants a hefty boost to attack speed and damage for a short time after killing an enemy, along with other buffs.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • High-end cars can fall into this. As cool as owning a Rayfield Aerondight is it costs a whopping 220,000 eddies, something you could spend on far more useful upgrades, and it isn’t even the fastest car in the game. You can also get free cars throughout the story and side missions that function just as well, if not better, than the majority of the bought vehicles.
    • Just to hammer the point home: the Aerondight's sole outstanding feature is its ludicrous price tag. Its top speed and acceleration are decent at best, it handles like a barge around corners, and contrary to what the trailers claimed, it isn't even armored, being no more resilient than V's starting car. No matter what you need a car for, there're always better and much cheaper options than the Aerondight. Its role is essentially a Bragging Rights Reward both In-Universe and out—well, that and cruising Night City in style. Middling performance notwithstanding, it is a slick-looking ride.
  • Related to the above, the various supercars certainly look cool and usually have great acceleration, but they're fragile and tend to have terrible handling. In other words, they're among the worst choices for Claire's racing missions, and often even just for getting around Night City. There are numerous cars available that are much cheaper, almost as fast, and much easier to control, especially around corners. Fortunately, this one was largely remedied by the 2.0 update. The Caliburn for instance now has excellent handling, acceleration and top speed, finally making it the wheeled lightning it's supposed to be.
  • Speaking of 2.0 cars, although there's no real downside to any of the weaponized cars over their unarmed versions, there's no actual advantage to them either because there's simply nothing to do for them. They're too clunky and inaccurate to be used effectively against enemy foot soldiers, and the one occasion where they could've been useful - Claire's racing missions - makes the competing cars invulnerable, so whether or not your car is packing heat makes absolutely no difference. In fact, you're more likely to make your life harder if you break out the mounted guns because of how easy it is to accidentally mow down a few civilians and get the cops on your tail, in addition to the other drivers. The drive-by shooting mechanic falls victim to this as well. The only time you might actually need to use it is when you have hostile pursuers during one of El Capitan’s car theft gigs, and even then, it’s more effective to just get out of your ride and take them out on foot.
  • For the same reasons as above, there’s little reason to invest in any of the vehicle-based perks unless you’re running a netrunner build (where hacking cars actually has practical applications outside of driving situations). Most of them do offer some somewhat useful passive bonuses like preventing health damage in collisions or increasing vehicle durability, but the most egregiously useless of the bunch is Road Warrior. It might have worked for David in the anime, but using Sandevistan to slow time behind the wheel in-game actually makes avoiding obstacles harder,since your car isn’t immune to the time dilation effect like your body is on foot. Kerenzikov isn’t any use either, since it’s easier to just rely on the lock-on feature for drive-by shooting rather than manually aiming while handbraking.
  • Some high ranked items aren’t as good as the ones a tier below them. An epic quality leg cyberware upgrade allows the player to float briefly in the air to shoot down at enemies...which just makes them a bigger target due to lack of cover. Adding to that the jump height is shorter than its lower tiered counterpart, making it less practical for traversal.

B

• Badass Boast:
  • Body-dependent dialogue options usually result in V intimidating the other side into submission with one of these, often with a generous helping of To the Pain.
  • Johnny also has his fair share, usually revolving around how nothing will stop him from achieving his goals.
• Bad Boss: Since corporate un-accountability is a main theme of Cyberpunk genre at large, naturally the game is rife with examples. It's a relatively good boss that isn't actively trying to get their subordinates killed and is merely working them to the bone. The Corpo lifepath prologue has you dealing with a Bad Boss of the incompetent kind, who gets you caught in the fallout of reprisal from his own boss of the failure-intolerant kind.
• Bakeneko and Nekomata: During the mission "Gimme Danger", Takemura and V will see a stray cat sitting nearby their hiding place, with Takemura commenting that the animal might be a bakeneko. The same cat model is used multiple times during the game: after Johnny got left for dead in his memories and when V heads to Misty's Esoterica rooftop to make a decision about theirs and Johnny's fates. Are they actually bakenekos or just regular cats? It's up to the player to decide. The Sniper Rifle model in the Tech Weapon category is also called "Nekomata", which is employed by the Arasaka snipers used in the Dashi Parade mission.
• The Band Minus the Face: Subverted. Johnny Silverhand IS present on Samurai reunion gig, but for everyone present besides Kerry (who is in the know), it is V performing in Silverhand's place.
• Batman Parody: The side job "Murk Man Returns Again Once More Forever" has V stumbling upon a shard documenting a man who lost his parents, embraced the darkness, and became a Vigilante Man that "Night City doesn't deserve". He even has his own Batmobile (a black Caliburn that V can get for themselves) that's found in the Raffen Shiv hideout (which is implied to have been his Batcave).
• Battle Couple: Male V and romanced Panam form one in "The Star" ending. Johnny and Rogue during the first attack on the Arasaka Tower (and possibly the second one, if the player chooses "The Sun" ending) might count, because while they've broken up, there is clearly some unresolved romantic tension.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: For the mission "Gimme Danger", where Takemura and V do some preparatory work in the warehouse where the dashi floats for the parade are being stored, Corpo V potentially has the easiest time of all if, while casing the location, you spot a panicking guard who made an indiscretion and left evidence of it, freaking out that counter-intel will catch wind and skin him alive. V, having been Arasaka Counter-Intel before being canned, can pull this trope off to walk right in without any worry of hassle from guards, invoking the name of Abernathy, the Iron Lady in charge of Counter-Intel in the region.
• Beam Spam: One of the most vicious weapons in the game is the Arasaka GASH antipersonnel grenade, which doesn't explode but instead springs into the air and sprays laser beams in every direction like a lethal disco ball. Anyone and anything within its area of effect will be swiftly reduced to confetti.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: the three female characters who (may) take part in the Relic heist:
  • Evelyn: Beauty. She's the escort who managed to get vital info from Yorinobu's penthouse when on the job.
  • T-Bug: Brains. The netrunner responsible for the Flathead and Mission Control for Jackie and V. Judy might also qualify, to a lesser degree.
  • Female V: Brawn. She actually sneaks into Corpo Plaza with Jackie to steal the Relic, and she's the only one capable of holding her own in open combat.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Phantom Liberty is this trope in regard to the two endings that lead to you getting surgery from NUSA. During the entire game V is screaming and begging for a cure to save their life. They get it. The result is that all of their friends moved on, they are physically permanently weakened so much that they can barely have any chrome and they have an uneventful, depressing future to look forward to.
• Bedlam House: a cleaner version can be found in the side gig appropriately named "Cuckoo Nest". An NCPD officer is forcibly sent there after overhearing something she shouldn't have, and instead of keeping her mouth shut decided to talk to her supervisor about it. Features charming things such as lobotomies, high power electroshock therapy, using pregnant patients as experiments against their will, and forced impregnation to create more viable subjects for afore mentioned experiments.
• Betty and Veronica: Alt and Rogue fell into this a bit with Johnny back when he was alive, though both were closer to Veronica than Betty. Alt was probably closer to being the "Betty" with her blonde hair, more feminine appearance, and not always angry relationship with Johnny, while Rogue was definitely the rougher and more caustic of the two women. Though Alt was definitely Johnny's main girl, it's clear that he and Rogue had mutual feelings for each other, which was no doubt why Rogue kept helping him with his actions against Arasaka despite outwardly seeming to despise him. If your relationship with Johnny is good enough near the end of the game, you can help Johnny take Rogue out on the date, the date she had wanted to take him out on nearly a century ago before he died.
• Bilingual Bonus: Pre-release footage shows off Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish and many other languages that provide various easter eggs, puns and jokes.
  • One hostile NPC shouting "Du blir løyst fra banda som bind deg" / "You will be freed from the ties that bind you" in Norwegian, a Shout-Out to a lyric from "Helvegen", a song by the band Wardruna.
  • A sign in the E3 2018 gameplay for a hotel reads "HOテル", aka HOteru, aka the Japanese transliteration of hotel. (One can imply by the pun what kind of hotel it is.)
  • The "Tools of Destruction" featurette has a large "Corp-Bud" sign on a building, the "Bud" part being a stereotypical suffix used in Polish construction company names.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Various characters are able to speak with others in their native language and still be understood thanks to the prevalence of translation implants. Saburo Arasaka uses Japanese regardless of who he speaks to due to his nationalistic principles, and Hwangbo, V's client during the gig "Flight Of The Cheetah", talks in Korean the entire time, with V responding in English. Random NPCs can be heard holding bilingual conversations as well.
• Bittersweet Ending: Or Downer Ending, depending on what ending the player gets.
  • Until the Phantom Liberty expansion came along, no matter what choices are made, V's days are numbered. V can be Driven to Suicide and leave behind all their grieving and angry friends, agree to have their mind copied as an engram like Silverhand by Arasaka, walk away from Arasaka with just weeks to live, give up their body so Johnny can take over and have a fresh start, or return to their body in the non-Arasaka endings with months to live. If V chooses to go with the Nomads they'll leave Night City determined to live and hopeful for a solution while if they go alone they'll stay in the city, trying to build up their legend before their inevitable death. The Downer Ending would be suicide but the Bittersweet Ending is that V can survive as a digital ghost under Arasaka or in cyberspace, or they can believe they can find a cure while living on their own terms. Come Phantom Liberty, V can contact the FIA to excise the Relic without killing them if they got a certain ending in the expansion. However, not only does this permanently destroy Johnny and put V in a coma for two years, but the damage done to their nervous system means that V can never use cyberware again, effectively ending any hopes of becoming a legend, much less thrive in Night City. Their two-year absence also means that all of her friends except for Vik and Misty have moved on^note Judy married and left Night City, Kerry is on tour and too busy to talk to V, River's life has disintegrated around him, and Panam won't even take your call, leaving V not just a powerless nobody but more alone than ever before. Really the only grains of sugar in this bittersweet cocktail is the fact V won't be killed by the Relic and now has the clean slate to make a truly new life for themselves, even if it won't be as the "legend" they once wanted to be.
  • The ending of Judy's questline, "Pyramid Song". Judy decides that she can't stay in Night City any longer and decides to leave it behind, but is nevertheless grateful for V's friendship and support. She only stays in Night City if V romances her, but she states that it's only temporarily and she plans to move on with or without V.
  • Any ending where your romantic partner breaks up with you. While the scenes themselves are sad, you always split on relatively good terms, with both sides understanding their reasons.
• Black Comedy: Rife with it. Night City is a brutal, lawless, and horrific place but you can find some very dark laughs here. One example is a shard detailing the conversation between two criminal debt collectors torturing a guy by slowly chopping off his fingers. He gave at 9 but his torturer's OCD couldn't let him leave it at that.
• Black Market: There's no single place in Night City where V can go to obtain illegal merchandise, but a lot of items (top-tier combat cyberware in particular, but also pineapple pizza) have Flavor Text that all but confirms their illegality. In short, almost any ripperdoc in the city is a black-market dealer. Some quests also tangle with a specialized black market selling truly depraved braindances.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Compare the company logos for the fictional Constitutional Arms◊ with real-life Smith and Wesson◊.
  • Also compare the company logos for the fictional Kang Tao◊ with real-life Tencent.
• Blatant Lies: After Johnny's 2013 flashback, asking him what happened to Thompson after the events has Johnny answering V that he doesn't know and never worked with him again. That's a deliberate lie from Johnny (probably motivated by him hating Thompson after the later kept filming Alt's corpse despite being order by Johnny to stop), because Thompson was also involved in the 2023 flashback (he's not seen in person, but he's taking part in a conversation with the raid's crew during the helicopter ride to Arasaka Tower. Note that V already knows it's a lie, since the 2023 flashback happens before the 2013 one.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: A number of weapons are plated with a rather specular sheen. Of particular note are Las Chingonas Doradas (singularly La Chingona Dorada since you can only wield one at a time), Jackie's unique dual Tsunami Nue guns with embossed gold-plated slides and a muzzle brake, which are later acquirable some time after his Oferenda if you ordered Delamain to deliver his remains to his mother.. Many other variant-skin weapons are painted in Kitsch-style colors too.
• Body Horror: The setting's cybernetics can get extreme: People cut off their arms to turn them into concealed cybernetic blades, or pluck out their eyes to install "better" robotic ones. This is best exemplified with the Maelstrom gang, an extreme body mod faction, whose members all have the top-front quarter of their skulls removed to install a set of robotic eyes in the gaping cavity - with no anesthesia, as a sink-or-swim initiation ritual to get into the gang (unsurprisingly mostly composed of cyberpsychos). Similarly, the attempts at hacking into brain implants depicted in early trailers and gameplay videos can lead to burning people's skulls out. Adam Smasher takes the cake, having replaced 96% of his body with cybernetics.
  • Phantom Liberty includes a sequence where V gets an extensive facial reconstruction implant under limited anesthetic. The sound effects alone are quite graphic.
• Book Ends:
  • The Streetkid's Lifepath prologue starts and ends with V straightening out their broken nose. Finishing with The Sun Ending as a Streetkid starts and ends with V talking to a shady Fixer for a job.
  • Johnny enters the plot with a playable flashback of him raiding Arasaka Tower with Rogue, and is defeated by Adam Smasher. In the Sun Ending, the plot climaxes with Johnny (in V's body) raiding Arasaka Tower with Rogue and defeating Adam Smasher (that's also Johnny final moment beside the short discussion with V inside Mikoshi afterward). Johnny's outfit and gun (which was used during both playable flashbcks) can be brought. "The Rebel Path" tracks also plays at the start of the final raid.
  • Getting The Star ending with the Nomad lifepath will have V begin the game leaving one family to go into Night City and end the game joining another while leaving Night City. Both have V taking off the symbol of the life they're leaving behind, with the Bakker's clan patch in the beginning and the 'lucky bullet' necklace in the end. Also, the Nomad lifepath's prologue starts with V entering Night City while smuggling stolen Arasaka goods (the iguana), and the Star ending concludes with V and the Aldelcados leaving Night City's territory while smuggling stolen Arasaka goods (stuff they plundered during the Mikoshi raid).
  • Getting The Star ending with the Streetkid lifepath will begin V's story with having left Night City to seek their fortune elsewhere (only to return in failure), and end with V leaving Night City to continue their adventures elsewhere (only this time "failure" will mean V's death via Relic breakdown). Regardless of lifepath, V also points out that they started and ended the plot by stealing Arasaka tech.
  • Getting the Devil ending with the Corpo lifepath has V starting and ending the game as a servant of Arasaka. While the Corpo prologue shows V falling from grace as an Arasaka employee who loses everything, the Devil ending has V get back into Arasaka's good graces while technically being a mercenary.
  • The Streetkid lifepath's first mission is stealing an expensive car from the garage of a high-class venue. That venue is Embers, where the final mission starts.
  • The Corpo lifepath starts and ends by taking an Arasaka AV to attack the superior of your employer. In the prologue it's killing Susan Abernathy on the orders of Arthur Jenkins, in the finale it's capturing Yorinobu Arasaka, on the orders of his sister, Hanako.
  • Act 2 of the game starts with V reeling from their terminal diagnosis and horrified at how little time they have left to live until Misty calms them down and offers some advice and perspective on how they can adapt to their situation moving forward. "The Tower" ending, included with Phantom Liberty, has V reeling from the realization that though the NUSA cured them, it cost them two years of their life and the ability to wield combat implants, ensuring their life will never be the same again. Once again, Misty meets with them and calms them down, and offers some advice and perspective on how they can adapt to their situation moving forward. In Act 2, Misty gave V a lucky charm pendant consisting of the bullet Dexter shot them with, while in the "Tower" ending, V realizes they've lost the pendant before Misty reassures them they don't need it anymore.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The Ping quickhack. It doesn't debilitate or damage in any way, but it does reveal every networked device (including enemies with cyberware) in a local subnet when you apply it. It's an instant recon sweep. The Legendary tier version enables hacking devices through walls.
  • Overheat and Short Circuit are simple early game quickhacks that, once buffed with a few perks, can one-shot almost anything in the game that isn't a boss, and their sheer damage output makes them very useful against those as well. They're also non-lethal, doubling their value due to the numerous optional no-kill mission objectives.
  • Honestly, the basic quickhacks in general can be this in combat. While it may not be as exciting as flashy moves with other weapons, a player can just hold back and pick off non-boss enemies with ease.
  • The Contagion quickhack is like a contagious version of Overheat. And it stacks. Once you get it and a few quickhack-boosting perks and/or augments, most of your non-boss fights will amount to "hack camera, spam Contagion on every visible enemy, wait for all the bodies to drop".
  • The Gorilla Arms Cyberware. While comparatively not as flashy as the Mantis Blades, Monowire or Projectile Launcher, they basically enhance the power of your fists alone. Being non-lethal, they are also great for incapacitating enemies, plus they're the only weaponized equipment V can use in fisticuffs-only situations (such as boxing matches, or tossing Valentino thugs out of Mama Welles' bar). They also can boost Body skill checks in dialogue and world interactions and nullify Body checks on weapon handling; they're the only arm cyberware that offers an attribute boost. Can be made less boring with some fridge thinking: Punch a concrete or metal wall, notice the damage you did to the wall, and contemplate that you are striking people with these.
  • The Reinforced Ankles implant simply lets V jump much higher than normal, but it's amazing how handy this simple feature can be in any number of situations, from traversal to infiltrating guarded areas unseen. It's probably not a coincidence that the implant is among the most expensive on the market.
  • Smart guns. Just aim them in the general direction of the enemy and keep laying on the trigger until nothing shoots back anymore. While unspeakably boring for avid shooter players, they can be a godsend for people who aren't as good at this sort of game. The fact that they use the same Universal Ammunition as all the other gun types makes them even more viable for casual gamers.
  • Low-tier Sandevistan implants. As enticing as 10x time slowdown for 8 seconds is, it doesn't affect the inertia of your weapons — and there isn't much you can do in 0.8 seconds of real time. Simple implants with a 2-3x slowdown still give you a massive reaction time advantage over enemies while lasting several times longer.
  • In-Universe, the Archer Hella (V's default car after the prologue) has this reputation, to the point that it was too practical; despite high initial sales, it almost bankrupted the Archer car company because once someone bought one, they never had to buy another car ever again, and, on the remote chance it broke down, its design was simple and straightforward enough that anyone who knew which way to hold a wrench could practically repair it in their garage, or on the side of the street if they lacked a garage. In gameplay, V's Hella looks rough, with multiple jury-rigged fixes and customizations, but has fairly decent performance overall.
  • In a game with a lot of varied, exotic and supertechnological weapons, one of the easiest and most practical choices to start with is the medium revolver. Not fancy semiautos which (at that point) do piddling damage, not advanced handheld railgun pistols that require developing a whole tech tree before they become good; no, just the most twentieth-century six-shooter you can think of, replete with side-swinging cylinder that you fill manually.
  • The Constitutional Arms Unity (the default starting pistol for V at the beginning of Act 1) is a "Power" handgun that doesn't look like much, and doesn't have many features even compared to its close relative the C.A. Liberty, but it's a damn good iron that scales well with player tiers and, with the right investment into the Cool stat, can put out some surprisingly high damage even to elite enemies, and is a good all-around backup gun in case nothing else is doing the job. This also seems to extend into the story as well, as V keeps one on holdout even if the player doesn't have one equipped and will often use it to get out of a tight spot or two.
  • A fast quick melee attack can stunblock even powerful enemies long enough to allow you to follow up with another quick melee attack. Spam it, and you can bring them down in a boring, but "safe" way.
• Bottomless Magazines:
  • Despite looking like a single-shot weapon, the Projectile Launch System has infinite ammo and never needs to be reloaded.
  • Same goes for the Basilisk tank's autocannon.
• Brain/Computer Interface: Naturally, given that it's Cyberpunk. The most common is cybernetic brain augments with sockets or cables for wired connections and reading from external media, a la Ghost in the Shell.
• Brain Uploading: The main selling point of the Relic chip — a TV show guest early in the game says it allows for immortality by having people's minds transferred into new bodies. In the "Devil" ending, it's revealed that the one V stole wasn't the only one in the world, and Saburo Arsaka comes back from the dead thanks to it.
• Breather Episode:
  • "Pyramid Song", the last quest in Judy's questline. While it's quite melancholic, it's a peaceful mission where V and Judy go diving together to test out Judy's new BD scrolling technique. It's notably one of the few missions where you literally can't kill anyone or engage in any sort of violence. It's both a breather episode for Judy's questline and the game in general.
  • Kerry's entire chain of quests, while it can veer into some heavy emotions, is kept relatively light-hearted. Once again, the entire storyline can be played without any sort of combat (the only exception is if you've allowed Patricia to take over Maelstrom; you will be forced to fight with some mooks in "Second Conflict"). "Boat Drinks" is just a peaceful sail with Kerry that ends with the two of you engaging in some property damage (instead of cold-blooded murder, as it often is in other missions). Kerry's story arc gets unlocked right at the end of act two, so it's a break between the frantic act two and the ending sequence.
  • "Following The River", the last quest in River's storyline, is just a nice dinner with River and his family, that allows V to spend a wholesome evening with their new friends, especially after the tense investigation before.
  • "Blistering Love", where you let Johnny take over your body so he can go on a drive-in movie date with Rogue. You can even pick her up in Johnny's iconic Porsche 911 II (930) Turbo, and while the date itself doesn't exactly end with a bang, absolutely nothing violent or horrible happens, so V racks up another breather episode.
  • The Side Job "Love Rollercoaster" has no action or drama whatsoever. It's a relatively short quest that sees V fixing a rollercoaster and taking it for a ride. It's also one of the rare quests where Johnny is enjoying himself in a way that doesn't involve him saying something negative or blasting goons and Arasaka grunts.
    Johnny: Hold my beer. We're doing this, V.
  • The "Sinnerman" Side Job and its associated questline leans more toward the dramatic side. Aside from how the quest starts (V's tasked with killing Joshua with the client until the cop escorting Joshua kills the client and Joshua asks V to accompany him), it has no violence and is instead a thoughtful look at a man who wants to atone for his actions while a corporation makes bank off of his re-enactment of the crucifixion of Christ.
• Brick Joke: The "Postcards from Night City" featurette shows a woman being held hostage by two gangoons. "2077 in Style" featurette reveals they were Mugging the Monster, as she promptly deploys her Mantis Blades and kills them both.
  Karina Lee: Look at the moves on this girl! Slicin'em up like sashimi!
• Brief Accent Imitation: While attending Jackie's ofrenda, V quotes something he told them while paying tribute to him, dropping their voice and affecting Jackie's Spanish accent.
  V: He once told me, (imitates Jackie's voice) "Broder/Chica, the one thing we can't do is be afraid of others."
  • V does it again if you call Jackie's voicemail after he dies.
• Broad Strokes: How certain events and characterizations from the tabletop game are handled. For example, the Arasaka Tower raid in 2023 took place in both the video game and the tabletop game, but Johnny was captured alive and killed with Soulkiller, and not dismembered by Adam Smasher's autoshotgun. Morgan Blackhand is also suspiciously absent in the game's retelling of the events. Worth noting that Johnny's memories (through which we experience those events) are openly stated to be biased and not an exact retelling of what happened with Mike Pondsmith confirming Unreliable is the most generous version of what Johnny could be called due to... circumstances that the game never mentions.
  • The wholesale exclusion of Morgan Blackhand, a character who is vital to the raid and Johnny being on that raid in the TTRPG versions of that night, as well as Militech backing the whole operation is also a notable narrative choice.
• Brought Down to Normal: In the Phantom Liberty ending, V is able to successfully remove the Relic from their brain, but at the cost of suffering permanent nerve damage that prevents them from using combat implants. This means that V is forced to live as a regular, unaugmented civilian from now on, reinforced by how they get mugged and beaten up by a common street thug.
• Brutal Honesty: The advice that Sgt. Dobs gives during the Safe & Sound segments is as grim as it is valid, no matter how gently he tries to convey it.
• Bullet Time: Two reflex booster implants allow this: Sandevistan is more versatile, and grants longer use at slower time, but replaces your cyberdeck, so you can't, for example, distract or paralyze enemies with Quickhacks, while Kerenzikov slows time for the duration of a dodge, allowing you to correct your aim and let off a shot. Another implant gives you momentary Bullet Time when you're in an enemy's line of sight or when your health is low, allowing you a moment to retreat — or acquire your new target.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In a bit of a darkly comedic example, one of the local NC talk shows reports a massive gun battle in the city of Chicago which claimed almost 200 lives. The host comments that while the local politicians called it a "massacre", the citizens called it "a typical Tuesday".
• But Thou Must!:
  • Even if V and Jackie stealth through the hotel knocking out every guard their automated ride will drive loudly through the garage, thus forcing an escape and a loud firefight through the streets that will get V betrayed by Dex for getting too much attention. Even if V tells Dex that they weren't the one to kill Saburo, Dex will remark that Arasaka won't care and uses this as justification to betray them.
  • During the second Johnny flashback Thompson records Alt's death, much to Johnny's rage. Though the game gives you a time sensitive prompt whether to punch him or not it doesn't matter — Johnny is so angry that he will beat Thompson to near death even if you let the timer run out.
  • In the Corpo lifepath prologue, the only possible attitude you can adopt towards Jenkin's order to assassinate Abernathy is reluctant acceptance of the task, with no room for either enthusiasm or rejection. Nor can you rat him out to Abernathy after you leave, in an effort to save yourself (or just nobly refuse to do a Corrupt Corporate Executive's dirty work). Regardless of what you think of the job, you're locked on rails to support Jenkins and ultimately fall with him. This is highlighted when you're approached in the club by Arasaka's men who all but physically put a gun to your V's head as you're fired for Jenkin's plan and forced to hand over the data regarding Abernathy.
  • During "Automatic Love", the only way to enter Clouds to look for Evelyn is to book a session with a doll. For some baffling reason, even if you outright tell the front desk that you're not there as a customer, she can't seem to get it through her head that you would be at Clouds for anything other than pleasure, and there is no further dialogue choices to outright clarify that no, you're not a lovesick client or someone looking for some kicks, you're one of Evelyn's personal associates trying to locate her because she's literally gone missing.
  • Weirdly zigzagged outside the main story. Most sidequests, even intricate questlines like the ones offered by the various Love Interests, allow V to decline the task on offer. But then there are seemingly random quests that can only be accepted, with no reason given why the player has no say in the matter.