Cyberpunk 2077 / Tropes D to F

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D

• Damage-Sponge Boss: Bosses can take a lot more damage than regular mooks. Most of the time, this is justified by them being heavily cybered badasses, but at least one boss who just seems to be a regular human in a suit can still soak an impressive number of bullets before dropping, simply because he's a boss. That last one was eventually patched out, making the whole thing mostly justified and internally consistent.
• Dark Is Not Evil: V, Johnny, and their group of True Companions don't exactly represent the archetypes associated with traditionally heroic characters: V is a struggling Professional Killer, Johnny is a Bomb Throwing Anarchist, Jackie is an ex-Gangbanger who works as a merc, Misty is a Perky Goth, Viktor is a Back-Alley Doctor operating from a dingy basement, Judy is a techie working for a gang, Panam is a merc who's not above hunting down a man who stole her car and gear and killing him, Kerry is an aggressive washed-up rockstar clad head to toe in leather, Rogue is a fixer setting up criminals with jobs, Takemura is a disgraced Corporate Samurai, the Aldecaldos are a clan of smugglers and even River, the closest one to a classically heroic archetype (By-the-Book Cop) is pretty intimidating and willing to use force. Despite all that, all of them are actually much deeper than you'd think at a glance, and generally seem to be good, if not flawed or misguided, people and reliable friends. It contrasts them with the closest thing the game has to antagonists, the Arasakas (Saburo, Yorinobu and Hanako), who are clearly distinguished, dignified and upper-class, but are also scheming, conniving and clearly detached from the rest of humanity.
• Deadly Doctor: Despite the fact they're touted as a high-end premium medical insurance company, Night City's Trauma Team look about as far from an ambulance crew as you could get. Instead of medical scrubs, the squads look more like military combat medics; all of them equipped with guns and decked out in military-grade armor as they swoop in to haul their clients out of danger. At least they're nice enough to warn you to stand back and only taser you if you try to get close.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • In the Corpo origin story, Jackie outright calls working with Arasaka "un pacto con el diablo" and "selling your soul", such that he considers getting screwed over by Arasaka and terminated from the company to be a blessing in disguise, as it means that V can now choose their own path.
  • At the conclusion of the Arasaka ending path, the Relic is removed as Hanako promised you, but your condition is still terminal as the Relic has already rewritten your brain beyond repair. You are offered one solution: You can enroll in the Secure Your Soul program free of charge and join Mikoshi as a digital engram, abandoning your body forever. However, engrams don't legally have rights, so you'll effectively become Arasaka property. The bright side is that the science will likely advance enough in the future for you to one day download yourself into a fresh new body, but it's unknown when that will ever happen. You can also reject this, and return to Night City to live out the rest of your days unless a miracle cure presents itself to you.
• Death by Adaptation: Santiago Aldecaldo. He survived the events of the TTRPG and is even explicitly mentioned in the RED World Book; he has a son named Trace and would tell stories of the 2023 Arasaka Raid, insisting the bomb going off early wasn't theirs. Santiago is dead by the time of 2077 with a single dialogue contradicting RED and saying he died at Arasaka Tower in 2023. This likely made more sense in an earlier draft of the game; Saul used to be Santiago as can be confirmed via datamining. Paweł Sasko explained on one of his streams that it was changed to balance out the amount of new characters vs ones taken from the tabletop game, and because it wouldn't make sense lore-wise for Santaigo to be alive in 2077 (unlike the Arasakas, Rogue or Samurai members, who can afford life-extending treatments).
• Deconstruction: The game deconstructs certain tropes and aspects common in western RPG games:
  • There is no clear villain that V is up against. Saburo gets offed at the end of Act I and only returns in the ending where you side with him, you can get through entire game without speaking to Yorinobu once, and despite her flaws, Hanako proves to be honest enough in her dealings with V (in "The Devil" ending she sets them up with the biochip surgery, allows them to leave the space station, secures a spot for them in the "Secure your soul" program and is willing to hire them/give them funds for life if they choose to leave the space station and live free). The enemy is instead the whole faulty system that's put in place in Night City: It doesn't matter if Saburo, Yorinobu, or Hanako are at the helm, because the Arasaka corporation will still keep being oppressive, money- and power-hungry force trampling over the people of Night City. As Mike Pondsmith would say Cyberpunk isn't about saving humanity, it's about saving your self. and this game makes you face that.
  • The game also deconstructs the Golden Ending trope. Not a single one of these endings can be considered unambiguously "good" without any drawbacks. V will either die, become an engram/digital ghost, be living on borrowed time (six months maximum at the end of the story), or will let Johnny take over their body. Even the unlockable endings ("The Star" and "(Don't) Fear The Reaper"), while somewhat more optimistic than the standard ones, don't change that much in terms of V's chance for survival. The Relic has simply spread too far, and no matter how many sidequests you do or right dialogue options you'll pick, it won't change the fact that V's body is permanently damaged (seemingly) beyond repair. To top this off in almost all ending routes where you ask for help someone important to V and/or Johnny WILL die in the opening of the final fight even if you do everything correctly.
  • V doesn't impact Night City that much in terms of day to day and is ultimately unable to free it from corpo control. While the "Path of Glory" and "The Star" endings allow you to cripple Arasaka, Night City is still far from free. Many in-game articles imply that there were some tensions brewing again between Arasaka and Militech, and it's very likely that Militech will simply kill off any Arasaka remnants and take over the city, meaning that, in the grand scheme of things, not much will change. To top thing off, V (or Johnny) likely won't live long enough to see what their raid has caused, or will be far away from Night City by then.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: River expresses disgust at the amount of artificial substances that went into factory farmed beef in the early 21st century, of the type that most players of the game would cheerfully eat, but equally cheerfully scarfs down any number of foodstuffs players would find revolting, including but not limited to insects and synthetic fats.
• Demoted to Extra: Michiko Arasaka, daughter of Kei Arasaka. is a prominent character in the Cyberpunk: RED era of the TTRPG who has her own scenario and expanded backstory. In 2077 she is only passingly mentioned in a few shards and lines of dialogue as the leader of the company's liberal reformist faction, but has a small cameo in the Arasaka ending path as one of the board members gathered to hear the testimony against Yorinobu. Notably, she's the only board member besides Hanako who survives Yorinobu's shootout.
• Developers' Desired Date: Panam Palmer is this to a male V. She's the only love interest for male V you meet in the main story, she plays a big role in the second half of act II and potentially act III, she spends the most time with V out of all romance options, their relationship builds more gradually (unlike the more sudden Relationship Upgrade in the other three), and she's the only love interest for whom completing the side missions for will unlock a new ending, "The Star". Even if you don't romance her, Panam is one of V's closest friends and allies, who's ready to die for them and offers V joining her clan, the Aldecaldos, and leaving Night City together. The closest to this trope female V has is Judy Alvarez, who is also the only love interest for female V met in the main story, so she spends more time with V than just what's in her sidequest, she was heavily featured in promotional materials before the game came out, and is the only romantic option (other than Panam) who will join you in "The Star" ending. The other two romance options, Kerry Eurodyne and River Ward are only met through sidequests, have no bearing on the main plot, and spend much less time with the player than either Judy or Panam.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • The developers included the option to turn off copyrighted music and nudity for the sake of online streamers. Thought this feature launched broken, it was later fixed.
  • If the player manages to get in and drive Judy's car (which is impossible to do without mods), she will send them a light-hearted, but annoyed text message.
  • You can actually fail the mission "Boat Drinks" by jumping off the boat and swimming to the shore. After some time, Kerry will send you a hurt message, where he's upset about you leaving him.
  • Trying to call Jackie's phone after his Plotline Death will actually give V the option to leave him updates on current events on the answering machine as a kind of Talking to the Dead.
  • Every single fictional musician in the game, be it in person or even simply mentioned once on a datashard, is represented on the in-game radio with their own unique song made by a real-life artist.
• Diabolus ex Machina: The Arasaka heist at the end of Act 1 for the most part goes off without a hitch. It just so happens that on that particular day that the heist happened, Saburo Arasaka returned to the US for the first time in decades to see his son. And it just so happened that Yorinobu decided to murder him right in front of your eyes. And it just so happened that because you witnessed all of this, you make the perfect patsy for Saburo's murder. Had you done the heist even a day earlier, V's crew would have been set for life rather than mostly dead with the final member living on borrowed time.
• Dialogue Tree: How every conversation where V is a part of works. Sometimes you get new dialogue options depending on your V's chosen lifepath and skillpoint allocation.
• Did Not Think This Through: A recurring theme throughout the story is how many characters, including V, have huge ambitions but fail to consider all contingencies before taking action. Ultimately, money, power, politics, and human nature come into play and throw even the best-laid plans awry
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
  • At the start of "Pyramid Song", you can catch Judy humming her Leitmotif, "Bells of Laguna Bend" to herself. Variations of the tune play throughout the entire mission.
  • Before the sex scene with Kerry plays out, he turns on the radio that starts playing a variation of the Samurai song "Archangel". It plays non-diegetically through the rest of the scene.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Ricochet shooting with Power Weapons. Dismissed by many as Cool, but Inefficient because of the change in paradigm in where to aim, the ricochet effect imparted by the Ballistic Coprocessor implant or an integrated ricochet engine in the weapon itself can become immensely powerful in the hands of a practiced user even in more typical shooting circumstances. One must develop an ability to intuitively spot ricochet angles and trust in the ricochet aim-snap to take aiming from there to get the most use out of it. In this mindset, the most overwhelmingly common usage is firing from the hip at the approximate midpoint on the (level) ground between you and the target, as the ricochet effect still works even when firing from the hip. The trajectory line applied with the "Draw The Line" perk in the Tech/Engineering perk tree (or thet Trajectory Generator eye mod pre-1.5) helps with more complex shots and can act as "training wheels" for learning the knack for eyeballing the midpoint on the fly. Version 1.5 gives some extra help for ricochet shooting, such as wider ricochet angles and potentially massive ricochet damage boosts from muzzle brake attachments, and also adds a green highlight even through walls to any target that is caught by the aim-snap while aiming down sights with the trajectory line, or briefly flash the target on a successful hit when firing from the hip. For massive damage per shot, one can experiment with adding a Babaroga muzzle brake (the model series with the highest potential ricochet damage multiplier) to an Overture revolver.
• Dirty Cop: It's hard to find a police officer who is not on the take or otherwise involved in illegal activity. For example, the police chief paid off the Scavengers to get rid of the homeless dwelling in an abandoned tunnel then put a bounty on the scavs to eliminate them as witnesses, and V gets hired to "persuade" a honest detective to stop her investigation in the side mission "The Woman from La Mancha". However, most are at least still trying to do their basic job. Then, you have some dirty cops who take it to the next level and are opening working with the city's criminal gangs, even fighting alongside them in combat.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Dying Night is given to V for free by Wilson while leaving to meet Jackie for the first time after the Sandra Dorsett job. While it's a Lexington, it has a lickety-split-quick reload time and an enormous headshot bonus damage. With a high quality silencer and some upgrades, stealth headshots can go well into the thousands of damage (or tens of thousands on crits), making it an excellent weapon for stealthy players. If you get the hang of hipfire-aiming for Ballistic Coprocessor ricochet shots, the Lexington's full-auto fire synergizes with the ricochet damage bonuses that are more prevalently available on power weapons after the 1.3 patch. It as well as almost every gun below can be upgraded to a better version of itself.
  • The Fenrir submachine gun can be acquired as soon as the player met Dexter DeShawn, being located in a small warehouse visited during a sidequest. While it's damage output will eventually fall short, it's still a Rare weapon with a thermal damage bonus that can carry players for a long while.
  • There's a well-hidden loot chest in Kabuki that contains a legendary Monowire arm implant. Not only is this one of the most powerful melee weapons in the game, you normally can't even purchase it until you hit 25 street cred, and it costs well in excess of 100,000 eddies if you buy it at a ripperdoc's. You can pick it up right after the intro mission, with the only deterrent being a bunch of Animals gangoons guarding the area. The Wire, as well as pretty much all other legendary cyberware found in the open world, was removed in Update 1.3.
  • For Handgun users, Lizzie is a unique Omaha tech pistol that can be found when meeting Judy early on in the game. While its short range hurts its effectiveness later on, it fires as fast as you can pull the trigger, resulting in huge DPS that can carry you well into Act 2 even when not upgraded.
  • Skippy, one of the most absurdly powerful weapons in all of Night City, can be picked up the moment you start Act 2. And unlike all of the above examples, it stays that powerful indefinitely because it's the only weapon in the game that levels with the player instead of requiring expensive upgrades to stay competitive.
  • Buzzsaw is likely to be one of the first craftable iconics you'll come across. While not overwhelmingly powerful stat-wise, it's one of only a handful of Power weapons that can shoot through cover, walls and other enemies, making it surprisingly lethal in a game whose gunplay is mostly cover-based.
  • Not a weapon, but an all-black version of the ultra-expensive Caliburn supercar can be picked up for free in a cave near Rocky Ridge. Namely, the same cave where you fight Nash and his goons in Panam's first mission. It's right around the corner of where that battle takes place, accessible at any time after the Heist mission. If you want to get places quickly and in style, accept no substitutes.
• Divided States of America: Night City is located in "The Free State of North California." The United States broke apart due to a coup attempt by the Alphabet Agencies (called the Gang of Four) and attempts to reunite the country only divided it further. News reports also reveal Texas is its own independent nation and has recently rescinded their law requiring their border guards to give warnings to trespassers before shooting them.
• Disproportionate Retribution: more examples than we can count: Corporations, gangs, and cops all react with extreme violence for even the slightest thing, in both game play and background. Something as simple as a stall in Tyger Claw territory being forced, at gun point, to give drinks to Malestrom gangers is enough to have that stall owner publicly murdered by the Tyger claws.
  • Zigzagged by Arasaka mid level executives, oddly enough. When a high ranking Arasaka executive hears that the rumor mill in Night City bars says that Yori killed his father, it takes mid ranking executives to calm him down and gently tell him that sending Arasaka kill teams into every bar in the city to publicly interrogate and execute patrons is excessive in the extreme. They settle instead for having rumor mongers quietly assassinated.
• Do Androids Dream?: V occasionally talks to Johnny about whether or not he has a soul, being technically just a digital copy of the original. In one side-mission revolving around a man who wishes to make a braindance of his state-sanctioned execution in order to inspire others to turn to God, V can ask Johnny if he believes his original body's soul has passed on to the afterlife, or if it was locked out since a copy of his consciousness still remained on Earth. Johnny's reaction is his usual flippant dismissiveness.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • After V slots in the Relic, and Johnny's constructs starts to overtake their mind, they become progressively weaker, cough up blood, faint and have seizures. It's easy to draw parellels between V's condition and different deadly illnesses like tuberculosis or cancer. Additionally, there's the whole aspect of losing one's sense of self and memories, reminiscent of Alzheimer's disease.
  • In "Chippin' In", V wants to know exactly what Johnny will do after he takes over V's body to talk to Rogue. Johnny, frustrated and impatient, says:
    Johnny: Don't worry, I'll be gentle. Ya might even enjoy it.
• Door to Before: Many gig locations and some main mission settings have hidden exit doors near the target that can only be opened from the inside. Others are accessible from both sides, so they can pull double duty as a Dungeon Bypass if you have the Body or Tech attributes required to open them.
• Double Jump: Possible with one of the cybernetic implants, and another one grants you the ability to jump higher In a Single Bound.
  • Fingers has a special version of the double-jump implant that allows you to hover after double-jumping. It doesn't let you jump as high as the regular implants, but can help you reach far-away platforms.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Due to the brutal hellhole that Night City is, quite a lot of characters get unceremoniously killed off:
  • T-Bug has her brain fried by Arasaka netrunners. Other than a brief sentence where she's referred to in past tense and the fact that we never see her again, nothing about her death is outright said.
  • Dexter gets shot in the head by Takemura and is never talked about again, save for one or two brief mentions.
  • You can find Meredith's corpse wearing cement shoes in one of the water reservoirs that surround the city. That only happens if you don't accept her offer in "The Pickup".
  • Hanako dies in every ending path besides "The Devil" after Alt hacks the Mikoshi network and fries everyone connected to it.
  • Takemura will die during "Search and Destroy", when he gets crushed by rubble. The player can actually save him if they turn around immediately after they get control of V, but nothing in the game indicates that this is a possibility, so most players just left him to die. A patch to the game added an optional objective that says "Save Takemura", so the player can now make a more informed choice.
  • If you abandon River Ward at the farm where his nephew Randy is being held, he'll be killed in his solo attempt to save him. Additionally, Randy will die if you go to the wrong farm.
• Drill Tank: Not a tank per se, but the Aldecaldos weaponize a giant tunnel drilling machine to clear a path into the basement of Arasaka Tower in the Star ending.
• Drinking Contest: We participate in one very briefly during "A Cool Metal Fire", when Johnny controls V's body and goes to a strip club.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • With two of the available Ultimate quickhacks, "Suicide" and "Detonate Grenade", you can force enemies to off themselves.
  • Near the end of the game, V has the option to take the "path of least resistance" and simply shoot themself in the head.
  • Judy and V can rescue a comatose Evelyn from the lowlifes that Forrest sold her to. Judy tries to nurse her back to health, but will eventually call V and ask them to come over to help with a task that she won't talk about over the phone. It's to dispose of Evelyn's body; when she emerged from her coma, she slit her wrists.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Pointedly averted. The Street Cred level means that the more missions you do the more your reputation grows, which has benefits such as more missions and more items at shops. Meanwhile Fixers when you first enter their zone will also treat you with respect and sing V's praises as a reliable Edgerunner who can get anything done.
• Dump Stat:
  • Cool is not necessarily a bad stat, but it is quite compromised in comparison to the other stats. It can provide great critical damage to Body or Reflex builds for instance (especially at higher levels), is very good for stealth builds via the Ninjutsu perk tree, and especially with the Cold Blood perk tree offers a good deal of bonuses for killing enemies, but on its own it has very little to offer, especially against bosses. A pure Body, Intelligence or Reflexes build will give a much stronger bang for your buck and tech will provide plenty of perks for making money or crafting items.
  • Prior to 2.0, the Stealth skill tree was infamously worse at being stealthy than the hacking skill tree. If V was caught sneaking, all stealth benefits were immediately lost, but doing things like turning off cameras and blowing up fuel tanks near enemies were just as stealthy without being immediately turned off if V was spotted. Thankfully, the rework of the skill trees in patch 2.0 addressed this.
• Dungeon Bypass:
  • If a gig is set in a specific building, there's almost always a usually well-hidden and attribute-locked side entrance somewhere that leads more or less directly to the gig's target. Larger buildings can have multiple alternative approaches, giving almost any playstyle a chance to avoid the majority of enemies and cameras in the area.
  • Tech rifles can serve this role in Gun For Hire gigs. Ping the local network, look for that one enemy who looks somewhat unique and who (usually) doesn't move from their central position, and blast them through the walls with charged shots until they drop. Or just blast every red outline until you get the right one. Either option finishes the gig without you having to set foot inside the building.
• Dystopia: The cyberpunk world of CP2077 has a society that allows body modification to the point many suffer psychotic breaks, and a police force that responds with dangerously excessive force to crimes. Ambulances are now floating APCs staffed by PMC troops who will kill on sight to ensure no one gets in the way of them treating someone insured by their medical company. And millions live below the poverty line, with many only able to make a living as criminals resorting to stealing, selling drugs, Organ Theft and worse, or Hired Guns who hurt and kill their fellow man for a tiny bit of temporary contract work from Corrupt Corporate Executives. Did we mention that all major corporations are pushing their major resources into perfecting mind-control? Arasaka collects memories from their uploaded clients, Trauma Team wipes memories from their patients, and a shadow organization brainwashes key political figures.

E

• Ear Worm: "Ponpon Shit", a song by the In-Universe J-Pop band Us Cracks, is designed to be this. It's a perky, cutesy track with a catchy chorus that's harder to get out of your head than Johnny himself.
• Easter Egg:
  • After the Heist mission, returning to the landfill where V was left for dead by Dex DeShaw lets you find his body and loot his unique handgun, Plan B. There's also a minor sidequest to be found there that can give netrunner players an early-game boost.
  • Going down a certain alleyway in the Kabuki market will lead you to a mysterious garage locked by a keycode. Guess the keycode and you'll find none other than a secret developer room, complete with a large TV that displays photos of members of the CDPR team. There's also a sofa where Johnny will strum the tunes of various songs from the game on a guitar. Johnny will bring the garage to your attention, encouraging you to figure out the keycode.
  • If you look at Evelyn long enough during the first meeting with her, when she and V talk by a bar, she will wink at them.
• Eccentric Townsfolk: Night City includes chrome models, psychos who want to turn themselves into robots, ripperdocs who install cybernetic modifications but are entirely organic themselves, scavengers who kidnap people to steal their cybernetics, SWAT team ambulance workers, mind-linked identical twin mixed martial art fighters, overly sassy mercenaries, Haitian hackers worshipping AIs, "fixers" with gold-plated cyborg arms, and all sorts of other oddballs.
• Electronic Eyes: One of the first pieces of cyberware V gets in the game is a bionic eye with a zoom lens that can later be upgraded. The Maelstrom gang instead opt for spider-like multi-camera arrays replacing their eye sockets. In fact, there are hints that everyone in Night City has cybernetic eyes, like the Reset Optics quickhack being able to indiscriminately infect gangoons and civilians alike, and the occasional kid on the street walking around with creepy red Maelstrom-esque cyber eyes.
• Elemental Punch: And slice, and garrote/whip, and wrist-shoot. Each of the integrated forearm weapon cyberware types (Gorilla Arm, Mantis Blade, Monowire, and Projectile Launch System) offer the ability to swap out the business end of each for different element types.
• Elite Mooks: Corpo soldiers are noticeably tougher, better armed and more challenging to hack. They also tend to shoot a lot better, making them much more of a threat than any of the gangoons on the street.
• Enemy Eats Your Lunch: V being the "enemy" in question. You can help yourself immediately to any food or drink in an enemy lair (or anywhere really), even directly off of a fallen enemy, if you press the secondary use button/key (as opposed to primary use key which stuffs it in the backpack)
• Enhance Button: The game has its own high tech version with the "Braindance editor". Semi-Justified in that you only get what the recorder's cyberware enhancements picked up, but you can still move around in it to view different angles, and get data the recorder didn't notice, enhance and hear both sides of a whispered phone conversation, and even download whole files when the recorder only saw a single screenshot.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Although Morro Rock Radio personality Maximum Mike's conspiracy theories he mulls over are for the most part based on tabletop campaign plots and thus are on the nose, his postulations about the goings-on with the Arasaka family seem plausible... but are dead wrong. He postulates that Kei is masquerading as Yorinobu in a cloned body, or that Saburo isn't really dead based on some of the sciences that Arasaka is purportedly capable of. Since V and thus the player bore witness to the events of that fateful night in the Konpeki penthouse, this is known to be false... but the knowledge is highly dangerous for V to even possess, let alone blather about openly, so they can't possibly entertain the idea of ringing Max Mike up and refuting his postulations.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: Shortly before release, it was discovered that the flashing lights that precede braindance sequences were done in a pattern that consistently triggered epileptic seizures for at least one reviewer. The developers issued an apology, added an epilepsy warning screen in patch 1.02 and toned the light show down in patch 1.04.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Lenny Nero is an underground dealer of XBDs who works with various gangs. He happily sells snuff XBDs made by Scavs (his only in person appearance has V attempting to buy a specific snuff film from him to find the location that the local Scavs are holding Evelyn). His only real concern is making sure you aren't a cop. However, even he has his limits, and that limit is snuff involving children. You can find a datashard during the Dirty Biz gig where he cuts ties with Gottfried over the content of the XB Ds he wants Lenny to sell. He also despises that Gottfried has gotten his own (possibly mentally challenged) son in on the business.
• Everyone Has Standards: Just about the only rule damn near everyone in Night City follows is "Don't screw over your fixer." The few people who break this rule are seen as stupid, greedy, and completely untrustworthy.
• Everything Is Online: Doors, security systems, weapons, and even people are all hooked up to various networks, to the point you can (and often have to) hack into most of them.
• Expanded Universe: The game is the "main" work, but it's accompanied by officially licenced comics published by Dark Horse Comics that tell the stories taking place in the universe, but have no direct impact on the game's story and feature different casts of characters.
  • 2077 and its spinoffs are all themselves Expanded Universe works for the series of tabletop RPGs.
• Experience Points: Deviating somewhat from the entirely point-based skill system from the original tabletop games, V gains experience points for three types of levels:
  • Character Level, which gives V attribute points and increases their overall health and effectiveness / availability of gear at their level. Mainly earned by neutralizing enemies and completing quests.
  • Skill Levels, which give V skill points and passive abilities. Earned by using the corresponding skill; V gains Street Brawling experience by punching people, Quickhack experience by hacking people's implants, Cold Blood experience by racking up a kill combo, etc. Note that each of V's skill levels cannot exceed their corresponding parent attribute.
  • Street Cred, which unlocks new quests and shop equipment. Mainly earned by, once again, neutralizing enemies and completing quests, but at a far faster rate than V's character level.
• Extinct in the Future: In keeping with Gaia's Lament, many species have died out. After a massive brushfire in Australia in 2068, only one koala — nicknamed Omega — survived and was going to be euthanized before she was saved by civilian protestors. Omega became a tourist attraction on the outskirts of Sydney for many years before a news report in 2077 confirms she'd recently passed away, rendering koalas extinct.
  • In the Nomad prologue, Jackie mentions that Lesser Antillean iguanas have been extinct for decades by the time of the game, alluding to the species' severely endangered status in real life.
  • In a bit of Black Comedy, if you hang out in Pacifica long enough, you can hear a PSA over the speakers letting you know that you don't need to be afraid of sharks while swimming. After all, they've all gone extinct!
• Extra Eyes: An option for augmented optics are multi-camera arrays resembling spider eyes, as used by the Maelstrom gang.
• Eye Scream:
  • The E3 2018 trailer features two examples, one of a man's eye getting ripped out, the other of a corporate burning alive from within, with flames shooting out of his mouth and eye sockets.
  • Exaggerated when V goes to visit Viktor for the first time. V's eye is plucked out by a robotic hand and it immediately goes dark. Their replacement cybernetic eye is then activated before being implanted, allowing them to watch their own body on the operating chair, and it stays on as the ripper inserts it into their eye socket.
  • As an initiation into the Maelstrom gang, one has the eyesockets removed and a fair part of the forehead replaced with a set of spider-like glowing red optics...without anesthetic.

F

• Failed Future Forecast: The game is based on the Cyberpunk tabletop game, originally published in 1988. V will occasionally hear mentions of things like the Soviet Union still existing in 2077.
• Fake Band: Songs on the radio are attributed to made-up artists, for example Samurai, Johnny Silverhand's band, is actually Refused, with Dennis Lyxzen credited as Johnny's singing voice, and Lizzy Wizzy's songs are performed by her voice actress, Grimes.
  • Hip-hop producer Konrad Oldmoney is actually credited as twenty eight fake bands, one for each artist he collaborated with.
• Fallen States of America: Yet another cyberpunk hallmark, though played with. The United States federal government has almost completely broken with many of the states outright seceding from the union. What remains of the US and its successor states are third world countries in all but name, filled to the brim with crime and violence as well as both political and corporate corruption. Compared to 2020s, however, it's an improvement: the NUSA had succeeded in regaining control over much of the union, with the notable exception of Texas and Night City. The NUSA got back on its feet by nationalizing Militech, which now is practically synonymous with the NUS federal government. The current President of the NUSA is the former CEO of Militech. News shards suggest this revolving door arrangement between Militech and the NUSA government is common. Characters note that the NUS and Militech was once a match for Arasaka and the Empire of Japan, but have recently fallen behind in the Pacific arms race.
• Family of Choice: V gets absorbed into Jackie's during the six month time skip, including his mom treating them as her own. The Aldecaldos are a more formal version of one, and V can end up one of them (formally or not) if the right paths are taken.
• Fanservice:
  • The game is full of beautiful characters left and right in various stages of undress. Fanservice Extra of both sexes are often hocking wares and many of the models are attractive men or women wearing the clothes you'd find in a California hot summer. The Lizzie's Bar brothel is also full of gorgeous young punk women. You will find yourself visiting at least a couple of other brothels too.
  • Evelyn Parker is a blue-haired Femme Fatale who plays the mysterious client before the Heist. She also has a lot of Les Yay with her Riot Grrrl friend, Judy Alvarez.
  • While all four main romance options (Judy, Panam, Kerry and River) are fully realised characters with proper depth, all of them are also very attractive, and their romance routes feature custom-made, explicit sex scenes in the first person.
  • Meredith does look good in leather, too bad you can only see her in it once.
  • The alternative outfit for Johnny added in patch 1.3 gives him an open jacket with nothing underneath, letting the player see a bit of his chest and stomach. It's a custom mesh that adds the tattoo from his concept art which was previously absent, but the player can only see a small piece of it.
• Fan Disservice:
  • The first mission in the game after the lifepath intro has V and Jackie teaming up to rescue a woman named Sandra Dorsett, who spends her entire time on the whole mission entirely naked. She's also dying and covered in deep cuts and gashes, her complexion is deathly pale from blood loss and trauma, her head shaved bald, and she's spent god-knows-how-long in an ice-cube filled bathtub in scavenger captivity.
  • Naked and mutilated corpses are a common sight in scav haunts, though a few also show up in Ho-Oh during the Monster Hunt mission where you take down Snuff Film maker Jotaro Shobo.
  • The service offered by the Dolls at Clouds. They're all wired with a brain implant that connects to Clouds' system. A customer plugs themselves into said system, where their deepest thoughts and desires are scanned to create a personality profile that overrides the Doll until the session is over. This effectively makes for an erotic experience coupled with Intimate Psychotherapy all in one package to fulfill a person's ultimate fantasy. When V engages said service however, Angel or Skye proceeds to dive deep into extremely personal details of your life that no one else knows while effectively challenging you with your own feelings on your own impending death. Nothing sexual takes place and V is very uncomfortable, to say the least.
  • The extremely raunchy advertisements for things like dog food, cybernetics, TV shows, and tubes of meat paste are so ubiquitous they become background noise, and so ridiculous they lose any appeal they might have had.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Seems to be a trend in vehicle styling. Many of them features asymmetrycal tail- or headlight design. Chevillon Thrax even comes with asymmetrycal grille. Major exeption are Rayfield cars.
• Fauxrrari:
  • The Quadra Turbo-R V-TECH is named after Honda's VTEC variable valve timing system and Audi's Quattro 4WD system. The car itself seems to be based mainly on Ferrari Testarossa, Vector W8, De Tomaso Pantera and Lancia Stratos with a more futuristic Cyberpunk design.
  • The Rayfield Aerondight supercar is at least partially based on the Bugatti Veyron with its distinctive front grille.
  • The Quadra Type 66 and its subtypes are an ode to a variety of classic American muscle cars over the years, having elements of a variety of them in its aesthetic design: you can spot elements from the Ford Mustang, Dodge Charger, and Pontiac Trans-Am, for example. It also has a number of famous paint jobs in its skin variant set, such as a NUSA-themed pastiche of the General Lee, the green Mustang from Bullitt, and the silver/blue-striped Mustang called "Eleanor" from Gone in 60 Seconds (1974).
• Female Flatfoot and Snarky Guy: Gender inversion: River Ward can team up with a female/feminine V, who works as a mercenary. First, they can solve the case of the mysterious death of Night City's mayor, and later on they can catch a serial killer who kidnapped River's nephew.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Despite the game not having a real class system, the three general approaches to combat boil down to the classic trio even so. Focusing on Body and Reflexes creates a warrior-style solo that fights with brute force in melee and massive firepower at close to medium range. Going for Reflexes, Tech and Cool results in a thief playstyle that relies on stealth and long-range firepower. Last but most definitely not least, any Intelligence-heavy build plays like a traditional mage with a wide array of "spells" fueled by a sci-fi version of a mana bar.
• Fission Mailed: When Dexter DeShawn shoots V after the botched Konpeki Plaza (the execution happens regardless of previous dialog options chosen with Dex), the screen displays a similar "Error" screen which normally happens when the player character gets killed during a fight followed by the game's title screen, implied V made a wrong decision which resulted in a Non-Standard Game Over (which looks plausible since the encounter with Dex features a dialog with a couple of choices). The game quickly resumes its plot by starting Johnny Silverhand's first flashback instead of immediately opening the load/quit menu which appears after a gameplay-related death.
• The Fixer: An actual line of work in the game's world. V is hired by several fixers over the course of the game, most importantly by resurgent big shot Dexter DeShawn, to pull off jobs for clients who would like to distance themselves from the illegal nature of the work.
• Flying Car: Aerodynes, or "AV's" as they are colloquially called, which pretty much fill the airspace over Night City. True to the source material, AV's are reserved only for the wealthy and certain organizations such as the NCPD, military, private security, and Trauma Team, and, while some can be manually piloted, many are flown using automated systems so the passenger(s) can sit back and enjoy the flight. V has several encounters with them throughout the game, and in some instances even get to ride in them.
  • The Corpo prologue has V being chauffeured in one while going to Lizzie's bar.
  • The game also has flying garbage trucks. Including one that crashed into the upper floor of a suburban house, or another being sent as a pickup for a hit gig in a penthouse that the player might resolve nonlethally.
  • Trauma Team's main vehicles are flying ambulances built like APCs, complete with autocannons which can and will shoot down any other AV in their way, whether it's blocking them intentionally or not.
• Follow That Car: Happens in a few missions. In "Sinnerman" you have to chase down a police car carrying mass-murderer Joshua Stephenson. "Dream On" sends you in pursuit of a Creepy Stalker Van that's spying on the Peralezes. And during the final race in "The Beast in Me", Claire asks you to chase after Peter Sampson instead of racing for the finish line so that she can execute him in retaliation for seemingly killing her husband.
• Fortune Teller:
  • In the side quest "Killing In The Name", Nancy asks V to find out more about the mysterious thought leader who's been captivating the people of Night City, Swedenborg Riviera. After decoding a series of routers, V finds out that Swedenborg was a modified fortune telling machine, called Leonora the Savantron, from Pacifica.
  • Misty is a somewhat more modern take on the trope, being more Perky Goth than Magical Romani. She does tarot readings as one of the services in her shop, and can read V's future in a couple occasions.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The E3 2018 reveal had codes for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for Xbox One for a few seconds when the conference was being 'hacked'.
• Freudian Trio:
  • Id: Jackie. He's a very affable, emotional guy who loves partying, food and other people. He's both most upbeat and most prone to strong emotions like anger or compassion (his reaction to seeing Sandra Dorsett during "The Rescue").
  • Ego: V. Due to being the Player Character, they can be more outgoing and upbeat like Jackie, or cooler and levelheaded like T-Bug, depending on the player's preference.
  • Superego: T-Bug. She's much more distanced (literally and emotionally) from her co-workers' jobs, and gets V and Jackie out of trouble by staying cool and using logical thinking and her netrunning skills. She's also a fan of Aristotle.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Almost a given in the Cyberpunk series. There's quite a few. Mitch. Scorpion. Bob. Teddy. Cassidy. Carol. Saul. A good portion of the Aldecaldo Clan. The entirety of the 6th Street Gang. Several of the game's side characters. Johnny Silverhand himself when he was alive. Depending on player choices, V can embody this trope better than anyone in the game.
• From Stray to Pet: V can adopt a stray sphinx cat that lives near their apartment.
• Future Slang: Has a few. Notable examples:
  • Choom/choomba/choombatta — friend, dude, buddy. ("Hey, choom, long time no see")
  • Gonk — fool, idiot, asshole. ("That gonk really tried to mug me with nothing but a knife")
  • Delta — go/leave, usually in a hurry. ("It's getting late; I gotta delta")
  • Flatline — kill (someone) or die. ("Flatline those fools before they get away")
  • Zero — kill. ("He got zeroed by a shot between the eyes before he could blink")
  • Borg — a nickname for people with large amount of cybernetics; derived from "cyborg". ("That borg is more like a psychotic tank with legs than a person")
  • Preem — an expression of positivity, similar to "cool" or "awesome"; derived from "premium". ("Got some preem new implants")
  • Nova — basically a stronger version of "preem". ("Pretty nova of you to finally pay him back")
  • Input/output — boyfriend/girlfriend, respectively. ("Broke up with my output today because she was seeing another man")
  • Chrome — Cyberware, regardless of color. The term is mostly used about big, noticeable implants like limb replacements. To "chrome up" is also a verb used to describe getting new or additional cyberware. ("Get some chrome to replace that lost hand of yours")
  • Chroming — Excessive use of cyberware. ("Keep chroming like that and you're liable to turn into a cyberpsycho")
  • Iron — Firearm.^note Though this is borderline, as it is pre-existing real world slang for firearms ("The MaxTac officer had a pretty big iron on his hip)
  • Klep — Steal. ("He klepped some money when she wasn't looking")
  • Klepper — A thief. Derived from "klep", see above. ("Lousy kleppers took my ride")
  • Monochrome — A corporate executive. Derived from the prevalence of black and white in corporate fashion styles (such as Neo-Militarism, primarily), as opposed to the more colorful streetwear. ("Living as a monochrome means dedicating your whole life to the company")
  • Corpo/corpo-rat — A corporate executive. Far more charged and derisive than "monochrome". ("If you work for Arasaka, you're nothing to me but another damned corpo-rat")
  • Scop — Junk, garbage, crap, detritus. Calling someone a "scopmuncher" is exactly as insulting as you think. Also the label for a synthetic protein supplement, standing for Single Cell Organic Protein, and considered to be a Poverty Food. ("I wouldn't even take this scop for free")
  • Ripper/Ripperdoc — An underground cyberware implantation specialist. Most Rippers also act as trauma surgeons and primary care physicians for those who can't afford Trauma Team subscriptions, or for various reasons don't want to seek aid from a corp-owned medical facility. ("You'd better get yourself to a Ripper to get a look at that wound")
  • Skezzed — drug-addled. ("The local junkies are skezzed out of their minds")
  • Gangoon — a low-level gang member/foot soldier. ("I saw some gangoons breaking into the shop")
  • Haze — to mislead or trick. ("You didn't have to haze him like that")
  • Badge — a police officer or similar law enforcement personnel. ("We left when the badges showed up so we wouldn't get arrested")
  • Media — A journalist or employee who works in the media industry. ("The medias were already there so it'll probably be on the news by tonight")
• Funny Background Event: Johnny tends to hang in the background in most main plot (and more important sidequest) missions. Only V can see him, so he can pretty much do whatever he'd want without anyone else noticing him.
  • In "Life During Wartime", he paces around the hotel room V and Hellman are talking, lying down on one of the beds and walking over another one.
  • In "Gimme Danger", he will appear lounging on a railing, and will drop down the building V and Takemura are on when he gets frustrated with Takemura's loyalty to Saburo.
  • In "Nocturne Op55N1", Corpo V can greet Hanako with a bow and deference, to which Johnny will appear in the background and give a dramatic Face Palm.
• Future Food Is Artificial: Most of the food available in Night City is artificial, with meat being either vat-grown or made of soy and even water containing fillers. Because of this, many home "kitchens" don't even have cooking equipment. Instead, they feature vending machines stocked with pre-made items at prices the occupants can afford^note for instance, V's first apartment's machine only dispenses burritos but they can move to swankier digs that have machines that provide proper meals and a variety of beverages.
• Futuristic Jet Injector: Gun-like jet injectors appear to be ubiquitous in the Night City, particularly with ripperdocs like Viktor, who uses one early in the game to sedate V's right arm while he grafts a ballistic augmentation onto their palm.