YMMV / Cyberpunk 2077

A-B

• Accidental Aesop: In gameplay, the ease with which a netrunner V can disable or kill an entire roomful of enemies, all because everyone has cybernetics implanted throughout their bodies and those cybernetics can be accessed over a wireless network and turned against their owner, feels almost like commentary on the security dangers of the 'Internet of things' and a reminder of why some things are really better kept offline. Many of the nonlethal-but-still-quite-creepy quickhacks, such as Reset Optics or Contagion, comment on this fact — and that you're about to exploit that.
• Adaptation Displacement: Even before its release, the game became vastly more popular than the tabletop RPG it's based on. This has lead to some criticism saying the world's aesthetic is derivative, even though the tabletop RPG is actually one of the originators of said aesthetic and genre. Also counts as Sequel Displacement since the game was set as a Distant Sequel to the tabletop game.
• Adorkable: Johnny has his moments, usually occuring whenever he manages to let his guard down around V. Everything about him narrating the mission "Raymond Chandler Evening" like a stilted film noire protagonist is pure adorkableness. And lest we forget about the genuine grin on his face during the roller coaster ride with V.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Taken collectively, the game's Multiple Endings allude to a "Never Give Up" message about death. Most endings end ambiguously, with V choosing to make the most of their remaining weeks/months or giving up their life so that Johnny can get a fresh start. If V kills themselves in the "Path of Least Resistance" ending, or dies during "The Reaper" ending, we learn that all of V's close friends and associates are angry about it. And even in the endings where Johnny takes control, some of them are still angry but direct it at Johnny instead. If you strip away the sci-fi elements, the story could be read as an indictment against terminal patients choosing to take their own lives instead of fighting or living to the fullest until the bitter end.
  • On the other hand Phantom Liberty has you on the receiving end of Songbird's very similar quest, and the sheer level of bloodshed that she sets off by simply trying to survive makes a powerful message. Just like in V's endings, there are no ways to perform these missions without killing a lot of people directly and indirectly. It does seem to present a message that trying to survive at any cost is extremely destructive to the world around you. The "Tower" ending is by far the ending with the least death, but a cruel fate V can meet because the two years they spent in a coma drove everyone else away from them, leaving them with zero resources, allies, or significant others despite no longer having to worry about losing their lives to the Relic.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Has its own page.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: One of the loading screen segments has a talk show host addressing that Arasaka docked their supercarrier Kujira (Japanese for "whale") in Night City, after moving it out of Japanese waters. While the events of the game reveal that the Kujira was carrying Saburo and Hanako Arasaka on a trip to confront Yorinobu Arasaka for his theft of the Relic, the host jokingly theorizes the ship was moved due to fears that local Japanese fishermen would "...harpoon it for 'scientific research.'" As absurd as it sounds, this has actually been a major issue in whale conservation circles,^note The "Japanese fishermen claiming whaling as scientific research" part, not the "Japanese fishermen trying to hunt unfortunately-named aircraft carriers" part. where Japanese commercial whalers claim their whale-hunting activities as "research", and their trade of whale products as "research byproducts" which allows them to utilize several exceptions and loopholes to be legally allowed to continue their activities.
• Angst Aversion: Cyberpunk and angst go together and most players understand this on starting Cyberpunk 2077. Despite this, some players still found its Bittersweet Endings too bitter to swallow, leading many to debate which ending is the "best" one (with "The Star" and "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" popular candidates) and ignore the rest. Others would create a fanon version of them that removes the bitter aspect even though, as the role-playing game and other fans point out, this is ignoring its Central Theme.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Patch 2.0 does this to Razor Hughes. Prior to the update, players needed specific builds and skills as well as the Gorilla Arms to so much as get an edge against him. This was in large part due to being an endgame boss. Thanks to Patch 2.0 scaling enemy levels with V, however, he's made hilariously easy to the point where you can beat him without needing certain builds or the Gorilla Arms.
  • Frankly, putting any work into your character at all turns Adam Smasher into a pushover regardless of playstyle, thanks to his level being at 30. The level for you goes up to 50, and even random enemies in certain areas are higher level than him.
    • If you heed the game's Point of No Return warning by completing any and all sidequests before finishing the main story, a single assault rifle magazine to the torso can be all it takes to turn Arasaka's dreaded fullborg enforcer into a pile of scrap.
    • Adam Smasher can very easily be defeated quickly by emptying all your grenades onto him as they literally stick to him, then unleashing a barrage of bullets upon him.
    • Or, if you max out your melee attack skills, Adam will go down before he can lay a hand on you, effectively shortening 8 minutes of final boss fight into less than a minute.
    • Adam is literally 96% machine, so non-lethal quickhacks work on him. You can blind him for most of the fight and zap him with Short-Circuit until he keels over.
    • Note that, as of Patch 1.5, Adam's not quite as much of a pushover. He can no longer lose more than around 10% of his health from any one attack (so no one-shotting him with the Comrade's Hammer), and he becomes briefly invulnerable for approximately each quarter of his health he loses, before moving on to a new stage, one of which sees four snipers join him, with rifles which can kill V in one or two shots on higher difficulties. That said, Adam himself isn't much more dangerous than any of the various mechs V will have fought previously.
    • Patch 2.1 buffs Smasher to roughly as strong as he's supposed to be in lore. Not only are his stats buffed but he's given a Sandevistan to boost his speed as well as an ICE to counterhack nethackers. As a result, he is now considered by many players to be a genuinely fun and satisfying boss fight.
• Anvilicious: Has its own page.
• Awesome Art: The "Fool On The Hill" sidemission tasks V and Johnny with finding 20 graffiti that reference the major arcanas of tarot all around Night City. Each card is redesigned in a gritty, cyberpunk aesthetic, with gas masks, body horror augmentations, and too many cables. Many fans loved the designs, and CDProjekt confirmed that they plan to release the full set as an officially licensed tarot card set.
• Awesome Ego: Despite being narcissistic, snarky, brash and often hypocritical, Johnny is beloved by most of the fanbase. The fact that he's a multi layered character with understandable motivations and is capable of change certainly helps.
• Awesome Music: Has its own page.
• Base-Breaking Character: While still one of the most popular characters in the game for being one of its most sympathetic woobies, having an insanely well written story arc and Romance Sidequest, and for Carla Tessara's widely acclaimed performance, Judy has become this to some people thanks to the "The Tower" ending where she apparently readily abandoned V, the "first person to make her truly happy" and not only got together with another woman but outright married her during the two year timeskip. Given that people usually only marry after months, if not years, of dating, one has to wonder how quickly Judy and Bianca got together after V fell into her coma, which does hurt Judy`s Ensemble Dark Horse Status quite a bit, with many players accusing her of taking advantage of V or not being as kind or sympathetic as she'd initially appeared to be. At least amongst the fans who don't put all the blame on Bianca This is unsurprisingly most prominent amongst Judy/V shippers as discussed below in Die for Our Ship, but it has still sparked a somewhat contentious debate on whether Judy was actually taking advantage of V or not.
• Best Boss Ever: The fight against Kurt Hansen in Phantom Liberty if the player sides with Reed against Songbird. A Battle Amongst the Flames against the Dogtown Alpha where Hansen proves exactly why he's the leader of the BARGHEST. He hits hard and fast, keeping the player on their toes in both melee and ranged, and functions as a true Climax Boss. All this while the song Gate K9 plays in the background.
• Best Level Ever:
  • The first Johnny Silverhand mission, where he and his crew raid Arasaka Tower in Night City has been praised at how badass everything is. From the sheer badassery of Johnny Silverhand as he introduces himself and how powerful you feel considering that you have unlimited ammo with his signature hand cannon that can shred enemies, it is pure adrenaline fun. Even better is the soundtrack (The Rebel Path), a dark synthetic track that felt like it's heart-pumping.
  • The Phantom Liberty story mission "You Know My Name" is nothing short of a love letter to James Bond from start to finish as you're tasked with infiltrating a party held by Kurt Hansen at the Black Sapphire, which is heavily guarded on almost every possible front. The mission itself is tense as your stealth skills and ability to plan things out ahead of time are pushed to their limits.
• Better as a Let's Play: The game had a disastrous launch due to numerous glitches and unpolished game mechanics, particularly on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As such, many people who either did not purchase or pre-order the game at launch or found it unplayable on whatever hardware they owned preferred to watch others play it, whether out of genuine interest in the story, setting or gameplay, or to see what jaw-droppingly awful glitches or development oversights would crop up for the streamer/let's player.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • One of the Cyber Psycho Sightings take you to a Satanic black mass where human sacrifices are going on in order to raise a female Cyber Psycho as a demonic Lilith figure from an ice-cube filled freezer/altar. Seems to be invoked, as Johnny and V, no strangers to weird shit in their travels, are both rendered speechless by the whole ordeal.
  • A chain of four side missions lets V meditate under the guidance of a mysterious Buddhist monk. The whole thing has no bearing on anything, V doesn't get anything meaningful out of it, and aside from a brief optional conversation about it with Misty, it is never mentioned again afterwards. Similarly to the above example, the characters In-Universe are just as stumped and clueless about it as most players will probably feel.
• Broken Base:
  • There is a big split in the Polish fandom regarding the quality of the Polish vs English voice acting. Complaints from the pro-Polish side are that the English dub "tries too hard", is narmy and that the Polish Silverhand VA fits better than Keanu Reeves. The pro-English VA side believe the Polish dub is boring and flat, unemotional and that Keanu Reeves is the biggest draw the game has and is perfect for the role.
  • Speaking of the English voice acting, there's also some division over the male and female voices of V. Some see Gavin Drea's held-back, "tough guy" performance as unrealistic, especially during otherwise emotional scenes, while others believe Cherami Leigh's acting is "forced".
  • The Reddit fandom for the game had a very public split between the original subreddit that had existed for the long pre-release period, and a new "Low Sodium" subreddit who moved away because they felt the original sub was far too negative toward the game.
  • How much the side missions and personal plotlines should have been integrated into the game is one split. Those who want these personal plots and side missions better integrated into the story feel that failing to do so creates a significant design flaw due to a lack of characterisation and development. Those who prefer the more open ended view feel it allows better roleplaying, exploration and replayability. One thing both sides agree on is that the main storyline is quite weak compared to many of the side plot lines and personal quests.

C-D

• Catharsis Factor:
  • Sure, you could walk away peacefully from the Voodoo Boys if you didn't trust the NetWatch runner, but after they attempt a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on V, string them along further in order to interact with the Relic, and don't give a damn about whether V dies in the process? It's incredibly satisfying to rampage through their base and show that nobody fucks with V.
  • For those that have watched Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, killing Adam Smasher at the end of his boss fight becomes especially satisfying in knowing that David and Rebecca’s deaths have finally been avenged. Even more cathartic thanks to the 1.6 update is if V uses Rebecca’s signature weapon Guts to finish Smasher off while wearing David’s yellow EMT jacket. Bonus points if you're tough enough to make it into a Curb-Stomp Battle, showing exactly how much of a complete beast V is.
  • Two of the game's ripperdocs (Fingers and Charles Bucks) are just asking for a bullet to the head, or at least a couple punches to the jaw. This used to be ill-advised prior to the 2.0 update due to every ripperdoc offering unique cyberware that became unobtainable if you attacked them. However, now that 2.0 gave all ripperdocs access to all cyberware, it's finally open season on the bastards, and damn if it isn't satisfying.
• Common Knowledge:
  • When news of development crunch came out, several Youtubers (such as Colin Moriarty and LegacyKillaHD) attempted to run damage control by spreading word that the overtime would only be an additional 8 hours per week, and that it was voluntary. This was immediately squashed by actual developers who worked for CD Projekt Red.
  • The Troubled Production and poor release saw a common complaint "how could a game that spent 8 years in development be so bad". The reality is that 2012 was only when the company contacted Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith and opened up preliminary discussions of an adaptation. The actual pre-production of the game didn't kick off until the middle of 2016 following the studio's completion of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's expansion packs. Four years is still a lot of time for a AAA studio to complete a game, but perhaps still not enough time for the studio to have completed Cyberpunk 2077.
  • A persistent, popular "explanation" for the game's failures is that CDProjekt re-wrote the entire game from scratch when they signed up Keanu Reeves in 2018 to give him more to do, ruining their progress and setting the game back years. Staff at the studio have made it clear that nothing of the sort took place and that the story was done by the time Reeves signed up.
  • The six month time skip montage between the prologue and Act I "used to be playable, but was cut because it wouldn't be finished on time" is another popular idea in the fandom, but one totally contradicted by company staff who maintain it was never going to be anything more than a montage.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Critic-Proof: Mediocre reception by critics coupled with scathing amateur online reviews did not prevent it from having the largest digital launch of all time, with over 13 million copies sold within two weeks of release. While bad word of mouth caused its sales to steeply decline soon afterwards, as of September 2021 SteamSpy still lists the game as having over 16 million owners on PC alone, and thus certainly tens of millions including console players, making it one of the highest selling games of all time.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • One sidequest involves you talking someone out of throwing himself off a bridge. Not funny. Said someone is a sentient taxi? Suddenly it's kinda funny. When he says therapy is pointless because psychologists hate vehicles (because they don't have mothers)? Suddenly hilarious.
  • A man has a malfunctioning cybernetic prosthetic that is causing him severe pain? Terrible. It being his dick that he had replaced because he wanted to impress his girlfriend? Hilarious.
  • Adam Smasher calling Evelyn Parker a "cut of fuckable meat" in their first interaction. Note that Adam is little more than a head on a robot's body.
  • One of the advertisements is a buxom naked woman holding her breasts before two dogs. Is it for a weirdly named strip club? No, it's for dog food.
• Die for Our Ship: Judy/V fans were not happy with "The Tower" ending added in the Phantom Liberty expansion DLC, to put it mildly. During the two years V spent in a coma, Judy apparently moved on and married a woman named Bianca and is quite happy with her newfound wedded life. Nine times out of ten, any fan work you find involving a romanced V and Judy post-Phantom Liberty will depict Bianca as an abusive spouse or a Crazy Jealous Girl. Keep in mind that Bianca is only mentioned by Judy and makes no appearance at all whatsoever.
• Discredited Meme:
  • Based on the Shout-Out/Early-Bird Cameo to 2077 in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, some fans theorized about the potential of the player character running into Ciri. The game's director, Adam Badowski personally Jossed this theory.
    Badowski: We are not Kingdom Hearts, we are not joining universes, and I know that there are a lot of fans on the team and they would like to have Ciri in the game. But I am totally against it, still.
  • There was a short-lived theory in the Polish fandom that V's friend and ripperdoc, Viktor Vektor, might've been inspired by a quack doctor character from a Polish sitcom Świat według Kiepskich, who was also called Viktor Vektor. A site dedicated to gaming trivia and easter eggs, grynieznane.pl, contacted the team in CDProjekt who said that the reference wasn't intentional. Tomasz Marchewka, one of the creators of in-game Viktor was reportedly very surprised by the connection.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Millitech and the NUSA get this from large parts of the fandom, including on this very wiki. While most will acknowledge that they, and President Meyers specifically, do a lot of questionable stuff, they are nonetheless taken as a clear A Lighter Shade of Grey from Arasaka, despite the game making it clear multiple times they are in many ways just as bad. For examples Meyers desire for a strong NUSA supposedly making her a Well-Intentioned Extremist, meanwhile Saburo Arasaka wanting the exact same for Japan makes him an irredeemable villain. (This is "justified" by Saburo, unlike Meyers, supposedly being a racist, however this alledged racism is something of an Informed Attribute as he warmly welcomed the Japanese American Michiko Sanderson into the family and also has no problems with non Japanese people in high positions in the company. Plus his personal bodyguard Takemura who has lived closely with Saburo for years if not decades doesn't come of as a bigot making one wonder if Saburo is really as much a Japanese supremacist as people claim.) While it is mentioned that Japan is suffering under Arasakas rule the Streetkid lifepath implies that Atlanta is these days even worse Wretched Hive than Night City, showing that Militech's rule isn't better for the NUSA either. Another argument made for Meyers supposedly being a better person than Saburo and Hanako is that she keeps her word in saving V's life... ignoring the fact that Arasaka doesn't cure V simply because they can't do it, rather than them deliberately betraying V (also by turning V into an engram they do save them after all). Meanwhile the Tower ending shows that Militech triumphing over Arasaka and driving them off the American continent makes absolutley nothing better for the people in NC, showing that in the end Meyers and the NUSA are really just as bad as the tyrants they claim to fight.

E-F

• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The game's reputation at launch cannot be overstated, and even after numerous upgrades and patches, the game still does have several Good Bad Bugs and Scrappy Mechanics. The plot and story, on the other hand, is where the majority of the praise goes to thanks to the game's well-written characters, intriguing world, and genuinely thought-provoking Central Themes, with many of its side quests even deemed better than the main storyline just because of how interesting the characters are.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Jackie turns out to be this since he dies in Act I due to the fact that he is a Big Fun Affably Evil A Lighter Shade of Black than the majority of Night City's criminals. Most player characters came to genuinely care about him and hope they could play the entire game with him.
  • Evelyn Parker for being a Ms. Fanservice Femme Fatale that goes well with the setting's Film Noir atmosphere.
  • Dum Dum, the relatively courteous Maelstrom gang member, developed a following of people wanting to spare him should the negotiations go south. His potential reappearance in a later quest also reveals he's a fan of Samurai.
  • Judy Alvarez, first introduced to fans in a video segment detailing how Braindance works, exploded into popularity for her design and personality, and stayed popular after launch as she has one of the best storylines in the game and has a extremely well written Romance Arc available for a female V. If you've romanced her, she also shows up in The Star ending, Judy tells V that for the first time in her life, she's happy.
  • Takemura is one, being an honorable Noble Demon who can have a sort of Odd Friendship with V and his Comically Serious moments. Some players even wish he was a romance option.
  • Sandayu Oda is quite popular due to his cool design, sense of honor and memorable boss fight.
  • Meredith Stout has her own small fanbase who liked her for being a Defrosting Ice Queen, a Covert Pervert Ms. Fanservice, and surprisingly honorable for a corpo. Many wished she could've been a recurring fixer or even a love interest.
  • Claire, the bartender from Afterlife is quite popular, despite only being essentially a background character in a couple of the story missions (she has her own line of sidequests though). She's a positively depicted trans woman and is actually played by a transgender actress, which made a lot of people who had issues with how trans people were depicted in the game's marketing and character creator slightly more at ease. Some fans wish that she was a romance option.
  • Bizarrely, the nameless street cook known to fans as Shrimp Lady. While she gained a fair bit of attention from the broader fan-base due to the quirky dialog V has with her ("These shrimp fresh?"), the Vinesauce community, in particular, took a liking to her due to Vinny frequently stumbling on her stand while playing as well as her nonchalant attitude toward him mutilating enemies right in front of her with his katana. Also due to clipping bugs that make her likely to get stuck in the floor or walls of nearby buildings, which are hilarious.
  • Nibbles, the easter egg cat V can adopt as their pet. They're completely missable, don't provide any gameplay benefits and essentially just hang out in V's apartment, but they're completely beloved by the fanbase, to the point of becoming an unofficial mascot of the game. Nibbles is featured in a lot of fanworks, either with V, Johnny, both, or just by themselves, and appears in the "we'll be right back" graphic for Paweł Sasko's, one of the developers, streams. One of the earliest updates to the game made cat food, the item needed to spawn Nibbles in the first place, easier to find after fans' requests, another update gave them more poses and places they can sit on in V's apartment, and when update 1.5, which added new houses that V can rent, players were disappointed that they can't move Nibbles with them.
  • Skippy is rather well-liked by fans for being one of the more interesting and fun examples of a firearm with an A.I. with his rather dumb yet funny dialogue. The fact he's a Game-Breaker may also be one of the reason why he's well-loved. Some fans even bemoan the fact that if you follow through with the quest line of returning him to his owner, not only do they lose him but to add salt to the wound he "dies", by being forced into a factory reset. Wiping away his personality.
  • Alex from the Phantom Liberty DLC has a ton of fans because of her dance scene and the fact that she's one of the few people who is always honest with you.
  • Aurore Cassell does not play a big part in Phantom Liberty, but her look combined with her attitude have given her a ton of fans. Many players were horrified to see her and her brother be so swiftly executed by Reed and Alex after they are no longer needed.
• Estrogen Brigade: A lot of Keanu Reeves fangirls, even those who aren't usually interested in video games, decided to give this one a try.
  • This trope unsuprisingly took affect yet again once it was revealed Idris Elba would prominently star in Phantom Liberty. During an interview with IGN, a person on set even told Elba point blank that his character Solomon Reed would definitely be subjected to the same "spicy mods" the community did with Keanu Reeves before him.
• Evil Is Cool: Say what you will about Arasaka, but their visual style just oozes cool. Everything from their black-and-red minimalist/brutalist buildings and interior decoration to their uniforms and armor designs is equal parts intimidating and slick as hell. It probably isn't a coincidence that no other faction has more numerous and elaborate clothing sets for players to equip, ranging from corpo suits/dresses to netrunner suits to all sorts of military gear.
• Fandom Rivalry: The game doesn't have a good relationship with Rockstar games. CD Projeckt Red calling 2077 the "next generation of open world adventure" created a rivalry with Grand Theft Auto & Red Dead Redemption 2, as this statement was seen as a direct call out. The subpar launch of the original 2077 became a subject of scorn and ridicule from Rockstar video game fans, further cementing the rivalry.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Two or more of V's Lifepaths existing as separate characters in the same world. They may or may not be related.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The characters' backstories are painted in pretty broad strokes, especially the ones who came here from the tabletop game, so pretty much everything about the lives of the characters before the game starts can be good fuel; where did Johnny and Alt meet and how did they became a couple? In what circumstances was Samurai formed? Where did Kerry and Johnny meet? How did they found Henry, Denny and Nancy? What motivated Rogue to become a merc?
  • The montage that takes place between the prologue and the first mission of act one can be expanded upon: just what exactly were V and Jackie up to during these six months? How did they get in contact with T-Bug and started their partnership?
  • What exactly did Rogue do for Arasaka? It's mentioned that she had to work with Adam Smasher and is disgusted with herself, but nothing beyond that.
  • "The Sun" ending shows that Rogue has a son. What's his name? Who's his second parent (if there is any)? How old is he? What's his relationship with Rogue like?
  • In "The Sun" ending, you can find a photo of Rogue and Kerry in their 2023 designs on Rogue's desk. Were they friends? Are they still in contact? If they were friends but aren't anymore, then why did they have a falling out?
  • The endings are pretty open, so a lot of fans write stories about V looking for the cure and having different adventures along the way.
  • Just because Adam banned Ciri from making cameos in the 2077, it doesn't mean fans won't explore her possible outings in Night City while evading Wild Hunt.
• Fanon:
  • Panam (and less often, River) is sometimes seen as bisexual and closeted, due to her close relationship with V regardless of their gender and less restrictive romance criteria (just masculine body, unlike Judy or Kerry who need a matching body + voice). There are comics and fanart that follow "The Star" ending where V romanced Judy and took her with her to look for the cure, where Panam awkwardly asks Judy questions about being a WLW and flirting/having sex with other women.
  • V and Johnny are often portrayed as cat parents to Nibbles, the stray sphinx that V can adopt. Nibbles is sometimes portrayed as being able to see Johnny, as cats are rumored to be able to see ghosts.
  • Takemura is commonly written/drawn as a cat lover and a highly-skilled cook.
  • Nomad seems to be the most popular lifepath for V in fanworks.
  • Kerry is sometimes portrayed as trans, because his chest cyberware is reminiscent of ornate top surgery scars.
  • A lot of fanart gives Kerry a scar on his upper lip. It's present on his concept art, and his artbook description states that he got it when Samurai was playing a gig in an abandoned cellar, and Johnny hit him with his mic stand, but it's absent from his in-game model (though some fans claim that they can see a small notch in his beard above his lip).
  • Kerry is also often portrayed as a clothes thief, wearing Johnny's or V's clothes, due to a brief line in which Kerry mentions stealing Johnny's pants back when Samurai was together.
  • Johnny is commonly drawn with the "INJUSTICE FOR ALL" tattoo he has on his side, under his ribs on the concept art, but not on his in-game model.
  • In a similiar vein, some fanartists draw Johnny with a matching "Johnny + V" cupid heart tattoo on his arm. There's even a few mods that add it to the game (alongside the aforementioned concept art tattoo).
  • It's commonly speculated that Rogue and Santiago used to be a couple. There's a shard in Rogue's private room in the Afterlife that's only open during "The Sun" ending, titled "Greetings from nowhere", that's written by someone who is currently living with the Nomads and misses Rogue, with many players assuming that the author is Santiago, due to him being the one who started the Aldecaldos Nomad clan. Many also theorise that Rogue's son, who's briefly mentioned in "The Sun" ending, is the result of their relationship.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: The Player Character, V, has a lot of romance options in the game, but the most popular ship for the fandom is V with a character you can't romance, Johnny Silverhand. This is because Johnny spends the entirety of the game in V's head, the game largely being centered around their bonding and the fact Johnny is played by Keanu Reeves. Most of the game's fanfiction pair V (particularly the female version, but also the male version every now and then) with Johnny.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: While senior Tyger Claw executives tend to wear reasonably classy suits, the kindest thing you can say about their regular gangoons' dress-sense is that they're at least easily identifiable at a distance. It's an anarchic combination of skintight and baggy clothing that comes in an eye-searingly garish palette of wildly clashing colours, and even the in-game item descriptions tend to mock their gear.
• Fetish Retardant: Some players view the sex scenes in the game as such, due to the fact that, like the rest of the game, they're done in first person, which makes them look unintentionally silly and bizarre.
• Friendly Fandoms: With No Man's Sky, due to both being games with rough launches that managed to bounce back with patches and DLC.

G

• Game-Breaker: The game is very liberal with skill points and a properly upgraded V can use a wide variety of weapons to blow through the game. The game was massively updated with the 1.5 patch in February 2022 to tone down almost all of these overpowered stats & weapons.
  • Intelligence is the One Stat to Rule Them All: no playstyle can rival a properly built Netrunner in safety, versatility and stealthiness. Their legendary quickhacks enable them to take down scores of enemies through walls both lethally and non-lethally without ever being discovered, neatly covering two of the most prevalent optional mission objectives. Legendary quickhacks are the only source of certain unique effects like enemy panic. Datamining input ports is the most financially profitable playstyle. In combat a netrunner always has a perfect counter at their disposal. It is possible to go into the first real story mission with a nearly invincible stealth monster that rarely needs to use an actual weapon. And lastly, nothing stops you from using actual weapons when required.
  • A Tech sniper rifle and upgrades to allow higher Tech charge level and increased headshot damage, coupled with the AI's tendency to take cover and wait when it can't see you, makes a huge number of missions laughably easy by simply using Ping to highlight all enemies in the building and then clearing them out by simply 1 shotting them through the walls, floors, and anything else with Tech charged sniper bullets to the head while they simply wait in various cover positions that provide no protection to Tech charged attacks.
    • The Achilles tech rifle is even more game-breaking than the Nakomata sniper rifle. Unlike the latter it is effective at any range, holds far more (much cheaper) ammo both in its magazine and in reserve, reloads faster, shoots faster, and charges quicker. If you spec into tech weapons and install a few Crunch mods, its damage is more than sufficient to One-Hit Kill anything that isn't a boss, no matter the range and no matter how many walls it hides behind. And that's just the base version. The iconic Widowmaker, acquired during Panam's first quest early in Act 2, is even more powerful since it fires two shots simultaneously and also deals much higher charged damage. All things considered, a suitably leveled Achilles is the only gun you'll ever need as long as the situation doesn't require stealth.
  • Smart Sniper Rifles are also viable. You peek out of cover, pull the trigger when you see a red diamond, then duck back into cover and enjoy watching a guaranteed hit while you reload. The general downside is that Smart Sniper Rifles are one-shot magazines with long reload times, but you can spend that time in cover instead of peeking out and taking the time to aim. It trades efficiency for consistency and safety, something invaluable when playing rocket tag with your enemies.
  • The iconic smart pistol Skippy, when set to Stone-Cold Killer mode, uses the game's cheapest ammunition to automatically score nothing but headshots as long as you aim it in the vague direction of the enemy. Nothing in Night City can stand up to that for more than a few seconds. The gun can be acquired as soon as the game proper begins. Just make sure to read up on its particular quirks before you pick it up.
  • The Fortuna mod gives a flat +12% crit chance and can be stacked with multiple mod slots on top of other crit-boosting stuff like perks and weapon attributes, which can get as high as 500% on the Satori katana. It's also cheap, and easy to obtain by Time Skip-camping clothing vendors. Stacking this will give you a 100% chance to deal damage in the hundreds of thousands with every attack from even the crappiest weapon. It is not unusual to make heavy mechs explode instantly from a single hit. Combat tends to become very boring when any enemy except the toughest bosses turns into a One Hitpoint Wonder, and those go down in two, maybe three hits.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The tarot graffiti V has to find for the "Fool On The Hill" sidequest that are strewn around Night City respond thematically to the events in the main story that take place in the graffiti's general vicinity. Some are more obvious ("The Emperor" in Konpeki Plaza), but some require the knowledge of the card's more obscure/unclear meaning ("The Moon" in Arasaka Estate, "The Chariot" near Tom's Diner).
  • The achievement for using dialogue choices related to V's chosen lifepath is called "Stanislavski's method". Konstantin Stanislavski was a theatre practitioner and is considered a father of method acting.
  • When you cross the bridge to Mikoshi before meeting Alt, she will recite a fragment of either "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot (if you cross as V) or "Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yeats (if you cross as Johnny).
  • During Joshua Stephenson's crucifixion, Johnny dramatically states "Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" which V follows with “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” These lines are from Luke 23:39-40, and they are said by the two criminals Jesus was crucified alongside. Also, according to some Catholic tradition, the first criminal was a murderer while the second was a thief. Johnny and V's most notorious crimes of course were mass murder (the Arasaka bombing) and theft (the biochip heist) respectively.
  • In the "Tune Up" sidequest Delamain refers to V by the alias "Mrs. Elaine Pagels" for female Vs and "Mr. Hans Jonas" for male Vs. Both are names are of well-known scholars of Gnosticism, possibly alluding to the quest's theological themes.
    • Gnosticism is also referenced by the Hotel Pistis Sophia, appearing in final phase of "Tapeworm", which is named after the Gnostic text of the same name.
  • Patch 1.5 added several new poses for the Photo Mode. The one cribbed from Dragon Ball Z has a Stealth Pun name: "Hawaiian King Energy Blast".
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Like The Witcher series before it, Cyberpunk 2077 has quite a lot of fans in other countries of Eastern Europe, with notable Czech and Russian fandoms.
  • Due to being a European game, it also has a lot of French and British fans.
  • It's also massively popular in the US, likely due to its California setting.
• Good Bad Bugs: While Cyberpunk 2077 has its own fair share of glitches and bugs, some can be potentially helpful or hilarious.
  • A bunnyhopping glitch was discovered in the game, triggered by running on ledges and ramps causing the player to speed up and using jumping to maintain the momentum. Many players enjoyed the glitch, with some ignoring cars entirely and musing about its speedrunning potential.
  • Glitches with layering clothing models over the character's base nude model created some interesting fashions. A similar bug regarding driving causes players to T-pose upon weird axes, inexplicably removing their pants and displaying their bare asses to the world. (both links NSFW)
  • Two as-of-version-1.05 unpatched glitches allow players to easily acquire near unlimited sums of money. Aside from being a helpful thing in general, it also makes unlocking the reviled Autojock achievement much less annoying. As of Patch 1.2, both glitches have been patched out.
  • In the Beat on the Brat series of side missions, sometimes your opponent will get stuck in the terrain, making their AI bug out and causing them to do nothing but make taunting gestures, leaving you free to wallop them in to submission. Given how reviled this series of missions is, many players are happy to be given a few free passes.
  • During the Arasaka Tower Raid sequence in Johnny's memories, the riff form "Archangel", the song that Johnny plays during the riot, can glitch and get layered on top of the usual track that plays, that being "Rebel path". Many players actually enjoyed it, feeling like the punk guitar actually added a lot to the mood of the Raid.
  • During the (Don't Fear) The Reaper ending, early versions had Johnny sometimes T-posing in the middle of Araska's lobby. Given the jokes around the pose asserting dominance and how Johnny is just there acting as emotional support for V, it's oddly perfect.
  • The Second Heart is a piece of Cyberware that gives V an extra life on a long cooldown. There's an Achievement for using the Second Heart to come back to life and kill the enemy who zeroed you. And, as of patch 2.01, it can sometimes be unlocked by V falling to their death. Whether they have a Second Heart installed or not.

H-I

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • With the extreme backlash to the game's technical performance, coupled with CDPR keeping footage from reviewers and of the PS4 and Xbox One versions hidden prior to release despite praising the older consoles' handling of the game, many have said that CDPR's actions and deceptions perfectly align with the corporations of Cyberpunk 2077.
  • A note found in-game is a scathing review of a fictional game called Bloody Bout VII, condemning the game for its "half-baked ideas" and "ridiculous lag" among other issues. Both of these things, especially the latter on the base PS4/Xbox One, would become critiques of Cyberpunk 2077 itself.
  • Back in 2018, the official Twitter account of the game replied to a fan asking if memes would be present in the game by stating "Whole game is going to be a meme." Such turned out to be true, but definitely not in the way the developers and many players had hoped.
  • Basically, CDPR's numerous Take Thats in the past to various other game developers regarding crunch, poor AI, repetitive crashes, Game Breaking Bugs not being patched out, as well as cash-grabbing opportunism becomes this when CDPR itself is revealed to have been practicing most of these, coming off as a major Hypocrite.
  • The Corpo lifepath begins with V stress vomiting in a bathroom at Arasaka HQ, and soon after you can find a shard discussing the Big 5 employers in Night City, along with the downright dystopian 'benefits' they offer their employees, such as Night Corp offering a mandatory workweek of just 80 hours for the family-focused worker, or Biotechnica offering up to six paid vacation days a year. All of these attempts to depict the corporate world of 2077 as hellish ring much harsher after articles about months of 'crunch' development time at CDPR, making the whole sequence feel less like a dystopian future and more like some modern day developer's cry for help.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Opinions on V's voicework vary depending on the language and the gender of V (with the female versions being generally considered better than their male counterparts), but many agree that, regardless of the version, the scene at the very beginning of Act 2, where V learns that they are doomed and have only weeks at best to live is amazingly acted, and an incredible Tear Jerker.
  • Carla Tassara, Judy's English voice actress is very often praised as one of the best actors in the game, with the scenes where Judy finds dead Evelyn in her bathtub in "Both Sides, Now" and calls the police to have her body picked up, and her "The Reaper" ending call as one of the most gut-wrenching performances in gaming period. Her talent was actually recognized outside of fandom, when she was nominated for a BAFTA award for an actor in a supporting role.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Keanu Reeves has done three Cyberpunk movies: Johnny Mnemonic (the adaptation of the William Gibson short story of the same name), his Star-Making Role in The Matrix, and the critically panned Replicas. Now he's playing a major character in a Cyberpunk game. Further, the key plot of Johnny Mnemonic—significant data being implanted in the protagonist's head which would kill said protagonist after a short period of time if not removed—is also replicated in the game, though Keanu plays the role of the data instead of the protagonist here.
  • Keanu has played Johnny Utah, Jonathan Harker, John Constantine, Johnny Mnemonic, John Wick, and now Johnny Silverhand.
  • The creators of the tabletop RPG have said that Morgan Blackhand is essentially future John Wick. So when CDPR gets a chance to cast Keanu Reeves... they of course cast him as the other major POV character.
  • Along with the above Harsher in Hindsight tweet, some people have taken delight in another Tweet from the official Cyberpunk 2077 account meant as a Take That! to Pokémon GO over crashing issues, in light of Cyberpunk 2077's own major technical issues.
  • In a similar manner, Take-Two Interactive criticizing CDPR for the rushed state of Cyberpunk 2077 and stating that games shouldn't be rushed becomes incredibly ironic when Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition launched in a buggy and unfinished state with many bugs and technical issues that are almost on par with Cyberpunk 2077's own launch.
  • Once again a character played by Cherami Leigh implants a mercenary protagonist with a "relic" that replaces a non-functional organ and allows them to interact with another, long dead, character who acts as a sort of Spirit Advisor.
  • It just happens that mighty megacorporation Militech shares its name with real life small-time body armor production outfit.
  • During Kerry's questline, Johnny tells V that this might be their only chance to see a Samurai reunion. Three years later, and Keanu Reeves' own band Dogstar went on a reunion tour.
• Ho Yay:
  • Regardless of if the romantic subtext of V's and Johnny's relationship was intentional or not, it's present no matter V's gender, which means that Johnny's bond with a male/masculine V can be viewed this way. Most notable would be the "Johnny + V" cupid heart tattoo Johnny can give V in "Chippin' In", the grave scene and Johnny's devotion to saving V's life in "The Sun" ending. If you have a high bond with him, at the end of "A Like Supreme", Johnny will say that he regrets that V had to take the acceleration pills to give him control over his body. V will say that he thought that the concert was important to Johnny and Kerry. Johnny will respond with "It was. But not more important than you". There's also the infamous Dummied Out voiceline of Johnny saying "Sleep well my prince, I'll see you on the other side" completely sincerely, that was likely supposed to be used before he takes over V's body in "The Sun" ending (There's also a corresponding "My princess" line for a feminine V).
    • And of course there's the (easily missable) mission "Love Rollercoaster", which ends with V and Johnny riding the coaster together and having a blast. Many fans have simply dubbed it 'the amusement park date with Johnny'.
    • Also worth mentioning is Johnny's reaction to V giving up his body after "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (assumedly if you two have a high enough relationship). Johnny tries to stop him from crossing the bridge multiple times, before he eventually admits that he's scared for V while displaying some very anxious body language. V then offers a handshake goodbye, which Johnny reluctantly accepts. But when V tries to pull away, Johnny refuses to let go at first, holding V's hand closer as he looks him in the eyes, before finally releasing it with an absolutely heartbreaking expression on his face. See it here for yourself.
    • Near the end of the game, after V collapses following his (in-person) talk with Hanako, Johnny will take over V's body to drag him to Viktor's clinic, because he's too weak to get there by himself. As V wakes up on Viktor's operating table, he tells him that V pretty much pulled Viktor's previous patient off and demanded to be treated, and that he acted very strange and unlike himself. V can then hear Johnny whispering to tell Viktor that it was his "guardian angel".
    • As mentioned above, when talking at Johnny's gravesite, if you ask him if he still feels like he can't breathe, Johnny can say that he sometimes wakes up thinking he's back to his old self, but feels relief when he realizes V is there after noticing "something really important" was missing. V in response can tell Johnny that sometimes he has dreams where he's him, in which he feels completely confident in who he is and how he finally fits into the world.
    • During one of V's relic malfunction scenes, V can mockingly imitate Johnny by saying "Blah blah blah, fuck Arasaka, blah blah blah, smash Mikoshi". Johnny will laugh and say that "[they] really are turning into [him]" and say that they bicker Like an Old Married Couple. While he only uses that specific wording for a feminine V in English, he uses it for both masculine and feminine V in the Polish version. ("Kłócimy się jak stare małżeństwo.") In English, he says to a masculine V that they're "bickering like a couple of geezers on a park bench". Johnny also refers to V as "słonko" ("sweetheart") during "Sweet Dreams", regardless of V's gender.
  • Jackie and V stuck in a hotel room with only one bed. For hours.
  • Panam and female V's friendship is certainly very deep, with Panam practically begging her to leave Night City behind and go on the road with her and the Aldecaldos, the fact that she's willing to risk her and the other Aldecaldos' life to get V to Mikoshi and that she won't rest until she'll find a cure for V in "The Star" ending. There's also the final scene of said ending, where Panam and V sit on the Basilisk and stare out into the night sky. A lot of the dialogue is the same regardless of V's gender, so a lot of players felt like Panam was flirting with their V, even when they were female, with the "makeshift hotel" one where Panam rests her legs on V's thighs being a prime example. When she recoils when female V tries to touch her and asks her to just be friends, most players were very confused.
  • On the other end of the spectrum, many players who picked a masculine/male V felt the same way about River, feeling like he was flirting with them, only to get very surprised when he rejected their kiss. Some fans even speculate if this was done to parody the very common Homoerotic Subtext of many Buddy Cop Show dramas.
  • The bond between Judy and Evelyn is clearly very deep, to the point where the two were planning to leave Night City together after Evelyn gets the money from the Relic heist. It's hinted in a couple scenes that Judy actually is in love with Evelyn (her talk with V when they wait in Fingers' office or her flashbacks in "Pyramid Song"), but nothing is ever stated clearly, and it's also left ambiguous on whether Evelyn returns Judy's feelings, or just sees her as a good friend.
  • While it's openly stated that, back during the Samurai days, Kerry was in love with Johnny, but Johnny didn't return his feelings, there are a few hints that their relationship might not have been as cut-and-dry: In one exchange with V, he implies that he didn't go along with Kerry's crush because he isn't attracted to men, but if you go to Dicky Twister, a male strip club, Johnny will start to reminisce that the last time he was there he was with Kerry, and Johnny bought himself a lap dance. In another dialogue with Rogue, he can answer "I'd do Kerry" when Rogue asks him what would he do differently if he could go back in time. If V romances Kerry and chooses to call him during "Nocturne (...)", Johnny will seemingly get jealous (though if he's jealous of Kerry or V is debatable). Kerry is also the only romance option that Johnny doesn't comment upon if V gets together with^note although fans have discovered Dummied Out lines where he does indeed share his opinion about it if V asks. In-universe, people used to write shipping fanfiction about them, with their ship name being Jorry.
    • You can also find a shard written about Samurai, where the author says it was rumored Johnny was sleeping with both Kerry and Henry, their bassist. Although that may only be gossip, the author does just outright state that Johnny was 'sleeping with everyone, though his heart wasn't always in it.' Said shard was then reprinted in the Official Cyberpunk 2077 Game Guide, thus canonically disproving the implications that he only likes women
    • During the quest "Rebel! Rebel!", there's Johnny's reaction to Kerry blowing up the van with US Cracks' concert gear (with a little help from V).
      Johnny: Fuck me, Kerry.
    • In the first Johnny flashback, if Johnny chooses to part with Kerry on good terms before his final assault on Arasaka HQ in 2023...
      Johnny: [gently grabs the side of Kerry's head to pull him closer] Get over here, man. Fuck this band. [taps his chest] Not your crowd, not your noise, do your own thing.
      Kerry: Bastard. Tsh... Gonna miss you something awful.
      Johnny: See ya in the next life, friend.
    • Additionally, if you sleep with River, Johnny complains about V making him sleep with a cop, and says nothing about it being with another man.
  • If you choose to accompany Takemura during his recon mission in "Gimme Danger", he'll text you about your conversation on the roof after the quest is completed. And in response, V, regardless of gender, can actually offer to keep Takemura company. Takemura unfortunately turns you down, though he replies that he's honored and then texts back, "Under other circumstances...", implying that he may just have taken V up on that offer if things were different.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The creators explicitly stated that they made the length of the main campaign shorter in response to the fact that many players never finished The Witcher 3 due to its length. However, a common complaint has been that the campaign wraps up too quickly right when it feels like there should have been a third act. That's not to say there isn't plenty of side content to do (much of which directly affects the main campaign as well, so it could almost be considered main story content if not for the fact that it's optional). Compared to Witcher 3's average completion time of roughly 45 hours, Cyberpunk 2077's completion time roughly clocks in around 25-30 hours.

J-N

• Jerkass Woobie: The Voodoo Boys, surprisingly enough, if one digs into the backstory of Haiti both in Real Life as well as in the Cyberpunk Universe especially. Haiti has throughout most of its history been screwed over by Western Powers, from the French Slavers to American Banks draining the nation and its people of resources. Worse, in the Cyberpunk Universe, Global Warming, caused in no small parts due to Western Capitalism rendering Haiti inhospitable, it's people were forced to migrate to the United States where they are mistrusted and, in Night City specifically, effectively banished to the decrepit and falling apart ghetto of Pacifica. As a further insult to them and their culture they learn that there is a white poser gang mocking and insulting the Haitian beliefs and traditions in the city, the original Voodoo Boys. While this ultimately doesn't excuse the whole "Traitors to Humanity" plot that some of their leaders follow, it is still hard to blame them for being so hostile towards outsiders after all the suffering their community went through. This also makes their grunts, who presumably have no idea about Brigittes genocidal plans, as well as the Dogtown splinters, quite sympathetic.
• Just Here for Godzilla: To say Keanu Reeves being in the game got some people interested would be putting things lightly.
  • Cherami Leigh voicing the female version of V also helped, for those fond of dubs of Japanese video game and anime.
  • People who first got into the universe via Cyberpunk: Edgerunners have admitted to playing the game just to kill Adam Smasher as revenge for what he did to the protagonists of the anime.
  • Similarly to Keanu Reeves, the reveal that Idris Elba would be starring in Phantom Liberty as a prominent supporting character became a major talking point for the upcoming expansion.
• Love to Hate: Adam Smasher. He may be one of the most evil and repulsive villains in the entire Cyberpunk universe, but his intimidating appearance as a gigantic cyborg, his status as The Dreaded, and his formidable boss fight also makes him one of the most memorable and formidable foes V has to face.
• LGBT Fanbase: The fact that the game portrays a world where LGBT characters exist freely and aren't treated as a big deal is certainly a big draw for some. Kerry's, and especially Judy's, storylines and character arcs are applauded, because their sexualities are a part of them, but aren't the main focus, and both of them are allowed to just be complex people with their own problems unrelated to who they find attractive. Many lesbians and bi women were pleasantly surprised by Judy's sex scenes, which are tasteful and not fetishizing, but still explicit and sensual (in contrast to how The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings treated its WLW characters mostly as clear fanservice to straight men). Panam and River also have their own fair share of female and male admirers, respectively, and due to their less restrictive romance criteria (just masculine/feminine body, while in Judy's and Kerry's case it's also the voice) they're often headcannoned as bisexual. Despite the controversies regarding how trans people were depicted, many trans gamers still found it satisfying to play as a canonically transgender character in a game with such scope and budget, and were happy that none of the romance options take genitals into the equation. Claire is generally seen as good trans representation, even among people who had issues with things like the character creator or the "Mix it Up" ad. Johnny is commonly seen as bisexual, and many fans enjoy the subtext of him falling for V, which is present regardless of V's gender. There's also plenty of non-romancable characters who are popular among gay and bi people (Takemura, Viktor, Rogue, Denny, Mitch, Saul, and Reed to name a few). Worth noting that all of them are on the older end of the age spectrum, with the game's reputation for many silver foxes and vixens in the cast certainly appealing to many LGBT people.
• Magnificent Bastard: See here.
• Memetic Mutation: Now has its own page.
• Misaimed Fandom: Trauma Team are a criticism on how easy it is for the megacorps to corrupt the "for-profit" medical system, with the best medical care only being available to the richest segments of society. However, most fans simply love Trauma Team due solely to the fact that the idea of paramedics armed to the teeth swooping into dangerous areas to extract their patients sounds really cool. It doesn't help that Trauma Team's database entry is written in an oddly gushing tone compared to those of the other megacorps.
• Misblamed: After the game's rocky launch, some players directed their anger at people like CDProjekt's programmers, QA testers or even writers and other artists, despite the fact that the only people in the company who had any say about when and in what state the game should be released were the CEOs.
• Narm:
  • Yorinobu's rants against his father are meant to show his motivation and establish his credibility as a villainous successor. Instead, his bored petulant tone makes him sound like he's discussing a bad car purchase.
  • Similarly, Saburo has decided to kill his son for stealing the Relic. His emotionless tone means that he doesn't sound mad or even threatening. This from the most terrifying man in the world. Some English-speaking fans have even expressed a desire to switch Yorinobu's and Saburo's dialogue from the English version of the game with the Japanese version, citing that the Japanese VAs do a better job making them actually sound villainous and threatening.
  • From the Interlude, where Johnny is being interrogated by Arasaka goons. Due to the sound choice and animation, it seems like the hardened corporate goon is barely turning Johnny's cheeks pink.
  • During "Search and Destroy", V flees to a motel in the Badlands to hide from Arasaka goons and decides to arm themselves... with a low-level shotgun, even though the job takes place at a point where they're guaranteed to have top-tier weapons on them.
  • The game's weird and excessive Future Slang (all of which was inherited from the tabletop game) quickly ended up in this category for some players. For example, "output" for girlfriend, "input" for boyfriend.
  • River Ward's family photo◊, received after completing his quest, was mocked for looking like a placeholder image at best and a hastily made Garry's Mod joke at worst. It wasn't until the 2.0 update that it's changed into a more convincing one on September 2023, nearly three years later.
  • The sidequest, "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" involves Joshua being confronted by the mother of one of his victims, who tearfully tells the both of you to leave her domicile despite Joshua's willingness to atone for his crime. The whole scene has quite the somber air about it... except for the part where the studio thought it appropriate to play stock audio of a woman sobbing in the background. Not only does the woman in the crying audio sound nothing like the mother, but it begins playing while she is still speaking, giving the impression that there's apparently a very weepy ghost lurking around who just couldn't stand the intensely emotional scene.
  • During Claire's racing missions, Claire is normally supposed to shoot at other cars from the passenger's seat, but not all cars allow her to do this due to how their doors and windows work. Picking one of these for the final race^note the Caliburn in particular is susceptible to this since it's the fastest car in the game and thus the best pick especially for this race makes the whole thing a weird, anticlimactic exercise in tailing a specific competing car, with nothing else happening and nobody aboard saying a word until the target car suddenly and inexplicably bursts into flames and leaves the track. It all just feels so random and contrived even if you know how it's supposed to play out that it becomes damn near impossible to take seriously.
  • In the cutscene of the ending where V commits suicide (and only this specific finale cutscene), the character's lips don't move while talking, which ruins a scene intended to be tragic.
• Narm Charm:
  • The aforementioned Future Slang still has its fans, however, with the terms "preem" and "nova", positive expressions synonymous with "cool" and "awesome", being particularly popular within the game's subreddit. Furthermore, the usage of the game's slang in the widely acclaimed English dub of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is considered one of the dub's highlights.
  • Dancing with your romantic partner thanks to the 2.1 update. The narm in this Narm Charm is V's "dancing" consisting of nothing more than floating their hands in front of their face as well as the awkward ways each dance concludes, in which your partner just walks off without a word as if somehow embarrassed by the dance. The charm, however, is your partner dancing free and happy as can be to "I Really Wanna Stay At Your House", a sight that manages to be both wholesome and tearjerking.

O-P

• Obvious Beta: Cyberpunk 2077 is infamous for its extremely rushed release in December 2020. Performance on eighth generation consoles was untenable, and while the PC version was the best of the three, it was still riddled with bugs. Tellingly, many aspects of the game's balance were undercooked, rife with Game-Breaker and useless options alike. It wasn't until patch 2.0, coupled with the release of the Phantom Liberty expansion in September 2023 that the game reached anything resembling a polished state. Even so, the eighth generation consoles were left behind at patch 1.6. While 2.0 fixed all the worst bugs and included a comprehensive overhaul on balance (including completely replacing the skill trees), many story threads are still Left Hanging or otherwise orphaned.
• Older Than They Think:
  • In light of the game being attacked on social media for making the character creator more inclusive to transgender and gender-fluid players, it should be noted that Cyberpunk 2077 isn't the first game to include gender-free options. Starting from Saints Row 2 (which had a gender slider as an option for customization and was released in 2008), the Saints Row series has allowed players to mix masculine and feminine traits for their Boss.
  • Fans have complained about the sheer amount of bugs and technical issues of the game on baseline consoles, such as textures taking too long to load or pop-ins that caused them to crash, with many wondering why the game either wasn't launched specifically on next-gen consoles or wasn't delayed longer. This in spite of the fact that CD Projekt Red's last game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, launched with its own large amount of bugs.
  • The Tyger Claws gang is something that some reviewers have attempted to attribute Interchangeable Asian Cultures and a product of CD Projekt Red not understanding the role of Asians in America. They are actually a purely Japanese faction based on AKIRA, real life biker gangs, and the Yakuza that have always worked for the Arasaka corporation in the tabletop game from the original 2013 edition onward.
  • The 2077 actually isn't the first video game in the Cyberpunk franchise; that went to Cyberpunk: The Arasaka's Plot, an obscure 2007 mobile Platform Game with gameplay similar to Bionic Commando (1988) and Flashback.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: It's impossible to bring up the game without addressing the controversy and its legitimate criticism. It was one of the most hyped games of all time followed by the disastrous release with unplayable console ports, reports of poor management, abusive crunch culture and deliberate false advertising heavily damaged developer CD Projekt RED's reputation in the videogame industry after years of portraying themselves as the most consumer-friendly AAA developer and publisher. Lawsuits were launched against the company by both consumers and shareholders for the state of the game and Sony downright removed the game from the PlayStation Store after a huge amount of refund requests were sent to Sony following a statement from CD Projekt RED that they would accept all refund requests, which blindsided both Sony and Microsoft. The situation got so bad that the game's disastrous launch was covered by non-gaming media and CD Projekt RED got hit hard (for a time) in the stock exchange and forced company co-CEO Marcin Iwiński to apologize on video.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: River and his sister Joss totally ignore when a Female V doesn't flirt with River & refuses to show any romantic interest in him. There's also no choice to let him in on the fact that a player might be playing a lesbian V. Even if V has gone down the Judy romantic route, after you save his nephew, you can continue to interact with him non-romantically but the final part of his character arc will automatically progress to his pre-arranged water tower "date", where River will have not picked up a single clue about V not being interested and he will still confess his feelings for V.
• Player Punch:
  • The death of Jackie. Despite being spoiled by trailers months before the release, Jackie is such a Big Fun character and supportive person that the players will look for some way to make sure he survives even though it is impossible. He was popular enough from just the trailer that people hoped that it was a misdirection or an example of what could happen but that was not to be.
  • In one of the endings, V decides to kill themselves, much to Johnny's initial dismay and acceptance. The credits show all of V's friends impacted by their decision, who are either grieving, angry, or downright disappointed, a wake-up call to players that took light of the decision.
  • In the finale, Adam Smasher will brutally kill one of your friends (which one depends on your choices) right in front of you after they damage him to make the boss fight a little easier for you. What makes it really hurt is that the death is entirely your own fault; it only happens if you choose to conduct the assault on Mikoshi by gathering up all you buddies for the final battle instead of taking Hanako Arasaka's offer of aid, or storming the building by yourself. In other words, your friend would've lived if you didn't selfishly drag them into your war. You Bastard!
  • Any of the other endings aside from "The Reaper" also still qualify because it's revealed that V did in fact die for real at the end of Act 1 and his or her body was only revived because of the Relic to convert it for Johnny's use. So the only options are to give it over to him and leave with Alt forever, have Johnny leave/be removed and eventually die due to being an "invader" whose body no longer recognizes its original mind, or in "The Devil" ending be uploaded into Mikoshi by Arasaka. There's no completely good ending no matter what V does, but coming to terms with their own impending death seems to be the better outcome for V, their friends and Johnny ("The Star" and "The Sun"), while giving up ("Temperance" and "The Reaper") or betraying Johnny and their friends ("The Devil") are far worse.
  • "The Tower". Good news: V is finally able to remove the engram from their head thanks to Reed finding them an advanced medical clinic. The bad news: absolutely everything else. The medical procedure left V in a coma FOR TWO YEARS, and not a single one of your romance options chose to wait for you. Hell, one half of them wants nothing to do with you anymore (Panam, who is so pissed off at you that Mitch has to be the one to explain that she's permanently cut all contact with you, and River, who is now a paranoid crook having to resort to shady dealings to care for his family) while the other half has not only moved on from you, but had their lives improve immensely from your absence (Judy, who is now Happily Married to another woman, and Kerry, who has regained his fame and fortune). Arasaka may have been forced out of Night City, but Militech has taken their place and done nothing to make the city anything more than the Urban Hellscape it already was, worsening its condition by ruling it under martial law and filling the streets with military vehicles and mechsuits. Viktor may have a far more legitimate job working in a real clinic, but he's now a slave to the corpos like V always hoped he'd never become. Furthermore, V's body and brain have been left incompatible with combat implants, which will kill or injure them should he attempt to use them again or even add them to their body. Of course, entering Night City without combat implants is essentially a death sentence, which nearly becomes V's fate when they are beaten half to death upon exiting Viktor's clinic. Who is responsible for the beating? Not gangoons nor Militech soldiers, but a pair of young street thugs. That's right, the merc who's mowed through countless gangs, cyberpsychos, and BARGHEST, bested by teenagers. If it weren't for Misty, V may have died then and there, and even she doesn't stay around for long, instead encouraging V to go their own way and take advantage of their new status as "nothing more than a face in the crowd" to try again at life. And the game finally ends with Misty leaving Night City and V vanishing into the crowds of Night City, given a slate so clean, they might as well have barely come into existence. Yeah...bittersweet is putting it very lightly.
    • It's less than a punch when you actually dig into the lore. Northern California is pretty much in bed with Militech more so than Arasaka. Regardless of your actions (minus the devil ending) a civil war is rampaging through Arasaka, who was just playing Cold War-Esque power displays pre-heist with Militech and the Free-state Government. Your actions in Act 1 made Yorinobu's less of the killing of a tyrant, with the opportunity to be replaced with a new one at his "convenient death" (as we see in the devil ending); into a full-fledged 5th gen civil war. Arasaka's attention will be to busy internally to be able to commit to a direct Conventional war with Millitech to remove them from competition, saving millions from getting in the crossfire of another Arasaka-Millitech urban battle in Night City. Take down Mikoshi, and you not only prevented another convention war in Northern California, but also got rid of the effectiveness of Soul Killer, making it less of a widespread weapon to be used as punishment against enemies of Arasaka for non-conventional warfare.
    • All of the endings, minus the Devil, kinda spill doom for the Nomads in the NUSA. The main reason Militech isn't going to war with them is that it would leave them wide open for Arasaka to strike. With Arasaka retreating from the American continent this balance of power that allowed the Nomads to thrive is gone. Militech can now fully turn their resources to restoring control over the western states and rid themselves of troublesome groups just as the Nomads. It`s likely they will go the same way as the native americans before them, at best forcibly "civilized" in a "kill the Nomad save the man" way or confined to barren reservations, at worst outright slaughtered. No wonder Panam never wants to talk to V ever again in the Tower Ending, after all V helped the people who are now wiping out hers.
• Popularity Polynomial: Despite the tremendous excitement and anticipation leading up to the game's 2020 launch, to say that it met Hype Backlash and became Overshadowed by Controversy would be an understatement. In the time since then, however, it has seen constant patches and updates, and with the release of both Edgerunners and later on Phantom Liberty, 2077 has seen a reappraisal and renewed interest.
• Porting Disaster: Players of the PC version reported a number of minor-to-moderate bugs at launch which were annoying, but not enough to seriously wreck the game. But the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game were a very different story. Among the more serious issues reported: textures that took twenty-plus seconds to load, pop-in so bad that players crashed their cars when other vehicles materialized right in front of them, frame rates that were so jittery and unstable that it caused motion sickness, AI enemies that flat-out forgot you existed during combat, graphics that made PS2 games look good in comparison, and the consoles crashing to the system dashboard. It was bad enough that a meme spread on launch day unfavorably comparing the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Cyberpunk 2077 to Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1 games. CD Projekt Red delayed the game twice specifically because of the difficulties of getting it to run on Sony and Microsoft's Daddy Systems (not to mention that when the game was first announced back in 2012, the PS4 and Xbox One were about to be released as the next-gen consoles, leaving to heavy expectations that it should be able to work on those systems), leaving some fans wondering why CDPR even bothered instead of just making it a next-gen exclusive. The commotion was so overwhelming that CD Projekt Red publicly apologized for the PS4 and Xbox One versions and offered refunds (that they could not actually deliver on), and Sony removed the PS4 version from the PlayStation Store a few days later (and actually offering refunds out to those who already bought the game, despite Sony's reputation for no refunds). In addition, the ports for the PS4 and Xbox One were given a score of 4 out of 10 by IGN, the lowest score IGN has ever given to a CD Projekt Red game. It is saying something that CDPR will no longer work on updating the PS4 and Xbox One versions following the release of Patch 1.6, making their successor systems the only consoles to recieve the "Phantom Liberty" DLC.

R-S

• Realism-Induced Horror: The long email exchanges between River's nephew and Anthony Harris are a frighteningly realistic example of child abductor grooming tactics, to the point that they might be more upsetting to the audience than the sheer Body Horror Harris' victims are subjected to.
• Ron the Death Eater: Despite making no physical appearance within the game itself, Judy's wife Bianca from "The Tower" ending (exclusive to the Phantom Liberty expansion) got hit with this hard. In-game, Judy explicitly states they're Happily Married to one another and will even tell V (if she romanced her) not to come barging back into her life. To say Die for Our Ship is in full effect would be an understatement; nine-times out of ten, any fan work set post-"The Tower" will portray Bianca as an abusive spouse whose actions drive Judy away and back to V.
• The Scrappy: River is by far the least popular romance option and the least popular among the four outside of dating. Commonly-cited reasons for his romance being bad are his neediness, clinginess, poor social skills and lack of respect for a female V's boundaries. Furthermore he acts like V is giving him mixed-messages, even if you never express any interest in him.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Now has its own page.
• Ship Mates: The fandoms of all four of the possible love interests for V tend to get along pretty well, despite sometimes lightly ribbing on each other. Special mentions goes to the Judy/V and Panam/V fanbases, who pretty much completely subvert the "Triss vs Yennefer" debates the fandom of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has, as their conflicts don't really go much further past playfully teasing memes. The fact that both characters are mostly considered likable and well-written, the best outcome for one of the good endings involves both of them, and that they can't be shipped with the same version of V certainly helps.
  • In a similiar vein, Johnny/Male V fans, Johnny/Kerry fans, and Kerry/Male V fans seem to mostly get along with each other, with many of them also shipping all three together.
• Shocking Moments: The end of the Cinematic Trailer that reveals that Keanu Reeves is in the game, and later confirmed he's playing Cyberpunk 2020 character Johnny Silverhand. Johnny is the character with most spoken dialogue in the game other than the player character, so this isn't just Stunt Casting.
• Signature Scene:
  • Jackie bleeding out in the back of the Delamain cab at the end of "The Heist" and slotting the Relic into V's head, followed by V being shot by Dex
  • Johnny's and V's first meeting in V's room and their first chat in the diner.
  • Johnny's rant about Arasaka and the cutthroat-capitalism they force on the world at the end of either "Life During Wartime" or "Transmission" (depending on which one was completed first).
  • Sitting on the roof with Johnny in "Nocturne Op55N1".
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The character animation for V's shadow had been criticized for looking generally unpolished, but its underwater animation is often singled out as the worst offender. Most players wouldn't spend much time swimming to find it out, with only one quest taking place underwater, but if they do, they'll see that the shadow animation is absurd, with the character model's joints twisted in a wrong way like a spider limb. This wasn't fixed in the updates, which introduced more bugs like duplicated arms.
  • The Delamain quest with the famous Shout-Out falls into this for one reason. Rather than hire a different voice actress, CD Projekt Red simply lifted lines directly from the Portal games. This results in the voice clips actually increasing and decreasing in audio quality between voice clips. It’s far more notable if one is wearing a headset.
• Spiritual Successor: Due to their similar gameplay and setting (a futuristic first-person RPG that uses cybernetics as a major gameplay mechanic with many ways to complete objectives), the game may scratch the itch of Deus Ex fans, since that franchise is currently on hold with an uncertain future.
• Strangled by the Red String: A common viewpoint regarding the River & Female V romance. It takes place in a very short period of time while the pair search for River's nephew, who was taken by a paedophile serial killer. The focus is on finding the child rather than River as a person, unlike the other romances that are a lot more directly involved with the character. River and his romance feels like a Flat Character by comparison to Judy's highly emotional bonding, Panam's battle coupling and Kerry, the larger than life rock star who has an existing connection to Johnny and whose romance involves more quests to unlock than the River romance. There is also no ending that is 'good' in the way that Judy & Panam both have, and even his reaction to the suicide ending is flat, because he's seen it all before.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The song that plays during Judy and Female V's romantic encounter, which is itself an alternate version of "Bells of Laguna Bend", widely considered to be Judy's theme in the game, with the added percussion and female vocalisations, sounds similar to "Teardrop" by Massive Attack.
  • The guitar part in Olga Jankowska's version of "Never Fade Away" sounds similar to the interlude from Metallica's Master of Puppets.

T

• Tainted by the Preview: Much of the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans and nonbinary gamers, were put off by comments from the game's official Twitter account (a "did you just assume my gender?" joke) and an in-game ad that came off as fetishizing a trans woman with a Gag Penis. While developers stated that the in-game ads were deliberately invoking Sex Sells to show how unfettered capitalism exploits everyone, some queer players thought this was a weak defense and were against the game from then on.
• That One Achievement: "Autojock" requires you to purchase almost^note one car is excluded from this list because it's tied to an irreversible decision during one sidequest every single vehicle on offer in Night City, which costs a grand total of 1.8 million eddies. There are only two ways to make so much scratch: 1) saving up every eddie you earn from the very beginning of the game (including not buying expensive cyberware, and selling every looted gun and outfit instead of disassembling them for crafting components), or 2) exploiting money glitches. What makes the whole thing even more annoying is that out of ~20 cars on offer, only about three are worth a damn, and none of them give you an advantage at any point because some of the best vehicles in the game are unlocked automatically during the main quest. The introduction of repeatable car-stealing missions in Phantom Liberty that reward V with vehicle discounts has mitigated this problem.
• That One Boss:
  • Oda, the first real unavoidable boss V has to fight in the main story, and easily the most difficult one. He's a brutal melee combatant armed with flaming Mantis Blades that can cut even a Body/Reflexes-focused V to pieces in seconds if you allow him to close the distance. However, staying out of his melee range is pretty much impossible due to his insane speed and agility, and even if you do, he'll just unleash a Macross Missile Massacre from his smart gun that deals almost as much damage. Chip away enough of his health and he'll activate an invisibility cloak, run away and heal himself if you can't find him quickly enough. It doesn't matter what type of combat you specialize in, there is virtually no safe way to fight this boss - melee is practically suicide, guns are risky at best, and he's so difficult to hack that even the game-breaking netrunners are in for a challenge. He also appears almost completely without warning, so there's a good chance you get caught off-guard without a chance to switch your gear around before the battle if you play the game for the first time. Keep in mind that this guy might well be the very first boss you fight, depending on your decisions in previous missions. The only good thing one can say about the ordeal is that the game will never again throw such a challenge at you, with the Final Boss being an already infamous Anti-Climax Boss. He becomes significantly easier if you have any smart link and any form of smart gun, especially if you have Skippy and have it set to Stone Cold Killer mode, but that in itself is counterintuitive because the majority of Japanese enemies in Night City passively jam V's smart gun targeting; there's very little reason to assume Oda of all people is an exception.
  • Razor Hughes at the end of "Beat On The Brat". While the rest of the sidequest is considered difficult, Razor is loaded with a stupid number of enhancements specifically for creaming an opponent in the ring. While he does have a weak spot due to having recently replaced his abdominal muscles, he is capable of wiping out most of V's health in just a few hits. In order to beat him legitimately, you will need specific perks to boost athletics and melee damage as well as the Gorilla Arms modification, and even then you'll probably have to restart the fight a couple dozen times before he goes down for the count due to his glitchy movement & hit registration. Unlike every other enemy in the game he doesn't get any easier no matter how over-leveled V is, proving just as much of a challenge at level 50 as he does at the recommended level. He does however have a tendency to get stuck in the terrain of the boxing ring, such as getting stuck in a standing position on the top of a ring post, allowing you to pound his abdominal weakspot without getting attacked until he goes down. He also isn't immune to elemental damage from fire upgraded gorilla arms.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Stadium Love, a side story involving the 6th Street gang. V stumbles upon them having a BBQ and they can join a target shooting competition they've got going on. The catch? V has to do it with a revolver and after taking a shot of some increasingly strong alcohol. You need a perfect score on every station to get a chance at the Legendary Smart Assault Rifle, "Divided We Stand". (Without angering and killing a small army of drunk 6th Street goons, at least.) Aside from the fact that many players don't have the impeccable aim and reaction speed this demands, the weapon mastery system means that unless V was already training handguns and perks they'll be at a terrible disadvantage due to the lack of accuracy, ADS time, and reload speed. ^note Of course, you could just kill them all and steal the rifle off the table...
  • Beat on the Brat is a series of sidequests. Each one sends you to a location to fight someone... except it's a fistfight. All those weapons, skill points, and perks you have become useless; all that matters is how high your HP is and how well you can dodge (and even that is suspect due to the AI frequently cheating and redirecting attacks to track you as you dodge), because your attacks will do barely any damage while your opponents can take you down in maybe three hits. It doesn't help that two of these matches, one of which is the final one, take place in cramped areas that give you no room to dodge. To top it off, losing costs you money, aside from the aforementioned two in cramped areas - though if you lose the final fight, you don't get to retry without loading an earlier save.
  • Epistrophy: Wellsprings in the Delamain cab quest is particularly frustrating - you're told to just ram the cab with your car, but the car controls prevent you from gaining enough momentum to damage it because the car has hyper-intelligent AI (not just the in-universe one) and will always be able to ram you first at top speed. The only real way to solve this is to pen it up somewhere with your own car, then get out and shoot it, which is clearly not what the quest intended you to do. Meanwhile the car is a bullet sponge even if you target the wheels or the engine which are supposed to be the weak spots. The 2.0. Update, which adds vehicular combat, made the quest considerably easier given that there's Weaponized Car, but that would be overkill given that the same update allow you to aim and fire from the seat of your car.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • You find yourself betrayed, shot in the head, and left to die in a dump. Sounds like the start of a great Roaring Rampage of Revenge, right? Wrong. Dexter, the guy responsible for said betrayal and head-shooting is promptly shot in the head himself by Goro Takemura immediately after V regains consciousness, putting an abrupt stop to such potential development.
  • Evelyn Parker makes a fantastic first impression on the players being a seductive Ms. Fanservice while also a scheming plotter. She commits suicide following a Fate Worse than Death. Many players hoped there was a way to save her, or at least return to being a major player in the plot after her recovery, but none are the case.
  • T-Bug forms a Freudian Trio with V and Jackie, serving as the logical pragmatic part of the three. They also are one of V's closest friends. T-Bug is unceremoniously killed offscreen with only a single line of text to indicate it had happened.
  • Both the trailers and the game itself made a big deal of MaxTac, the NCPD's elite commando unit. Apart from a brief non-interactable scene near the beginning of the game, they don't make a single appearance afterwards. A lot of players were probably expecting at least one mission that would bring V into conflict with a MaxTac squad, but no such thing ever happens.
    • They do end up showing up in one Side Job near City Center, named "Bullets" as a reference to the 2013 teaser, with the MaxTac Lieutenant leading the squad being the very same cyberpsycho and eventual MaxTac member from said teaser. However, this quest only triggers after you've browsed a particular shop's inventory at least once, so unless you went on a comprehensive outfit shopping spree, unlocking it and meeting the MaxTac team is anything but assured.
  • After her reveal, many were interested in Meredith Stout, with the idea of a romance with her causing prospective players to think you'd get to see more depth to Stout than first indicated, maybe even helping her pull a Heel–Face Turn. Instead, she is only involved in one minor part of the game, and her romance turned out to just be having a one night stand, at which point Meredith is never seen again.
  • Finishing the Delamain questline in a certain way rewards you with a talking car. Sadly, unlike the talking gun Skippy that chimes in with random comments at pretty much every opportunity, the Delamain car talks exactly once, during its introduction, and then never again despite being controlled by a high-level AI that could've had so much more interesting stuff to talk about than the funny but dumb Skippy.
  • While it is obvious in hindsight that electing to ask for help from Panam and the nomad clan is the main way to get a "good" ending, it is completely unclear while playing it for the first time, and for some players, their relationship with Johnny will cause him to steer you away from asking for their help, which makes sense since they would have been annihilated with you showing up to rescue them constantly. There is no ending involving asking for help from Judy or the fixers in your local area, and the other endings involve giving up V's life which many players aren't prepared to do. This effectively defaults the choice to the mediocre Arasaka ending. It's a double whammy for players who romanced Judy as she abandons V by leaving the city before you return to Earth.
  • Adam Smasher can feel disappointingly reminiscent of Eredin from CDPR's previous game. Both are interesting villains from the source material who suffer from a lack of screen time, Smasher getting about ten minutes total. Even in one quest that's dedicated to hunting Smasher down so Johnny can get revenge, nothing new is learned about him or why he's siding with Yorinobu over Saburo, and Smasher doesn't even show-up. Despite Smasher serving as the Final Boss in every ending, him being notoriously anti-climactic and having no personal connection to V can make the showdown fall flat, whereas if Smasher had done something to hurt V personally, like being the one who kills Jackie during the heist instead of a stray bullet, there could've been much more emotional weight to their showdown. The canon spin-off anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners goes a long way in redeeming Smasher as a threat, but it doesn't change his underutilization in the game itself.
  • Remember that guy with maybe one line of dialog in the entire game, who does nothing noteworthy but very badly and ineffectually fire the mounted machinegun during Johnny's second raid on Arasaka? And then he gets unceremoniously shot, falls over, and is never spoken of again by anyone? That's a legendary edgerunner named Shaitan, a full-conversion cyborg like Adam Smasher. Shaitan waged a one-borg crusade against Arasaka for years, only taking on gigs that would let him hurt the corporation, sometimes even hiring other mercs to do damage to his enemy. He even fought Adam Smasher one on one to buy Johnny and his crew time to escape the walking apocalypse, and while he didn't win, he did survive (and possibly force Adam to switch to a new body for his fight with Morgan afterwards). He gets absolutely nothing in the game but an appearance so brief that unless you're very familiar with the tabletop game's canon, you have no idea who he even is.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Rather than being elaborate hour-long introductions to the game (ala Dragon Age: Origins), the three different Life Paths here only radically alter the first twenty minutes of the game, are quickly dealt with, and end with the exact same montage, leaving no lasting impact beyond some dialogue options through the game. Almost all of the origins have their own Starter Villain that never makes an appearance afterward, often having Dropped a Bridge on Him happen or Killed Offscreen. The Corpo Plot even hints at an elaborate assassination mission that becomes an in-universe Aborted Arc.
  • It may be only an Urban Legend that the montage between the Prologue and Act I was supposed to be playable content but the devs couldn't finish it in time, but many players do wish that it was playable.
  • The story makes it a big deal that V and Jackie are approached by Dexter, and even allowed into the Afterlife, as if it's a total game-changing deal for up-and-comers like them, the kind of thing that can completely change their careers. The problem is that this happens as the very first thing the game pushes you into as soon as the prologue ends; all of that career-building, all of the development of the duo's partnership, and all of the potential of showing them earn their way up that high is completely squandered on the aforementioned montage speedrunning all of it to get to the main plot.
  • Dexter betrays you and leaves you for dead in a landfill. Many player characters were heavily invested in the idea that they would have a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Fixer. If not the Big Bad then certainly he could be a Starter Villain akin to Benny in Fallout: New Vegas. Instead, he's killed literally seconds later by Goro.
  • Similarly, much is made of Evelyn Parker's attempt to cut Dexter out of the Heist and offering you a chance to betray him. You can side with her or Dex as well as possibly plan your own treachery. Nothing ever comes of it because Dex ends up killed while Evelyn suffers a Fate Worse than Death.
  • The Peralez questline starts as an intricate political thriller that turns into something much more sinister and then just suddenly... ends with no clear conclusion. While some players enjoy the Nothing Is Scarier aspect of it, others feel that so much more could've been made of the implication that at least one of the godlike A.I.s beyond the Blackwall is literally reprogramming Night City's elite right down to their memories and character traits. Why are they doing it? What could they possibly hope to achieve? Are they even the real perpetrators or just a front for someone or something else? Unless DLC expands on the matter, we'll probably never know.
  • One of the biggest missed opportunities is not being able to being able to merge with Johnny to become a new being, which seemed to be Forshadowed by Delamain's questline, which ended with the ability to merge his A.I.s into one with a high enough intelligence stat. A few players were disappointed by the fact that this type of option wasn't given, or at least offered the alternative to let both Johnny and V live.

U-Z

• Ugly Cute: Nibbles, and all the other cats in the game. They're sphynxes, so they come with the breed's usual lack of fur and yellow, bulging eyes.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • Braindances, in the eyes of some players. There are two in Act I, one being a tutorial for the mechanic, two in Act II and two in River's line of quests that can be skipped entirely. Six braindances really isn't much given how prominent they are in the universe and how they were played up in the marketing, leading people to expect additional non-story related braindances that you could buy and watch (there are buyable braindances in the Japantown's sex-shop, but functionally they're just clutter that can be dismantled to earn crafting parts).
  • Claire's racing missions are pretty well made and fun to play, but there's only four of them in total. More than a few fans were clamoring for more races to be added, perhaps even a system to randomly generate new ones, to act as an additional side activity that rewards money and street rep. They also have a huge rubber banding problem, where you could have the fastest car in the game and make one mistake and have the other much slower cars instantly catch up. Update 2.1 would address this by making races repeatable for eddies and car discounts, while also incorporating the new vehicle combat mechanic.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Johnny Silverhand would’ve been surprising enough; many had presumed he would get nothing more than background mentions as a Continuity Nod. But the fact that he’s not only a major character, but being played by Keanu Reeves just took it to the next level.
  • GLaDOS from Portal and Portal 2 as a cameo in this game in the Delamain series of quests.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Songbird from Phantom Liberty is intended to allegorically represent the player's principles, to the point that betraying her sees Johnny and the narrative explicitly and implicitly call the player out for cutting a Deal with the Devil in what's characterized as a selfish effort to survive at all costs, which does indeed cost V almost everything they once found meaningful in their life. But Songbird herself (sadly) points out that she has hurt a lot of people she cares about. In fact, she betrays just about everyone in the game. By the end, she admits she lied to you and that only one of you can be saved and she intends for that to be her, prioritizing her own survival at all costs, even if it costs her everything meaningful in her own life. She's upset that she keeps hurting people close to her, but she doesn't stop doing it to the very end. The closest she gets in her route is coming clean to V that she knew the cure could only be used on one person and intended it for herself, and leaving her fate in V's hands. After all of that, a lot of players had zero problems throwing her under the bus. There's also the fact that her counterpart Solomon Reed, while being unflinchingly loyal to the NUSA to his own detriment, is completely genuine about wanting to help V find a cure and will fulfill his end of the bargain in "The Tower" ending. While this does come at the cost of V losing nearly all of their loved ones over the course of their 2 year coma as well as their ability to use combat-related cyberware, its a hell of a lot more than the empty promises Songbird used to bait V into helping her over the course of the entire expansion, not to mention the fact that Reed actually offers V a post-surgery job at Langley to help them get back on their feet and properly begin a new life. That said, Songbird does eventually contact V after she's sent to the moon, after some time has passed, though it's practically a consolation prize for helping her.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: There are many children in the game and they can appear quite unsettling due to their faces being modeled on adults and their proportions being slightly off with long torsos and arms but short legs. Also they are voiced by adult women pitching their voices up — it's done so severely with River's niece and nephew that they sound like Huey, Dewey, and Louie from DuckTales (1987) — making them appear even stranger.
• Woolseyism:
  • The entire Titled After the Song theming that all missions from act II onwards feature isn't present in the Polish version of the game.
  • Polish version doesn't have nearly as many in-lore Future Slang words as the English one does. Most noticeable would be "input/output", which is present in the English version, while the Polish one simply uses more traditional "chłopak/dziewczyna" (boyfriend/girlfriend).
  • The Incredibly Lame Pun that Jackie tells to V and T-Bug in "The Heist" was completely re-written. In Polish, the joke is "Co mówią cyberświnie? Chrom chrom." ("What do cyberpigs say? Chrome chrome", with it being a pun on the word chrom (chrome) and "chrum", an onomatopeia for pig's oinking). In English the joke goes "Why did the rockerboy's output kick him out of their flat? Because he wasn't chippin' in!". Both jokes work, but have very little to do with each other, other than being puns on this universe's Future Slang.
  • The French localization translates "Brain Dance" as "Danse Sensorielle" ("Sensory Dance"), a better description of what they consist in.

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