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Cyberpunk 2077 is a role-playing video game about V, a mercenary in the sprawling city of Night City. A high-risk theft leaves an experimental implant in V’s head, and the device begins overwriting V’s personality with the engram of Johnny Silverhand, a radical rockerboy. V’s immediate fight for survival becomes a conflict over identity, memory, corporate power and personal choice.
Set in a city shaped by wealth, technology, glamour and body modification, the game lets you decide how V explores, fights, hacks and builds relationships. The sections below explain the premise, Night City, the principal characters, the role-playing systems and where the Phantom Liberty expansion fits.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition - PlayStation 5 | $49.69 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Cyberpunk 2077 - Xbox One | $43.43 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Cyberpunk 2077 - PlayStation 4 | $34.95 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultimate Edition) | $64.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
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The World of Cyberpunk 2077 | $32.47 | Buy on Amazon |
The basic premise of Cyberpunk 2077
You play as V, a mercenary trying to establish a reputation through jobs and gigs in Night City. The turning point is a job to steal a one-of-a-kind implant associated with the promise of immortality. The heist at Konpeki Plaza goes wrong, and the prototype ends up in V’s head.
Rather than simply improving V’s abilities, the implant carries Johnny Silverhand’s personality. Its presence threatens to overwrite V’s identity, turning the main story into a race against physical and psychological change. V must look for a way to survive while dealing with Johnny’s memories, opinions and demands.
#1 Best Overall
- DISCOVER UPDATE 2.0: Experience new and overhauled gameplay mechanics to fulfill your wildest cyberpunk fantasies. The free Update 2.0 brings brand new ways to play Cyberpunk 2077, including totally redesigned perks and cyberware systems, pulsating vehicle combat and car chases, a revamped police system, enhanced enemy combat AI, and more.
- CREATE YOUR OWN CYBERPUNK: Become an urban outlaw equipped with cybernetic enhancements and build your legend on the streets of Night City. · EXPLORE THE CITY OF THE FUTURE: Night City is packed to the brim with things to do, places to see, and people to meet. And it’s up to you where to go, when to go, and how to get there.
- BUILD YOUR LEGEND: Go on daring adventures and build relationships with unforgettable characters whose fates are shaped by the choices you make. · EQUIPPED WITH NEXT-GEN FEATURES: Immerse yourself in Night City like never before thanks to faster load times, improved visual and gameplay features, ray tracing and dynamic 4K support, and more.
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- PHYSICAL EDITION GOODIES: The physical version of Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition includes an exclusive set of stickers and a rewards leaflet with a Wild Hunt Jacket and a Scorch Pistol!
CD PROJEKT RED’s official description summarizes the setup as taking “the job of a lifetime” to steal an implant that is the key to immortality and build a legend in Night City. That wording is promotional copy, but it accurately identifies the game’s central tension: V wants a future, while the technology in their head is pushing another person into control.
What kind of game is it?
Cyberpunk 2077 is structured as a role-playing game in an open world. You guide V through the main narrative, optional jobs and conversations while deciding how to develop the character. The official overview emphasizes that you can choose where and when to explore rather than follow a single fixed route through the city.
Character development
Skill and perk choices let you shape V toward the abilities you prefer. The game also includes upgradeable weapons, hacking options and implants that enhance the body. These systems support different approaches instead of requiring one prescribed build.
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Encounters can be approached with guns blazing, from range or through stealth. Hacking and cybernetic upgrades add alternatives to direct firefights. The important distinction is that these are play-style options: the official material presents them as ways to tackle situations, not as a promise that every choice creates a completely different campaign.
Choices and consequences
Dialogue and mission decisions affect the story and the people around V. The game is therefore not only about winning battles; it is also about deciding what V values, whom V trusts and how V responds to the city’s pressures. A choice can alter relationships or the direction of events, but the available evidence does not support claiming that every decision produces a unique ending.
Rank #2
- Cyberpunk 2077 is an open world, an action adventure story set in night city
- Become a cyberpunk, an urban mercenary equipped with cybernetic enhancements and build your legend on the streets of Night city
- Take the riskiest job of your life and go after a prototype implant that is the key to immortality
What is Night City?
Night City is the game’s huge, unequal-feeling megalopolis and the setting for nearly every major conflict. Its official presentation highlights three defining obsessions: power, glamour and body modification. Those themes appear in the city’s institutions, its social hierarchies and the technologies people use to change themselves.
A city of sharp contrasts
The skyline and districts communicate who holds power. Corpo Plaza represents the high-rise corporate center, while the Badlands mark the city’s outskirts. Moving between these spaces exposes the difference between polished wealth and less protected communities. Night City is not a neutral backdrop; its geography explains why money, technology and corporate control dominate the story.
Why the setting matters to the plot
V’s problem with the implant is personal, but it is also a product of Night City’s economy. A device marketed as a route toward immortality reflects a culture that treats bodies and memories as things that can be bought, modified or controlled. Johnny’s hostility toward corporations gives the same technology a political dimension. The story’s identity crisis therefore unfolds alongside arguments about who owns information, who benefits from innovation and what a person can remain after their body or mind has been altered.
Exploration and choice
The official overview presents Night City as a place where players decide when and where to explore. That freedom allows the city’s districts, jobs and characters to be encountered in different orders. The result is a setting that functions both as a navigable world and as a system of competing interests that V must learn to negotiate.
V and Johnny Silverhand: the central relationship
V
V is the player character and the viewpoint through which the story is experienced. Before the heist, V is focused on building a reputation as a capable mercenary. After the prototype implant is lodged in their head, survival becomes the immediate objective.
Rank #3
- Brand New Sealed Product: This PlayStation 4 game arrives in factory-sealed condition, ensuring you receive an authentic, untouched copy of Cyberpunk 2077 with all original packaging and materials intact
- Immersive Open World Experience: Experience the dark future of Night City, a sprawling metropolis where you can explore diverse districts, engage with complex characters, and shape your own story in a richly detailed cyberpunk universe
- Deep Character Customization Options: Create your own unique mercenary with extensive customization options for appearance, skills, and playstyle, allowing you to approach missions through combat, stealth, or hacking based on your preferences
- PlayStation 4 Physical Disc Format: Specifically designed for Sony PlayStation 4 console, this physical disc version delivers the complete Cyberpunk 2077 experience optimized for PS4 hardware and gameplay
- Action-Packed Gameplay Mechanics: Engage in intense first-person combat with an arsenal of futuristic weapons and cybernetic enhancements, while making choices that impact the narrative and determine the fate of Night City's inhabitants
Because V’s decisions come from the player, the character can be shaped through skills, perks, equipment, hacking and social choices. V is not simply choosing between good and evil; the game asks what kind of person can survive in Night City and what compromises that survival requires.
Johnny Silverhand
Johnny is a rebellious rockerboy, the frontman of the band SAMURAI and an outspoken opponent of corporations. His personality is stored on the implant now inside V, so he appears as an intrusive presence in V’s consciousness.
Johnny’s role goes beyond that of a conventional companion. He challenges V’s priorities, brings his own history into the present and makes the question of identity unavoidable. V must decide how much to trust him while confronting the possibility that the implant will replace parts of V’s personality.
Why their conflict drives the story
The pair have incompatible immediate interests. V needs to remain alive and retain control, while Johnny’s presence represents a competing claim on the same mind. Their conversations turn technical questions about an implant into emotional questions about memory, autonomy and what makes someone the same person over time.
Key characters around V
The following figures are the most useful starting points for understanding V’s network. They are not a complete cast list; the official character material provides short introductions rather than a full plot guide.
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- THE ULTIMATE CYBERPUNK 2077 EXPERIENCE - Includes the critically acclaimed spy thriller expansion Phantom Liberty
- CREATE YOUR OWN CYBERPUNK
- Explore the city of the future – you decide when you want to go where and how to get there
- Decide how the story ends – your choices in the main game as well as in the spy thriller adventure Phantom Liberty lead to a complex web of consequences
| Character | Connection to V or Night City | What to know first |
|---|---|---|
| V | Player-controlled mercenary | The implant crisis turns a reputation-building career into a fight for survival and identity. |
| Johnny Silverhand | Personality stored in V’s prototype implant | Rockerboy, SAMURAI frontman and corporate opponent whose consciousness intrudes on V’s. |
| Jackie Welles | V’s close friend | A Heywood native who wants to reach Night City’s big leagues. |
| Judy Álvarez | Braindance technician | An artist with a fierce opposition to injustice. |
| Panam Palmer | Mercenary and Nomad | Connected to the Aldecaldos, a close-knit roaming family. |
| Adam Smasher | Arasaka enforcer | A heavily cybernetic full-body conversion linked to Johnny’s past. |
Jackie Welles
Jackie is V’s loyal friend and an important early connection. As a Heywood native, he understands a part of Night City that is different from the corporate districts. His ambition to make it among the city’s big leagues mirrors V’s effort to build a name, but his friendship gives that ambition a personal stake.
Judy Álvarez
Judy works with braindance technology, a medium that records and reproduces sensory experiences. The official character description identifies her as an artist as well as someone strongly opposed to injustice. Her perspective connects Night City’s entertainment technology with the people affected by exploitation and unequal power.
Panam Palmer
Panam is a mercenary associated with the Aldecaldos, a Nomad family that moves through the world as a close-knit group. Her connection to that community gives V access to a social structure outside the city’s corporate hierarchy and introduces a different idea of loyalty and belonging.
Adam Smasher
Adam Smasher is an enforcer employed by Arasaka whose body has been converted almost entirely to cybernetics. He is also connected to Johnny’s past, which makes him more than a powerful opponent encountered in the present. His extreme augmentation embodies the game’s concern with how much of a person can be replaced while still being treated as human.
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How the story’s themes fit together
Identity versus technology
The implant makes the abstract idea of digital identity immediate. V is not merely carrying data; V is sharing a mind with a personality that has its own memories and agenda. Every attempt to solve the problem raises a further question about whether a person is defined by a body, a consciousness, a history or a combination of all three.
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Corporate power
Corporations shape the city’s opportunities and dangers, and Johnny’s opposition gives the conflict a direct political voice. The implant’s association with immortality shows how corporate technology can be presented as salvation while also threatening individual control.
Body modification and self-determination
Cybernetic implants are part of everyday life in Night City, from practical upgrades to radical transformations. V’s ability to install enhancements creates player freedom, while the involuntary implant creates the opposite experience: a change imposed on the body and mind without meaningful consent.
Reputation, money and belonging
V begins by pursuing status through mercenary work, but relationships complicate that goal. Jackie’s friendship, Judy’s concern for injustice and Panam’s loyalty to the Aldecaldos show several ways people seek security and meaning. The game repeatedly contrasts individual ambition with the communities that make survival possible.
Where Phantom Liberty fits
Phantom Liberty is an expansion rather than the opening premise of the base game. Its story uses a spy-thriller setup: V undertakes a high-stakes mission to save the President of the New United States of America, working with agent Solomon Reed.
Dogtown
The expansion takes place in Dogtown, a dangerous district ruled by Kurt Hansen. Dogtown adds a distinct location and political situation to V’s existing conflict. It should be understood as additional story context for V, not as a replacement for the original Night City introduction or the Konpeki Plaza heist.
What the expansion changes for newcomers
Players approaching the game through the expansion still need to understand V’s implant crisis and Johnny’s presence, because those elements remain the foundation of the character’s situation. The espionage mission then places that personal emergency inside a new operation involving national power, intelligence work and the unstable territory of Dogtown.
The expansion announcement was issued in 2023. That announcement establishes the premise and setting described here; it does not establish current pricing, platform listings or store availability, which can change over time.
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Quick Recap
A spoiler-light way to understand the narrative
- Start with V’s ambition. V is trying to become a recognized mercenary in a city where reputation opens doors.
- Understand the heist as the break in that plan. The Konpeki Plaza job leaves the prototype implant in V’s head and changes the goal from career advancement to survival.
- Treat Johnny as both character and problem. He is a distinct personality with a history, but his presence also threatens V’s control of their own mind.
- Read Night City as a system. Corporate districts, poorer outskirts, body modification and powerful institutions all influence the choices available to V.
- Expect relationships to matter. Friends, technicians, Nomads and enemies reveal different answers to the question of how to live in the city.
- Make decisions according to the V you want to play. Skills, equipment, combat methods and dialogue choices let you express a version of V rather than follow one mandatory personality.
What Cyberpunk 2077 is—and is not
- It is an open-world role-playing game centered on a mercenary, a contested implant and a city organized around power and technology.
- It is a story about survival and identity as much as it is about combat.
- It is flexible in how you approach missions, with skill development, hacking, weapons, implants, ranged combat and stealth.
- It is not a simple story about obtaining an upgrade; the implant creates the main personal crisis.
- It is not limited to one tone or one social viewpoint: the major characters represent corporate opposition, friendship, artistic resistance, Nomad community and extreme cybernetic power.
- Phantom Liberty is not the base game’s opening chapter; it is a spy-focused expansion set largely in Dogtown.
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