The Toughest Choices In Cyberpunk 2077

Highlights

• Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world RPG with choices that impact characters and the story, providing a personalized experience.
• Lifepath choices determine your backstory, but have minor effects on the game, adding flavor to conversations.
• The game is filled with tough moral choices that have consequences, impacting characters’ lives and the world around you.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-focused RPG, with stealth, hacking, and plenty of choices to be made. In it, you play as a mercenary named V, your goal is to navigate the world of Night City, make a name for yourself, and survive a series of events that change your life forever.

Like many role-playing games, Cyberpunk 2077 has a story that morphs based on your actions and choices. That means that at various points, you need to choose what happens. And many of those choices are tough ones, impacting characters, the world, and the story.

This article includes choices from both the base Cyberpunk 2077 game and the Phantom Liberty expansion. Also, because of its focus, there will be major story spoilers in many of the entries.

10 Your Lifepath

At the beginning of the game, you’re presented with three choices that determine your backstory and the events at the start of the game; Nomad, Street Kid, or Corpo. Nomad has you starting outside Night City, eventually making your way into the city, Street Kid has you already in Night City, slowly making a name for yourself, and Corpo has you already established, with an office job.

Once the prologue ends, these choices don’t play a huge part in the game other than in certain conversations, where your background knowledge can provide new choices. Even if they bring some flavor to the dialogue they’re small alterations, but ones that help flesh out your character a bit more.

9 Happy Together

One day when leaving your apartment, you’ll see two police officers trying to communicate with one of your neighbors, and if you speak to them you’ll find out that your neighbor Barry (a police officer himself) is depressed after the death of a friend. You can then speak to this neighbor later on, and discover what’s going on.

Upon doing this, you can visit a memorial to find out more about the deceased friend, where the twist is that the “friend” is a tortoise. When you report back to the police officers, you can omit this detail, or reveal everything, and the results of your choices and interactions with Barry are that he will either gradually come to terms with the loss, or take his own life.

8 The Beast In Me

After a series of street races with Afterlife bartender, Claire, she will reveal that she wants your help in killing someone in an act of vengeance. In the final race, Claire will ask that you help her shoot Sampson, and you can choose whether to do this or not.

Ignore this and win the race for some Eurodollars, since helping Claire will result in a loss, but you will gain her truck as a reward. If you successfully talk Claire out of revenge, you can also get the truck and Sampson’s vehicle.

7 Delamain

One of the side quests of the game has you retrieving rogue AI taxis across the city, and since each one of them exhibits erratic emotions, the main Delamain AI wants them brought back to HQ. Later in the game, you encounter another Delamain taxi which launches a new mission.

In this new mission, you must battle through the main Delamain base of operations until you reach the core, where you’ll get three choices; reset Delamain, destroy the core, or synthesize. Each of these choices has consequences, and it might also leave you questioning your own beliefs of what’s right and wrong.

6 The Maelstrom Base

Early in the game, when you’re planning the big heist, you need to enter a Maelstrom base to purchase a piece of tech, and you’ll be presented with a choice, to side with Militech or not. Siding with Militech means they will assault the base, and you will have to fight your way out.

However, not siding with Militech makes things a little easier, as the deal goes far smoother if you decrypt the cred-chit they gave you. Militech will still assault the base, but this time you’ll have Maelstrom backing you up and you’ll get rewarded with special weapons.

5 Judy Or Maiko

After the death of Evelyn Parker, Judy wants to take down Clouds, the people that run it, and turn it into an establishment run by, and for the Dolls. Meeting with Maiko presents an alternate option though, one where she becomes the official manager of Clouds, and fewer people die.

The problem then is one of ethics and morals, as siding with Judy ensures the bad people get some form of justice, and siding with Maiko means fewer people die, but not a lot of changes beyond her becoming the boss. Naturally, this choice impacts your potential romance with Judy, which can be a big issue.

4 Voodoo Boys Vs NetWatch

When you finally meet the Voodoo Boys, you are tasked by Placide with infiltrating a mall and taking down a NetWatch agent. However, as it turns out, Placide is using you, since he only wants you to take down the NetWatch agent by planting a virus in you, which will also take you out of the picture.

Once you meet the NetWatch Agent, you can side with them, ridding you of the virus, but the problem is that it leaves you with a tracking device, and NetWatch can find Alt Cunningham. This choice results in you having to fight The Voodoo Boys and escape their territory, so a third choice has you just killing everyone once you get what you want.

3 Sex And Gender

At the start of the game, like any good RPG character creator, you can choose to play as a male V, a female V, or a transgender V. Your choices at the moment of creating your character’s physical traits impact the game in a big way, as it will determine your potential love interests, thus affecting some cutscenes and story moments.

However, these choices are not only external or related to your romance possibilities, as you will also be able to select one or two voices for your V. Since Cyberpunk 2077 is a big game (depending on how you play it), your choice of voice will also matter because you won’t be able to change it once the game starts.

2 Songbird Or Solomon Reed?

In the Phantom Liberty expansion, it gradually becomes clear that you must pick a side: to go with Solomon, trust in NUSA, and hope that he can cure your affliction. Or side with Songbird, grant her the freedom she seeks and hope she keeps her promise to help you too.

What makes this choice so tough is not only your allegiance regarding the characters and the government but also the results and consequences of your actions. If you side with Songbird, Solomon dies at your hands, Songbird escapes, and you eventually get very little, but if you side with Solomon you will unlock a new ending to the game, albeit a very bleak and depressing one.

1 The Ending

Cyberpunk 2077 has many endings, most of which are determined by your allegiance to certain people and factions, but also a key choice towards the end of the game. You are presented with several options to infiltrate Arasaka, each one with a different person or faction.

These choices mostly impact your approach to the final mission, but most importantly, your relationship with Johnny Silverhand, the toughest one throughout the game. If you relinquish your body to Johnny, you risk losing V’s identity completely, and choosing what ending to have can have bittersweet results.