35 Essential Tips and Tricks for Getting Started in Cyberpunk 2077

35 Essential Tips and Tricks

Whether it’s making lots of money, looting your enemies, tips for where to put your points, or even changing your clothes, we have you covered in our detailed Tips and Tricks guide below.

Exploration Tips and Tricks

• Be careful about what buttons you’re pressing around people in tight spaces. You might accidentally attack or grab a person that will then put the police into action! It could result in your death.
• If there’s something worth picking up, like a Shard, you’ll see a yellow marker over it from a fair distance away. Keep an eye out!
• Keep an eye out for blue markers on your map while you explore Night City. Those are Fast Travel points. You’ll need to play a bit of the campaign to get access to them, but once you do, be sure to interact with the points to unlock them.
• Want to make a lot of money? Collect everything. It can slow you down a bit, but every now and then you’ll pick up something that’s worth $750+. The junk adds up, too. Think of it like a piggy bank. Be sure to drop off your junk and unwanted items at Drop Points frequently. The Drop Points (shown below) are either large like this one or a kiosk with only the rightmost part of the machine. They’re always yellow, though.

• Look both ways when crossing the street — yes, really. You can get hit by cars and you will take damage.
• Use the scanner frequently, especially in large rooms. It can show items you can pick up, explosives, and other helpful things.
• Learn to Holster your weapon. Sometimes even just having a gun out is considered a threat, and you don’t want to deal with the consequences. You can view how on our Controls page, or you can go to the pause menu > Settings, then hit whatever button is on the right that says “Control Scheme.”

• What happens if you pick up too much stuff and cross the weight limit? You’ll lose stamina and walk slow. Slower still if you keep picking things up!
• If you need some quick storage, call your car (if you can) and toss your items in the trunk’s stash!
• See a crate off in the distance with a rare item you don’t want to forget? You can mark it with your scanner, the same way you’d mark an enemy.
• NCPD Scanner Hustles can take multiple steps to complete. *Not all of them, but some will require you to take information you gained from one place to another nearby location. If you feel like you didn’t get a big payout after collecting evidence, that probably means there’s another step in your Journal.
• If you see people having a conversation (you’ll see blue text over them) sometimes they’ll reveal interesting information about the place you’re in. Someone you’re with might have something to say about their conversation too.
• There’s no such thing as “stealing” for V. Everything in Night City is yours. Grab whatever you want! You do have to pay vendors, though.

Combat Tips and Tricks

• Run! Jump! Do these a lot in open areas to increase your Athletics! Essentially, the way you improve your Skill Progression for any perk is by using them. The more stealth you do, the higher your Stealth Perk. More items disassemble, the higher your Crafting Perk.
  
• Play the extra tutorial. It doesn’t matter how good you are at games, the benefit here is that it’s free XP that only costs you a little bit of time and no real resources!
• Make sure to takedown the boss enemies at the end of longer missions, even if you’re trying to go stealthy or avoid conflict otherwise. They can earn you a ton of money, as well as unique items.
• Enemies, even non-boss enemies, can heal themselves! Make sure you’re keeping an eye on your low opponents to make sure they don’t use a Maxdoc while you’re not looking.
• Enemies that drop loot when they die will be marked with a X on your mini-map. Grey means common loot, green means uncommon, blue is rare, purple is epic, and yellow is legendary. You’ll see the loot item marker when you’re looking at the corpse change color with the loot rarity too.
• Once you’ve found a weapon you like, don’t forget to look at it to apply attachments and mods! Some mods can even render your weapon “non-lethal,” meaning even though you subdue your enemy you won’t actually kill them. You might need this for side jobs or gigs. Not all weapons can have mods or attachments, though.
• You’ll only see progress in XP and money after V is out combat, meaning the mini-map no longer says “combat.”

Other Tips and Tricks

• You can fast forward through a cinematic conversation by holding down the button shown in the bottom right of the screen.
• Putting points into either Body or Tech will literally open doors for you, as maps will have some that are only opened with enough of one or the other. That makes investing in one of them helpful, but both a little bit of diminishing returns (though still good in other ways).
• While in your Journal, some jobs will have a small image to the right of the Job or Gig description. These are “linked” items! Sometimes it’ll be a direct way to call someone, a map, or something else.
• Accidentally throw a grenade into a public square? Piss off the wrong person? Cyberpunk has an active auto save that usually kicks in before an encounter. Instead of living with the consequences, use an auto save to get out of a sticky situation.
• After a big shootout, don’t forget to grab your fallen enemies’ (and even allies’) weapons. You can sell them, but you can also Disassemble them in your Inventory menu for Common and Uncommon Item Components. You’ll need those for crafting and upgrades. You can also disassemble some consumables, clothing, and junk. If you don’t need the money, opt for the components instead.
• If you level up in certain perks, you’ll get a perk point! You level up perks by simply using them. Be sure to take a look at the rewards for all the perks.
• Even if your heart is set on becoming an assassin with maxed out stealth or whatever it may be, be sure to look at and put perk points in other categories. You should especially think about putting a point into any perk you’re leveling faster than others. That’s an indication of how you’re playing early on, and a little extra boost for that early playstyle can’t hurt.
• Be sure to change your clothing. Not to look cool, but for some easy armor points. Every piece of clothing has an armor rating and as they say a good defense is the best offence… you may look like a walking disaster, but you’ll have the last laugh when you’re the one left standing. Keep in mind some armor has perk slots too for some extra oomph.

• Keep in mind some clothing/armor have mod slots too for some extra oomph. However once they’re applied they cannot be recovered and will be destroyed if you replace them.
• You’ll get new clothing options at venders as you get higher Street Cred. You’ll find more clothing options as you move into different districts too.
• If you want to equip a melee weapon from your inventory, select a slot you want to fill or replace. Then, just above the ranged weapons, click the knife next to the blue ranged weapons icon to see what ranged weapons you have with you.
• Yellow conversation options will move the conversation forward. If there are multiple, that means it’s a choice. The weight of that choice varies based on the situation. Some only impact that moment, others will impact entire side quests or the main job. Blue options offer you more information. This will sometimes lead to new options! You can’t lose anything by getting new information, so you might as well explore your options.
• Don’t forget to upgrade V’s operating system! You’re better off saving up for a rare OS, but once you can afford it, make sure you purchase one for new benefits like a bigger Buffer for hacking. This is imperative if you’re playing as a Netrunner. You’ll be able to increase your Base Ram too! Tip: There a good Rare one called Biodyne MK.2 at the ripperdoc on Watson‘s Northside for $15,000. It’s a lot, but it means more hacking and a bigger buffer.