Advertisement

How To

How to play CYBERPUNK 2077

How to play CYBERPUNK 2077
Shaun M Jooste

Shaun M Jooste

  • Updated:

Cyberpunk 2077 is a game for Windows set in 2077 in a fictional metropolis called Night City. Wars and climate change have devastated the world. Nearly all the wildlife is extinct. Food and water are hard to find, so survival is difficult. Cyber attacks are common, so humans rely on body modifications like implants, including one that allows you to live forever. The city is occupied by a range of humans, including wealthy business people, celebrities, criminals, drug dealers, and mercenaries.

You can start the game as a mercenary known as V, who gets hired for missions that increase his property and ability to survive. Or you can be a nomad or a street kid trying to succeed in the city or a corporate employee trying to regain his old position.

How to play Cyberpunk 2077

Start by ensuring there’s enough space on your hard drive because it takes about 70GB at launch Cyberpunk 2077. Also, look at your graphics driver to ensure that you have the latest update. Once you’ve downloaded the game, you’re given an option to choose your background or life path to customize your character.

It begins with shaping your looks, including your face and body. Pay attention to your reflexes, intelligence, technical ability, and cool factor. Learn terms like mantle, cover, dodge, the radial menu, and weapon swap. Make the right choices before you head into Night City.

how to play cyberpunk 2077 3

Create your character

Before you start working out how to play CyberPunk 2077, you’ll need to build your character. While it begins with shaping the face, body, and looks, you should also pay attention to the five attributes for Body, Reflexes, Technical Ability, Intelligence, and Cool. These points will set the tone for leveling up later in the game, so make the right choices before you head out into Night City. 

Choose your Lifepath

The next part of CyberPunk 2077 is selecting your Lifepath. You have a choice between Nomad, Streekid, and Corpo. Don’t worry about whether this choice will have severe consequences in the game. It may affect dialogue choices and a few side missions, but ultimately, the story and progression remain the same.

Learn the gameplay mechanics

We won’t judge you if you feel intimidated when you first see the button layout for the keyboard or controller. There’s a lot to get used to, but we promise that you’ll get the hang of it soon enough. 

Take your time learning the most useful functions first, such as mantle, dodge, cover, weapon swap, and the radial menu. These mechanics are vital for surviving the first few hours of gameplay.

Study your gear and items

After your first few hours of playing CyberPunk 2077, you’ll learn how valuable your inventory is. You’ll find useful items, such as components, ranged and melee weapons, attachments, clothes, and grenades. We made the mistake of being too hasty to get into the action and missed how significant it is to sort through the backpack and cyberware upgrades – don’t make the same mistake.

Level up

While running around in Night City and completing missions, you’ll earn attribute points and experience. There are three categories to level up: Street Cred, your Character Level, and your individual Skills. There’s even a skill tree for each attribute, so ensure that you apply your points wisely.

Exploring Night City

You get a free vehicle early in the game that you can summon to go anywhere, anytime. There are cars to buy from your inbox or at the side of the road. You can steal one too, for free!

You can also use the speedier teleport option. There are teleport points in parts of Night City. You have to visit a point and manually unlock it. Then you can teleport back to your base or to somewhere else in the city. 

Undertaking missions

Players are offered missions to complete to earn rewards that they can use to buy body enhancements, armor, food, and other useful things. There are story missions, cash missions, and side missions. Each adds to the storyline to build up the unique ending.

Story missions push the storyline forward. Cash missions depend on how much money you have available to earn more. Side missions are an excellent way to get money, equipment, and weapons. The rewards can be very good for players who complete their side missions.  

Upgrading your body

You can upgrade every part of your body in Cyberpunk 2077. You can enhance your vision with the optic mod. The leg mod makes you run and jump better. You can even upgrade your arms so that they can fire ammunition! You have to earn money to buy enhancements.

how to play CyberPunk 2077

Tips and Tricks

Now that you understand how to play Cyberpunk 2077, here are some handy tips and tricks

Set the game’s level of difficulty

Cyberpunk 2077 is quite a challenging game with exciting visuals that make it interesting. It will appeal primarily to advanced players. For newbies, it offers a setting where you can lower the level of difficulty and change it up as your skills improve.

Walk the talk

Your conversations with other characters are meaningful and affect the game’s progress. 

Learn all about the three Cs: Conversation, and Choice, and Consequences. You’ll talk almost as much as you fight in Cyberpunk 2077. Your character is given dialog options, sometimes just things you want to know about other characters. But an answer could put you on a different path. The choices you make determine the game’s ending. 

You need to know a few things about conversations:

  • Lifepath icons link to your attributes
  • Blue options provide more intelligence
  • Yellow options advance dialogue
  • Timed replies have consequences
  • You can pause to access your skill points

Don’t upset the factions

Several factions inhabit Night City. There are three in the MegaCorporations and 10 gangs. You can’t join them, but you can undertake missions for them and avoid running into trouble if they don’t like what you’re up to.

Check your messages

Interacting with other players is an essential aspect of Cyberpunk 2077. You’ll get texts and calls offering you a car you can buy or details of missions you can go on, or even from friends you’ve made in Night City. Responding to messages builds relationships, including options for romance. So don’t ignore your messages!

how to play cyberpunk 2077 3

Head out into the nightlife

Now that you have a better understanding of how to play CyberPunk 2077, go out and conquer. There are about 30 hours of gameplay to enjoy and plenty of trophies to achieve. If you’d like a specific guide on achievements or completing missions, let us know in the comments, and we’ll make a plan.

Shaun M Jooste

Shaun M Jooste

I live in South Africa, Cape town, as a father of two children. I've been gaming almost all my life, with plenty of experience writing reviews and articles on the latest titles. With 15 years of experience in local government performing Facilities Management functions, I moved towards becoming CEO of my own company, Celenic Earth Publications, which serves to publish author's books, including my own. I'm a published author of horror and fantasy novels, while I also dabble in game and movie scriptwriting.

Latest from Shaun M Jooste

Editorial Guidelines