CD Projekt launched a new division in Wrocław, Poland, and partnered with Digital Scapes, Nvidia, QLOC, and Jali Research to aid the production.

CD Projekt became subject to investigations and class-action lawsuits for their perceived attempts at downplaying the severity of the technical problems before release; these were ultimately cleared with a settlement of US$1.85 million.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing game played from a first-person perspective as V,[1][2] a mercenary whose voice,[3] face, hairstyle, body type and modifications, background, and clothing are customisable.

V has a number of maneuvers to reposition in combat, including sprinting, taking cover, double-jumping, and sliding;[4][5] many of these abilities can be unlocked or upgraded through cyberware implants installed by a "ripperdoc".

Throughout the main story, V and Johnny come into contact with several major allies and enemies, including Jackie Welles (Jason Hightower), V's best friend and fellow mercenary; T-Bug (Cynthia McWilliams), a netrunner who provides support to V and Jackie; Viktor "Vik" Vector (Michael Gregory), a ripperdoc who maintains a close friendship with V; Misty Olzewski (Erica Lindbeck), Jackie's girlfriend who runs an esoterica; Dexter "Dex" DeShawn (Michael-Leon Wooley), a local fixer in Night City; Evelyn Parker (Kari Wahlgren), a sex worker who partners with Dex and V's crew to organize a heist; Judy Álvarez (Carla Tassara), Evelyn's friend and a braindance editor who helps V in their investigations; Saburo Arasaka (Masane Tsukayama), the founder of the Arasaka Corporation; Yorinobu Arasaka (Hideo Kimura), Saburo's youngest son; Hanako Arasaka (Alpha Takahashi [ja]), Yorinobu's sister and Saburo's only daughter; Goro Takemura (Rome Kanda), Saburo's personal bodyguard; Rogue Amendiares (Jane Perry), the owner of the Afterlife nightclub and one of Johnny's former partners; Panam Palmer (Emily Woo Zeller), a nomad from the Aldecaldos clan; Saul Bright (Diarmaid Murtagh), the leader of the Aldecaldos; Alt Cunningham (Alix Wilton Regan), a netrunner and Johnny's ex-girlfriend who became an artificial intelligence construct; and Adam Smasher (Alec Newman), a ruthless cyborg who works as Arasaka's head of security.

Upon awakening, V is haunted by the digital ghost of war veteran turned iconic rock star and terrorist Johnny Silverhand, believed to have died in 2023 during his own thermonuclear attack on Arasaka Tower.

They fend off the attackers and reach V's ripperdoc Viktor Vector, who reveals that resurrection nanotech on the biochip saved V's life, but also started an irreversible process that would overwrite V's consciousness with Johnny's, whose memory engram is stored on the chip.

From here, V is able to follow up on two different leads: tracking down Arasaka's head doctor Anders Hellman, which V accomplishes by working with Panam Palmer, a member of the Aldecaldos nomad clan; and finding and rescuing Evelyn Parker, Dex's client who commissioned the gig.

By 2077, Arasaka was advertising a "Secure Your Soul" program and conducting secret research into writing a digital copy of a mind into a living human brain, from which the Relic arose.

Eventually, V must decide whether to mount an attack on Arasaka Tower to gain physical access to Mikoshi and use Soulkiller to remove Johnny from their body, or to make a deal with Hanako to extract the Relic.

[53] Cyberpunk 2077, by extension, presents an alternate history, in which the United States became mired in wars in Central America in the 1980s deeply undermining its power and economy, the Soviet Union failed to dissolve and Japan became a superpower, diffusing its culture as far as California.

The events of Cyberpunk 2077 take place in the fictitious Night City, a megalopolis immersed in Japanese culture that lies between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

[55] The script was first written in Polish and translated into English, a standard practice for CD Projekt Red's games, according to quest director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz.

Creating a thick cover on slopes was made possible through boosting the overlay texture when the vertex normal looked up; however, this presented complications in ground features, such as cobblestones, where improper distribution was applied.

[73] In addition, artificial intelligence company Jali Research helped CD Projekt Red implement lip syncing for all ten localizations through procedural generation.

[76] Other sources of inspiration for the team include the manga and anime series Ghost in the Shell, and other video games such as System Shock (1994) and the first part of Deus Ex (2000).

[80] A motorbike akin to the one in the Akira manga and anime film appears in the game, as well as a car inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

Hip hop duo Run the Jewels, composed of rappers El-P and Killer Mike, wrote "No Save Point" for the game's soundtrack—a track that vividly critiques the socioeconomic state of Night City.

[122] With E3 2020 cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, CD Projekt's online event Night City Wire showed additional trailers, more gameplay,[123][124][125] and making-of footage.

[140] The versions of Cyberpunk 2077 released in Japan were subject to a reduction in the amount of nudity and gore portrayed in order to meet rating agency requirements and censorship laws.

[143] A datamine of the game's source code by hackers in February 2021 revealed that content flagged for censorship in China was tagged under "Winnie the Pooh",[144][145] a reference to an internet meme in which Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping was compared to the titular character.

[160] Update 2.0, released just days before the Phantom Liberty expansion, brought a series of major changes that overhauled the core elements of the RPG,[161] and was met with positive reviews.

[174] However, at the end of 2024, CD Projekt unexpectedly released update 2.2, which included a feature where Johnny Silverhand would sit in the passenger seat while V was driving, occasionally commenting or reacting to the surrounding events.

[212] In an email to The Washington Post, Stephanie Bayer, the North American communications director for CD Projekt Red, stated that the developers had incorporated Ruppert's suggestions and "adjusted the entire sequence" so it would no longer be a seizure trigger.

[245] Other gaming industry commentators have described the post-launch reception of Cyberpunk 2077 as a fall from grace for CD Projekt Red, who had previously enjoyed a fiercely pro-consumer reputation.

[220][222] Because of the game's performance on consoles, CD Projekt issued an apology, particularly for their pre-release secrecy regarding these versions, concluding that unsatisfied consumers could opt for refunds.

[276] Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News said that, based on discussions with CD Projekt developers, a major reason for the poor performance of Cyberpunk 2077 on release was underestimating the effort that would be needed.

[278] He specifically faulted the in-game streaming engine that was used to load in assets from storage on the fly as the player moved through the game, which was scaled back to work on the older consoles.

In 2021, following its launch, Cyberpunk 2077 received four nominations at the British Academy Games Awards, including two for voice acting: Cherami Leigh as the female V and Carla Tassara as Judy Alvarez.

[356] In early 2025, an hour-long fan film titled Black Dog was released, a project that later received congratulations from Paweł Sasko, the original game director.