Cyberpunk 2077 Complete Guide Common Mistakes & How to Avoid Them

So you started Cyberpunk 2077 and you're already screwing up. That's fine, we all did. Honestly I've got like 400 hours in this game across three characters and I'm still finding stuff I missed on my first two runs.

Let's talk about attributes first because this is where everyone messes up. You look at that character screen and you think, oh I'll just spread my points around, be decent at everything. 9 Body, 9 Reflexes, 9 Intelligence, 9 Cool, 9 Technical Ability. By the time you hit level 20 you're mediocre at absolutely everything. It feels kind of terrible tbh. The 2.0 update made this even worse because perks now have these hard attribute gates, you literally can't equip decent cyberware if you don't hit the threshold. You just see the red lock icon and that's it.

Pick two attributes and go all in. You get exactly one respec per playthrough and it's only for attributes, not the perk points you already burned on the old tree layout. I've found that Technical Ability is actually the stealth MVP stat because it gates most of your cyberware slots. A 20 Body tank rocking white-tier chrome isn't really a tank, they're just someone with a lot of HP who goes down in three seconds anyway. Chrome is what makes builds actually work.

So for builds, what I've seen work consistently: Netrunner wants Intelligence 20 with Technical Ability 15 or higher, you hack from cameras and never even walk into the building. Sandevistan melee builds go Reflexes 20 with Body 15 plus, slow time and katana everything before they can draw. Stealth pistol setups want Cool 20 and Reflexes 15 plus, headshot crits from the shadows and nobody ever spots you. Shotgun or LMG tank goes Body 20 and Technical Ability 15 plus, you just walk in, eat bullets, walk out. But none of these work without good chrome, and that means Technical Ability matters for every single one.

And then there's cyberware capacity. Nobody talks about this stuff. You scraped together 40,000 eddies and you want to slot every orange-tier implant you see at the ripperdoc. The game lets you do it, right up until your capacity bar goes red. Once you go over capacity, your max HP starts draining over time and random EMP bursts can stun you mid-fight, and the Fury cyberpsychosis passive triggers at the worst possible moments. It's honestly kinda brutal the first time it happens and you have no idea why you're dying.

The thing most people don't figure out until it's too late: cyberware capacity shards drop from specific enemies and certain NCPD scanner hustles. But they stop dropping completly once you hit some hidden cap per region. If you skip scanner hustles in Watson early on, you permanently miss those capacity shards for the entire playthrough. Not sure about this but I think it's tied to your character level reaching certain thresholds in each district. Anyway, just do every scanner hustle in every district before level 40. All of them. Don't skip any.

Also there's the Edgerunner perk in the Technical Ability tree, which needs level 20 to unlock. It gives you an extra 50 capacity and lets you intentionally exceed the bar. Combine that with the Chrome Compressor operating system and you can push past 400 capacity. But that's a deliberate endgame build choice, not something you grab at level 15 for comfort.

Quickhacks. Let me tell you about why Contagion is basically a trap now. Pre-2.0, Contagion spread through entire buildings and you could clear gigs from across the street by pressing one button. It was stupid powerful and honestly it deserved the nerf. Post-2.0 though, Contagion will get you killed if you haven't read the patch notes.

The new system: every combat quickhack starts a trace bar. When that bar fills up, the enemy netrunner uploads Overheat and Weapon Glitch to you and reveals your position to everyone. Contagion fills this bar faster than almost anything else because it spreads and each tick counts as a seperate hostile action. You hit one guy with Contagion and suddenly the trace bar is halfway full and a netrunner somewhere in the building is melting your brain.

What actually works now instead. Memory Wipe at Tier 4 or higher combined with Sonic Shock and Synapse Burnout. Memory Wipe stops the trace from even starting, Sonic Shock drops the target from the network so they can't call for backup, and Synapse Burnout does 200 percent damage to traced enemies. This combo one-shots most non-boss enemies completely silently. Another option: Cyberware Malfunction paired with Short Circuit. Cyberware Malfunction makes the next quickhack hit 40 percent harder and disables enemy chrome for 8 seconds. Short Circuit finishes the job, especially on drones and mechs where it does bonus damage. System Collapse is the legendary-tier single button solution, instant KO with no trace, but it costs 28 RAM base. You need a dedicated netrunner build to use it reliably.

Stop opening every encounter with Contagion. Seriously. You're making every fight harder than it has to be and you probably don't even realize it because the game never tells you the trace mechanic was reworked.

Alright romances. The system actually isn't bugged, you're just missing the conversation flags. I know because I missed Judy on my first run and I was so annoyed I looked up exactly what I did wrong. Each romance partner has a specific gig chain and specific dialogue moments where picking the wrong option locks you out permanently. No do-overs.

Panam: you need to finish all the Aldecaldos side gigs through Queen of the Highway. During that quest at the abandoned train station, when the prompt appears to touch her thigh, you have to take it. If you pick the "just friends" option, you're done. Locked out forever. No second chance, no coming back later.

Judy: finish both the Evelyn Parker questlines and Pisces. During Pisces, you must refuse Maiko's money scheme and side with the dolls. After Pisces ends, Judy calls you at night, answer the call immediately. If you wait or reject the call, no romance. Also here's a run-killer lots of people hit: if you're playing female V and want Judy, your voice AND body type both need to be feminine. The game checks body type, not just voice. Plenty of players with feminine voice and masculine body type get confused when Judy turns them down at the lake.

River: complete The Hunt and Following the River. At the water tower dinner scene, kiss him when the option comes up. Say "not interested" and that's it, locked out.

Kerry: male V with male body type only. Finish the Us Cracks gig chain. During Boat Drinks, agree to help with the yacht sabotage, then kiss him on the boat. Pretty straightforward compared to the others.

Endings then. The point-of-no-return save before meeting Hanako at Embers is your checkpoint for everything. From that save, the ending you get depends entirely on which side gigs you finished and one critical dialogue choice during Nocturne Op55N1.

The Devil ending, that's the Arasaka one, it's always available by default. Just accept Hanako's offer on the rooftop. But to get the full version you need to save Takemura during Search and Destroy, after the crash, go back upstairs. He's pinned under rubble and the game doesn't tell you he's there. Most people just run out and he dies.

The Sun ending, becoming the legend of the Afterlife, requires finishing Rogue's gig chain through Blistering Love. Ask Rogue for help on the rooftop, then let Johnny keep the body at the end. The Star ending with the Aldecaldos needs Panam's full chain done through Queen of the Highway. Ask Panam for help on the rooftop, then cross the river as V at the end. Temperance is available from either The Sun or The Star path, at the Mikoshi bridge, let Johnny cross instead of V.

And then there's the secret ending, Don't Fear The Reaper. The rooftop dialogue with Johnny is where this triggers. You just wait there without picking any choice for about five minutes. Johnny eventually offers an alternative, soloing the assault on Arasaka Tower. You need at least 70 percent relationship with Johnny for the dialogue pause to trigger. If your relationship is lower, you'll sit there forever and nothing happens.

No, you can't get every ending in one playthrough without save scumming. The Mikoshi bridge choice only gives you two variations per run. So pick which two you want and plan accordingly.

Phantom Liberty. The game unlocks it after Transmission, that's the Voodoo Boys quest in Pacifica, usually around level 20 to 25. The game lets you start it right away. Don't.

Dogtown enemies scale but thier floor is level 35. Walk in at level 22 with 300 armor and basic Barghest soldiers three-shot you. It's not fun. More importantly, the Relic skill tree is its own separate progression system that uses a different point currency, and you cannot respec the Relic tree at all, ever. Some nodes look useful but they're complete traps.

For Relic points, Vulnerability Analytics should be your first pick. It reveals weak spots on all enemies, permanent passive, always active. Best first point by far. Jailbreak makes arm cyberware charge faster, but only if you actually use Mantis Blades, Gorilla Arms, or Monowire. Skip it if you're a netrunner. Emergency Cloaking activates optical camo automatically when you drop below 25 percent HP, and honestly this has saved me more times than any damage perk ever did.

Skip Spatial Mapping entirely. It adds a grenade arc display that you can already see if you just aim long enough. Total waste of a Relic point, I have no idea why they even included it.

Also really important for Phantom Liberty: during the Firestarter mission, when Reed asks for your decision at the stadium, do not skip through that dialogue. Your choice here locks you into one of two completely different second-half storylines with different characters, different bosses, and totally different outcomes for the Phantom Liberty epilogue. There's a midpoint save in the stadium, make a hard save before answering Reed. Trust me on this one.

Iconic weapons. So many people sprint through main missions and walk right past some of the best weapons in the entire game because nothing marks them on the map. No icon, no quest marker, nothing.

Saburo's katana, the Satori, is on the roof of Konpeki Plaza inside Saburo's AV during The Heist. You've got about 20 seconds to grab it before the AV explodes. Miss it and you won't see it again for 200 plus hours... unless you know about the hidden rooftop entrance post-mission. It's still up there but getting back requires glitch jumping from an adjacent building. Not exactly intended gameplay.

Johnny's Malorian Arms 3516 you get automatically during Chippin' In, whatever, that one's unmissable. But the iconic Samurai jacket is in the same mission, in a locker in the back room of the recording studio. Easy to walk right past if you're sprinting to Grayson.

Fenrir, the Tech SMG, is near the monk rescue gig in Watson. There's a Maxtac crate behind a locked door inside the Maelstrom hideout, you need Tech 8 to open it. Fenrir does thermal damage with a 50 percent chance to set targets on fire and it carries you through basically the entire midgame if you're running a Tech build. Well worth the detour.

Byakko, that's the katana Wakako gives you for finishing all her gigs in Westbrook. The leap attack covers about 15 meters and one-shots most human enemies. Best melee weapon for a Sandevistan build until you get Jinchu-Maru from one of the endings.

And the crafting stuff people miss. Some iconic weapons only exist as blueprints, you can't find them as drops anywhere. You need the Edgerunner Artisan perk at Tech 20 to upgrade them to Tier 5 plus plus. Without that perk they cap at Tier 5 and you lose about 20 percent of your damage scaling. So if your build depends on crafted iconics, plan your Technical Ability around hitting 20. If you're capping Tech at 15, just use dropped weapons instead.

Last thing, the gigs. Fixer gigs aren't just filler side content. They're your main source of cyberware capacity shards, perk shards, and companion loyalty flags. But the order you do them in each district actually changes what rewards you get.

Each fixer has a reward track. Do the first three gigs in Santo Domingo for El Capitan and the fourth one sends you a unique vehicle discount. Complete all of Regina's gigs in Watson before you hit level 30 and she gifts you the Axolotl cyberware, which reduces all cooldowns by 8 percent per kill. Miss that level window and you just get eddies instead, which are basically worthless by level 40.

Regina's gigs also gate the legendary Netwatch Netdriver Mk.5 cyberdeck. You get it from the final gig's hidden room, not from the gig reward screen. Need 12 Intelligence or the door won't even open for you.

And one more thing most guides skip entirely. The NCPD scanner hustles marked as Assault in Progress in City Center and Corpo Plaza start dropping legendary crafting components at level 35 plus. These components are otherwise locked behind the Tech 20 crafting loop. So if you don't plan to max Technical Ability, farm these scanner hustles in the late game instead. It's a workaround that actually works.

Anyway that's it. That's all the stuff I wish someone had told me before I started my first run. Or my second run honestly. Took me until the third character to not feel like I was constantly missing things and making the game harder for myself...