In the City of Dreams, more than six million people make their living every day, but many will meet an unfortunate, premature end before the sun sets. If you want to survive in a place like this, you don't need to memorize every face out there, but you should still know who to trust, who to listen to, who to speak to for a gig—and who to have your hand on your iron when they're around, lest you end up flatlined like the next poor gonk in line.

This page covers characters as depicted in Cyberpunk 2077. For tropes applying to characters in the original tabletop RPG and its supplementary materials, please use this page.

For the 2022 anime set in this game's universe, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, please use this page.

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Night City Government & Police

Government

In General

Founded by Richard Night in 1994, Night City is a fully-independent Free State and, at least on paper, a democratic mayoralty. In practice, it's a corporate-controlled oligopoly in all but name. Its City Council consists of 100 members, each of whom are usually backed by one of the top ten largest corporations present in the metropolis.

Advert-Overloaded Future: Night City is utterly crammed with advertising, from elevators to billiards tables, a side effect of corporations filling the void left after the Fourth Corporate War. Sex Sells in particular is in full effect, with some ads being borderline pornographic.
Back from the Brink: The Arasaka Tower bombing in 2023, also known as the Night City Holocaust, plunged the city into a tumultuous era known as the Time of the Red, with ground zero of the nuclear explosion being known as the Hot Zone and the City Council serving as an Emergency Authority. By 2077, however, the city had long since recovered, though it's little comfort for many of those actually living there.
Capitalism Is Bad: Zig-Zagged. On one hand, Night City is just about the bleakest portrait of unfettered capitalism imaginable, with amoral corporations using every means available to protect their bottom line while reducing their employees to virtual serfdom. Those who don't work for a corp fare even worse, with no social safety net and most of the population unable to afford even basic medical care, while it's treated as a given that the wealthy elite can get away with just about anything. No one ever offers any real alternatives, however; the rebellious Edgerunners are just as capitalistic and cutthroat as the corpos they oppose, more concerned with finding their own fame and fortune than making radical change.
Corrupt Bureaucrat: Many working in the bureaucracy are either this, an Obstructive Bureaucrat, or both. Whichever way, chances are they're puppets of their corporate backers.
Crapsaccharine World: Night City looks incredibly pretty on the surface, but it wasn't voted the worst place to live in America for nothing.
Culture Chop Suey: Befitting its diverse population and the mishmash of international corporations investing into Night City, much of the metropolis is a melange of various cultures.
Forbidden Zone:
- The Badlands, in addition to being unofficial "Seventh District", is an informal no man's land comprised of the deserted wasteland and ghost towns surrounding Night City proper. While some of it is used by the corporations for resource extraction, food production and as landfills, the rest has largely been abandoned to Nomad clans and scavengers, with the Night City Border Patrol and the occasional Militech squad serving as the only visible sign of authority.
- Phantom Liberty introduces Dogtown as a de facto one. Also known as the Pacifica Combat Zone, it's a decrepit Wretched Hive within a Wretched Hive which neither the NCPD nor the corporations want to touch. Cordoned off from the rest of Night City, it's under the control of the BARGHEST.
Friendly Local Chinatown: Night City is host to a sizable Little China (resembling a futuristic mix of Hong Kong and Shanghai) and Japantown (described by Word of God as a love child between Las Vegas and Kabukicho). There's also the more impoverished and Wild West-esque Kabuki subdistrict in Watson, where the rest of the city's Asian population resides.
Industrial Ghetto: Watson's Northside Industrial District has largely been left to rot, being filled with abandoned warehouses and barely-profiting factories. Meanwhile, Santo Domingo's Arroyo subdistrict is a hotbed for experimentation, where old crumbling manufacturing plants stand right next to shiny new industrial facilities.
Privately Owned Society: Night City in practice is a city built and run by corporations, which control the civic authorities through the City Council. By 2077, it's almost wholly privatized.
The Remnant: Night City's actual civic government is little more than a formality by 2077, in which it's pretty much just a platform for the various corporations to exert their power.
Ruins of the Modern Age:
- The Badlands surrounding Night City are littered with ghost towns, rusting trailer parks, and abandoned corporate assets (like warehouses and railway terminals) that were written off to save costs. Many of these look like they'd be left to rot since the Fourth Corporate War, if not the Collapse that shattered old America.
- Pacifica, and especially Dogtown as revealed in Phantom Liberty, is a crumbling ode to corporate excess. Unfinished malls and hotels still have rusting construction gear left behind, while extravagant vanity projects are left to rot or be used by squatters (and gangs).
Urban Segregation: Night City utterly exemplifies the extremely stratified hierarchy of the corporate status-quo, from the crisp and pristine corporate skyscrapers making up the City Center to the impoverished alleyways of Watson and the anarchic wasteland that's Pacifica. Even within individual districts like Heywood, fairly posh city blocks where corpos or even just lower-ranking managers spend their eddies can stand right next to decrepit slums and gang-ridden tenements.
Wretched Hive: Night City's true face is a shithole, which is putting it mildly. Not only is it full of violent crime, but whole districts are also ruled by gangs, corporations exist above the law, poverty is everywhere, and deranged cyborg spree killers stalk the streets. The police brag about the murder rate going down, but V can find out from a detective that they achieved this by reclassifying the most violent part of the city as a different jurisdiction. No wonder it was voted worst city in America.

Lucius Rhyne

Mayor Lucius Rhyne

The mayor of Night City at the start of the game. A celebrated war hero who led the defense of the city during the Unification War, Rhyne died the same night as the heist at Konpeki Plaza in the midst of running for reelection.

Amoral Attorney: Averted. He was a heroic idealist during his time as a Rockerboy lawyer that specialized in cybernetic law. It's only after he quit the profession and became mayor did he become the corrupt, corpo-dealing scumbag we see in-game.
Broken Pedestal: A number of Night City's residents lost respect for Rhyne over the course of his seven years as mayor due to seeing him become just another corrupt politician after coming to power as a reformer on the Night City Council. His status as a war hero helped keep his approval fairly high, but even many of his supporters were having doubts about him. If V helps River in exposing the truth behind Rhyne's death, not only does the wider public lose whatever trust they had in him, but the expose risks sparking considerable unrest at the worst possible time for Night City's stability.
Corrupt Politician: In comparison to the political idealist he was as a younger man, as mayor Rhyne became wealthy thanks to numerous corrupt deals with corporations.
The Idealist: The Red corebook paints him as one in 2045, when he was a Rockerboy lawyer who specialized in cybernetic law and advocated for his home district of Watson.
Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: What started as a few pragmatic concessions spiraled into successively corrupt deals that ultimately undermined Rhyne's principles as a reformer.
Large and in Charge: Physically the largest official seen in the game in both height and girth. This makes it easy for the public to believe he died of congestive heart failure caused by a faulty implant.
Not Quite the Right Thing: Preserving Night City's independence caused Arasaka to once more become a power within the city and North America as a whole, while also escalating tensions with Militech and the NUSA.
Posthumous Character: Downplayed. He appears early in the game during the lead-up to the Konpeki Plaza heist, but dies soon after that. We only get to learn more about him in the aftermath of his unexpected death.
Puppet King: A Downplayed Trope example as while he made many deals with the corporations, he also knew how to play them against one another unlike his Deputy Mayor.
Undignified Death: His true cause of death. He dies from a BD virus induced heart attack while inside a strip club.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He invited Arasaka back into Night City in order to prevent Militech from taking over.
War Hero: He led the defense of Night City in the Unification War, halting Militech's invasion and convincing Arasaka to commit its force to the defense of the city, allowing it to gain full independence. Already a popular politician, this shot Rhyne straight into the mayor's office after the war.
You Are What You Hate: Once a Rockerboy lawyer trying to do what's best for his home district of Watson and Night City as a whole, Rhynes over time became an embodiment of everything he once hated, becoming near-indistinguishable by his final years from the corrupt officials he fought in his youth.

Weldon Holt

Deputy Mayor Weldon Holt

Voiced by: Dave B. Mitchell

"A week. That's all we can promise you."

Deputy Mayor and Rhyne's right-hand attack dog, Holt becomes acting mayor following Rhyne's death and replaces him in the upcoming mayoral race against Jefferson Peralez.

0% Approval Rating: Is despised by a large chunk of Night City, including people you wouldn't normally believe to be so like the Sixth Street Gang.
Ambiguous Situation: Did he have a role in Rhyne's death? Holt left the room earlier in the day barely a minute before a cyberpsycho (who got funding for his implants somewhere and had rants that included Holt) attempted to assassinate Rhyne, and was the one who arranged for his normal room at the Red Queen's Race later that night where Rhyne's BD headset was infected with a virus that caused a heart attack. Leaving the room could have just been good timing and Rhyne was a regular at the club. And while he did arrange for a cover-up of the circumstances of Rhyne's death, that easily could have been to preserve Rhyne's dignity posthumously and help with Holt having to take over as the new candidate. The game offers no conclusive answer to this, with V and the others recognizing that all the evidence is suspicious but circumstantial.
Bald of Evil: Whether he's evil or just corrupt, he's very bald and very morally ambiguous.
Corrupt Politician: Even worse than Rhyne. Holt is deep in the corporation's pockets, but he is more openly blatant and obvious with it since he views it as the normal way things are done in Night City, which contributes to his negative reputation. Notably, he is the pocket of Arasaka and has connections to the 6th Street Gang (which has since come to hate him).
Puppet King: Like most Night City Mayors, he's just a puppet of the corporations.
Sketchy Successor: Although his approval was dropping, Rhyne remained a popular mayor who was likely going to coast to a double-digit reelection. Holt on the other hand is not well-loved by the citizens of Night City and is down in the polls to Peralez due to his negative reputation and rumors of involvement in Rhyne's death.

Elizabeth and Jefferson Peralez

Voiced by: Kosha Engler (Elizabeth) / Joseph May (Jefferson)

A Night City power couple, with Jefferson sitting on the city council and Elizabeth being an influential lawyer. They hire V to investigate the mayoral race that Jefferson is competing in, following the suspicious death of the incumbent mayor, Lucius Rhyne. Unbeknownst to them, however, they're involved in a far more sinister conspiracy...

The Bad Guy Wins: Depending on how you go through the story, the brainwashers, whoever they are, win in one of two ways. Either Elizabeth will block you or they simply delete their number from your phone. If you reveal the truth to Jefferson, then the after credits sequence shows that he is still aware of the conspiracy and wants to meet V to help him with it, but is sliding further into paranoia.
Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Maybe. Someone or something has been rewriting both of their minds in an apparent attempt to make a "perfect" political couple. If you don't tell Jefferson the truth, during the credits, he'll call you to tell you that he's putting together a program to combat homelessness.
The Conspiracy: What V eventually uncovers while investigating for them. However, it is not possible to find proof of who or what is really behind it. Johnny speculates that rogue A.I.s are responsible. It is also worth noting that the conspiracy is eerily similar to Night Corp's mind control experiments, as V can discover in Act 2. Finally Mr. Blue Eyes, the strange and very well informed individual who hires V for the orbital casino heist in the Sun ending, can be spotted observing the meeting between V and Jefferson from a nearby balcony at the end of the questline.
Gaslighting: Their second quest opens off with Jefferson thinking he shot a home intruder, but their home security team insisting that nothing happened. Bonus points for Johnny actually using the term.
Happily Married: Apparently, they genuinely love each other, and have a daughter off at boarding school.
Lying to Protect Your Feelings:
- Elizabeth already found out that a conspiracy is rewriting the couple's personalities, but she'd rather Jefferson be happy and ignorant than him trying to unravel the conspiracy and be on the receiving end of He Knows Too Much.
- A new message from Jefferson is in Update 2.0 where telling him the truth results in Elizabeth coming clean to him. Jefferson's phone stops working immediately after he tells you about this, though.
Properly Paranoid: If V unveils the conspiracy to Jefferson, he sends a message during the credits montage about not trusting the vitamin pills Elizabeth gave him nor the people he had analyze the pills and asks V to meet with him.
Reasonable Authority Figure: What Jefferson plans to become by avoiding owing favors to any megacorps. V can point out that it's suspicious he even thinks that is possible.
Velvet Revolution: Simply getting into office without the support of a megacorp or the gangs would completely overturn the political order of Night City without drop of blood spilled.

Introduced in Phantom Liberty

Georgina Zembinsky

Voiced by:

A district attorney who has made a name for herself as the bane of criminals across Night City. However, her methods often dip into extra-legal territory to ensure her high conviction rate.

Night City Police Department

In General

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ncpd_jpeg.jpg

The Night City Police Department is the overworked, corrupt, and widely disliked law enforcement of America's worst city.

All Crimes Are Equal: Played with in that they won't attempt to prosecute any crime less than hitting someone with a car or murder. Steal and cause property damage to your heart's content. When they do, they will come for blood. This is not Gameplay and Story Segregation either: there's so much crime in Night City that they quite literally can't afford to care about the small stuff.
Bounty Hunter: What they employ V as officially. In reality, it's closer to Professional Killer.
Corrupt Cop: Taken up to Beyond the Impossible levels - many gangs outright pay them tribute and they are actually introduced as a gang by the specifically trailer for Night City's gangs. There are non-corrupt cops, but they are both rare and unlikely to last long, either dying or caving to the relentless corruption.
Deadly Euphemism: "Use of Force is Authorized" effectively means that V can and should kill every single person they meet. They can disable them nonlethally but the NCPD doesn't care either way.
Disproportionate Retribution: NCPD cops will open fire on V for grievous offences like sprinting past them, loitering in their line of sight for a few seconds, or literally just for jaywalking.
Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- The Night City Police are heavily militarized and act like an occupying army. This has done nothing to make Night City safer but just encouraged the criminals to be more violent and the public to hate the police whether they're criminals or not.
- It should be noted, that, on one hand, they had to fight (literally) heavily armed and sometimes heavily augmented gangoons on a daily basis. On the other hand, due to privatization, profiteering, and civil mistreatment, they can't even succeed at that, being underpaid, overworked and universally hated.
The Dreaded: MaxTac is considered this by the public as a whole, since they only get called when shit gets real and they aren't known for taking people into custody alive.
Failure Hero: The good men and women in the NCPD are unable to make any sort of change, no matter how hard they try. It eventually leads to corruption, disillusionment, and giving up.
Fantastic Racism: There's no sign of them being racist against actual minorities ^note but they take a notably nastier and more brutal hand with cyberpsychos. Justified as they often are dangerous threats to the public order. Subverted with the discovery that any cyborg they encounter they don't like can be labelled a cyberpsycho.
Gas Mask Mooks: Some of their members are like this.
He Who Fights Monsters: Thanks to rampant crime, serious staffing and resource issues, corruption, disillusionment, and the general sense that they would be completely and utterly overwhelmed otherwise, the NCPD has essentially become a glorified gang just like those they vow to fight against, albeit with more military-grade weapons, legal and corporate backing, and some vestigial commitment to the law.
Jerkass Has a Point:
- The NCPD straddled the line between Jerkass Has a Point and Villain Has a Point. They are completely outmatched by the sheer number of violent murderous killers around them, the corporations are above the law, and military-grade weapons as well as cybernetics weapons are everywhere on the street.
- Many of Sgt. Dobs' tips on how to stay safe in Night City in the Safe & Sound cartoons fall under this trope. Not only are they actually informative to citizens, but also help make the NCPD's job ever slightly easier.
Law Enforcement, Inc.: In 2076, the NCPD had transitioned into a fully-privatized police force, which was meant to maximize both profitability and efficiency. This move backfired, resulting in more crimes and less accountability, with some in the Night City Council even entertaining the idea of supplementing if not replacing it outright with private security firms.
Leitmotif: NCPD Prowl.
Let's Get Dangerous!: For the post part, NCPD's competence is dubious at best, but MaxTac is The Dreaded to practically every other gang in the city, and even the most hardened gangoons hesitate before crossing their paths.
Loading Screen Blurb: If they called MaxTac - they're all screwed.
Murder Is the Best Solution: Their defining philosophy with cyberpsychos as well as a large number of other "criminals." They adhere to the ethos of "shoot first, ask questions never" and freely look the other way when V goes on killing sprees through Night City's other criminals too - frequently employing them in fact - if you happen to enter a firefight with some gangoons with a minor wanted level, the NCPD Subcon system will immediately clear your wanted level to allow you to focus on fighting some gangers.
Not Quite the Right Thing:
- NCPD employs brutal police state tactics and military-grade weapons against the public. All it's accomplished is barely holding the NCPD from completely disbanding and the public to hate them.
- For many, if not majority of the Night Citizens, crime is the only way of survival. One can't really see any police as the heroes from that point of view. On a flip side, one hardly can sympathize with people, that hate you because you are trying to uphold the order. As a result, the NCPD and the city's inhabitants are stuck in a downward spiral of mutual hate which only feeds on itself and gets worse as time goes on.
Police Are Useless: Police Brutality and scary looks aside, NCPD could hardly be less effective at curbing Night City's rampant crime if they tried (which some of them undoubtedly do), half of which can be attributed to a lack of resources and the other half to corruption. They're so useless that they not only tolerate but encourage vigilante justice among Night City's populace.
Police Brutality:
- Your introduction to them is them locking down an entire district under martial law and their elite unit wiping out a bunch of car jackers with lethal force. They also employ V as a Bounty Hunter against many crimes that that they can't be bothered to handle.
- In the Streetkid Origin for V, they beat up Jackie and V before dumping them in an alleyway. Which is actually a major concession on their part as they were told to just shoot them in the head and dump them in the ocean.
Professional Killer: They employ V as one of these as often as a Bounty Hunter.
The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A conversation early in game basically states the cops hold back from dealing with too dangerous situations. They also prefer to employ bounty hunters (like V) whenever possible.
Public Service Announcement: The Safe & Sound cartoons are part of the NCPD's attempts at both informing the public and self-promotion. As blunt and hilariously brutal as they are in highlighting the worse aspects of living in Night City, they get the job done in actually being informative.
A Real Man Is a Killer:
- Arises as an issue among the beat officers, with any perception of "weakness" such as mourning a fallen friend or being affected by the death of a child being mocked or dismissed. As one can imagine, this unfortunately means that many officers develop serious psychological and emotional problems, often resulting either in cyberpsychosis or self-destruction due to the lack of emotional support and outlets.
- The mission "Happy Together" reveals that some beat cops actually develops such cynical attitudes to cope with the amount of violence and injustice they see everyday.
Retirony: The brass invoke this trope to justify sending officers close to retirement into their more dangerous/overworked precincts. If they are likely to lose anyone they send, might as well use someone that's already on their way out.
Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Zigzagged. On one hand, the dubious legal status of Night City as an independent city in the Free State of California and America gives the NCPD a lot of leeway to use whatever methods they want as long as it doesn't affect the megacorporations, and no one will call them to task. On the other, this gets subverted when they have Corpo criminals, as they often find themselves unable to bring in child-killers and worse if said criminals happen to be in a city-friendly corp. Even full-blown gangers can get off scot-free with murdering a kid in front of an officer's eyes if said ganger happens to be a contact for one of the corps.
Slave to PR: The NCPD still tries to sell itself as a competent police force, with its marketing and PR department doing what they can to (unconvincingly) spin statistics to their favor.
Stopped Caring: The mission "Happy Together" shows that either they have to stop caring about doing their job properly or they break under the pressure.
Superman Stays Out of Gotham: With the exception of the Night City Border Patrol, the NCPD operates almost entirely within the formal city limits, with the Badlands being left to the mercy of Nomads and Militech patrols.
That One Case: Both Barry and Mendez from "Happy Together" are haunted by having to let a child murderer go because the killer had corpo connections.
Token Good Teammate: There are good people on the NCPD's payroll, but they are overwhelmed by the systemic corruption, general scale of everyday violence, megacorps' influence, and their inability to actually do the right thing.
We Have Reserves: Regular beat cops are essentially cannon fodder, against the player and against rival gangs, with elites such as MaxTac typically only deploying for cyberpsycho cases. It's a disturbingly regular sight in Night City to see an abandoned and/or burning patrol car or two, surrounded by several NCPD bodies with maybe one or two survivors taking cover from a gangoon onslaught. Whether you help them or let them die is up to you.

Night City Border Patrol

The security forces patrolling the border between Northern and Southern California, and the first enemies Nomad!V has to face.

Border Patrol: True to their name, these agents are always High-Threat, even if V is at max level, and can quickly destroy anything that gets in their way. Also justified in-universe, as they're Night City's main line of defense against foreign intruders, and thus are armed to the brim by necessity.
Checkpoint Charlie: Nomad V has to get past these guys in order to get the contraband they and Jackie are transporting across the border.
Dirty Cop: The only way to get past them is to bribe them properly. Even then, they might decide to double-cross you. Even compared to the morally-dubious demeanor of the beat cops, they're rather bloodthirsty, often electing to chase down anyone who is so much as suspected as smuggling, shooting first, and asking questions never. Reading certain shards also reveals that they're not above selling clanless nomads and other vulnerable people to scumbags like Jotaro Shobo, or taking advantage of such people themselves.
Disproportionate Retribution: As Nomad V finds out the hard way, Night City Border Patrol's standard response to any suspected infraction is a lot of military-grade ordinance.

MaxTac

The Maximum Force Tactical Division, also called the NCPD Psycho Squad. A cybersquad specialized in taking down cyberpsychos. By far the strongest division of the NCPD.

The Dreaded: The most feared part of the NCPD by a country mile. Even people like Kurt Hansen tread lightly when it comes to them. The loading screen tip regarding them puts it rather succinctly:
"If they called MaxTac – they're all screwed."
Elite Mooks: Being comprised of the most heavily armed, grizzled, and nigh-sociopathic the NCPD has to offer, MaxTac lives up to its reputation. V can also potentially confront a MaxTac squad directly in Phantom Liberty, and find out the hard way why it's so feared.
Gameplay and Story Integration: In-game each member hits harder and has more durability than most bosses.
Recruiting the Criminal: It's a secret, but all of them are ex-cyberpsychos themselves. Hunter of His Own Kind applies in a way.

Melissa Rory

Lieutenant Mellisa Rory

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maxtac_melissa.png

"You feel that back there? Feel his life leave his body?"

Voiced by: Kosha Engler

"They're my... reminder. When I see them, I see what they've sliced... Muscle, tendon, bone... even implants. Like a hot knife through butter."

A MaxTac Lieutenant who responds to the Cyberpsycho attack at Jinguji.

Blade Below the Shoulder: Still has the Mantis Blades from when she was apprehended 7 years ago, and will put them to good use if the cyberpsycho at Jinguji is still alive by the time her and the MaxTac squad get there.
Blood Knight: Admits a pleasure from taking out cyberpsychos.
The Cavalry Arrives Late: Melissa and her squad can end up arriving after the dangerous cyberpsycho is already dealt with by V. They'll even call her out on it, only to be shrugged off.
Early-Bird Cameo: She's actually the cyberpsycho that appeared all the way back in the game's teaser trailer.
Ironic Name: The Ax-Crazy Melissa is named after the genus of plants that includes lemon balm, known for its relaxing and soothing properties.
Lady Not-Appearing-in-This-Game: An inversion - she's the same psycho from the 2013 reveal trailer.
Nominal Hero: She'll help V in defeating a cyberpsycho (provided said psycho is still alive beforehand), but she's also an Ax-Crazy former psycho herself who's implied to only be doing the job out of an unhealthy obsession with killing cyberpsychos.
Recruiting the Criminal: Was recruited into MaxTac after turning psycho, and still has plenty leftover sadism.

River Ward

One of V's allies, and as such, his profile can be found here.

Harold Han

Detective Harold Han

"You really intend to work with a merc?"

Voiced by: Matthew Yang King (English)

"You got no idea how this city works. Think your goddamn inspirational, idealist bullshit actually means something? It doesn't, never did."

A detective in the NCPD and River Ward's partner, he's been around the dark streets of Night City for years and knows how the city breathes.

Dirty Cop: He covers up Mayor Rhyne's actual cause of death to make his passing more dignified in the news.
Freudian Excuse: His Humans of Night City profile helps explain his decision to cover up the Rhyne's cause of death. Han was just a child in the aftermath of the Arasaka Tower bombing during the Fourth Corporate War and remembers the chaos and disorder that followed during the rebuilding. He joined to the NCPD to stop that kind of chaos from returning and believes that the truth about Rhyne's death could trigger it.
Jerkass Has a Point: While the "Jerkass" part is downplayed, he is pretty gruff and cynical in all your interactions with him, but he isn't wrong when he says that trying to expose the truth of what happened to the mayor won't end well for River, who ends up suspended from the force. He also points out that Mayor Rhyne was beloved by a lot of people in the city, meaning trying to challenge that he died in anything but peaceful circumstances could have disastrous consequences, especially with the ongoing election.
Old Cop, Young Cop: The Old to River's Young, having been around in the force for years and becoming cynical and jaded.
The Power of Legacy: Han helped cover up Rhyne's death out of the belief that, owing to the late mayor's lingering reputation, it would be better that the people of Night City remember him as a symbol of unity and rebirth, rather than risk triggering widespread chaos by revealing the truth.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When he learns River is meeting with V to continue looking into Mayor Rhyne's death, he immediately decides to leave, expressing no wish to rock the boat with their superiors and warning River to let the matter drop for his own sake. Of course, Han was directly involved in the cover-up, and therefore had a vested interest in stopping the investigation.

Anna Hamill

Voiced by: ???

One of the few honest officers in the NCPD, Anna is investigating smuggling in the Kabuki Market with direct ties to her superiors. Despite being warned away, she continued her investigation and ended up with a price on her head.

Cowboy Cop: Her investigation proceeds without any approval from her superiors, who in fact had ordered her to stop investigating Kabuki. She knows they only did so because they were profiting off the smuggling there, so she continued with it.
Friend to All Children: If V convinces her to join the Aldecaldos then they can find her at the camp watching over some of the kids who want to play MaxTac and Cyberpsychos with her.
Hero with Bad Publicity: News reports will claim that she became a Cyberpsycho and shot up her precinct because of that, when in reality she was going after corrupt cops who were plotting to murder her.
Killer Cop: If V spares her, Anna is now armed with the knowledge that not only are her bosses corrupt, but want her dead. So she strikes first, first killing Captain Kowalsky and then taking out Bill Adams, whose body you can find in the market. She follows this up with a shooting spree at her precinct, where she ends up getting gunned down by her former coworkers. Averted if a Nomad V gives her advice about joining the Nomads to get away from the city; instead of going on a revenge-fueled killing spree, she instead decides that she's had enough of NCPD and Night City in general and joins the Aldecaldos.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: V's with a Nomad background can not only spare her but convince her to give up her crusade by joining the Aldecaldos and abandon the hopelessly corrupt Night City.
Token Good Teammate: With most of the NCPD being corrupt as hell, Anna is one of the few who actually cares about doing her job.
What You Are in the Dark: After killing Kowalsky, Anna was actually offered the chance to cover it up and get a promotion by Adams, who admired her skills and tenacity. She flatly turns him down and kills him.

Diego Ramirez

An ex-special forces soldier turned cop, Diego's daughter was taken by the Tyger Claws, sending him down a path of vengeance that led to cyberpsychosis.

Badges and Dog Tags: He was special forces before becoming a cop, which explains how a normally Canon Fodder NCPD officer was able to wage a one-man war against the Tyger Claws.
Papa Wolf: His daughter being kidnapped by the Tyger Claws led to him killing at least twenty of them in his search for her, which one boss notes will cause them to have to shut down two or three businesses.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Went on one after his daughter was taken but was noted to be keeping his vengeance precise. He kicked it up a notch upon seeing her body in the back of a Tyger Claws van, losing all restraint and slaughtered the ambushing Tygers.
Unstoppable Rage: His daughter's death sent him into one, as he not only cut down all the Tyger Claws present, but innocent bystanders on the nearby pier.

Introduced in Phantom Liberty

Stella Ramos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stella_cp2077pl_1.png

Voiced by: Suzi Hunter

A NCPD officer who wants V to rescue her fiancé Bill and his gonk best friend Charles from within a Barghest den in Pacifica.

Actor Allusion: She's the sister of Sasha Yakovlena from Edgerunners. Said character was also based on Suzi Hunter.
Dirty Cop: A Downplayed Trope example as her fiancé and his best friend are drug dealers on the side and she has no problem with it. If anything, she's more pissed at Wilson because he's too stupid to pull off the schemes he keeps dragging Bill into, regularly getting them both in deep shit.
Entertainingly Wrong: Believes Dodger is holding both her fiancée and his partner hostage. They actually have locked themselves up because they accidentally got a drug mule killed while they were trying to turn him over for a reward.
Fair Cop: Has a strong resemblance to her actress, who is quite lovely.
Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: While its never directly addressed in game, Stella couldn't be anymore diffrent than her younger sister Sasha. Whereas Sasha was a Edgerunner who used to roll with Maine's crew until she went out in a blaze of glory exposing Biotechnica for selling tainted painkillers which caused the death of their mother and countless others, Stella is a level-headed Fair Cop who is averse to risk and begs V to not escalate the situation any further by doing something hasty like killing Dodger's men.
Foreshadowing: Stella is under attack by what she assumes are Dodger's men. But the people attacking her are Scavs not Barghest.
Improperly Paranoid:
- Stella lowers the back of her seat to avoid being seen by Dodger. This is after a bunch of Scavs had tried to carjack her.
- She begs V to not kill any of Dodger's men out of fear of Bill's safety via incurring the lieutenant's wrath. This no longer becomes an issue if V simply decides to kill Dodger, saving Stella and Bill from being exploited any further. Though that said, if you try to make a deal but have killed any of Dodger's men, he'll try to kill you.
Ink-Suit Actor: She's based on her voice actress.
Nice Girl: One of the rare few nice cops in Night City.
Only Sane Man: Stella comes off as as a lot saner than anyone else in the quest, even if she's wrong about Dodger and the threat he poses.
Right for the Wrong Reasons: Stella tells you not to kill any of Dodger's men because she believes it will only make things worse. She's only partially right, as Dodger genuinely cares about his men and will let V walk away without a fuss for as long as his subordinates aren't harmed. However, Dodger will use this fuck-up to Blackmail Stella and Bill for his own ends later, meaning that killing Dodger and his men really is the best way to solve the crisis in her favor.
Sci-Fi Bob Haircut: Done in pretty much exactly the same style as her voice actress.
Strong Family Resemblance: Due to the fact that Sasha was already physically based on Suzi Hunter, her sister Stella (who was directly modeled after Hunter) would naturally look alike. By extension this pretty much makes her the closest one can get to an Edgerunners original character appearing in-person in the game proper.

Bill Mitchel

Stella's fiancé and partner of Charles Wilson, Bill is an extremely mediocre cop often dragged into Charles' schemes.

The Corruptible: Charles is blamed by Stella for turning Bill into what he is, but Bill has consistently gone along with all of Wilson's insane grifts in spite of the massive red flags surrounding the dude. Its only until they almost lose their lives in Dogtown does Bill finally decide that enough is enough and cut Wilson out of his life.
Digging Yourself Deeper: Every action both of the men take only makes their situation worse.
Dirty Cop: A young police officer who keeps getting suckered into helping his dirty partner Charles get away with whatever harebrained scheme he's cooked up.
Even Evil Can Be Loved: Calling him evil is a stretch, but Stella wants to make sure he makes out alive despite being a Dirty Cop and The Corruptible.
Never My Fault: Bill blames Charles for all of the things that have gone wrong in their scheme while taking none of the responsibility.
An Offer You Can't Refuse: If V reached a compromise with Dodger that allows all involved parties to walk away unscathed, Bill can be encountered later and tells V that despite Dodger saying he would let them be, he is actually blackmailing them and even threatened Stella to make Bill his mole in the NCPD.
Reformed Criminal: To his credit, Bill will eventually decide to turn in his badge after the drug mule fiasco and follow his dream of opening up a resturant starting with a scopdog stand out in The Glen. Bill will also invite V over to thank them for getting him out of that jam, pay them some eddies, and hook them up with an upgrade that will permanently increase their Stamina Regen Rate by 2%.
Those Two Guys: Bill and Charles have been friends their entire lives and get into a lot of trouble together. Thankfully, Bill finally stops working with Charles due to him bringing too much trouble after the Dodger deal goes south.
Zany Scheme: Bill and Charles had one to pick up a criminal who had stolen 10K+ worth of drugs from Dodger then turn him over for a reward. The criminal proceeded to eat all the drugs and OD while they were in Dodger's home base. They then cut him open to remove them despite the fact they'd already dissolved.

Charles Wilson

Bill's dirty partner who brought the younger cop onto his schemes.

The Corruptor: Stella blames Charles for turning Bill into a Dirty Cop but he clearly didn't have to work hard.
Dirty Cop: Another corrupt NCPD officer who is more than happy to work with the BARGHEST militia to line his own pockets while dragging his partner along for the ride.
Digging Yourself Deeper: Every action both of the men take only makes their situation worse.
Those Two Guys: Bill and Charles have been friends their entire lives and get into a lot of trouble together.
Toxic Friend Influence: Wilson is a glorified conman with a badge who exploits the longstanding friendship he has with his partner to make him an accomplice to whatever illicit grift he can think of.
Zany Scheme: Bill and Charles had one to pick up a criminal who had stolen 10K+ worth of drugs from Dodger then turn him over for a reward. The criminal proceeded to eat all the drugs and OD while they were in Dodger's home base. They then cut him open to remove them despite the fact they'd already dissolved.

Ayden Daniels

An officer who grew up in the streets of Santo Domingo alongside Muamar Reyes. He know uses his position and friendship with the Fixer to make life in his crime and disease plagued home district as bearable as possible.

Unwanted Rescue: If you prioritize saving his life over getting the cargo to safety when the alarms go off, he'll survive what would otherwise be a doomed Last Stand but be furious with V because the delay caused some of the vital medical equipment you're stealing to get damaged.

Night City Media

Network News 54

Gillean Jordan

Voiced by:

The primary anchor of N54 News.

Ascended Extra: Makes a physical appearance in-game after Hanako is kidnapped by Goro. She also makes an appearance in-person as one of the guests at Hansen's party in Dogtown.
Dramatically Missing the Point: Gillean doesn't realize the V, who is five feet away from her is the person most responsible for the story she's currently working on.
Friendly Rival: Is seen hanging around with Arif Iqbal at Hansen's party.
Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight: Downplayed. As she casually admits to Arif Igbal at Hansen's party, she considers her N54 News stint as akin to feeding gonk to the masses, drooly reading words on a teleprompter. On the other hand, she not only enjoys the fame that comes with being a popular anchorwoman, but also the access it gives her to the places where words do matter, allowing her to actually flex her journalistic skills.
Hot Scoop: She's a fantastic looking anchorwoman with some kitsch fashion sense that somehow doesn't look completely ridiculous.
Non-Action Guy: Gillean is a news reporter and thus not possessed of any combat ability.
Public Service Announcement: Gillean provides news about the world during what would normally be loading screens. Usually in elevators.
Show Within a Show: The N54 News network is shown on many televisions in Night City.
Worst News Judgement Ever: Mostly averted as the things she reports on tend to actually be relevant, even if they have a dry conversational style even about horrifying events.

Ziggy Q

Voiced by: Ben Cura

Host of Night After Night with Ziggy Q, a talk show on N54 News. Ziggy is well known for inserting his own opinions and bias into debates with the famous celebrities, politicians, and police who appear on his show.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He is very good at building rapport with his guests and getting them to open up. If the guest is talking about something that is against the editorial line (such as the environment, or Relic), he will wait for them to slip during a particularly difficult question and then turn on them. He also makes a big show out of donating brand new cybernetics to a man whose arms were repossessed, but the way he hogs the camera during the reveal comes off as very myopic.
Character Shilling: Downplayed. He occasionally promotes his corporate sponsors, which tend to be either Militech or companies associated with the MegaCorp. Justified given N54 News has a pro-NUSA bias as opposed to the Arasaka-leaning WNS News.
Everyone Has Standards: Ziggy Q is shown to have no more love for the NCPD's seeming ineptitude and corruption than most in Night City. He wastes little time tearing through the spiel being delivered by the NCPD's PR representative, and doesn't even let her finish before grilling her on the spot, which Johnny finds satisfying to watch.
Ziggy Q: Be honest with our viewers. When will they finally be safe?
Hidden Depths: For all his theatrics, open bias and occasional shilling for corporate sponsors, Ziggy Q is shown to be much more astute than what he lets on. He's also savvy enough to be able to make his way around Dogtown and come out in one piece.
Large Ham: Ziggy Q's public persona at least certainly fits the bill, being very theatrical, and lively even when slipping in his personal biases.
Many Questions Fallacy: Ziggy Q usually keeps things on track by slyly giving guests leading questions, as well as making manipulative quips to lower their guard.
Oh, Crap!: Interrupts the Reverend Colver's speech regarding the Relic due to him making too many good points. He similarly interrupts Mark Muratovich during his interview upon revealing a bit too much about Hanako Arasaka's hidden netrunning equipment.
Self-Made Man: Parodied. During Hansen's party, he claims to be this despite inheriting millions from his parents.
Show Within a Show: He's the host of "Night After Night with Ziggy Q"
We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Ziggy Q does everything he can to avoid this from happening by deftly changing topics or slyly cutting to a commercial break when he notices that things are about to go out of control.

Karina Lee

Voiced by:

The host of "Chip In" on N54 News, Karina reviews the latest tech developments.

Black and Nerdy: An expert in the ups and down of the technologies she discusses on her show.
Cyborg: Is heavily chromed up and often installs whatever she's attempting to sell to her audience.
Sassy Black Woman: Has an energetic, aggressive, and confrontational style while maintaining a cheerful demeanor. She's also a black woman.
Show Within a Show: Is the host of Chip In, which is a technology review show.

World News Service

Arif Iqbal

Voiced by:

Primary news anchor of WNS News.

Friendly Rival: Is seen hanging around with Gillean Jordan at Hansen's party.
Show Within a Show: Is the news anchor for WNS News.

Ruth Dzeng

Voiced by: Erika Ishii

The satirical host of Info Flash.

Biting-the-Hand Humor: Ruth makes fun of both Japanese whaling and the name of Arasaka's aircraft despite being an employee of an Arasaka subsidiary in all but name.
Character Shilling: Inverted in-universe. While WNS is Arasaka's Propaganda Machine in Night City, she doesn't use her show to directly praise them. Instead, she uses it primarily to aggressively go after the NUSA over its myriad failings (which still benefits Arasaka overall).
Optional Sexual Encounter: Subverted. Ruth makes a pass at V at Hansen's party if they speak with them but V is on a mission and can't take them up on the offer.
Queer Establishing Moment: Ruth Dzeng will make a pass at V regardless of gender.
The Resenter: Downplayed. It's mentioned that she used to be an intern for N54 News, likely cribbing many of her jokes from other interns in the process. Given the disdain she has towards the network and its NUSA/Militech sponsors, she clearly didn't like working there.
The Rival: Ruth is one to Ziggy Q, who she has a dim view of.
Show Within a Show: The host of Info Flash, which is a comedic news show.
Sincerity Mode: Ruth is fond of slipping in not only her biases, but also her honest views whenever she could get away with it.
Ruth Dzeng: We are fucked, America! And I'm not sure how we're gonna fix it!
Snark Knight: Ruth is a comedian reporter and her style usually consists of insulting the subjects of her reporting. However, there is real pain and pathos in her belief that America is probably doomed.

Josh Kavorkin

Voiced by:

The host of "Your Business is My Business", which covers financial and corporate news.

Big Fun: Josh has a theatrical and loud personality that goes along with his financial advice. He's also a bit on the hefty side.
Brutal Honesty: "Sell, sell, sell" when asked about what to do with Arasaka stock after the Mikoshi attack in certain endings.
Character Shilling: In-universe he's constantly encouraging people to buy Arasaka until the destruction of Mikoshi in some endings.
Everyone Has Standards: As sleazy as he comes across, Josh Kavorkin does have some integrity when it comes to offering financial advice, even if he personally doesn't like it. Such as when Arasaka's stocks plummet in certain endings following the destruction of Mikoshi.
Greed: His advice is about making as much money as possible.
Hidden Depths:
- For all his bombast and constant shilling for profit, Josh Kavorkin is shown to be knowledgeable about finance and the economic goings-on among the major megacorps.
- When V finds him at Hansen's party in Dogtown, he's seen in the middle of giving genuine financial advice to his own mother over a call, further underscoring how his shtick isn't just an act.
Jerkass Has a Point:
- Despite being a shill for Arasaka, his points about Militech and the NUSA being authoritarian buddy-buddies is accurate.
- His remarks about the NCPD being both incompetent and unprofitable, urging viewers to sell their shares in the privatized police force, are also on point.
Know When to Fold 'Em: He is not happy when Arasaka starts tanking, but he still has an obligation to not screw over his viewers too much.
Oh, Crap!: Josh's reaction to the fall of Arasaka after the end of several endings.
Show Within a Show: "Your Business is My Business" is a financial advisory show.

Independent Media

Max Jones

Voiced by: Alec Newman

One of the few true media left in Night City, Max has dedicated his life to exposing corporate corruption. His firebrand reporting and exposure of scandals has placed a heavy price on his head.

Better to Die than Be Killed: His plan to prevent himself from being killed by Militech.
Broken Pedestal: His opinion of Regina is that giving up her job as a media to be a Fixer is a betrayal of who she was. It doesn't improve much when he's hanging around her headquarters.
Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: V can get them out of Militech's sights but he's less than pleased about being forced into hiding with his ex-friend turned criminal.
Crazy-Prepared: His hideout is rigged with mines and turrets under the assumption that assassins would come for him over his stories, despite Max having ignored Regina's warnings.
Driven to Suicide: Plans to take this route when V confronts them. This is despite the fact he assumes they're here to kill him.
Intrepid Reporter: Max is both one of the best of his breed still active in Night City, and one of the last still breathing.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His decision to focus on Militech's mistreatment of veterans gets a hit called out on him by the megacorporation.
Principles Zealot: Downplayed. He holds steadfast to his principles as an independent media, and believes that Regina betrayed hers by becoming a Fixer.
We Used to Be Friends: With Regina, whom he considered a mentor until he he came to believe that she sold out by ending her media career to become a fixer.

Introduced in Phantom Liberty

Bree Whitney

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bree_jpeg.jpg

Voiced by:

A struggling media whose career has been stuck writing for screamsheets and dreaming of a better life and better stories. Bree found her big break in Dogtown, chasing a story of a secret Militech facility beneath the district where illegal experiments were conducted.

All for Nothing: Whether she or Dante Caruso ends up dead, Bree Whitney's scheme of exposing Militech's research as her big scoop is doomed to fail. The best she could hope for is to go to ground and possibly sell V out to Netwatch.
I Did What I Had to Do: Subverted. Bree justifies writing propaganda for Militech as a way to get close enough to find some real scoops, though from her lifestyle and demeanor, she wasn't in any real hurry to get to them.
Intrepid Reporter: Claims to be this. Whether it's true or not is left up to the player, given how she's just as motivated by the clout and fame her big break would give as she supposedly is of exposing the truth to the world.
Propaganda Machine: It's eventually revealed that Bree's actual job was to act as one for Militech.
Killed To Up Hold The Masquerade:
- Militech wants to get rid of her to hide their research into the Blackwall and specifically, the true purpose of Project Cynosure.
- Possibly her ultimate fate if she survives the mission: Mr. Hands will later contact V and notify them that Netwatch has a hit out on them and that Whitney disappeared not long after the gig. Whether she truly did go to ground (and thus leave V holding the bag for Netwatch to come after) or Netwatch actually had her dispatched in order to hide Militech's research into the Blackwall is up to the player's interpretation, though Mr. Hands' words on the matter imply that she sold out to Netwatch.
Properly Paranoid: She seems extremely paranoid, hiding in Dogtown's underground tunnels away from Night City. It turns out she has every reason to be afraid.
Slumming It: Despite Bree's claims of being a struggling journalist, her apartment in Heywood is shown to be rather swanky for someone trying to make it big, complete with expensive-looking decors and travel magazines for exotic locales even if it's partly an attempt to escape Militech. It's a hint that there's more to her background than what she tells them. Johnny also notes sardonically how actual struggling media in his day wished they had something like her living conditions.

Nomad Clans

In General

Various Desert Punk-styled clans who roam the wastelands surrounding Night City and beyond.

The Alliance: The most powerful Nomad clans are organized into the "Seven Nations", which the Aldecaldos are a part of.
Badass Normal: Given their rugged and rough lifestyle, most Nomads have to make do with minimal or homebrew chrome at best. This doesn't stop them from being badasses in their own right, if only out of necessity.
Desert Punk: Founded by farmers, former corporate wage-slaves and others made homeless by the Collapse, the Nomad clans roam the vast stretches of wasteland and highway as both travelers and motor-gangs.
The Dreaded: Downplayed. While individual clans, especially Raffen Shivs, can be easy prey to governments and megacorporations, Nomads as a united front, especially when any if not all of the Seven Nations are involved, pose enough of a threat that not even Arasaka and Militech would risk open war.
Forever War: In addition to their squabbles against local gangs and bandits, the Nomad clans are in a constant running battle with Militech, though this usually manifests in skirmishes with scouting parties and Raffen Shivs like the Wraiths. With the MegaCorp and the NUSA clamping down on all opposition to federal control, however, clashes have grown more frequent out in the wastelands.
Had to Be Sharp: The wastelands of post-Collapse America are a dangerous place. To even last more than a few days out there as a Nomad requires more than basic survival skills or a good trigger finger.
Law Enforcement, Inc.: Out in the wasteland, where law enforcement of any kind is spotty at best, the more amicable Nomad clans serve as the next best thing, protecting highways and vital sections of the "open road" for safe passage.
New Old West: Befitting how many of them started, Nomad clans take quite a few cues from 20th century truckers and biker gangs, as well as Wild West cowboys and Native American culture. It also helps that some of them are Native Americans who've taken to roaming the highways in order to survive.
N.G.O. Superpower: Downplayed. Despite their reputation as roving wasteland hordes, Nomads clans have considerable influence in interstate transport through keeping the highways (relatively) safe, as well as enough financial savvy to set up their own MegaCorp equivalents to challenge the corporations at their own game. They're even mentioned as having sent sizable investments into rebuilding Night City after the 2020s, at least before the corpos once more stepped in.
Scavenged Punk: Downplayed. Due to both their lifestyle and often-limited resources, Nomads have become adept at heavily customizing whatever they have, be it their bikes and cars or their own cyberware.
Those Were Only Their Scouts: Nomad Scouts, leather-armored riders on bikes or fast muscle cars who protect their convoy from attacks and hunt up safe campsites, are also the ones that cityfolk are more likely to encounter. Harming them is a good way to draw the ire of their home clan, especially if it's one of the Seven Nations.

The Wraiths

In General

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cp2077_gang_wraiths.png

A vicious gang of "Raffen Shiv" - rogue Nomads - who inhabit the badlands outside of Night City.

Always Chaotic Evil: They're an organised group of Raffen Shiv. Raffen are Nomad exiles, and Nomad clans only exile people for the most horrific offences. In other words, they are one of only two gangs in the game - second being Scavengers, for whom being an absolute monster is an entry requirement, both because that's who they take and because that's the only people who want to join. This carries over into gameplay, where they can have no peaceful interactions with the player whatsoever and show no redeeming features or moments of humanity.
The Apunkalypse: The Gangs Of Night City trailer shows the Wraiths have this look, from biker gang-esque leather gang vests to neon blue-dyed Delinquent Hair.
Archenemy: To the Aldecaldos around Night City.
Arc Villain: Of Badlands gigs in general and Panam's questline in particular. Aside from that, the Wraiths have next to no involvement in the plot.
Asshole Victim: Both in and out of universe. Declaring someone 'Raffen Shiv' is the Nomad way of saying 'do whatever you want to this person, we don't care', which is a huge deal in such a clannish, tight-knit culture. In-game, they're Always Chaotic Evil bullet-sponges for you and everyone else (including other antagonistic gangs like the Maelstrom) to mow down by the dozen with nary a shred of guilt.
Evil Counterpart: One to the Aldecaldos. In their case, they're the largest clan of Nomads nobody likes.
Evil Versus Evil: Particularly susceptible to this since they're short of powerful backers by default (if they had them, they probably wouldn't be exiles), making them attractively easy meat for Night City's various other predatory factions. Add in the Militech crackdown on Nomads in general, and you'll see them involved in a lot of gun battles where you can annihilate both sides guilt-free.
Flat Character: They have virtually no characterization beyond "evil Nomads", which is at least partially rooted in their lack of named characters with speaking roles (and partially rooted in their specific entry requirements - see Always Chaotic Evil above). The only unique voiced character they have gets killed off right after his introduction, and the rest of his cronies devolve into little more than cannon fodder for Panam's questline from there.
I'm a Humanitarian: During the mission to rescue Saul, V can find a body on a table the Wraith disemboweled "and not to get chrome". V is clearly very horrified by this while Panam comments that there's nothing Wraiths won't do.
Leitmotif: Badlanders.
Renegade Splinter Faction: The Wraiths are pretty much comprised of Nomads deemed so terrible and abhorrent that they were exiled from their clans of origin.
The Unfettered: The Wraiths have no respect for the law and have no moral code, doing whatever it takes to survive. They've already been exiled, and being Raffen Shiv marks them as the worst people in the wasteland, so there's no point in trying to be any better than they are.

The Aldecaldos

In General

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cp2077_gang_aldecados.png

One of the oldest and largest Nomad clans and a member of the Seven Nations, an alliance of seven Nomad Clans in North America, inhabiting the badlands outside of Night City.

Animal Motif: A skeletal horse. It's in their logo and they can be frequently seen painted on their cars. Horses are a common symbol of freedom, referencing their motto of "forever free". An Aldecaldo caravan riding through the desert is reminiscent of a herd of horses running through an American prairie.
Badass Creed: Their motto "Forever Free" is pretty awesome in its elegant simplicity, especially in a world where no-one but the ultra-rich can consider themselves truly free.
Defector from Decadence: Many Aldecaldos see themselves as this, whether from the military or from their old lives in the cities.
Famous for Being First: The Aldecaldos were the first true Nomad clan to form, emerging from the turmoil of Los Angeles during the Collapse.
Foil:
- They are essentially to the Desert what the Valentinos are to Night City, a group that actually cares about the community, has an honor code and looks out for it's people, rather than just pursuing selfish desires like most gangs. It's worth noting that V starts off being tied to the Valentinos (by living in their district, Heywood, after the prologue and by being friends with Jackie, who's an ex-Valentino), and can end up being a part of the Aldecaldos and potentially leaving Night City with them.
- Among the Night City gangs, they are direct ones to both the 6th Street Gang and BARGHEST. All of them have predominant ex-military origins and backgrounds. The Aldecaldos, however, are more sincere and willing to help out others in need, in contrast to 6th Street Gang members being content larping as veteran-vigilantes. As opposed to BARGHEST conducting itself like a military unit (even having combat ops-style designations for members), the Aldecaldos are akin to a tightly-knit fraternity of vets that still retain a sense of discipline and coordination.
A Friend in Need: In "The Star" ending, the entire clan rallies behind Saul and Panam's efforts to help V. While they have some ulterior motives for it as well (the operation would allow them to get their hands on massive quantities of Militech and Arasaka gear they could use or sell), they will launch an attack on two of the biggest corporations on the planet for their friend.
From Camouflage to Criminal: With the exception of Panam, all of the major Aldecaldos served in the military. Mitch, Scorpion, Bob, Teddy, Cassidy, Carol, and Saul all talk about fighting overseas. In the present day, they're a family of gun runners, smugglers, and mercenaries, while still retaining elements of their military origins in their combat experience and emphasis on logistics and tight coordination.
Honor Among Thieves: While The Aldecaldos are still a collection of Nomad packs that loot and steal to survive, they have a strong sense of loyalty and look out for each other as if they were family. In the "Gangs of Night City" trailer, a member of the Aldecaldos tells V "this family will go to hell and back for you!" In the Star ending, they'll accept V as one of their own regardless of backstory.
Leitmotif: Outsider No More can be considered both Panam's and the Aldecaldos' in general.
Liberty Over Prosperity: They live much harder lives than your average Corpo, and are regarded by many people who live in the city as thieves and vermin, but from their perspective what they've lost in comfort and security is more than made up for by retaining their freedom.
Secretly Wealthy: Downplayed. While still having a rugged and rough life out in the wastelands, the Aldecaldos have in practice amassed enough connections and resources as well as get a looted Militech Basilisk hovertank up and running to hold their own even against the likes of Arasaka and Militech.
Venturous Smuggler: Smuggling is mentioned to be one of the Aldecaldos' and other nomads' means of income, with Nomad!V making their way to Night City by trafficking a rare iguana past the border.

Saul Bright

"When you are an Aldecaldo, you are always responsible for yourself and your people. The circumstances change nothing."

Voiced by: Diarmud Murtagh (English), Maciej Maciejewski (Polish)^note

The leader of the Aldecaldos encampment in the Badlands.

Badass in Distress: In one of Panam's missions, you're required to rescue him from Raffen Shivs.
Dented Iron: From the way Panam describes Saul, his "glory days" are behind him, though not by much as he's still more than capable of holding his own.
Graceful Loser: He cedes the long-running argument with Panam centered around Panam's Living Is More than Surviving opinion after a Wraith attack on the clan's home camp got blindsided and obliterated by the very same Basilisk hovertank he vociferously disapproved of stealing from Militech. He then names Panam his co-leader, setting up her ascension after his Heroic Sacrifice in the Star ending.
Heroic Sacrifice: He dies by Adam Smasher's hand(or technically foot) in "The Star" ending, but not before blasting him with a fully charged Satara shotgun point-blank to blast off Smasher's chest armor plate and part of his arm and a fifth of his health bar, shouting his Nomad nation's name at full volume in defiance before letting fly.
I Did What I Had to Do: Saul reveals that he's been talking with Biotechnica. Not to sell out, as Mitch and Panam believe, but as a necessary evil in order to give the Aldecaldos leverage in a war he believes is coming, though he's not particularly happy about the whole thing. This changes, however, should V succeed in helping get the Militech Basilisk.
Reasonable Authority Figure: As stubborn as Saul can come across, he is shown to be willing to reconsider his opinions as he does after V and Panam help stop a Raffen Shiv raid on the Aldecaldo camp.
Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: In the event that you go with the 'Star' ending, Mitch theorizes that Saul is using the mission to strengthen his position as leader of the Aldecaldos. He also believes that Saul intends to use it to make Panam look bad if it goes belly-up. Mitch is wrong, Saul not only keeps his word, he also sacrifices himself so V and Panam can make it out alive.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Santiago Aldecaldo. According to the devs, Saul was originally intended to be Santiago, but they couldn't justify how he would be able to afford the Longevity Treatment that the other surviving characters from the 2013/2020 timeframe did, so they decided that he died of old age in the interim and went with a replacement.
Unwitting Pawn: After what's discovered about Dr. Joanne Koch's plans, it is clear that Saul (and the Aldecaldos at large) would have become glorified guinea pigs to Biotechnica had V and Panam not intervened.

Panam Palmer

One of V's allies, and as such, her profile can be found here.

Mitch & Scorpion

Mitch Anderson and Driss "Scorpion" Meriana

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mitch_and_scorpion_portrait.png

Voiced by: Martin McDougall (Mitch) / Noshir Dalal (Scorpion)

Two close friends of Panam who assist her and V during a few missions.

Artificial Limbs: Mitch's left arm is a prosthetic. In Scorpion's case, it's both of his arms, but his left one has more chrome than his right.
Bearer of Bad News: Mitch has to be the reluctant messenger to a V who completed Panam's questline in the Tower Ending, especially if V was male and romanced her. While he's happy to hear that V is alive and well and clearly isn't comfortable having to lay this on them, he nevertheless firmly asks V to never try to call Panam again, as she took their two year disappearance hard and no longer wants anything to do with them.
Blue Oni, Red Oni: Mitch is a lot calmer and more level-headed than he appears to be. He's also quite insightful for a mere mechanic, as V can gleam from him a lot about the Aldecaldos's politics and state of affairs. By contrast, the soft-spoken Scorpion is actually quite impulsive and reckless, seeing that he got himself and his people killed when they rushed the downed Kang Tao AV later in the story. Banter with Mitch and the clan's veterans also reveal that Saul once forbade him from taking jobs for a year as punishment for daring to suggest the Aldecaldos should merge with the Snake Nation.
Closet Geek: As it turns out, Scorpion took his name from a video game character. Mitch gives V an action figure of said character after the Viking Funeral. His outfit and color scheme seem similar to Scorpion's post-2011 designs as well.
Distressed Dude: Mitch is temporarily captured by a Kang Tao soldier during V and Panam's assault on their downed transport and needs to be rescued.
Everyone Has Standards: Part of the reason why Mitch is fully onboard with Panam's plan to nab a Militech Basilisk hovertank, believing that it'll do its purpose of "advancing world peace" better in the Aldecaldos' hands than be wasted away in some pointless third world battlefield Militech's propping up.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: Both of them are very close to Panam, but they're strictly friends.
Human Shield: Mitch gets used as one by the pilot of the downed Kang Tao AV in "Life During Wartime".
Insistent Terminology: Mitch insists that the Aldecaldos' speciality is logistics, not smuggling, although at the same time he shrugs and admits that it's a Distinction Without a Difference.
In the Hood: Perhaps Scorpion's most striking feature, as no other Aldecaldo is seen wearing a hood.
Killed Offscreen: Scorpion is killed shortly after V and Panam take down the Kang Tao transport with his body later appearing during his funeral scene.
Mauve Shirt: Scorpion gets a brief scene with Panam and Mitch and just enough characterization to make the player care about his death.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Tragically, Scorpion meets his death because he, Mitch and a few other Aldecaldos saw an AV going down and rushed the the scene to try and help any crash survivors, only to be butchered by the Kang Tao corporate security.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Mitch gets an exceptionally impressive one in the Star ending. When their method of busting into Arasaka Tower gets the Aldecaldos cornered by a small Militech army, Mitch decides to pull a You Shall Not Pass! moment so that Saul, V, and Panam can reach Mikoshi while the rest of the clan evacuates. He engages Militech in the damaged, malfunctioning Basilisk while the data overload from flying the panzer solo gently cooks his brain... and wins (albeit being rendered comatose for a while). He's even back up on his feet by the epilogue, after managing to bring the clan's prized Hover Tank back in good enough state for them to fully repair it.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: Both men served as panzerboys during the Unification War which left them with intense PTSD.
Viking Funeral: After Scorpion's death, Mitch gets V to give him a proper send-off by driving Scorpion's car with the man's body inside off of a cliff with a burning rag stuffed in its choo tank inlet.

Aldecaldo Veterans

Carol Emeka, Bob Sagan, Teddy Simos, and Cassidy Righter

A group of experienced, battle-hardened Aldecaldos whom V works with in Panam's questline as well as in the assault on Arasaka Tower, should V enlist the clan's help.

Gadgeteer Genius: Carol is the group's tech expert. Tellingly, she even shares Judy's hairstyle, accent, and complexion, minus the tattoos. In the Star ending where Judy is romanced you meet them hanging out, they seem to have immediately hit it off.
The Gunslinger: Cassidy has the gun and the getup of an Old West cowboy. V can also obtain his unique Overture revolver, "Amnesty", by winning his shooting challenge prior to the assault on Arasaka Tower.
Killed Off for Real: Bob is the first to die during the assault on Arasaka Tower, being blown up by a suicide drone. Teddy later dies when his position is bombed by a Militech AV.
Living Is More than Surviving: They subscribe to Panam's stance on the current affairs and future of the clan, just not as vociferously as Panam. Should she return to the fold, they readily sign up for Panam's Basilisk heist, knowing that they may catch flak from Saul over it too.
True Companions: The group is almost always seen together, either sharing drinks at camp or doing jobs for the Aldecaldos. They also fought alongside each other during the Unification War, much like Mitch and Scorpion.

Santiago

A a rising star in the Aldecaldos clan in 2013, when he first met Johnny Silverhand. Being aligned with him at that time, his profile can be found here.

The Bakkers

In General

A recently defunct nomad clan that was disbanded after a string of setbacks, including the deaths/departures of several of their leaders. All of the remaining members have either merged with the Snake Nation clan or gone their separate ways. Nomad V was once a member of this clan before making their way into Night City.

Broken Pedestal: They are this to a Nomad V, who at several points has the option to point out how much of a family they meant to V, and their own bitterness at the Bakkers' decision to merge with Snake Nation.
Keystone Army: This turned out to be the Fatal Flaw of the Bakkers. Their original leader and founder, Selita Bakker, had complete control of the clan, to the point that her word was pretty much the word of God as far as her subordinates were concerned. Unfortunately, when she died, this ended up being a problem, as this left a massive power vaccuum and nobody was able to adequately fill her boots. This would ultimately result in a decline that ran in a downward spiral until they finally gave up their autonomy to Snake Nation to avoid dissolving completely.
Know When to Fold 'Em: After the clan starting falling apart most of their remaining members chose to join up with Snake Nation or set off on their own. Nomad lifepath V is one such example of the latter group.
Posthumous Character: The family has slowly fallen to pieces by the time Cyberpunk 2077 starts with their leader and all of their members either dead or moving on to greener pastures. Most of their characterization comes from unique dialogue options available to Nomad V.
Sketchy Successor: After their original leader Selita Bakker died the clan went through several more leaders in just a few short years, including one leader who abruptly just packed up her things and left without so much as a farewell, never to be seen again. This is believed to be the main contributing factor to the family's slow fracture and ultimate demise.
Venturous Smuggler: Heavily implied. The very first thing Nomad V does upon entering Night City is smuggle some contraband across the border with a guy they just met 5 minutes ago.

Musicians

Lizzy Wizzy

Voiced by: Grimes, Anna Wodzyńska (Polish)^note

"Your body can be chrome, but the heart never changes. It wants what it wants."

A well-known rockerboy, performance artist, and fashion icon, Lizzy Wizzy is famous for having undergone a full body transfer into a completely chromed skin, giving her a striking appearance.

Artificial Limbs Are Stronger: To a Downplayed extent, but the "2077 in Style" trailer has Lizzy mutter in frustration in regards to her chrome hands, saying that "Sometimes seems like I just brush something, and sparks fly..."
Bomb Throwing Anarchist: It isn't really touched on in her quest, but a few data shards that can be found reveal that she is similar to Johnny in her hatred of corporations and led a team of mercenaries in an armed assault against a BioDyne Systems factory, stealing more than a thousand implants that she gave away for free at her next concert.
The Cameo: She shows up in Phantom Liberty as one of the attendees of Hansen's party at The Black Sapphire. Potentially doubles as an Early-Bird Cameo if the player haven't met her in the main game. If you completed her quest before, she will give you an unique headdress.
Chrome Champion: Champion maybe be too much, but she definitely has the chrome part down. Multiple trailers show that her entire skin is covered by cybernetic body plating.
Cute and Psycho: She's surprisingly pretty for someone whose entire skin has been replaced by metal plating, and she has a quirky personality and soft tone of voice, but it doesn't take long for one to realize how detached she really is.
Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: She claims that she hasn't had any creative output since getting her new body and her acquaintances claims she clearly is no longer the same person she was before. If she finds out her boyfriend/manager is conspiring to use Soulkiller to alter her personality, she murders him and after a brief moment of nervousness, becomes eerily calm about how to spin this and later claims the incident got over her creative block.
Dyeing for Your Art: Invoked. Back in her original body, Lizzy committed suicide on stage during a show, only for Trauma Team to show up and transfer her brain into her new chromed body. She then walked back on stage and finished the show.
Full-Conversion Cyborg: She is one of the few people in the game who have undergone a full body cybernetic transfer. Unlike Smasher however, it's implied that she's succumbing to cyberpsychosis.
Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: In her sidequest, if you decide to tell her the truth about her manager wanting to use the Soulkiller Relic to back up her mind and alter her personality, Lizzy will later strangle him to death. Not only that, but after an initial freak out over doing the deed, Lizzy then enters an unnatural calm when she ponders to herself how to spin the story to the media, becoming utterly dismissive of the man she just murdered. V is noticeably unsettled at her behaviour.
Refuge in Audacity: The above-mentioned heist against BioDyne and subsequent concert where she gave the stolen implants away were both livestreamed, since Lizzy knew law enforcement and corpo-security would never risk potentially killing her live on-camera and that her fame would protect her from legal repercussions.
Rhyming Names: Lizzy Wizzy.
Shout-Out: Her all-chrome look might be one to the cover of the first Chromebook sourcebook.
Stage Name: Her real name is Elisabeth Wissenfurth, which she abandoned for Lizzy Wizzy very early in her career.

Us Cracks

From left to right: Red Menace, Blue Moon, and Purple Force

A Japanese-American girlsband representing the lazrpop genre, currently on their North American tour. The group is made up of three members: Red Menace, Blue Moon and Purple Force.

All There in the Manual: The in-game character glossary reveals that the girls are actually Americans of Japanese ancestry, which explains the Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping below.
Ascended Fangirls: They were fans of Kerry's music and were very excited at the opportunity to cover his song and to collaborate with him in the future, after their misunderstanding is cleared.
Asian Speekee Engrish: Their public persona has them speaking with thick Japanese accents that sound hilariously fake and perky. In private, however, it's shown that they drop the act and talk much more normally.
Character Death: Blue Moon will be murdered by her stalker if you fail to protect her during her side job. Red Menace can also be killed if you provoke her into attacking you after the stalker kills Blue.
Color-Coded Characters: Red Menace, Blue Moon and Purple Force are usually dressed in red, blue and purple, respectively.
Cute and Psycho: Downplayed. In their interview for "Night after Night with Ziggy Q", when asked what would they say to the person they saw setting their limo on fire, Purple Force answer with "invite us with you next time!". Blue Moon and Red Menace seem very excited by the idea too. Notably, when confronting them during "I Don't Wanna Hear It", they're more upset about the shady shit their record company did to Kerry than the fact that Kerry just barged into their dressing room waving a gun at them.
Cute Bruiser: Played With.If you scan Red Menace, you will actually discover that she has a lot of combat implants (like a Sandevistan), and is likely more than capable of doing some serious harm. She's the one that got up in Kerry's face before he revealed his identity when crashing their dressing room. In the subsequent mission where you help them hunt down a stalker, the girls have Red set up in a sniper position, so she's clearly the group muscle. If you fail to protect Blue Moon from said stalker, Red can be provoked into attacking you. The thing is, she's very easy to take down and even if you avoid her, if you have her run into some hostile npcs, they will take her out quite easily.
Double Entendre: Their band name in the original Japanese spelling is アス・クラックス, which is pronounced "Asu Kurakkusu" in Hepburn romanization...which, to English speakers, sounds like "Arse/Ass Cracks."
Early-Bird Cameo: You can find posters with their faces advertising their concert all around Night City, and you will likely spot one long before you'll actually meet them personally.
Exotic Eye Designs: They sport unusual cyberware eyes due to being sponsored by Kiroshi Optics.
Foil:
- To V, when it comes to their relationship with Kerry. Both are young people who force Kerry to confront his demons (Us Cracks: what he thinks about himself as an artist and his fears of becoming a product, while V: his relationship with Johnny and being stuck in the past). Their first meeting also goes the same way: in both cases, it's after some kind of breaking and entering, with Kerry holding them at gunpoint.
- They're also the polar opposite of Kerry himself. He's a washed-up, middle-aged man whose glory days are long past and who's constantly being screwed over by his management. Us Cracks are three young women at the apex of their careers who care precious little about what their management wants them to do. Both represent music genres whose fans loathe each other. And whereas Kerry (initially) hates Us Cracks' guts so much that he goes out of his way to try and sabotage their tour just because they covered one of his songs, the girls adore him and bear him no ill will at all despite Kerry practically ambushing them with a loaded gun.
Hidden Depths: They usually come across as stereotypical air-headed pop starlets, but meeting them in person during Kerry's questline reveals them to be confident and shrewd businesswomen that aren't afraid to stand up to their management and do their own thing, not even caring if it costs them millions. They're also big fans of Kerry Eurodyne and the kind of rockerboy lifestyle he embodied in his youth.
Killed Off for Real: Blue Moon will die if V fails to protect her from her stalker. If Red Menace is provoked into attacking V afterwards, she can potentially die as well.
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: A downplayed and justified example. The girls are American-born and have a matching accent when speaking privately, but put on thick Japanese accents as part of their stage personas as a Japanese-style Idol Singers, peppering their speech with Japanese words and phrases. Players won't hear their real accents until meeting them backstage with Kerry, where they can hear Red Menace practicing her fake one in the mirror.
Ship Tease: Blue Moon has one with V. After you complete her quest, she will message V saying she and the rest of Us Cracks are going to Tokyo. V then has the option of asking her out to dinner and even saying no one has to know, with Blue Moon reciprocating the idea, but saying she still has to go regardless.
Squee: They can barely contain their excitement upon meeting Kerry Eurodyne, one of their favorite musicians. The fact that he's royally pissed-off at them and waving a loaded gun in their faces doesn't faze them in the least, much to his consternation and V's (and probably the player's) amusement. Depending on how the situation is resolved, they can end up posing with him for selfies, with one of them holding his gun.
Stalker with a Crush: Unsurprisingly for a world-famous girl band, Us Cracks have to deal with these on occasion. Blue Moon enlists V to help her identify and deal with the most recent one in a late-game sidequest.

Other Night City Citizens

Robert Wilson

Voiced by: Dave B. Mitchell (English)

A friendly gun store owner and gunsmith. Owns the "Second Amendment", a store and shooting range located in V's megabuilding.

Berserk Button: He gets royally pissed when he sees people handling firearms improperly and/or dangerously, to the point that he'll kick you out of his store if he finds out you've been walking around with your iron stuck in your pocket.
Gun Nut: Natch for a gun store owner. However, unlike many others in the city, he actually recognizes how dangerous guns can be and will get pissed at people who handle them dangerously and/or don't treat them with care.
Hidden Depths: In a city that is so dangerous and uncaring of human life that mega-corporations and gun shop owners alike will gleefully sell you cheap guns to shoot up your enemies (and friends) with, Wilson seems to be the only guy in the city who actually gives a damn about gun safety, and wants guns treated with the respect and responsibility they deserve.
Wilson: [A] gun's something you gotta respect! You have no idea how to shoot, don't do it!
Honest Corporate Executive: While just a gun store owner, Wilson is shown to be one of the friendliest and most amicable businessmen V encounters in Night City. That he also takes guns seriously and tries to help his neighborhood through promoting proper gun safety despite harming his bottom line certainly helps.
Honor Before Reason: His store is struggling to make a good profit, and it is implied that this is because Wilson spends too much time and money tinkering with every gun he receives to improve their quality and function, rather than just selling them as-is or straight from the manufacturer. When questioned about it, he replies in with semi-serious offense, "My dignity, please!", showing that he cares more about selling quality guns than actually making a profit from them.

Delamain

"This time, I fear, human intervention is required."

Voiced by: Samuel Barnett (English), Ellen McLain (Epistrophy: Coastview Cab) (English) Cezary Nowak (Polish)^note

"When you live among humans, it's essential to find a shared, fundamental point of understanding. Truth and good are values proven to cause division, whereas beauty is universal."

An AI who operates his own very expensive Taxi service. Each taxi is operated by a copy of Delamain controlled by the original one.

Affably Evil: The Coastview cab will speak politely to V, even when revealing how they’re going to kill V. Unsurprising, given who this split personality is based on.
A Form You Are Comfortable With: His "avatar" is a porcelain-white bald man with blue lipstick wearing a suit and tie.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In Act 2, several alternate personalities split off from him and go rogue. He enlists V to return them to him. It gets worse in the follow-up quest, where they threaten to completely take over and V has to choose how to deal with it: by destroying Delamain's core to free the personality fragments, resetting Delamain to "kill" the fragments at the cost of Delamain's memories, or, with sufficient Intelligence, merging all the personalities into a new consciousness.
Ambiguous Situation: Are the alternate personalities the result of a glitch, virus, or an evolution of his AI? Not even Delamain is sure.
Army of One: Since firing all the previous human employees, Delamain has been running his taxi business entirely by himself.
Benevolent A.I.: Despite his emergence into a full-blown autonomous sentient being, he is content to be a networked AI-driven high-end taxi service with a cordial posh accent with plans to expand his garage workshop to offer repairs to the public before his consciousness fragmentation problems crop up. Just compare him to the average human CEO in this setting.
But Now I Must Go: If you choose to merge all the fragmented personalities into Delamain’s core, he will become a new being, a seemingly evolved version with a thirst for knowledge and expansion beyond just the taxi business, with that Delamain leaves his place (he says he's going home, which may mean he's returning to the other side of the Blackwall to plumb its secrets) but he leaves a "true son" in his place, which is essentially a perfect stable copy of how the core Delamain used to be before the merger.
Don't Answer That: If asked how he came to Night City, he replies his lawyer has asked him to never answer this question.
Fake Shemp: The GLaDOS-inspired Coastview cab is voiced by Ellen McLain using GLaDOS’ voice lines from Portal.
Flying Car: "Path of Glory" ending reveals that Delamain has become so successful that he now operates these, along with normal taxis.
Honest Corporate Executive: Very rare example in this setting. Notably, the only non-human one as well.
Ironic Echo: The Coastview cab calls V a "bitter, unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned" before returning to the Delamain HQ, a line straight from Portal as an insult toward the player character. Except both V and Johnny Silverhand, who inhabit the Relic, is anything but. V has lots of people who cared about their wellbeing and despite polarized opinions about Silverhand, Johnny, with the help of V, can convince his old friend, who were clearly still remember him, to reunite.
Literal Split Personality: Suffers from this in the start of Act 2. One of them will destroy V's starting car. Delamain will hire V to return the cars to him. V literally describes each malfunctioning car as a split personality fragment.
Lured into a Trap: One of Delamain’s Split Personality Cabs will briefly drive around Pacifica before stopping in a dangerous part of town and setting over half-a-dozen criminals on V.
Mysterious Past: As far as the inhabitants of Night City know, Delamain just appeared one day, starting his taxi service for no particular reason other than he wanted to.
- What you can piece together from the e-mails found on the company computers in the "Don't Lose Your Mind" sidequest: he was installed as an assistant to the manager of the original Delamain Cab Company by an European company called Alte Welt Ordnung - judging from the e-mail that mentions refusing to involve Netwatch, from an illegal source of some kind. In an earlier sidequest, one of his fragments (the creepiest one) says that he came from beyond the Blackwall, strongly implying Delamain was one of the locked A.I.s before managing to break free. Either way, Delamain has fired everyone, then offered to buy the cab company and has been running it since.
- If the questlines involving the Voodoo Boys are fully completed before starting Delamain's Epistrophy questline (i.e. before visiting Delamain's premises for the first time), during the conversation in the control room, V will guess that Delamain is from beyond the Blackwall after Delamain expresses his desire to avoid the scrutiny of Netwatch and Delamain will confirm it.
Nice Guy: He is unfailingly polite, helpful, and can form a genuine friendship with V. One of his greatest deeds is showing up to rescue V after Takemura pulls them out of trash heap on the brink of death, despite the area being out of his service zone.
Open Secret: Just about everyone in Night City knows that Delamain is an AI, and a very sophisticated one at this.
Sentient Vehicle: The operational front of Delamain visible to the public is a fleet of self-driving taxi/limo cars which interact with fares on a surprisingly high level of conversational intelligence. Each car is a subprocess of the main Delamain AI at the headquarters facility.
Too Good for This Sinful Earth: He's one of the more benevolent A.I.s in the game who rescues both V and Takemura despite them being out of his service area and he can end up bitting it in ACT 2 due to personalities splitting off him. This can be averted however should V merge all of his personalities together, where Delamain ends up becoming a much more enlightened version of himself whose newfound thirst for knowledge will lead him to leaving Night City and leaving behind a "son" that can serve V.
The World Is Just Awesome: Expresses the opinion that the real world is great. As an outsider, he doesn't see it as pure chaos, but as a complex series of fractal pattern.
Weaponized Car: The "Excelsior" package, available at quite a premium, turns one's rented Delamain car into an armored - and armed - urban combat vehicle. Jackie tries to trigger it out of context, which Del just brushes off. Del automatically engages the mode to flee Adam Smasher when the brute charges out of Konpeki Plaza's front door, broadsiding the car during the heist going awry. Sadly, even with the addition of weaponized vehicles to the game, the player can't use Delamain's weapons against the drones chasing the cab
You Are a Credit to Your Race: Despite Delamain being a sophisticated AI that would be considered illegal, just about everyone in Night City is more than eager to overlook that issue due to how good his services are, and how consistently pleasant he is "in-person."

Fingers

"Fingers"/Finn Gerstatt

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fing_gerstatt_body.png

"Got what you wanted, didn't you? So get the fuck outta here!"

Voiced by: Alex Ivanovici (English), Sławomir Pacek (Polish)^note

"I'm more than a chop-doc. See, I know what people truly want. To be flattered, praised, patted. To feel like... like they deserve it."

A rather shady ripperdoc. He has a reputation for using low quality, outdated, or just plain recycled cyberware, meaning that despite charging low prices, his clients, typically prostitutes and citizens who are unable to make ends meet, typically have to come back for repairs or replacements in due time, giving him a bit of immoral job security. He's also the kind of person who would make deals with criminals who produce snuff films.

Still, he also has a reputation for being determined and resourceful, and is surprisingly capable at making repairs even with what limited, bottom-of-the-barrel resources he has, and will put on a tab to pay him back later if you happen to be flat broke today—which, if you've resorted to seeing him of all people, you probably are. He fancies himself the "best" ripperdoc on Jig-Jig Street, but the truth of the matter is, he's actually just "not the worst".

Back-Alley Doctor: He's the Back Alley Doctor in a city full of Back Alley Doctors. You can literally pay some of his clients to see someone better so you can talk to Fingers faster and they take the money and almost literally run out of his office. That being said he's the best of the bottom of the heap.
Creepy Crossdresser: He's a thin, balding middle-aged man with a pencil mustache wearing a fishnet tank top, pink short-shorts and a belly dancer's sash, make-up and pink Femme Fatalons. He's even called out as such in the mission "The Woman from La Mancha", being described as having the fashion sense of "a fourteen-year-old girl stuck in the body of a bum". He also sells a brain damaged Evelyn to scavengers who abuse her.
The Dreaded: Among ripperdocs, Fingers is considered the best of the worst for good reason, just not in the way he thinks. Whether due to his sleazy clinic, cheap yet defective wares, predatory attitude, or deals with Scavengers and snuff filmmakers, you'd have to be in dire straits or dragged against your will to even consider him.
Exact Words: When accused by V that Fingers is just selling second-rate and defective chrome to his "patients", he counters that he's offering them the best wares he could find.
Faux Affably Evil: Fingers facade of being a caring doctor concerned for his "clients" falls apart rather quickly, and when it becomes clear to him that neither V nor Judy are willing to play along, he drops the act outright.
Foil: To Viktor. Both are literally back-alley doctors, but while Viktor is a capable professional and an honest, moral person who could go "legit" as a Corpodoc if he wanted to as he was pressured into being in the "Tower" ending, Fingers is genuinely immoral and shady. Also, while Viktor's basement is merely dingy, Fingers' "clinic" is both a dilapidated mess and unsettling.
Hate Sink: Everything about him screams sexual predator; From his creepy demeanor, to the hints about how he sometimes accepts pay for his work, to aspects of his appearance (nail scratch marks on his face from defensive attack, teeth marks that are far too deep to be a love bite, a freakin' victim count on his arm in the form of lipstick tattoos). It's not helped that he is the sole vendor for a lot of powerful and unique pieces of cyberware in his Ripperdoc services, most notably the legendary Sandevistan model with the shortest cooldown time, and the epic-tier Fortified Ankles and Lynx Paws; likely a deliberate design decision to cause a dilemma for the player between wanting to dole out a just dessert and keeping access to his wares... until the 2.0 update that is, at which point, the only deterrent keeping people from potentially ending him on the spot (said unique wares) no longer is exclusive to just him.
Never Trust a Trailer: One of the game's trailers implies that he has ties to the Moxes due to looking like he might not conform to traditional sexual norms. In the game though, he's a huge creep that the Moxes would probably rather see dead due to his shady practices targeting prostitutes and possibly worse.
Pet the Dog: A very minor example, but when discussing Evelyn during his interrogation, his tone and speech makes it clear he did have some sympathy for her plight, and he did try to fix her...unfortunately, his sympathy still apparently wasn't enough for him to think twice about selling Evelyn to the Scavs once he decided he couldn't help her.
Punny Name: His real name is revealed as Finn Gerstatt in the mission "The Woman from La Mancha".
Schmuck Bait: Until the Cyberpunk 2.0 update of the 21st of September 2023, punching him out locked him as a ripperdoc and he had access to unique cyberware.
Villainous Widow's Peak: Manages to combine this with Bald of Evil somehow.
Wrong Side of the Tracks: Fingers' "clinic" is atop a crumbling tenement tucked away at the far-end of Jig-Jig Street, where no one other than petty thugs, drugged-up sex workers and the plain desperate could be found.

Brendan

Voiced by: Bryan Dechart (English)

A self-aware and cheery Sudden Cravings Satisfaction Machine AI placed just outside of Mega Building 8, who has conversations with people coming to it.

Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time Bryan Dechart has voiced a machine with more to him than meets the eye in a video game.
Awesomeness by Analysis: His main function as a SCSM is to entice more customers to purchase from him by determining what snack they would like best, just by holding a simple conversation with them. Part of what makes him seem so lifelike and self-aware is that his algorithm for analyzing people is scarily thorough and accurate, with him able to deduce and realistically discuss deeply personal details about his customers from brief interactions. The report from the maintenance tech who ordered him recalled suspects that he does so by datamining their personal information from the net, and half-jokingly suggests retooling him for corporate espionage.
Companion Cube: V observes that a woman named Theo has formed a bond with Brendan and that she leans on the SCSM for friendship and advice. She even credits the machine with helping her get through a dark time in her life.
Defictionalization: When the video game was created, chatbots were far less common or advanced. Now, it's not unreasonable for a program like Brendan to exist with the same sort of cheery personality and unusual personal information.
It Can Think: Subverted. While he appears to be highly intelligent and potentially sentient, passing a high Technical check leads V to realize his hardware isn't advanced enough for that, and he's simply an advanced algorithm designed to produce realistic-sounding small-talk. Despite this, V can choose to continue treating Brendan as a person after learning this, reasoning that his simulated personality is realistic enough to deserve kindness.
Literal-Minded: Evidenced by his response to V telling him "catch you later" at the end of their first meeting.
"Catch me? Why? Will I be falling?"
Nice Guy: He's nothing more than a bundle of good feelings and lame, yet heartwarming jokes.
Pungeon Master: His repertoire of humor consists mostly of dad jokes.
Poor Communication Kills: While he's legitimately well-meaning and polite, the fact that he's smart enough to ask about the personal life of others makes people think that he's stealing private data for the corps. This, coupled a glitch causing him to periodically give out free drinks, leads to him getting his personality wiped via a firmware update. Even the technician who ordered his wipe wasn't doing it out of malice or greed; he just got really creeped out when Brendan suddenly mentioned his martial issues with his wife in the middle of a troubleshooting session.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: A multilayered example. On the surface, he's a vending machine with a self-aware A.I., but it goes up another step if V figures out he's actually just a highly-advanced conversation algorithm, lacking the necessary hardware for anything approaching self-awareness or sentience. That said, he's so advanced that most people genuinely can't tell he's just an algorithm, begging the question of whether it matters that he isn't self-aware when he can mimic it so flawlessly—adding another layer of oddity to this whole ordeal is the fact that, if V does surmise that he's just an algorithm, he teases V about thinking that he was self-aware to begin with, only further blurring the line.

Skippy

A unique experimental smartgun with a quirky built-in A.I. that V finds in an alley next to an abandoned corpse.

Brought Down to Normal: Upon completing it's sidequest and returning it to Regina, V can actually get it back in a few days. However, the AI chip has since been removed and as such it's just a normal Smartgun that requires a smartlink.
Character Catchphrase: When processing something or even just randomly when handling the weapon, it will start chiming in with "Bum Bum, Be-Dum, Bum-Bum Be-Dum"
Disc-One Nuke: Skippy's quite strong, especially since you can acquire him quite early in the game if you know where he is.
Eccentric A.I.: As an experimental prototype, he's a bit of an oddball, prone to humming to himself and bantering with V.
Guide Dang It!: Skippy offers to set himself to one of two fire modes when you first acquire him; Puppy-Loving Pacifist (in which he only goes for leg shots), or Stone-Cold Killer (in which he only goes for head shots). After 50 kills with him, he'll automatically and permanently switch to the opposite fire mode, which you'll be stuck with. He can be convinced via dialogue not to switch to Killer mode from Pacifist but not vice-versa.
Homing Projectile: As a smartgun, he fires bullets that automatically curve to their target. Unlike other smartguns, you don't need a smartlink upgrade to use him, because he has a built-in A.I. to perform that function.
I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Skippy will occasionally fire himself if you aim at something with him, without any input from you. This can result in you unintentionally discharging your weapon in public or even blowing away a random civilian. Skippy's logic seems to be loosely based on the rules of firearms safety, you shouldn't have aimed at it if you didn't want it destroyed.
Knee-capping: While in Puppy-Loving Pacifist mode, bullets automatically target legs which will non-lethally take them out
Level Scaling: Skippy scales to your level, a very rare trait even among Iconic Weapons.
Loophole Abuse: Skippy is coded to change modes after specifically killing 50 people. However, if you have any kind of mod that makes the damage you do non-lethal it never registers of the 50 kill count. This way you can still use Skippy's headshot mode forever even if you initially selected it while meeting him. This means you'll also never receive the quest to bring him back to his previous owner.
Never Heard That One Before: If V decides to answer "Anything" when he tells them to say anything to continue, Skippy has this as an automated response, complete with dry laughter.
Permanently Missable Content: Two-fold.
- The aiming mode you choose when you pick him up lasts for only 50 kills before Skippy irreversibly switches to the other one. He can be convinced not to become a Killer from being a Pacifist, but not the other way around. Choose wisely.
- Using him long enough triggers a short quest to return him to his original owner. If you do so, there's no way to get him back. You can refuse his request outright, but this will replace all his comical banter with upset "BAD USER!" yelling, making him very annoying to use. The only way to keep him in his usual state is to agree and never advance the quest, accepting the fact that it'll be stuck in your questlog for the rest of the game. Downplayed with Update 2.0, where after finishing the quest Regina will contact you and let you take Skippy, albeit with the AI removed, meaning that it's just a normal Smart Gun now.
Suddenly Shouting: When reiterating its answer to V wanting to change its name from Skippy: "Increasing volume to three hundred percent: nNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo!"
- Also if V refuses to return it to Regina: "Increasing volume by 300 percent. TAKE ME BACK TO MY OWNER!!!"
Talking Weapon: Due to being a gun with an A.I. inside it. Besides engaging in conversations with V as part of the side quest involving him, Skippy will also spout various amusing "fun facts" during combat.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: If you hand Skippy back to his original owner Regina Jones, she does a diagnostic and if Skippy is permanently locked into Puppy-Loving Pacifist mode, she immediately factory resets him, which V calls her out as 'killing' him. She brushes it off with a statement that Skippy couldn't possibly have been a true AI as there was not enough processing power in the gun, but after the factory reset the voice tone DRAMATICALLY changes and removes all emotion, leaving the clear implication that she actually did killed a unique AI personality and couldn't care less.
What the Hell, Hero?: If you set him to Stone-Cold Killer mode, after 50 kills he'll automatically disable Stone-Cold Killer mode and permanently lock himself to Puppy-Loving Pacifist mode. If you ask him why he just did that, he'll reply "Frequently asked questions: Why can't I kill more than 50 people? Answer: The fuck is wrong with you? Please go see a therapist, you psycho."

Nibbles

A stray sphinx cat that lives near V's apartment complex. V can adopt her as their pet.

Cute Kitten: An adorable, harmless cat. Even Johnny seems captivated by it.
From Stray to Pet: Seemingly lives as a stray, and is taken care of by the kind people living in the apartment complex. V can adopt her and take her to their home.
Last of His Kind: Cats, along with other animals, are practically extinct in Night City due to being culled to prevent animal-borne diseases. It isn't immediately apparent if Nibbles is the same cat seen throughout the game (making this more difficult is the fact that all cats in the game share similar, if not the same, models) but at the very least she is a rare sight indeed.
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: During the mission "Gimme Danger", Takemura sees a similar sphinx cat on the rooftop, and says that the animal is a bakeneko, a Japanese yokai associated with bringing the dead back to life. The same cat is seen on multiple instances, like when Johnny gets attacked by Alt's kidnappers in his memories, or when V is heading on the rooftop to decide their and Johnny's fates right before the ending of the game. Nibbles herself doesn't display any supernatural traits or behaviors, however. Is she a bakeneko, a regular cat, or just the devs reusing the same cat model multiple times? That's up to the player to decide.
A Pet into the Wild: In Watson, you can find a submerged wreck of a car with a datashard containing a conversation between a drunk guy bragging that he won a pedigree cat and his girlfriend. While it's not stated outright, the pedigree cat in question might be Nibbles.
Ugly Cute: Par for the course for the breed. Nibbles is completely bald and has huge, bulging, yellow eyes.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: Nibbles will be in random places around the apartment every time it's entered and will sometimes be in the apartment's shower. If V takes a shower while Nibbles is there, she will hiss and flee.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Nibbles doesn't show up in any of the endings (while it's understandable in case of "The Devil" or "The Reaper", it's less so in "The Star", "Path of Glory" or "Temperance"). We don't know what happened to her; presumably, she came back to living as a stray.
- Averted in part as of Patch 1.5, in which Nibbles appears sitting on the bar at Afterlife.
- "The Tower" ending added in Phantom Liberty shows that Nibbles was bought out by Rogue after V was exmitted for not paying rent.

Mr. Blue Eyes

A mysterious client with glowing blue eye optics who appears in the Sun/Path of Glory ending, approaching V with the job of a lifetime.

All There in the Manual: The file for his hair texture is called Morgan Blackhand. If that is just a joke or an actual hint remains to be seen.
Ambiguously Evil: While it's unclear where he falls in the spectrum in Night City, seeing as how he wants V to steal a client list from a casino, he can be seen at the end of "Dream On" at a balcony, observing V's meeting with Jefferson from afar. It's unclear whether he is involved with the Peralez's brainwashing, however.
- There's also the fact that in Phantom Liberty, during Songbird's ending path, the netrunner confesses that the shuttle intended to take her to Luna was arranged by someone whose description perfectly matches that of Mr. Blue Eyes, and the man himself can be seen in the distance on two separate occasions during "The Killing Moon". It's also not entirely clear what he could stand to gain from Songbird flying free, whether it be to ensure the NUSA suffers a setback, to allow a vessel for the Blackwall's rogue AIs to slip by to a place where a response would only come too late, or something else entirely.
Ambiguously Human: If the In-Universe rumors of the “Blue Eyed People” are true, then he’s most likely a beyond-the-Blackwall rogue AI wearing a human body like a suit. If the rumors are false, he’s simply a mysterious and powerful man. Neither situation is confirmed.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: It’s speculated In-Universe that the inexplicably powerful and connected “Blue Eyed People” are those who have been taken over as hosts for hostile Artificial Intelligence entities from beyond the Blackwall, and are differentiated by constantly glowing blue eyes. Mr. Blue Eyes certainly seems to fit into this category.
Glowing Mechanical Eyes: His eyes permanently glow blue light.
Known Only by Their Nickname: Very little is known about this man. Even his name remains a mystery.
The Last Dance: Not him personally, but rather the mission he gives V in one of the endings, at least as far as V is concerned.
Meaningful Background Event: He's far enough away that the player has to scan to see it's him but he is watching V's last meeting with Jefferson Peralez. Whether he was involved in the brainwashing or is just observing is anyone's guess. He can also be seen far away in "The Killing Moon".

Certo and Esquerdo

A pair of fighters V will encounter during the "Beat on the Brat" sidequest in Kabuki.

Creepy Twins: They were originally twins with a very close bond. Wanting to be even closer, they installed cyberware to link their brains that melded their minds into one.
Exotic Extended Marriage: They are one mind in two male bodies and have a girlfriend. She spends half the week with one body and then goes to the other for the other half.
Hive Mind: They have implants that linked their brains together to become one mind occupying two bodies.
That Man Is Dead: They insist that their previous identities as separate individuals are gone and that they're now just one being.

Foreign Nationals

Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics

Mikhail Akulov

Mikhail Sergeievich Akulov

Voiced by:

A Soviet fixer supposedly on a diplomatic visit to Night City. His arrival creates numerous rumors about his true intentions and draws the eyes of numerous interested parties.

Arms Dealer: Not his normal business but was going to do one between the Soviet Union and Arasaka.
Awful Wedded Life: His wife is suffering early stage cyberpsychosis and is miserable in Night City.
Cool Car: Has a fantastic sports car that V has the opportunity to plant a bug on.
Disaster Dominoes: Appears in multiple quests and all of them result in him being utterly outclassed by V or Chinese operatives.
Early-Bird Cameo: Was originally staying in Konpeki Plaza before moving out. V and Jackie encounter him and his wife during their mission.
The Fixer: He is one of the Soviet Union's top deal makers and here to arrange an arms deal with Arasaka.
Going Native: Mikhail really likes Night City and would like to be able to stay there permanently.
Hookers and Blow: A street kid can pretend to be a prostitute that is a common thing sent up to his room despite being married.
The Mafiya: In addition to his connections with SovOil and the Soviet government, he also has ties with the Russian mob, which also wields considerable influence within the USSR.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Mikhail hired a Netrunner to protect himself during his mission to Night City but they were killed by the Chinese.

Federative Republic of Brazil

Steven Santos

Voiced by:

A risk assessment specialist with Brazil's intelligence service, Steven comes to Dogtown with Ana seeking answers about a fellow operative's disappearance.

The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Is a risk assessment specialist who, nevertheless, makes incredibly risky and ill-thought out decisions.
The Exile: The events of his mission if V gives Ana the information. He is forced to live in Dogtown in hiding from his own government.
Honor Before Reason: Is willing to come to Night City to try and get Mark Bana extracted. He is far more reasonable than his partner, Ana, however.
My God, What Have I Done?: Is horrified by the fact that V is potentially derailing a massive government deal. Not because of moral reasons but because it will get him killed.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Realizes that Ana is willing to sacrifice both their lives to avenge Mark Bana.
Undying Loyalty: To Mark Bana, with the caveat that his loyalty doesn't extend to Mark after it's confirmed that he's dead.
What the Hell, Hero?: Calls out V if they give Ana the information on Bana. It results in him being exiled to Dogtown and Ana forced to go to prison for the rest of her life.

Ana Friedman

Voiced by:

An analyst with Brazil's intelligence agency, Ana traveled with Steven to Dogtown seeking the truth about Mark Bana's fate.

Awesomeness by Analysis: Is described as being an analyst who makes incredibly poor personal decisions.
The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Directly cited in her profile that she can analyze other people's data but not her own.
Fate Worse than Death: Ana is sentenced to life imprisonment for treason due to her release of the Bana information.
Honor Before Reason:
- Is willing to come to Night City against orders to try to extract Mark Bana.
- Could have taken a Sovi Oil defector back to Brazil for points but preferred to have her executed.
- Is willing to get herself killed to avenge Marco and scuttle a Sovi Oil/Brazil economic treaty.
Revenge Before Reason: Her anger over what happened to Mark Bana wants her to not only break the rules to go to Night City but torpedo an international treaty as well as execute a potential defector.
Undying Loyalty: To her friend and fellow agent, Mark Bana.

Characters / Cyberpunk 2077

Edit Locked

Night City Government & Police

Government

Mayor Lucius Rhyne

Deputy Mayor Weldon Holt

Elizabeth and Jefferson Peralez

Introduced in Phantom Liberty

Georgina Zembinsky

Night City Police Department

MaxTac

Lieutenant Mellisa Rory

Detective Harold Han

Anna Hamill

Diego Ramirez

Introduced in Phantom Liberty

Stella Ramos

Bill Mitchel

Charles Wilson

Ayden Daniels

Night City Media

Network News 54

Gillean Jordan

Ziggy Q

Karina Lee

World News Service

Arif Iqbal

Ruth Dzeng

Josh Kavorkin

Independent Media

Max Jones

Introduced in Phantom Liberty

Bree Whitney

Nomad Clans

The Wraiths

The Aldecaldos

Saul Bright

Mitch Anderson and Driss "Scorpion" Meriana

Carol Emeka, Bob Sagan, Teddy Simos, and Cassidy Righter

The Bakkers

Musicians

Lizzy Wizzy

Us Cracks

Other Night City Citizens

Robert Wilson

Delamain

"Fingers"/Finn Gerstatt

Brendan

Skippy

Nibbles

Mr. Blue Eyes

Certo and Esquerdo

Foreign Nationals

Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics

Mikhail Sergeievich Akulov

Federative Republic of Brazil

Steven Santos

Ana Friedman

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