V (character)

"You are V, a cyberpunk. In a world of cyber enhanced street warriors, tech-savvy netrunners and corporate life-hackers, today is your first step to becoming an urban legend."

- CD Projekt Red

V is the player controlled protagonist of the upcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077. V's gender, appearance, skills and history are all customizable and have an impact on the story.

Birth Record and Background Check
This part of Cyberpunk 2077 is a deep character customization system. The process starts with the player either selecting a preset character or creating a custom character. When creating a custom character, the player can select a gender and customize their character; customization can include depictions of breasts, buttocks, and genitalia, as well as various sizes and combinations of genitals. Options also include picking between a male or female sounding voice, while also adjusting the pitch.

Lifepath History
The player then selects V's Lifepath history, by choosing Nomad, Street Kid, or Corporate.

Each lifepath will start in a different starting location in Night City and V will be in a different place in life overall. V will have a different introductory questline, and equipment which will be strongly be connected to your specific origin story and will be introduced to the characters differently. Lifepaths will stretch the entirety of the game, and not only will it open up different dialogue options like previously stated, but you will also unlock specific side quests based off your Lifepath. After the intro questlines are completed, they then lead into a compilation cutscene of Jackie and V sticking together for a while doing jobs before it reaches the starting point in the game. At this point the game follows a similar narrative path.
 * Nomad: "Roaming the Badlands, looting scrapyards, raiding fuel depots – life on the road wasn’t easy, But growing up in a nomad clan has its perks. Honesty, integrity and a love of freedom – qualities that few in Night City possess and no amount of money can buy."
 * V starts outside of Night City in the Badlands and stops to get some vehicle work done in a small town by a mechanic named Mike. V needs to smuggle something into the City. Before leaving V is stopped by Sheriff Roland and questioned on why he is in their town. V needs to meet his/her contact before heading into the city, this ends up being Jackie Welles who has the smuggled goods. They get caught up at the border and get in a high speed chase with Arasaka troops chasing them.
 * Street Kid: "They say if you wanna understand the streets, you gotta live 'em. Gangs, fixers, dolls, small-time pushers – you were raised by them all. Down here the law of the jungle dictates the weak serve the strong – the only law in Night City you have yet to break."
 * V starts out in a bar with a broken nose needing to get it fixed. V tries helping out a person at the local bar by trying to help with their debt they own to a new Fixer in town. The Fixer then tasks V to steal a specific car from a corpo agent. Later V is told by Kirk Sawyer to steal a Rayfield car with the device given to him/her, before leaving V is stopped by Jackie Welles who is also attempting to steal the car. The NCPD capture them and then ordered by Kaoru Fujioka to dispose of them.
 * Corporate: "Few leave the corporate world with their lives – fewer still with their souls intact. You’ve been there – you’ve bent the rules, exploited secrets and weaponized information. There’s no such thing as fair game. Only winners and losers."
 * V starts out as an Arasaka corporate agent in the Arasaka Tower. V is then tasked by their boss Arthur Jenkins to take out Susan Abernathy and takes an AV on their way to Lizzie's Bar run by the Mox. The AV lands on the roof and V is cornered by punks, which then prompts V to beat them up and continue to the bar. Here V meets up with long time friend Jackie Welles as they sit down to discuss business. V then gets cornered by other Arasaka agents and gets stripped of his/her corporate cyberware. Jackie than decides to help V out afterwards.

Biometric Scan
In the Biometric Scan the player can modify V's face through presets.

Quotes

 * "Talkin' about somebody else, Jack. I'm cleaner than a cunt at a convent."

Development
The character of V was unveiled at the E3 2018 show where CD Projekt Red developers revealed the game for the first time since 2013. Players are going to find themselves in the role of V, an up and coming cyberpunk in Night City. Rather than having a pre-defined character, similar to Geralt of Rivia from the Witcher franchise, CDPR elected to allow players to define their own character.

V will be the handle that all NPCs will refer the player character as, but players will be able to name V with a first and last name. Players will also be able to choose their future path with multiple branching quest-lines as well as flesh out their life-story (major life event, their reason for going to Night City, etc.) furthering the immersion and role-playing aspects. A broad skill system means that there are no traditional classes, so players are free to experiment with abilities and perks.

Trivia

 * Male V went through multiple redesigns over the course of the develop, by looking at the various trailers and gameplay footage you can see each new design CDPR went with for that time.
 * CDPR designed the game so that the game's content and gameplay experience would be identical for both genders. However, V's dialogue, mannerisms, and how others treat V may vary depending on which one you pick.
 * Besides the basic cyberware, V can go through the entire game without getting any cybernetic enhancements.