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 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
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 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.


 * 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. They stop in a small town to get work done to their vehicle by a mechanic named Mike. V is leaving the Nomad family, and going to Night City to start over. V needs to meet their contact before heading into the city - this ends up being Jackie Welles, who will help smuggle the contraband and V into the city. They get caught up at the border and are stopped by Arasaka border patrol that informs them that the contraband they are smuggling is corporate property. V and Jackie end up in a high speed chase into a Biotechnica protein farm.
 * 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 El Coyote Cojo, Heywood, with a broken nose they need to get fixed. V tries helping out a bartender named Pepe by trying to help with the debt they owe to a new Fixer in town, Kirk Sawyer. Kirk tasks V with stealing a Rayfield Aerondight S9 from a corpo agent. V meets up with Padre, who ends up giving V a ride to the location. V tries using the device given to them, but before they can leave, they are stopped by Jackie Welles, who is also attempting to steal the car. They are captured by the NCPD, who are 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 counterintelligence operative agent in the Arasaka Tower, Corpo Plaza. V is stressed about the job, but still goes to see their boss Arthur Jenkins about dealing with the ESA in Frankfurt. Jenkins ends the meeting by flatlining the representatives. He gets a call from his boss Susan Abernathy, who is dissatisfied with how he handled the situation and threatens to fire him. Jenkins, already fed up with her backstabbing him before, tasks V with killing her in a way that can't be traced back to them. V takes an AV on their way to Lizzie's Bar to meet with their contact. It is here that V meets up with long time friend Jackie Welles, and they sit down to discuss business. V is cornered by other Arasaka agents and is stripped of their corporate status.

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 of the game. At this point, the game follows a similar narrative path.

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 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 questlines, 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 development. 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 them may vary depending on which one you pick.
 * Besides the basic cyberware, V can go through the entire game without getting any cybernetic enhancements.