Well, well, well. It looks like Cyberpunk 2077 is finally about to come full circle.
When it launched in 2020 it was utterly baffling that you couldn’t alter your character’s appearance after creating them—you couldn’t even change your hair style or nail polish once you started playing. The reason, we discovered soon after launch, was that the game wasn’t finished, and it would take until the huge 1.5 update in 2022 for CD Projekt to add the feature to Cyberpunk 2077 that finally let you change your appearance.
And in September’s Cyberpunk 2077’s expansion, Phantom Liberty, you’ll be able to change your appearance on the fly, thanks to some interesting new cyberware. At the Xbox Games Showcase Extended today, Paweł Sasko, quest director, gave us a little look at the expansion’s new location, Dogtown, and mentioned some of the new cyberware you’ll be able to buy on the black market.
“Like the air-dash, or the ability to see enemies through the walls, or change your appearance to lose the heat,” Sasko said.
Those all sound extremely useful, especially if you can combine air-dash with the “fortified ankles” and “reinforced tendons” that allow you double-jump—heck, you may never have to touch the ground again. Seeing enemies through walls also feels like something that could have been in Cyberpunk 2077 from the get-go—RoboCop could do it, I don’t see why we shouldn’t.
And being able to change your appearance, not while standing at a mirror or sitting in a ripperdoc’s chair, that sounds awesome. Sort of like getting a new paint job in GTA while being chased by the fuzz. Only instead of a car, it’s your body!
I’m not sure how this cyberware works—Sasko didn’t say and the footage didn’t show it—but I’d bet it’s some sort of a hologram that projects over your face or maybe even your body and clothing, rather than some machinery that literally reconfigures your appearance. That would be pretty painful.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty arrives on September 25, and costs $30. Morgan got his hands on a demo at Not-E3 this weekend, and you can read about him saving the president and becoming BFFs with Idris Elba.