This section of Cyberpunk 2077 punishes improvisation, so it is worth knowing the shape of it before you start.

Short answer

The critical decision comes early and is easy to miss. Everything after it is straightforward.

A save immediately before the decision point costs nothing and occasionally saves hours. Some outcomes are locked behind an earlier conversation rather than behind performance. Everything below is framed around the current state of Cyberpunk 2077 rather than a launch-week impression.

Before you start

Optional preparation is what separates a ten-minute attempt from a two-hour one. Difficulty settings change numbers here, not the sequence. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. A failed attempt usually leaves the world in a state you can still recover from.

The game signals the requirement once, quietly, and never mentions it again. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. Reading ahead spoils some of it; going in blind costs some of it. Pick which you mind less.

Working through it

What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.

  • Save manually before the first irreversible step.
  • Complete the optional preparation — it is the actual difficulty setting.
  • Stop and reassess after two failed attempts rather than repeating the third.
  • Do not sell anything you picked up here until it is finished.
  • Note which choice you made, for later sections that reference it.
  • Read the whole sequence once before doing the first step.

If it goes wrong

None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters.

The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work.

The part people get stuck on

It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on.

Cyberpunk 2077 is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see.

Choices that matter later

The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you.

Where people go wrong

  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
  • Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
  • Changing five things at once and then not knowing which one helped.

Cyberpunk FAQ

Does this work the same on console and PC?

The logic is identical. Menu paths and button prompts differ, and any real difference is flagged above.

Is this still accurate after the latest Cyberpunk 2077 update?

The method is; individual numbers may not be. If a value on your screen differs, trust the screen and keep the sequence.

How long does it take?

Under an hour prepared, considerably more improvising. That gap is the whole argument for preparing.

How long does this take?

Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.

If you only take one thing from this: the answer near the top is the part that matters, the rest is context.