This sits outside the game itself, which is exactly why it is hard to find a straight answer about it.

Short answer

Treat it as supplementary. Enjoyable on its own, and richer if you have played first.

Adaptations take liberties, and the interesting ones take them deliberately. Assets circulated online are often ripped rather than released, which affects what you can legally do with them. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.

Where to find it legitimately

Licensed soundtracks are the most likely part to be missing from a re-release. Official art books contain material that never appears in the game itself. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you. Release order and chronological order are different, and both have their advocates.

Canon status is decided by the developers rather than by the adaptation's writers. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. Fan work is frequently better than official work and is not the same thing.

What exists officially

A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why.

  • Credit fan artists if you reuse their work.
  • Play first if you mind spoilers — adaptations rarely respect them.
  • Read the whole sequence once before doing the first step.
  • Buy from the publisher's own store where one exists.
  • Check whether something is official before treating it as canon.

What is fan-made

If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.

Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds.

Whether it is worth your time

Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. Everything below is framed around the current state of Cyberpunk 2077 rather than a launch-week impression. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first.

Cyberpunk 2077 is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of.

Where it fits with the game

Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it.

Where people go wrong

  • Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.
  • Assuming a guide from an older season still describes the current version.
  • 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

Where can I get it legally?

Publisher stores and licensed platforms carry all of it. Anything circulating as a free file is a rip.

Is it canon?

Where the developers have said so, yes. Adaptations produced under licence are frequently their own continuity.

Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?

No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.

What if none of this works for me?

Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.

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