Players only have a couple of months before they can get their hands on Cyberpunk 2077, but while the wait continues, gamers are left to speculate on what the game has to offer. Interestingly, the upcoming open-world RPG will allow players to experience Night City in more ways than one thanks to the lifepath feature. Similar to Dragon Age: Origins, Cyberpunk 2077 will set the player up with a background from the get-go that changes the origin story the player will experience.
Similarly, this also affects how the player will perceive the game. Just as a Dwarven Commoner would be treated with resentment from other Dwarves, choosing the Street Kid lifepath will likely earn the cold shoulder from the bourgeoisie districts. However, each lifepath will also give the player an upper hand in quests and scenarios as well. Choosing Street Kid V means that other underground agents will have V's back. While the Corpo lifepath might be treated like a snob from the likes of a street kid, that level of status will benefit V not only financially, but socially as well.
There's also the Nomad lifepath, which is arguably the most mysterious of the three. Here, V will assume the role of an outsider, someone always on the move. While V will have a firm knowledge of gangs in this setting as well, they will also be skillful with cars and equipment from life on the road. How this role differs from Street Kid in terms of status is unclear, but there's a lot for CD Projekt Red to work with in terms of story and gameplay between all three options.
Cyberpunk 2077 Quests
Aside from origin stories, quests are bound to differ quite a bit. Though V will remain a mercenary no matter which option is chosen, what quests are offered to the player character will change. By having relationships with certain characters depending on the chosen lifepath, the assignments V gets will likely change. If not an overall assignment, then how a situation is to be handled could differ as well.
And V will have different skillsets featured with each lifepath. So far, Night City Wire has unveiled how this will surface on a social level, but players can expect boosts to different attribute points, though players are not locked into a single play style. This will affect the outcome of quests in Cyberpunk by offering different talking points and calibrating how the player chooses to approach the situation. Perhaps different Cyberware and weaponry will be made available depending on lifepaths as well.
Story
Similar to how lifepaths may change quest outcomes in Cyberpunk 2077, the overall story and ending may change as well. Looking towards Fallout 4 as an example, when crossroads are met in the later hours of the game, the player must choose between different factions. Some groups choose to initially work together, some others the player can hang around as a double agent for a while, but by the end of each questline, the player has been locked out of at least one other faction. This means that if the player wanted to experience those compelling stories as well, they'll need to play the game again. It's possible that Cyberpunk may mimic the same deviation, which could mean an opportunity for nonredundant replayability.
Locations
It's already known each lifepath in Cyberpunk will have the player begin in a different location. For example, as a Corporate, V will begin their story in the City Center District with a quest that is unique to the Corpo-Rat lifepath. Looking at trailers and Night City Wires, this likely means that among the many locations in the game, access to some of them will be limited to specific lifepaths. For example, it may be difficult for a corporate stooge to find underground hideouts. Likewise, a street kid would have a difficult time getting past a high level of clearance needed in an upscale office building.
There's a mountain of possibilities here, but how CD Projekt Red has chosen to turn the events of the game will have to wait until the full release. How much will the story converge and diverge for each lifepath? It's possible that the main game will not differ all that much and could be limited to side quests and skillsets. However, if Cyberpunk does offer completely differing experiences for each option, the level of replayability could be enough to make it equal, if not better than, its CD Projekt Red predecessor: The Witcher 3.
Cyberpunk 2077 will be available November 19th on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with PS5, Stadia, and Xbox Series S/X versions in development.