Why an NCPD Lifepath in Cyberpunk 2077’s Sequel Would Be a No-Brainer

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 29, 2025 8 Views 6 Min Read
Why an NCPD Lifepath in Cyberpunk 2077’s Sequel Would Be a No-Brainer



Views: 0

Like Gotham City in DC’s mythology, Cyberpunk 2077 has a police department that appears horribly ill-equipped to combat the criminal element in Night City. With a handful of brutal gangs running rampantly and conquering districts or streets, it makes sense that Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City Police Department resorts to wielding MaxTac as an elite special forces unit that can swiftly deal with such threats while Trauma Team is exceptional at providing quick medical evacuations. Nonetheless, the NCPD’s desperation has it begging Night City residents to act on its behalf and put themselves in harm’s way.

V is already something of an honorary badge in Cyberpunk 2077 depending on how many dispatch holos they listen and respond to by going out on patrol and thwarting random acts of crime. The NCPD’s jurisdiction apparently allows players to respond to crime occurring in the Badlands as well, and River Ward behaves as a window into the NCPD on a much more intimate level. Players can’t literally be a Night City badge themselves in Cyberpunk 2077—even if they wanted to be—but the framework is already plain to see regarding how its sequel, currently codenamed Project Orion, could turn a career as a police officer or detective into a Lifepath backstory.

a (2)-2

Related


Cyberpunk 2077’s Sequel Might Have to Rethink One Role-Playing Feature’s Lease

Project Orion has an opportunity to expand on what Cyberpunk 2077 did well and that includes one RPG feature it only scratched the surface of.

How Cyberpunk 2077 Tip-Toes Around an NCPD Lifestyle

Cyberpunk 2077’s V is a mercenary who is as happy to accept shady fixer contracts as they are to interrupt gangs and cut their hostile affiliates down in the following Scanner Hustles: Assault in Progress, Reported Crime, and Suspected Organized Crime Activity. Unfortunately, actually being a badge isn’t possible.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Streetkid, Nomad, and Corpo Lifepaths represent exciting upbringings, but coming so close to experiencing what life is like as a badge and not having that be a possibility seems like a missed opportunity that Project Orion should rectify. Most interactions players have with the NCPD in Cyberpunk 2077 will likely boil down to badges pursuing V if players cause the slightest commotion in public and yet it’s difficult to see players’ ‘Wanted’ meter escalate to more than three stars.

Players can hide from badges quite easily in most circumstances, but choosing not to flee or duck into an alleyway can lead to players soon being enveloped by unrelenting waves of Night City’s finest. No grace is granted for tending to Scanner Hustles, regrettably, and it’d be great if Project Orion allowed players to hunt criminals with a passion for lawful justice.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Lifepaths Have a Lot of Room to Grow in Project Orion

A Lifepath where the protagonist has dedicated themselves to fighting crime rather than indulging in it would be equally jarring and fascinating due to its rare perspective. In general, Cyberpunk 2077’s Lifepaths don’t amount to a whole lot and don’t need to define players’ actions at all.

It’s fun to have exclusive dialogue options occasionally appear, for instance, but players can make choices or act independently of their selected backstory. Still, one of the neater parts of Lifepaths is how they land V in a particular place during Cyberpunk 2077’s prologue and an NCPD Lifepath would be brilliant if it saw players having a relationship with other badges and perceiving Night City’s crime in a vastly unique way compared to how they might as a Streetkid, Nomad, or Corpo.

While random gang activity is chiefly left to vigilantes or other gangs to solve, the NCPD is busy with actual nightmarish ongoings and it would be gripping if an NCPD Lifepath included a cold case that haunts the protagonist. There is endless potential for what an NCPD Lifepath could entail in Project Orion if it does feature one, but only time will tell if Cyberpunk 2077’s sequel is even set in Night City.

Source link