How to create and customize your character in Cyberpunk 2077

Curious as to how far Cyberpunk 2077's character customization lets you go? It's no surprise that CD Project Red's huge RPG offers a detailed character creation system. There are lots of aspects to browse as you make adjustments to V, from tweaking their appearance, to fine tuning their perks and attributes. Then there are Cyberware implants to consider, which grant you even more useful abilities.

Customizing V's look and skills extends further into their past, too. So, you'll also need to pick a Cyberpunk 2077 lifepath to establish their backstory. There are plenty of ways to make V feel like the perfect character for you. Here's everything you need to know about character customization in Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk 2077 character customization: What are the possibilities?

Appearance and body type

Cyberpunk 2077's character creation is very deep, allowing us to adjust tiny aspects of V's appearance, spanning their face, hair, scars, and more. Looking at the options shown so far for just the character's face alone, we'll be able to adjust their skin tones, nose, mouth, jaw, ears, and eyes using sliders. There will also be presets to choose between if you just want to jump straight into the game. Here are all the appearance options we spotted in the most recent Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay trailer:

• Voice tone
• Skin tone
• Skin type
• Hairstyle
• Hair colour
• Eyes
• Eye colour
• Ears
• Beard, including beard style and colour
• Cyberware
• Facial scars
• Facial tattoos
• Piercings
• Piercing colour
• Teeth
• Eye makeup
• Eye makeup colour

CD Projekt Red don't want to give away all the surprises, so we may see even more customisation options when Cyberpunk launches. However, we know that it gets even more granular, thanks to recent news outlining that we'll be able to customize our teeth and fingernails, including the length and colour of them.

Earlier this year we learned that Cyberpunk 2077 features customizable genitals. The ESRB's ratings summary mentioned that "Players can select a gender and customise their character; customisation can include depictions of breasts, buttocks, and genitalia, as well as various sizes and combinations of genitals." As reported last August, the character creator has also dropped male and female options in favor of body type.

Cyberware

One of the most interesting customisation options is Cyberware, which covers the implants you can use to gain special abilities. There are lots of slots to fill across V's body, and the Cyberware items span different rarities, with some taking up more room on your character. There's a selection of active and passive implants, as well as some that will trigger at specific times, e.g. when your health is low.

Here are the Cyberware implants that have been revealed so far: 

• Blood Pump: Improves healing. Installed in the cardiovascular system.
• Gorilla Arms/Hands: Improves your melee strength. Installed in V's hands.
• Kerenzikov: Temporary slow motion after dodging an enemy’s attack.
• Mantis Blade: Adds blades to V’s forearms. 
• Micro-rotors: Increases speed and precision. Installed in the nervous system.
• Monowire: A fiber optic wire that can be used to slice through enemies. Installed in V's arm.
• Raven Microcyber MK.4: Allows you to perform quickhacks on targets and devices while scanning. 
• Reflex Tuners: Triggers slow motion once your health falls below a certain level.
• Synlungs: Improves endurance regeneration. Installed in the cardiovascular system.

There will be more cyberware implants available at launch, but I like the sound of Synlungs and Blood Pump as they improve healing and endurance. While these aren't the flashiest implants, I think they'll be valuable early on before I have the chance to level up V's skills.

Attributes and perks

Attributes are the categories in which you can invest skill points. Each attribute also has a specific set of perks, which allow you to focus on using certain weapons, crafting, engineering, and more. Here are the core attributes your character can start the game with in Cyberpunk 2077 and some of their related perks:

• Body: Physical strength. Investing points in this attribute allow you to upgrade your health, stamina, and melee damage.
• Intelligence: Assigning points to this category makes hacking easier.
• Reflexes: Improves your speed and agility. Spend points here to increase your attack speed and evasiveness. This also influences your effectiveness with blades, handguns, and rifles.  
• Technical: Upgrading this attribute allows you to upgrade your armor and body modifications. It also includes engineering and crafting, as well as increasing your chances of finding loot.
• Cool: This is all about keeping your, well, cool. Upgrading this stat results makes you more stealthy and improves your effect resistance. It also encompasses V's abilities to persuade others to do things, for example, by intimidating them.