Cyberpunk 2077 just received a final hurrah via an update that added a number of fixes and new features, such as a working metro system. The new transit system lets V experience a bit more of pedestrian life in Night City, including a few random events on the train. One such event is a recreation of a well-known meme starring Keanu Reeves in a very sad (but relatable) pose.
Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate
The meme in question is known as “Sad Keanu,” and it features actor Keanu Reeves (who plays Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2077) chilling on a bench somewhere, casually eating some food while staring at the ground with a wistful expression. The original image was taken sometime around 2010 by photographer Ron Asadorian, and has since gone on to be a frequent image shared around the internet.
How to find the ‘Sad Keanu’ meme in Cyberpunk 2077
To find sad Keanu/sad Johnny, you need to update your game to version 2.1. After that, head to one of the newly opened metro stations (they are purple icons on the game’s map). At the metro, you have a choice of fast travel, or a first-person trip on the game’s metro system. Choose the latter by clicking “Ride metro.”
After a quick glitched-out screen, you’ll take a seat on the metro and can look out the window as you traverse Night City. Alas, you can’t get up and walk around in the train.
Sad Keanu is one of at least two randomly occurring events that can occur on the train (another involves someone begging for money). You can just spam the “Ride metro” option until you find him. Once you find him, you can just watch him sulk there, surrounded by some origami pigeons, sandwich in hand.
Gif: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
Back in 2021, Keanu Reeves told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show that contrary to how the image looks, he wasn’t really sad when the photo was taken. “”I had some stuff going on. I was hungry,” he told the host.
Since Johnny Silverhand can’t eat on account of being an engram and all that (and apparently there’s no smoking allowed on the transit system), I’d like to think sad Johnny is just sad that after blowing up that building the world still sucks. Maybe he really does want to get the band back together, but knows too much time has passed. Or maybe he’s just lonely watching V get all those new romance options. Right there with ya, samurai.
Cyberpunk 2077 players have discovered a new arcade cab hidden in an abandoned church just outside Night City. This new arcade machine, added as part of Cyberpunk 2077’s free 2.0 update, lets you play a Doom-like retro shooter starring Keanu Reeves’ character, Johnny Silverhand.
Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate
Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.0 update and its massive Phantom Liberty expansion have added a lot of new content and features to the already-huge first-person RPG. But who cares about that stuff? (Editor’s note: A lot of people, actually.) Personally, I’m more excited to see that even in the horrible dystopian future of Cyberpunk 2077 people are still making and playing Doom clones. Some things never change, I guess.
To play this new arcade machine, you’ll need to go into the badlands outside Night City and head south to find a lone, abandoned church just north of a protein farm, which is also a fast-travel point. So if you’ve already unlocked the farm for fast travel, feel free to zip over to save yourself a drive into the badlands.
Regardless of how you get there, enter the church, and on the right you’ll find an Arasaka Tower 3D playable arcade machine.
Arasaka Tower 3D is very clearly an homage to classic id Software shooters like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. You play long-dead rockerboy Johnny Silverhand fresh off his historic bombing of one of the world’s most powerful megacorps’ headquarters as he tries to escape the tower, blasting numerous guards as he ambles—surprisingly slowly—toward freedom. Aside from the lack of speed the gameplay looks surprisingly retro, including the fact that you can’t look up or down, as was the case in many classic ‘90s shooters. The full game is about 10 minutes long or so and includes five levels complete with secret doors.
Do you think people in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe have modded Arasaka Tower 3D to death and got it running on ATMs and other weird devices, like how Doom is playable on just about anything in our world today? I hope so. I hope some nerds have made it fully open-source at this point and created whole new levels for it, too.
I guess once you’re done playing Araska Tower 3D you can go and play the rest of Cyberpunk 2077, including the new expansion. I hear it’s like Doom but you can look up and down now. Wild stuff!
Next week sees the long-awaited launch of Phantom Liberty, CD Projekt Red’s one and only expansion for the controversial and divisive Cyberpunk 2077. If you’ve got an existing save game, you can jump into the expansion as long as you’ve complete the main game’s Voodoo Boys questline.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
But just because Phantom Liberty’s new, story-driven missions become accessible then doesn’t necessarily mean you should play them right away. The best time to jump into Phantom Liberty is a bit more complicated, and based on how you’re coming into Cyberpunk 2077 years after its initial launch. But no matter what your existing relationship with the game, here’s a breakdown of how and when to dive into this spy thriller of an expansion.
You should play through all of Cyberpunk 2077 before Phantom Liberty
I tackled Phantom Liberty with a near-completionist save. I’d already gotten Cyberpunk 2077’s original ending, made my peace with it, and was able to examine the expansion through the lens of it being a new, standalone story that was complementary to the main quest rather than a part of it. I think this is the ideal way to play through the new expansion for a few reasons, the biggest being that it helps you contextualize Phantom Liberty’s story within the larger narrative of Cyberpunk 2077.
Without getting into spoilers, Phantom Liberty adds a new ending to Cyberpunk 2077, and while it ties into V and Johnny Silverhand’s story, the new conclusion takes a lot of characters, plotlines, and events off the board to make it happen. You won’t see a lot of stories wrap up properly if you opt for Phantom Liberty’s new ending, and if you don’t have the broader understanding of how it fits into things, you might feel a little let down by the lack of closure and clarity in those other storylines. The new ending itself is substantial and stands tall as one of the game’s most interesting finales, but it’s best seen and understood in context.
Plus, seeing companion storylines like Kerry’s, Judy’s, Panam’s, and River’s through to the end elevates the new ending, so if you haven’t yet completed those questlines it will lessen the impact of some moments. Kerry specifically doesn’t show up until Act 3, so if you jump into Phantom Liberty as soon as you can, you will miss out on some of the new ending’s most meaningful moments.
Don’t skip to Phantom Liberty when prompted
If you’re jumping back into Cyberpunk 2077 and starting a new playthrough to see Phantom Liberty, it will give you the option to skip straight to the expansion. While that is convenient and probably a fine option for players with minimal investment in Cyberpunk 2077’s storylines, it will make a story decision for you and you won’t have all those established relationships, nice equipment, etc. If you’re really eager to just hop in and see what’s going on the option is there, and I give CDPR credit for thinking of it, but it’s probably not the experience you want for $30 of your hard-earned money.
Even then, though, in the depths of the game’s nadir, I could see something in the distance, past all the anger and frustration of the moment. So much of the negativity seemed to be coming not from a place of true revulsion, but disappointment, of people’s expectations of Cyberpunk 2077 being “The Witcher 3, with cars” being fumbled.
That spot on the horizon, as tiny as it was, nevertheless had shape and form. It was hope. Big games simply cannot be allowed to die, so even then, as Cyberpunk was on the receiving end of an unprecedented backlash, I could see where this story was headed. The world loves nothing more than a bad game’s redemption arc—see No Man’s Sky for a similar example of the genre—and as bad as Cyberpunk had been at release, surely CD Projekt Red, after spending all that time and money to make the game, would eventually spend enough time and money to fix it?
Screenshot: Cyberpunk 2077 | Kotaku
As time did its thing and moved ever onwards, that spot on the periphery would get bigger, until one day it would displace the negative vibes around the game entirely. One day, Cyberpunk 2077 would be good. Could be good. Please, Cyberpunk 2077, you could hear being said louder by the day, be good.
This game has been out for a while. The team is well past the debut of their creative baby, but being the good parents they are, these devs continue to nurture and support their creation. This game, to this day, is still getting new content after all these years.
We were now free, two years after the game’s nightmarish release, to convince ourselves that this was no longer the same game it had been at launch. Two years of work had righted the ship, given people what they wanted. Cyberpunk 2077 was good now.
But was it? I, along with most of you, had played it in 2020 and thought it was terrible. How much could really have changed since then? With a bunch of time to kill on a recent vacation, and to address my own simmering curiosity over the shape the game was in, I spent a few weeks working my way through Cyberpunk 2077, front to back.
IS CYBERPUNK 2077 GOOD NOW?
That’s a complicated question! But it’s why we’re here, now, in March 2023. What I found was that yes, over the past two years and change a bunch of technical improvements have been made. And when I say improvements, I say it like a battlefield medic would, in that “sawing a man’s legs off” is an improvement over “dying”. My first encounter with the game in December 2020 had lasted for around 10 hours, and for that entire time, even with a relatively new PC, Cyberpunk 2077 ran like trash. So bad it was distracting me from the game itself.
Now it runs great. With DLSS working its black magic and a bunch of patches under its belt, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game reborn on my PC—the exact same PC I had played it on in 2020—with even my modest rig able to run it in 4K, ray-tracing enabled, without skipping a beat. A smoother framerate also made the game’s sluggish shooting and driving sections slightly more tolerable, and best of all everything looked fantastic. So far, so good.
Cyberpunk’s countless and often mission-breaking bugs also seemed far less frequent. There are some still there, ones I think are just part of the way the game was built, like how cars don’t appear in the world so much as they’re dropped, still rocking on their suspension as your character first spots them. Or how police chases simply do not work. Pedestrians still walk and stand through one another, like they’re re-enacting the end of Watchmen. But there are a lot less of these, and I didn’t run into any of the formerly huge issues—like cars and bikes catapulting off the screen—so again, progress.
If bugs and weird glitches were your primary hangup, then sure, Cyberpunk 2077 is “good now”. This technical triage didn’t really matter to me, though. I’m a Battlefield 2042 veteran, I am used to finding pleasure amidst uncooperative polygons. What their taming did at least allow, though, was the opportunity to stop worrying about them, and focus on the game itself. Not what I had wanted it to be, or expected it to be in a post-Witcher 3 world, not what its calamitous launch had prevented it from seemingly ever being. Just me, a smooth framerate and the entirety of Cyberpunk 2077 ahead of me.
OK, I have SOME THINGS I need to say that will sound review-like. I played through 85 hours of Cyberpunk 2077, much of it over my vacation, I need to talk about this with someone.
I started this whole endeavour thinking I’d be writing about one game, Cyberpunk 2077, but I ended up playing two very different ones over those hours. So different, in fact, that I’ve had to basically write this whole piece twice, since so much of my first draft would eventually end up in the bin.
The first Cyberpunk 2077 I played was how I imagine—actually, how I know after looking at Steam achievement statistics showing how few players had completed important sidequests—most people’s time with the game went. You aren’t led through the main storyline so much as you’re shoved, bombarded from the outset with urgent phonecalls, frantic messages, cutscenes where you’re coughing up blood, directions to travel here, have a shootout there, and before you know it you’re at the endgame wondering why you’ve barely scratched the surface of Cyberpunk’s world, cast or myriad of RPG systems.
Writing about this Cyberpunk as I went, my notes used the word “dogshit” a lot. The main storyline is the very worst of Cyberpunk. It doubles down on the game’s failed attempts to be an explosive FPS, shines its brightest lights on Night City’s dullest characters and moves so fast that Cyberpunk’s elaborate endings mean nothing because you haven’t had the time or space to give a shit about anyone affected.
My conclusion to this piece, as the credits rolled, was that Cyberpunk 2077 was unsalvageable. Its problems were too fundamental, the scathing reviews from 2020 justified in their damnation.
Screenshot: Cyberpunk 2077 | Kotaku
CYBERPUNK 2077, PART II
But then something weird happened. Instead of being dumped back at my lair in some kind of overpowered postgame, I found myself reloaded back to a checkpoint just before the final mission. There was no real endgame here (the storylines as they wrap up rule that out), just a soft reboot, presumably so players could jump straight back into those final hours and make different choices, enough to unlock one of the game’s four other endings.
Here, with the main quests all but resolved and my need to see a final cutscene already satisfied, another Cyberpunk 2077 unfurled in front of me. This Cyberpunk was full of unresolved sidequests, only now I had the time and space to resolve them. The game finally had time to breathe. It took its foot off the gas, stopped harassing me to sort out Keanu Reeves’ problems and began slowly serving me the game’s most memorable quests, most with meaningful consequence, each one taking me on a tour of previously-unseen corners of the game’s lavish world and giving me a newfound appreciation for its scale and detail.
I met all my favourite Night City residents in this second Cyberpunk, and I think it’s easily the best way to meet them. To be able to savour each little adventure at its own pace, instead of having them crammed in between main quests. In this second game, where I was no longer following a Keanu Reeves-led narrative laced with international intrigue but free to just be a guy doing murderous odd jobs around town, Cyberpunk felt so much closer to what I had expected from it back in 2020. A game about exploration, being a handyman, uncovering unforgettable little stories with sticky moral quandaries. The Witcher 3 with cars, basically.
My conclusion after this second Cyberpunk wrapped, after I’d rinsed it of every substantial (and less so) sidequest on the board, is…well, it’s what you’re reading now. My reflections of a game that is still broken in so many ways, and forgettable in many others, but which is also more than that, so much more than most people who (rightfully and understandably!) bounced off the main storyline in 2020 and never looked back will ever know.
It’s almost as though Cyberpunk’s main problem isnt with its various components themselves, so much as the urgency and order they’re thrown at you. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 as CD Projekt Red designed it is like going to a fancy restaurant and having the steak thrown at your face before you’ve even looked at the menu. Then getting your delicious entrée served 90 minutes later. The food is good, sure! But that wasn’t the best way to eat it.
Everyone who has ever said “just try the side missions, they’re better” in the time since Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, and sounded like a copium addict at the height of a trip, turned out to be right on the money. I’m sorry for ever doubting you. Some of these auxiliary quests are good, but many of them are excellent. A mayoral candidate having a little IT problem is a highlight, as is the tragic and unforgettable case of a cop’s missing nephew and a cattle farm. Claire’s tale of loss and revenge is handled with the utmost care. Judy’s evolution from peripheral quest-giver to her beautiful finale was a joy to play through, and Kerry’s mid-life crisis resolves in possibly the most cathartic moment of the whole game. These stories are well-written, deeply interesting and many of the best ones don’t even need you to shoot anything.
I could go on and on here, and kinda want to, but I’ve wasted enough of your time with my thoughts on a game that’s now over two years old, and was written about, at length, maybe more than any other video game in history. Thank you for sticking with me this long.
IT’S STILL CYBERPUNK 2077
Technical fixes aside—and they make a difference!—this is still Cyberpunk 2077. The good stuff was good in 2020, the bad stuff was bad in 2020, and they will forever be that way because you can’t save a game by patching in a new character arc (or any character arc) for Johnny Silverhand, or turn some dials and suddenly make the entire first-person shooting experience feel even remotely exciting.
I feel like I did everything I was supposed to do here, everything the zeitgeist and the blip on the horizon said I should do when it came to this game. I played it in 2020, bounced, then gave it time—time it may not have deserved if it was any other game from any other studio—to clean itself up. I revisited it to play the game this was supposed to be.
It’s not that game, of course. The “Cyberpunk can be saved” narrative is as delusional here as it is for so many other big-budget failures, when success had seemed assured but for whatever reason never arrived (of course Cyberpunk 2077 will always be, if nothing else, a financial success). Bugs and fundamental shortcomings in the game’s structure are two very different things. One can be patched, and mostly has been. The other, we’re stuck with forever.
Screenshot: Cyberpunk 2077 | Kotaku
And that’s OK? I’m OK with it, at least. There was so much anger and frustration tangled up in this game’s launch, all fed as much on people’s expectations as much as the reality of the game that was on offer before us. This was the next game from The Witcher 3 guys, it cost so much money to make, it took so long to make, it released so many incredible (and, turns out, quite fanciful) trailers, blah blah blah.
All this led to a consensus that the game was both busted and a huge disappointment. Now? Now it’s still a little busted and still disappointing in most of the same ways. There are still huge holes in this game, with shortcomings it will never overcome, but decoupled from the Bad Vibes of its 2020 launch I found myself free in 2023 to just fire up Cyberpunk 2077 and play what was in front of me.
What I found was a game that, when given the chance, could be more than just a trainwreck of a launch. It could also, with a bit of work and a bit more patience, be something truly special. And that was enough of a redemption arc for me.
Don’t miss this mind-bender of a storyline.Gif: CD Projekt Rdd / Kotaku
True to its roots in the genre from which it takes its name, many of Cyberpunk 2077’s storylines task V with unraveling various schemes orchestrated by powerful people, known or unknown. While the main story has its share of corporate and political thrills, few capture the creepiness of powerful forces hiding just out of reach than this two-part questline featuring a political power couple who may be in way over their heads.
Sometime in Act Two, you’ll receive a call from Elizabeth Peralez for the side job “I Fought the Law,” and what follows is a thrilling plot that will leave you with quite a few intriguing questions. The mystery of the Peralez storyline has left many fans convinced that its plot was never actually finished. Recently, Cyberpunk’s lead quest director, Paweł Sasko, shed some light on the two-part questline’s conclusion, revealing that the mysterious nature of its denouement is as intended. Quest designer Patrick Mills, who specifically wrote the second of the two quests, “Dream On,” elaborated further in a tweet; the story certainly goes on, but our role in it as V is fully concluded in 2077. Our choices play out in the wider fiction of the world, we’re just seeing a slice of it.. So, that unsettled feeling you leave the Peralez storyline with? That’s no error.
If indeed CDPR plans to revisit this storyline in the future, we’ll at least have to wait for 2077’s upcoming DLC expansion, Phantom Libertyor, more likely, the next Cyberpunk game for that to happen. Whether it ever continues or not, though, the Peralez storyline is one you absolutely must play.
It’s also one you might wish to avoid spoilers on. This guide covers all the details of the two quests involving the Peralezes; so if you want to unravel its twists and turns on your own, the first paragraphs of the following two sections are all you need to read to know what to do.
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How to start the Peralez storyline with “I Fought the Law”
The Peralez storyline will get its hooks into you around Act Two, when Elizabeth Peralez gives you a call asking to meet. This is the start of “I Fought the Law.” On its own, this side job isn’t particularly memorable, but it will introduce you to River Ward. (You can romance him if you’re into cops. I won’t judge. Too much.) You need to complete “Life During Wartime” and must have a Street Cred of at least 13 to start the Peralez storyline.
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
The first step in “I Fought the Law” is to meet with the Peralez political power couple. Find their car on the map and get in to meet mayoral candidate Jefferson Peralez and his wife Elizabeth for a brief chat. Your conversation choices here aren’t critical, so roleplay V as you’d like. The Peralezes believe that their political opponent was murdered, and they want you to figure out what happened. While it seems to be the case that their opponent, Mayor Lucius Rhyne, died from natural causes, a previous attempt on his life has the Peralezes wondering who might be looking to off the mayor.
You’ll be given a braindance in the car. This one will play back the earlier, attempted murder of Mayor Rhyne that has Elizabeth and Jefferson so concerned. At this point in the game, you’ve likely done one or two braindance scenarios already; this one’s no different. In the braindance, keep an eye on the timeline at the top of the HUD for notable clues on their respective layers and follow along to progress the story forward.
After the braindance, the Peralezes will take off in a fancy flying vehicle, leaving you to chat up the cop you saw on the BD: River Ward.
Give River a call and he’ll ask to meet at a burger place. Head on over there and roleplay your dialogue choices as you wish with River and his colleague Harold Han, who seems suspiciously dismissive of River’s interest in the death of Mayor Rhine. Conversational choices here won’t affect the outcome of the quest.
After chatting with River about the details of the case, he’ll take you along for a ride in his pickup truck where you’ll have the choice of two leads to follow up on. You can cut to the chase and meet up with a contact of River’s or you can take the optional path first to speak with the boss of the person who attempted to kill Mayor Rhyne. As this quest (and “Dream On”) is very narrative in nature, I suggest visiting the attempted murderer’s boss, Christine Markov. This will lead you to Japantown.
In Japantown, you and River will split up to find the attempted murderer’s boss. This isn’t particularly challenging. Wander around a bit, talk to some vendors, gaze up at the statue (that may or may not have something to do with a grand unsolved mystery in the game), and you’ll come across Markov in no time.
After chatting with Markov (once again, conversation choices here don’t affect the quest) and listening to River’s stupid detective logic (that he admits is entirely based on a fantasy in his head), you’ll hoof it back to River’s car to learn, surprise, surprise: people don’t like cops. Two Tyger gang members will be mocking River’s car, turning to threaten him as the two of you show up. If you keep quiet, the Tyger gang taking issue with River will wander off. You can also choose to speak, but you’ll likely end up putting your foot in your mouth if you try to intimidate them. If you chose the Street Kid lifepath, the more diplomatic “Your friend’ll be out after the election” dialogue option will see the gang members leave without incident.
If you don’t have this dialogue option available, you can choose to stay quiet to avoid violence.Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
Even if your V is a shoot-first-ask-questions later kinda gal, try to practice restraint with the Tygers. It’s easy to have the brawl spill out into collateral damage that will alert the cops. “But wait,” I hear you saying, “shouldn’t that not happen since we’re with River and he’s a cop?” Yes, but shh, don’t provoke the ludonarrative dissonance bear.
Once you’ve wrapped up your business in Japantown, you can choose to ride with River or go on your own to his contact, Neil, the owner of a sex shop in Vista Del Rey. If you didn’t get into a brawl with the Tyger Claws members, I suggest riding with River (in general it’s a good idea to take folks up on their offer to drive you somewhere. It saves you the effort and you might be treated to some dialogue.) After arriving at the sex shop, you can speak with Neil about the “Red Queen’s Race” braindance club.
Gif: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
Your conversation with Neil about the Red Queen’s Race won’t last long before he bolts. You can hop the counter to pursue him, but note that the door he dips behind will require a Body score of 6 to pry it open. However you give chase, you’ll eventually find Neil as he’s being interrogated by River—who not once lowers his weapon against an unarmed person. He must’ve learned that technique from special forces or something.
Neil will hand over the information regardless of your dialogue choices. Equipped with the location of the Red Queen’s Race, you’ll have a choice of riding with River again or getting there on your own. Regardless of how you get there, on arrival you’ll be infiltrating a warehouse guarded by the Animals gang.
Unless you’re going in guns-blazing™, you might want to have the Ping and Reboot Optics quickhacks equipped. You can grab these from any netrunner vendor (though you will likely have one already from “The Gift”). Ping, as you may already know, will give you a sense of how many guards are in the area, which is handy as Watch Dogs-ing the cameras doesn’t show as many of the guards here. There are seven guards to keep an eye out for; five of them can be found surrounding the warehouse, while just two are inside.
Off to the left of the main gate, you can find a fence that’ll open up with a Technical Ability attribute score of 6. And, while I’ve yet to confirm if this is technically true, based on my time with the game, I suspect that Animals can break out of a chokehold faster than other enemies. A high Body score will help mitigate this (as it will with all enemy types). High Body scores can also help with stealth strategies as it’ll allow you access to doors otherwise unopenable if you’re not strong enough.
Mom always warned me about those sex clubs hidden in shipping containers.Gif: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
You’ll find the entrance to the Red Queen’s Race inside a shipping container in roughly the middle of the warehouse (again, mind the two guards inside). Once in, you’ll head down a set of stairs to find a hidden, ransacked club. Down here I recommend using the Ping quickhack again on the nearest enemy to get a sense of who is where down here. If you want to finish the optional task of interrogating the Animals’ boss, keep out of sight, use the Distract Enemies quickhack on various devices around the club, and take out sleeping Animals by putting them into a chokehold; it might take a second or two to find the right position, but you can put a sleeping enemy in a chokehold while they’re laying down. Just keep an eye out for the prompt when it comes up. There’s also a decent amount of money laying around the place, so don’t forget to do some looting while you’re down here.
You’re looking for a computer in the Red Queen’s Race. This can be found on the upper floor of the far end of the club. Exercise caution when moving about the place, as there are more Animals than you might realize. Once you enter the office with the computer in question, you can either interrogate or kill the Animals’ boss (assuming you haven’t alerted the guards to your presence and have thus possibly gunned this person down by now). You can gain some additional info on the case and why the Animals are even here to begin with by squeezing that out of the boss via a chokehold.
Once you get access to the computer, check the “Files” to observe a video recording of (I know, I’m just as shocked as you) River’s cop buddy Han covering up what really happened: A booby-trapped braindance did the mayor in. Completely flatlined him. You can choose to watch said braindance, which will result in you passing out and River coming to your aid. A regular knight in shini—oh wait, he’s a cop. Fuck ‘im.
With that out of the way, you have your answer as to what happened to the mayor. The Peralezes were right and will be eager to learn what you’ve found out.
Mosey on over to the Peralezes’ apartment to wrap this quest up. Once you’re in the elevator heading up to Elizabeth and Jefferson, our good buddy Johnny Silverhand will materialize to warn you to be cautious and stay out of this whole messy political affair.
Do you tell the Peralezes what you learned? Or do you follow Johnny’s advice? That choice is entirely up to you. There isn’t a right or wrong answer here and it doesn’t influence the outcome of the quest (or the one that follows).
Leave the apartment to end the quest. But don’t worry, we’ve just met the Peralezes. Things are about to get really interesting.
Not all is well in the Peralez household.Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
Concluding the Peralez storyline: “Dream On”
After “I Fought the Law,” you’ll need to wait about 48 hours in-game before Jefferson gives you a call. As with many quests in 2077 that require time to pass, you might find you’ll need to pick up a side quest or two (even after waiting) before the call comes through. Eventually, though, you’ll get a call from Jefferson Peralez asking you to revisit him and his wife.
Head on over to the Peralez residence. Elizabeth will be at the top of the elevator ride to greet you. You’ll be escorted in to talk with the couple about a concern of theirs: An intruder was seen in their apartment. Sadly, the stress of the election, or so Elizabeth claims, has everyone on edge and the details are fuzzy.
You’ll now have the option to take a trip around the apartment looking for clues. Take your time with this, as there are a lot of clues, both direct and indirect, hanging around the apartment. For example, you can scan the Peralezes’ wedding photo in the couple’s bedroom. Elizabeth will misremember a key detail: the color of the roses. Interesting.
Also be sure to dig through any of the computers in the apartment and read all of the emails and messages. You’ll come to find out that Jefferson is having some memory issues.
Continue to scan around the apartment via quickscan. This will easily identify any possible clues. Some, like leftover pizza, will lead to some dialogue, while others, like a satellite dish you can find on the roof, will unravel some of the mystery as to what’s going on.
There are many things you can scan in the apartment, but the blood is important for moving the quest along.Gif: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
You’ll find some blood splatter on the second floor. Follow that to a room with a broken TV. Use quickscan to guide you if you’re lost. You can repair this if you have a Technical Ability score of 11, but it will give you a bit of shock (you’ll take no damage though). Scan around in this room and you’ll come across a hidden door which you can break open with a Body score of 7. If your score is too low, you can open it via the Local Network tab on the computer in the center of the apartment’s security office. . You’ll need the access code for it, which can be found in the messages section of the computer set up against the leftmost wall when entering the security office.
Once you’re inside the secret room, the Job Tracker should do a decent job of walking you through what you need to scan. You’re looking for a computer on the wall, as well as a set of cables running up to the roof. Don’t forget to read the message on the computer in the secret room as well. What’s going on may not be entirely clear, but you’re about to crack the case. Head on up to the roof to scan the satellite dish if you haven’t already. As it turns out, information is being beamed down to a van not too far from the apartment.
You’ll find this mysterious object parked on top of the Peralez’s apartment. Gif: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
Inform Elizabeth as to what’s going on and then make your way back downstairs to check out this mysterious van. Once outside, Johnny will advise you to grab a vehicle in case the van takes off. His advice turns out to be prudent. Get in your car or motorcycle (preferably a model that’s got some speed) and see what’s going on with this van.
As rockerboy predicted, the mysterious van will take off and you’ll need to keep up with it. Don’t underestimate this part (and maybe save just before you see the van just in case). Once the van gets more than 125 meters from you, it’s very easy for it to completely lose you and the mission will end prematurely. Stay on the van’s tail until it takes you to an area patrolled by hired Maelstrom members.
Entering this area can be tricky. The guards can certainly take you out if you’re not leveled up enough and there are a ton of cameras here. Whether you quietly take out the guards one by one, destroy them all in a blazing gun battle, or sneak in without touching a single person, you’ll need to get to the end of the lot where the van is parked to hack into it.
Once you’ve hacked into the van, get ready: As it turns out, the reason the Peralezes seem so spaced out and seemingly unable to recall simple personal information is because someone is hacking their freaking minds. Their personalities are slowly being overwritten. Head on out of here once you’ve gathered this intel and give Elizabeth a call.
Elizabeth will suggest you meet up at a ramen shop. Looking a little worse for wear, she’ll beg you not to tell Jefferson what’s going on. While she acknowledges what you’ve learned, that someone is hacking and replacing their minds, she doesn’t wish to cause her husband any stress, saying that he needs to focus on the upcoming election. You can tell her whatever you want, because at this point, the ball is in V’s court. And sadly, I can’t tell you what the right answer is.
After meeting with Elizabeth and discussing the messed-up shit you’ve stepped in with Johnny, you’ll meet with Jefferson. Shortly before talking with the mayoral candidate, you’ll receive a mysterious transmission from someone warning you about getting involved. You’ll then be able to meet up with Jefferson and, well, whether you tell him that hackers are slowly overwriting his consciousness or not is entirely up to you.
Might you be putting the Peralezes in danger if you tell Jefferson? Are you willingly participating in the scheme playing out in the shadows if you don’t? Is there any indication that Jefferson will even remember what you’re about to tell him?
Did you make the right choice? What is the right choice?Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
These are the big mysteries “Dream On” will leave you with, and there’s no clear indication one way or another as to the right way to wrap this quest up. Either way, you’ll just be left knowing that somewhere out there in the net are folks secretly replacing the personalities of people, potentially powerful people, like Jefferson and Elizabeth Peralez.
