Cyberpunk 2077: Which Lifepath Should You Choose?

With the Phantom Liberty expansion just around the corner, now is a great time to hop back into Cyberpunk 2077. Despite the game’s rocky launch experience, Cyberpunk 2077 has evolved significantly with considerable updates to the performance, visuals, and the addition of free content.

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Whether this is your first playthrough, or you are returning for another stroll in Night City, when you start your new game you’ll be prompted to select a Lifepath for V. In this guide, we’ll walk you through what each of them means, and how they can affect your playthrough.

Life Path Choices

With the exception of letting you start in one of the notorious gangs plaguing Night City, you’ll be able to choose between one of the three major communities: Nomad, Streetkid, Corpo. Each of these groups plays different roles inside and outside of Night City.

The Nomads live a more free life on the roads outside Night City, focused on community and making a living scrapping parts. The Streetkid is deeply immersed in city life and knows the ins and outs of the big players, ripper docs, dolls, and gangs. And finally, the Corpo is caught up in the cutthroat corporate life, trading in secrets and life-or-death dealings with the wealthy overlords running the city.

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Life Path Differences

The first difference you’ll notice when choosing a path is where V starts in the game. Nomads start in the Badlands, Streetkids in the heart of Night City, and Corpos in the corporate district. Your role in each of these worlds is fairly limited to just the first part of the game and serves mostly as your backstory. After completing the tutorial, you’ll find yourself in the same position regardless of which Lifepath you chose.

Where the Lifepaths really come into play is in the dialog options you’ll experience while playing through story and side missions. In certain scenarios, your background will give you another option that can drastically change how the rest of that mission plays out.

For example, when encountering Meredith Stout in the first main story mission, if you chose a Corpo Lifepath you’ll be able to understand her thinking and actions better than the other Lifepaths could. This can lead you to realize that she spiked the Eddies chip with tracking malware. With this knowledge, you can hack the chip and remove the virus. Then later, when using it to purchase the Militech robot from the Maelstrom gang, you’ll be able to earn their trust and prevent having to kill them to escape. Instead, you’ll fight alongside the gang to ward off the Militech soldiers Meredith sent in after you.

Which Lifepath Should You Choose

Although the main story won’t change too much regardless of which path you choose, it is still worth choosing them thoughtfully since it can make a big difference in how individual missions play out. That said, you can’t go wrong with any of the paths, and they all have their selling points.

If you’ve never played Cyberpunk 2077 before, you might want to start with the Streetkid. Since they are the most immersed in the ins and outs of Night City, you’ll feel more like a part of the city itself, which is where you’ll spend the majority of your time. Nomad is another great choice for newcomers that offers a different, outside perspective on Night City.

For returning players, we recommend trying the Corpo path. It is most likely not the path you chose on your first playthrough as you are effectively starting as one of the bad guys. The Corpo path gives you the most radically different dialog options and helps you feel a bit savvier when dealing with the scum running the upper echelons of the city.

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