Cyberpunk 2077features a dense and complex world full of secrets and lore. It has a ton of story to build on, given that it comes from an existing TTRPG with whole books of established characters and events. Overall, the game does a good job of laying out these details in a way that makes players care about them, as any good open-world game will,tying in the story of Night City with the story of the game’s protagonist. But there’s one well-done aspect of worldbuilding in this game that many players miss out on.
The game includes over 150 NCPD Scanner Hustles, small and simple interactions around the mapthat provide some basic combat and make the world feel populated. Most players encounter these hustles between larger missions, stopping to beat up some bad guys on their way to the actual story. But each of the Scanner Hustles includes a small fragment of narrative itself, fleshing out the world in a way that makes it feel more interconnected.
How Scanner Hustles Work In Cyberpunk 2077
V For Vigilante
At the beginning of the game, V gets a police scanner installed in their eyes by their ripperdoc,belovedCyberpunk 2077characterVik Vector. It is this implant which allows them to interact with the Scanner Hustles,picking up ongoing crimes and dropping by to stop them. Most of these hustles see the player deal with gang robberies, corrupt corpo dealings, or otherwise general violence going on in the city streets. A few get a bit more detail, with an officer coming in over the radio to tell nearby police about a specific criminal in the area, but most lack any formal introduction.
Certain Scanner Hustles are more like fetch quests, requiring the player to seek out rewards in another location. However, these are treated more like actual gigs and are distinct from the typical hustles.
None of these Scanner Hustles are mandatory for the story, instead just being little events that pepper the map and only show up when V gets close to one. To complete them,players simply have to neutralize all hostile partiesand collect a data shardin the area, one that explains the context of what is going on. Most players will likely skip reading these shards, however, just treating the encounter as a way to test out new gear and get experience.
NCPD Scanner Hustles Make Cyberpunk Better
Expanding On A Sprawling Setting
Players can treat Scanner Hustles as simple little instances of combat if they want. Part of the beauty of the game is that players can go through it in any way they wish, and if they don’t care about reading the text at each of these scenes, they don’t have to. But more people should, becausethese little snippets provide some great details about the world of Night City.
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While many are simple transcripts of hostile interactions betweenNight City gang membersor vague allusions to corporate deals, others reference known characters or events. One might see a character in these shards reference a fixer the player has worked with before, showcasing how involved they are in the criminal underworld. Others make even more obscure references tospecific characters and events from gigs that the player has completed.
Reading about someone else reacting to V’s work makes the player feel like they have had a real impact on the world.
The best ones reference actions that the player themselves has taken, as reading about someone else reacting to V’s work makes the player feel like they have had a real impact on the world, and like their decisions matter. It’s clear how much effort went into making these little bits of text fit within the story, and how much the developers care about making the world ofCyberpunkfeel lived in.
Even Small Details In Cyberpunk Have Meaning
The Purpose Of The Scanner Hustles
The story ofCyberpunk 2077is expansiveand includes tons of characters, many of which don’t pertain at all to V’s quest for survival. But these characters, like the merc Tiny Mike and the media Max Jones, help establish the tone and themes of the game.Their inclusion makes Night City feel like it exists independently of Vand the player, like a real place rather than a setting for a video game.
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The Scanner Hustles are a great representation of how this worldbuilding can be done in ways that feel unobtrusive, and they encourage the player to explore rather than sit through exposition dumps. They could stand to be a bit more varied, butmuch of the game’s variety relies on the player experimentingwith different implants and weapons rather than enemy variations. These little encounters not only introduce new details to the world, but also provide plenty of opportunities for testing one’s skills outsideCyberpunk 2077’s main missions.
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Cyberpunk 2077
Based on the 1988 tabletop game, Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person action RPG game set in a dystopian cyber future developed by CD Projekt Red. Players will tackle the streets of Night City as customizable protagonist V, who struggles to keep their memories intact after receiving a strange cybernetic implant that slowly overrides their memories by a deceased celebrity known as Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves.
