The Pickup mission in Cyberpunk 2077 gives you a few choices: meet Meredith Stout, hack a chip, or pay Royce the Scavenger. Your endgoal in the mission is to get a Militech drone recently stolen from the Maelstrom gang, but there's multiple ways to reach it and they're not all as good as each other.
To abbreviate, the best thing you can do is to call Meredith Stout, as immediately that opens up all sorts of options available to you, having her advice and resources available. If you want to know what those outcomes all lead to and which you should be going for, here's all the best choices and what you should do in the Pickup in Cyberpunk 2077.
Cyberpunk 2077 The Pickup - Should you call Meredith Stout?
Your main objective starting The Pickup is to meet Jackie, but you have an optional choice to call Meredith Stout, a Militech agent. We recommend doing this, because it opens up more options for the mission.
Call her and she'll arrange a meeting where you'll be punched in the face and end up with a gun to the head. When you talk your way out of it by insisting you don't know who Gilchrist is, she'll offer you a credchip with tracking software on it to use in the deal. Using it would mean you can now pay off Royce to buy the drone without using your own cash.
Once you have the chip you can choose to decrypt it and remove the tracking software before you meet Maelstrom. Militech will notice this when the gang takes the money though and storm the building, meaning you'll need to fight your way out against Militech agents. But, if you don't remove the malware, Royce will detect it when he scans the chip and attack you instead. The latter is the only path you can take if you want to sleep with Meredith as a Cyberpunk 2077 Romance option later on. Either way, you have to fight your way out.
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Meet and talk to Jackie, then enter All Foods via the intercom and walk through the surprisingly fortified factory, before meeting a character called Dum Dum at the top of the elevator. He gets somewhat aggressive when Jackie refuses to sit down and offers you a puff on some good ol' drugs, which you can turn down or accept with little consequence.
When he brings the robot out, both dialogue options involve taking it but after explaining that Brick has already been paid, Royce will storm out and stick a gun in your face, because he's the new boss now after Brick is out of the picture.
Cyberpunk 2077 The Pickup - Pay Royce or refuse?
Note: No matter which option you pick, you'll have the opportunity to rescue the old Maelstrom leader which can help you out much later in the game. Check out our guide on how to free Brick in Cyberpunk 2077 for more.
Whether or not to pay Royce or refuse is the main decision you'll now need to make, which determines how the rest of the mission goes. If you took the credchip from Meredith – or you've got 10k eddies banked already – you can pay Royce for the robot. If you use the chip, Royce will scan it - if you've decrypted it and removed the tracking software he's satisfied and lets you leave. However, right as you're about to go, Militech starts rolling into the factory to take control and wipe out Maelstrom. You need to fight your way out against Militech, with Maelstrom helping you. When you leave a character called Gilchrist will be at the exit to greet you, and you'll need to explain why you've just killed loads of Militech agents.
Alternatively, if you don't decrypt the credchip, Royce will discover the malware when he uses it, and you'll need to fight your way out against Maelstrom instead of Militech. This has two effects; the first is that Royce will now be a boss fight at the end of the mission because you didn't kill him in the room at the start. The other effect is that Meredith will be waiting for you at the exit instead. If you didn't hack the chip and went along with her plan to pay Royce with it, she'll suggest working together again in the future, which can eventually lead to a the romance option we mentioned.
There is a third option which is, when you're given the option to draw your gun against Royce in the room with the robot, you can kill him there and then. Of course, you'll have a lot of Maelstrom enemies to kill, but that way you do get to keep both your cash and the robot. This is the only option other than paying for the robot with your own cash if you don't go and meet Meredith in the first place, because you won't have the credchip.
There's basically no way to finish The Pickup peacefully in Cyberpunk 2077, but you can at least choose who to side with.
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