New Cyberpunk 2077 trailer shows prologue missions and key characters

The new Cyberpunk 2077 trailer revealed at today's Night City Wire event gave us a fairly in-depth look at the game's prologue, including some key characters and intro quests. 

Appropriately titled The Gig, the trailer opens with a meeting between protagonist V and Jackie Welles, our partner in underground dealings. Jackie recruits V for a new heist targeting Arasaka, one of the most powerful corporations in Night City. Arasaka's got a biochip which, through digitization, can grant virtual immortality. Naturally, everyone wants it, which is where you come in. 

In the early stages of the game, you'll team up with Jackie and his crew - including Dexter DeShawn, a kingpin featured in previous trailers - to infiltrate Arasaka and nab the chip. From the looks of it, things quickly wind up pear-shaped and the once-quiet heist turns into a bloody shootout. V gets away, but he's betrayed by Dexter, and that seems to be where the prologue ends and the main game begins.

As always, there are tons of small but important details and shots buried in almost every scene. We get another look at the Badlands surrounding Night City, we're introduced to several corporate antagonists - including an all-cyborg villain named Adam Smasher - and what looks to be a laser-wielding boss pops up around 1:20. And again, most of this is all coming in the opening hours of the game

It wouldn't be a Cyberpunk 2077 trailer without an appearance from Keanu Reeves' character Johnny Silverhand, and Johnny does get a small part after V is betrayed. He's got one word of dialogue in this trailer, and it's exactly what you'd expect. 

Get your Cyberpunk 2077 pre-order done here, and take an early look at the Cyberpunk 2077 map while you plan your journey as V.

Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

Latest in Cyberpunk
A large, muscly bloke eating noodles at a bar while two people point pistols at him from behind in Cyberpunk 2077.
The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 developer enters into partnership with Pokemon Go owner to create a new game "set within one of CD Projekt's IPs"
Cyberpunk 2077
Despite releasing exactly zero new games, CD Projekt bagged $120 million in profit for 2024 – the Witcher and Cyberpunk studio's third-best result ever
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt Red won't make survival games just because they're popular, but Netflix's Edgerunners anime is fueling dreams bigger than RPGs
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Idris Elba
A Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty cinematic lead endured a "personal nightmare" bringing Idris Elba to life because of his "very specific eyebrows" – "how he moves them is amazing"
Cyberpunk Turf Wars
There's an official new Cyberpunk 2077 game, but the bad news is that it's housed in a 9-foot, 1,500lb arcade machine
Cyberpunk 2077: Johnny Silverhand sits at a restaurant table with his hands together next to a plate of food
Cyberpunk 2 associate game director reveals his greatest development secret: 10 hour loops of music like "Epic Sax Guy" that "gives me insane focus and clarity"
Latest in News
Pillars of Eternity
10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode
Destiny 2 Lightfall
When Destiny 2 "weekly active users dropped lower and faster than we'd seen since 2018," Bungie assembled an A-Team to put out some fires: "We needed to do something"
Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo looking at a giant key which is also a clue
Netflix is rebooting Scooby-Doo as a live-action series from the producer of Supergirl and The Flash centered around a "supernatural murder" at a summer camp
Astro Bot
Astro Bot went through 23 pitch iterations before its director promised PlayStation "happy gameplay" and "overflowing charm," though it did once end with robot decapitation that made "some people really upset"
Tomb Raider
5 years after Avengers, 2 years after its last layoffs, and who knows how long before Perfect Dark and Tomb Raider return, Crystal Dynamics announces another round of layoffs
AI Limit
"AI is not as effective as it might appear": Dev of AI-focused Soulslike RPG says they didn't use any AI-generated content and it can't match "genuine creativity"