Having the best and most powerful early-game weapons can make your initial playthrough easier in Cyberpunk 2077.
The fact is that Night City is a dangerous place with enemies lurking around every corner. Some weapons that you can find early in the game can give you a massive edge.
They make your early-on missions easier to complete and some of them can even scale excellently into the mid or late game.
Best early weapons and their locations in Cyberpunk 2077
The following weapons are in no specific order. They are all excellent weapons to find in the early game. Some of them are, furthermore, missable, so make sure to read them thoroughly, or else you will need to start a new playthrough.
Satori
Satori is an incredibly powerful melee weapon in the right hands, which is why we are listing it as one of the best early weapons to get in Cyberpunk 2077.
It is a missable weapon that can only be found during the prologue. There is no other way of getting the Satori without starting a new playthrough if you fail to pick it up in the opening act of the game.
When infiltrating the Arasaka Tower with Jackie in The Heist mission of the first act, make your way to the rooftop after T-Bug unlocks the penthouse’s balcony. You will find Saburo’s flying limousine with a couple of guards. Take them out and then open the limo to find the Satori Katana.
The Satori Katana does an insane amount of critical damage by default but at the cost of a low critical rate.
There are popular Satori builds that scale excellently into the late game. The only thing you need to do is improve its critical rate through cyberwar.
In addition to its high critical damage, its iconic modifier allows you to not only leap toward distant enemies but also inflict bleeding. If an enemy is already bleeding, Satori will instead inflict hemorrhaging to regenerate your health.
If built right, you can complete an entire playthrough with just the Satori Katana without needing another weapon. It does staggering levels of damage to armored enemies in the late game.
We recommend waiting until around level 40 before upgrading to a Legendary Satori Katana. Do not craft its legendary variant earlier due to the way scaling works in the game.
Cocktail Stick
Another iconic and powerful melee-type weapon, a neon pink katana called Cocktail Stick, can be found while completing the main mission “Automatic Love”.
While searching for clues in the Cloud Club, you must secure access to the VIP area. After doing so, go to the upper floor, where you will find the katana from one of the dressing rooms.
Cocktail Stick offers a balanced mix of damage and attack speed, and while it comes with moderate stamina costs, it excels in armor penetration.
The katana comes with a +25% bonus Armor Penetration and bleeding chance and has an iconic modifier that causes Bleeds to last longer if the user is equipped with Optical Camo when applying the bleed.
Lizzie
An Iconic pistol that can also be found in the mission “Automatic Love”, you will find Lizzie at Lizzie’s Bar.
When you go to meet Evelyn in the bar, you will be introduced to Judy. You will return to the bar to meet Judy once more, and that is when you can find the pistol.
All you have to do is find your way toward Judy’s room, and before you get there, you will find a separate room on your right, inside which Lizzie will be placed on a table. This, of course, is another weapon that is missable if you’ve already progressed too far in the game.
What puts Lizzie amongst the best weapons to get early in Cyberpunk 2077 is the fact that it offers a good headshot damage multiplier and armor penetration. It comes with a +150% headshot damage multiplier and +50% armor penetration and has a measly charge time of 0.85 seconds.
Lizzie also has a unique modifier that increases rounds per shot from 3 to 4, and when its tech mechanism is fully charged, it will fire five shots instead of 3.
Skippy
Another iconic pistol, Skippy, can be found lying on the street in Haywood, close to Fast Travel Point College Street.
Climb the fence that comes to your left after you see a small white and blue sign that says Tough Morning on it, and you will find this Iconic pistol lying next to a corpse.
Skippy comes with an astonishing +85% headshot damage multiplier and has a 1.2-second lock on time.
Moreover, Skippy comes with two firing modes. Stone Cold Killer (headshot only) and Puppy Loving Pacifist (Shoots only at limbs).
We recommend that you choose the opposite of whatever mode you desire since after 50 kills, Skippy changes mode permanently to the opposite of what you originally chose.
Lastly, the good thing about Skippy is that it keeps upgrading with you as you keep leveling up.
Fenrir
An iconic power weapon that comes in the form of an SMG, you can find Fenrir for free by traveling to the Fast travel point in Watson called North Industrial Docks, where you’ll find the side job “Losing My Religion”.
Help the monk who asks you to find and rescue his kidnapped brother. The quest marker will lead you to an abandoned warehouse surrounded by shipping containers. Once there, you can simply choke out members of the Maelstrom gang. Inside, right in front of the Monk’s brother is where you’ll find Fenrir.
Fenrir comes with a +100% headshot damage multiplier and +10% Shock center, meaning that the weapon gives you a chance to shock enemies as well. It also has a scope slot and a muzzle slot.
Fenrir also has a unique modifier that allows you to cause Thermal damage to your enemies, with a chance to apply Burn.
Widow Maker
Finally, one of the best weapons you can get early in Cyberpunk 2077 is the iconic Widow Maker.
A tech weapon that you can charge to increase damage and a weapon that lets you see enemies through walls, the Widowmaker is extremely powerful and can make any battle relatively easy. After completing the prologue, you will get the mission “Ghost Town”, in which you’ll have to go meet Rogue.
Rogue will introduce you to Panam and tell you to help her in retrieving her stolen vehicle filled with valuable cargo. After you do so, Panam will ask you to help her take revenge on Nash, and you must choose to do so.
After you deal with Nash, claim his iconic weapon, the widow maker from his body, and take advantage of this incredibly powerful weapon throughout the game.
Widowmaker offers a +150% headshot damage multiplier, +50% armor penetration, +20% poison chance, and has a charge time of only 1.2 seconds.
It also has a unique modifier that adds one extra projectile to each round fired and deals 10% more damage with charged shots, with an extra 50% damage when fully charged.
