Cyberpunk 2077 Romance: Who V Can Date, and the Gate Each One Has

Every romance in Cyberpunk 2077 has the same gate in front of it, and it is not a dialogue check or a relationship meter. It is the character creator. Four people in Night City will hold a long-term relationship with V, and each of them will only do it if V's body type and voice match what they are looking for, which is a decision you made before the game started and cannot revisit without a respec of your appearance. Lifepath makes no difference. Everything after that gate is conversation, and the conversations are forgiving as long as you turn up.

The four long-term romances, and who can start them

The useful consequence of that table is that V can run two of them at once. A female V can carry both Judy and River, and a male V can carry both Panam and Kerry, because in each pair the requirements do not conflict. The two combinations are mutually exclusive with each other, so a single playthrough sees half of the romances in the game at most. That is worth knowing before a second run: the fastest way to see the rest is to build the opposite V rather than to make different choices.

What each one wants from you

Judy is a braindance technician and a member of the Mox, the small protective gang at the bottom of our Night City gangs list. Her arc runs through a chain of quests and three decisions inside them matter: agree to help her in Talkin' Bout a Revolution, refuse Maiko's plan, and then refuse the payment that follows. The thread running through all three is that Judy is watching whether you are in it for the money.

Panam left the Aldecaldos nomad clan after a falling-out with her family and works as a merc. Her voice requirement is the one place our own pages have disagreed: an older roundup of ours put her down as needing a male body with any voice, while our dedicated page and our characters guide both say a male body and a male voice, and the table above follows those two. She is otherwise the most straightforward of the four and the most easily lost: be polite, pick the dialogue that treats her as an equal rather than as a contact, and meet her when she calls instead of leaving it for later. Our Panam Palmer romance guide goes through her dialogue picks one at a time, and through how long the game makes you wait between each of her calls, which is the detail this page does not repeat.

River is an ex-NCPD detective who threw himself into the work after his partner's suicide, and he is one of the few options open to a female V. He arrives through the I Fought the Law side job, which needs Street Cred tier 2, and his arc starts with a call after Life During Wartime. The Hunt is the quest that decides it: go to the right farm, stay until the work is finished rather than leaving early, and show interest clearly when the questline is closing. Kerry is a Samurai guitarist with a long history and a short fuse, reached through Rogue's quests first. Take his side in arguments and do not refuse a kiss, particularly on the yacht at the end.

The four short ones, with no requirements at all

None of these four cares about body type or voice, and none of them goes anywhere afterwards. Meredith is the one most players miss entirely, because The Pickup can be completed without ever meeting her, and the Royce decision that opens her door is the same decision that decides whether the Chaos pistol on our iconic weapon locations guide exists in your save. Rogue is the queen of the solos and the best fixer in the city, and the route to her runs through being decent to Johnny Silverhand at his own grave, which is a strange sentence and an accurate one.

Joytoys, the only romance with a price tag

Night City also sells the transaction outright. Joytoys work Jig-Jig Street, two of them are available from the opening hours at around a thousand eddies a session, and two more open at the Dark Matter Club after the Off the Leash side job, at three thousand. It is the clearest example of the rule our main Cyberpunk 2077 guide is built on, which is that everything in this city is billed to you in one of four currencies, and this particular one takes eddies where the four above take hours.

Does Phantom Liberty add any romances?

No. The expansion introduces a cast of new characters and none of them is available, and it makes almost no difference to the romances already running in the base game. What it does add is a handful of extra dialogue options and cutscenes with the existing partners. Our Phantom Liberty review treats that as a missed opportunity for a different reason: the expansion asks you to risk your life for people it never gives time to develop, and a romance would at least have forced the issue.

The characters themselves, and the timing that each of them turns on, are handled on our Cyberpunk 2077 characters guide.

FAQ

Who can V romance in Cyberpunk 2077?

Four long-term: Judy, Panam, River and Kerry, each gated on body type and voice. Four short ones with no requirements: Meredith Stout, Rogue, Alt Cunningham and Ruby Collins.

Can you romance two characters at once?

Yes, within a pair. A female V can hold Judy and River together, and a male V can hold Panam and Kerry, because the requirements in each pair do not conflict.

Does lifepath affect romance in Cyberpunk 2077?

No. Lifepath has no bearing on who will date V. Body type, voice and the choices you make inside each character's quests are what decide it.

Are there romances in Phantom Liberty?

None of the new characters is romanceable. The expansion adds a few extra dialogue options and cutscenes with the base game partners and nothing more.