Cyberpunk 2077 How to Change Your Appearance

With the release of CD Projekt Red’s newest open-world RPG, players are introduced to the dystopian future of Cyberpunk 2077. Unlike CDPR’s last game Witcher 3, this game offers far more customization options on how your character looks.

As a result, there’s a wide array of choices available to players as they cruise around Night City. In this guide, we’ll show you how to change your appearance in Cyberpunk 2077.

Before We Begin

CD Projekt Red designed Cyberpunk 2077 as a first-person game. This means that, with the exception of some cutscenes, driving vehicles, or looking in the mirror, you won’t be able to see your character outside of the inventory screen. NPC’s don’t really comment on your appearance and it doesn’t really have any effect on gameplay other than gender-oriented dialogue differences.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s entirely useless. As said, you will see your character in full whenever you open your inventory. The game also has a camera mode that allows you to take third-person pictures of your character and their surroundings.

The Character Creator

The most obvious way to change your character’s appearance is through the character creator. After choosing your life path, whether Nomad, Streetkid, or Corpo, you’ll be introduced to the character customization menu. Here, you’ll be able to select your character’s gender, along with a large variety of facial and body features.

If you’re wondering, yes, there’s nudity in this game by default, and you can even choose your character’s genitalia. You can also choose to have your character keep their pants on by enabling the nudity censor. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Exit to the Main Menu. This game setting can’t be toggled while in a saved game.
   
   
2. On the menu to the right, scroll down, and choose Settings.
   
   
3. From the top menu, scroll right and choose the Gameplay tab.
   
   
4. Scroll down until you get to Miscellaneous.
   
   
5. Toggle the Nudity Censor either On or Off.
   
   

With the nudity censor on, the ability to edit breasts and genitalia will no longer be available. Your character will also be wearing underwear when they’re naked in the inventory menu and during cutscenes. NPC’s that were originally naked during missions or story sequences will either be hidden by cloth or will also be wearing underwear. To toggle it back on, exit to the Main Menu again.

If you’re not the type to take your time tweaking your character’s appearance, it may pay to make an exception here. There is currently no way to change your character’s looks once you exit this menu. You can’t even change your hairstyle or makeup. Until the devs add an option to do so, you’re stuck with the settings that you choose.

At the very least, take the time to change how your fingernails look as you’ll be staring at your hands for a good portion of the game.

Changing Equipment

Another way on how to change your appearance in Cyberpunk 2077 is to swap your equipment loadout. Each piece of equipment has its own style, and you can mix and match clothing to suit your mood or roleplaying style.

There are six different clothing slots on your character, two each for the head, upper body and lower body. The equipment that they can hold are as follows:

1. Head – can equip hats and other headgear.
2. Face – can equip masks, glasses, and other kinds of facial accessories.
3. Outer Torso – can equip jackets, coats, and other outer clothing.
4. Inner Torso – can equip undershirts, tank tops, and other kinds of inner clothing.
5. Legs – can equip pants, shorts, and other lower body items.
6. Feet – can equip shoes and other kinds of footwear.
   

Unlike the character creation menu which, at least for now, can’t be changed after you save your appearance, you’ll be swapping clothing right up till the endgame. In fact, there are a few shirts and some armor that you can already pick up even during the intro missions.

One big criticism though is that each type of clothing has armor values, and it isn’t strange to get a piece of equipment with a better armor rating that doesn’t fit with the rest of what you’re wearing. There currently isn’t a transmogrify feature in the game that allows you to swap the appearance of items, but you never know.

One way to alleviate this is to upgrade equipment through the crafting menu. This ensures that your current clothes don’t fall too far behind any new ones you find. You can also break down any duplicates into components that can be later used in crafting. Until CD Projekt Red confirms any intention to introduce a swap appearance feature, it’s best to keep at least one copy of clothing in your stash just in case.

Equipment can be gained in the game in several ways:

Looting

The fastest way to get good equipment is to loot them from containers or from the bodies of your enemies. There are a lot of hidden containers scattered around Night City and finding them is half the fun. Enemies will also drop loot but is rather randomized. The amount of equipment you gain through this method depends highly on how many enemies you kill and how much you explore the map.

Clothes Shops

A more reliable, if pricey, alternative to looting is buying equipment from clothing shops. They’re scattered around Night City and provide a good selection to choose from. Once you get into mid-game and begin building up your Eurodollars, you can stop by a store and find equipment that is both stylish and functional.

Crafting

Cyberpunk 2077 also allows you to make your own equipment through the crafting menu. To be able to use this, you’ll need to level up the proper perks. These crafting-related perks can be accessed by going to your Character Menu, hovering over Technical Ability, and choosing Crafting. These perks are:

1. True Craftsman – allows you to craft Rare Type items, unlocks when your Technical Ability is at Level 5 and requires one perk point.
2. Grease Monkey – allows you to craft Epic Type items, unlocks when your Technical Ability is at 12, and requires one perk point.
3. Edgerunner Artisan – allows you to craft Legendary Type items, unlocks when your Technical Ability is at 18, and also requires one perk point.

To make crafting a bit easier, it’s also recommended that you pick up the following perks:

1. Mechanic – Mandatory. Available immediately. Required to start earning crafting experience and allows you to get more crafting components when you disassemble equipment. Costs one perk point.
2. Scrapper – Optional. Available at Technical Ability Level 5. Junk items you pick up gets automatically disassembled. Costs one perk point.
3. Tune Up – Recommended. Available at Technical Ability Level 16. Allows you to turn lower quality components into higher-level ones.
4. Waste Not Want Not – Recommended. Available at Tech Level 16. You can get back any attached mod on a disassembled item.

The blueprints needed to craft these items can be bought from stores, looted from enemies, or can be gained as rewards from missions or leveling perks.

Clothing Sets

The final way to change your appearance in Cyberpunk 2077 is to equip a clothing set. These are full-body costumes that can be equipped under the Special tab of your inventory. Clothing sets override the appearance of any equipment you’re wearing but won’t change its stats. Clothing sets can be gained through missions and as random loot.

Unlike individual equipment pieces though, there’s no way to customize the clothing sets as a whole. They come as-is, and can honestly be a little boring, appearance-wise. Of course, there’s nothing stopping CD Projekt Red from patching in interesting clothing sets to spice up the game.

Future Developments

CD Projekt Red has created a very enjoyable game with plenty of options for customization. That’s not to say that these features as they are now won’t change in the future. The company may yet introduce more ways to change your appearance in Cyberpunk 2077. They did this by adding the barbershop in their last game Witcher 3, and there’s no reason for them not to do it again.

With the in-game lore of Ripperdocs being able to replace body parts with cybernetic enhancements, having them perform plastic surgery isn’t far-fetched. Being able to swap appearances of items through the upgrade system would also be a welcome addition for those that don’t want to sacrifice fashion for functionality.

The company has a record of introducing updates to their game through free DLC, so there’s a good chance that changes will come sooner or later.

An Immersive Adventure

Going on a high-tech adventure on the streets of Night City becomes more immersive when your character wears an outfit to match the mood. Although appearance options do leave room for improvement, CD Projekt Red has a history of delivering more content even after release. Expect more customization options to get added in the future as the game gets further updates.

Do you know of other ways to change your appearance while playing Cyberpunk 2077? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.