How to Turn-In a Bounty in Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 throws players into the dystopian world of Night City where violence is a constant threat, and survival of the fittest is the law of the land. When exploring this futuristic city, you may come across lowlife criminals that have rewards for bringing them in dead or alive. These bounties are a great way of building up your cash reserves as you advance in the game.

In this article, we’ll show you how to turn-in a bounty in Cyberpunk 2077.

What Exactly Are Bounties

As per the in-game lore, the Night City Police Department, or NCPD, can’t keep up with the rampant crime in the city and have instead relied on bounty hunters. Citizens of Night City are allowed to take justice into their own hands and can profit from capturing or killing wanted individuals.

All one needs to do is locate a person with a bounty on their head then proceed to defeat them. As the bounties are always set as dead or alive, the NCPD doesn’t really care what method you use in stopping these criminals.

Locating Bounties

Bounties become available in-game technically once you finish your lifepath mission and the introductory gig, The Rescue. Once you leave your apartment you can already roam the world ignoring most of the main quest. It is recommended though that you at least finish the quest The Ripperdoc to get the cybernetic implant that allows you to scan people around you. This makes it easier to locate people with bounties on their heads.

Bounties won’t really show up on your mini-map, but you can identify them visually rather easily. Anyone with a bounty will have a yellow arrow over their head, but be warned that not all that have these are bounties. Some NPCs that have these arrows will be police officers, Trauma Team members, or Max Tac agents, among others. Engaging the aforementioned NPCs will most likely end in getting your character killed, especially in the earlier levels.

To be safe, if you see an NPC with a yellow arrow, scan them to see if they have a bounty. Not only will your scanner display this, it will also show you the weaknesses of that particular opponent. This is quite useful when planning your tactics.

How to Complete Bounties

The method on how to turn-in a bounty is quite simple. Just defeat the enemy and that’s that. You don’t need to call anyone or proceed to another NPC. Money is wired to you directly after defeating a bounty.

If you’ve killed or incapacitated a person with a bounty but aren’t getting the appropriate rewards, then that may mean that the area you’re in is still hostile. Once you engage in combat, your mini-map will display the area in red and out of combat abilities can’t be used. If you’ve defeated your target but the area remains hostile, then that may mean that there’s still an enemy left alive.

Look to your mini-map to try and find all hostile NPCs. They’ll be marked as red dots and should be easy to detect. If you can’t find any enemies on the map, you can try to leave the hostile area and see if this will calm things down. If this still doesn’t work, it may be a bug, and the last resort would be to reload a previous save.

Cyberpsychos

A particular type of bounty that you may want to pay more attention to are Cyberpsychos. These are technically mini-bosses that are scattered around Night City and its surrounding areas. They are very powerful, and will probably kill you quickly if you’re caught unawares. Each Cyberpsycho has their own combat gimmicks that make the fight challenging, but bringing them down is worth the effort.

Cyberpsycho hunts reward a great deal of money and as a bonus they often drop epic or legendary gear. They aren’t as common as the thugs that make up your usual bounty fare, but when you do come across one, you’re in for a heck of a fight. Just remember to save before engaging them, and be prepared for surprises.

Combat Tips and Tricks

The entire bounty system in Cyberpunk 2077 relies on engaging in combat to bring down the criminals with prices on their heads. Knowing how to take advantage of the game’s combat mechanics will make finding and turning in bounties a lot easier. Here are a few recommended tips and tricks for improving your character’s combat abilities in-game:

Upgrading Weapons

Cyberpunk 2077 comes with a detailed crafting system that allows you to improve the stats of the weapons that you’re using. It also allows you to create weapons out of blueprints using components that you can get by breaking down other items. Weapons also come in different rarities:

1. Common – Gray Text
2. Uncommon – Green Text
3. Rare – Blue Text
4. Epic – Purple Text
5. Legendary – Orange Text

The higher the rarity, the better the weapon damage and performance. A great deal of these weapons can be found either from enemy drops or by looting them in hidden containers. Although a lot of enemy drops and containers give random items, some epics and legendary items can be found in specific areas.

There are also Iconic weapons in the game that can come in different rarities. These weapons will have the label Iconic when you hover over them in the inventory. You even get a free iconic weapon, the Dying Night, after your first mission. Iconic weapons can be upgraded fully as you play so that they will always be useful even in later parts of the game. Be sure to avoid dismantling them for parts by mistake.

Stealth

As they say, you win one hundred percent of all the fights that you avoid, and with stealth, you can pretty much take down foes without firing a single bullet. Stealth takedowns require you to crouch down and move slowly behind your opponent then grab them in a chokehold. You can’t grab anyone who has detected you, and enemies that are at higher levels will break out of your holds rather quickly.

Improving your character’s Body Attribute increases the amount of time that your enemies remain in a chokehold, but higher-level enemies will still break out. The Coll Attribute reduces the chance of enemy detection and increases stealth damage by 10% per level. Pair these skills with a silenced weapon and your enemies won’t know what hit them.

Hacking

Another tool in your character’s arsenal is the ability to hack into networks and cyber systems of enemies and interactable objects. Hacking systems allow you to distract or incapacitate enemies from a distance, and are a great way to avoid getting outnumbered. There will be a lot of times where you’ll see bounties but find that they’re in a large group, making it rather risky, especially in higher game difficulties, to engage them head on. Hacking is a great solution to this problem.

Quickhacks are abilities in-game that perform various functions either to enemies or objects. These require RAM to use, and the number of Quickhacks you have will depend on the available slots on your Cyberdeck. Think of Quickhacks as spells, RAM as mana, and Cyberdecks as spellbooks, and you should get the general gist of things.

You can improve your Cyberdeck by installing new ones through the various Ripperdocs located in-game. Quickhacks can be bought from vendors, earned through mission and level up rewards, or crafted in-game. RAM on the other hand can be increased by leveling up your Intelligence Attribute, getting Intelligence-related Quickhack Perks, and upgrading your Cyberdeck.

Non-Lethal Combat

Another aspect of Cyberpunk 2077’s combat mechanics is the non-lethal takedowns. According to the lead quest designer Pawel Sasko, the game itself can be completed without having to kill a single enemy. This may seem rather strange for a game that boasts a violent dystopian world full of loose weapons, but there are a few missions that ask you to avoid killing anyone.

The fixer Regina Jones, for example, who will contact you shortly after finishing the first Night City mission, will ask you to take down Cyberpsychos non-lethally. This may be a bit of a tall order as Cyberpsychos are some of the strongest enemies in the game, but it’s still doable.

A lot of Quickhacking skills deal non-lethal damage, and some weapons can be modified to incapacitate rather than kill. Check weapon stores for mods that deal non-lethal damage then attach them to your equipment. A quick warning though, is that mods can’t be removed once you’ve placed them on a weapon. Disassembling a weapon will also destroy any attached mods unless you have the Waste Not Want Not perk under the Technical Ability Crafting tree.

The Mean Streets of Night City

Exploring the world of Cyberpunk 2077 can be as risky as it is rewarding. Completing gigs and taking down bounties is just part and parcel of living a merc’s life on the mean streets of Night City.

Do you know of other ways on how to turn in a bounty in Cyberpunk 2077? Do you have other tips and tricks regarding combat for easily taking down bounties? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.