Why don't we see male V in post-launch Cyberpunk 2077 marketing? The Cyberpunk 2 creative director has a very simple explanation

When Cyberpunk 2077 was sort of relaunched with its 2.0 update and the Phantom Liberty expansion, female V took over as the face of the game. More than two years later, and with the RPG still selling well and attracting new players, that hasn't changed.

At some point, fans of the game started to wonder what happened with male V, who had spearheaded all of the game's pre-launch marketing efforts. If you own a physical copy as released in 2020, he’s on the cover by default. As the game fixed what was broken and evolved into one of the best games in recent memory, he became a relic of sorts. Now, the short-haired bloke is nowhere to be found in official promotional materials. This has raised some eyebrows across the internet and given conspiracy theorists a couple of intventive reasons for the change, but the truth is far more simple than simply some market research saying folks preferred female V, or something more sinsiter.

"Male V had whole base game marketing for himself", stated Cyberpunk 2 creative director Igor Sarzynski when asked via BlueSky last week. The team simply decided to go 50/50 for Phantom Liberty. "One game for each V."

Of course, such a huge change to the initially-troubled game's promotion as it relaunched probably went through deeper discussions than what Sarzynski is saying here. While we don't have the data on the percentage of male and female V runs of the game, the consensus among the most dedicated players is that people enjoy both versions of the character equally. This isn't a clear Assassin’s Creed Odyssey situation where most folks ultimately agreed Kassandra was far superior to Alexios as a main character.

The thing is that going with male or female V isn't just a matter of who you prefer for purely aesthetic and voice acting reasons, as the pick also enables or disables certain romantic relationships. Most veterans agree doing at least two runs of the game is recommended to experience its branching narratives and different partners worth meeting (and smooching) while you try to save the character's life.

We're inclined to say female V is ultimately the more substantial choice since it has access to the Judy romance, which adds to the main storyline in ways the other relationships don't, but either way, you're getting excellent opportunities and voice acting across the board. We definitely are curious about actual data behind Cyberpunk 2077's protagonist pick (and life paths for that matter), but if we take Sarzynski at his word, CD Projekt Red didn't give the official swap much thought.