A member of Cyberpunk 2077’s development team has explained why Male V was largely absent from later promotional material for the game, saying the decision was a deliberate shift rather than an oversight.
CD Projekt RED creative director Igor Sarzynski provided insight on the topic while answering fan questions about Cyberpunk 2077’s opening act, responding directly to a user who asked why Male V stopped appearing in marketing beyond the game’s initial release.
“Male V had whole base game marketing for himself – for Phantom Liberty, we decided to switch it up. One game for each V,” Sarzynski said.
@srznsk.bsky.social I've got a question for you: Why has male V been left out of all promotions, after the initial ones, and crossovers?
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Male V had whole base game marketing for himself – for PL we decided to switch it up. One game for each V 🙂
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Other than Cyberpunk 2077 itself, Male V has taken a backseat to his counterpart elsewhere, too. Most notably, only Female V was added to Fortnite as part of its collaboration, alongside Johnny Silverhand.
Act 1 behind the scenes
The comment came as part of a broader conversation about Cybperunk 2077’s first act, specifically regarding its structure. Sarzynski pushed back on the idea that the opening should have been longer, arguing that extending the pre-heist section would have hurt the pacing rather than improved it.
“So would extending Act 1 (before the heist) in CP77 make the game better?” he wrote. “No it wouldn’t. It’s like saying we should spend more time on Tatooine with farmer Luke before he got involved with all this Jedi stuff.”
He also noted that players already controlled the pace early on, with some spending dozens of hours in the district of Watson if they choose. “It’s an open world game, some manage to squeeze 20h out of Watson. Pick your own pace,” Sarzynski said, adding that prolonging a section built around the vague goal of “get to the top” would risk creating a meandering experience without clear stakes.
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Sarzynski also reiterated that the early-game montage was not removed content. “No, half-year montage is not cut content. We always planned it like this,” he said, framing both the story structure and marketing decisions as intentional parts of the game’s design rather than late-stage changes.
