Cyberpunk 2077 creator explains why male V suddenly disappeared from ads

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Looking at the marketing for Cyberpunk 2077, you’ll probably notice the female version of the main character, V, is featured much more often now, while the male version is rarely seen. This isn’t accidental; CD Projekt Red intentionally made this change.

One game for each V

It’s been super weird seeing how CD Projekt Red handled the main character before Cyberpunk 2077 came out. For a long time, they showed off a male V in all the trailers and marketing – he was even on the box art! But as we got closer to release, they started focusing almost entirely on the female version of V, and the guy just kind of disappeared. It’s always bugged me – what happened to him?

The news quickly caused an online stir, particularly among those interested in conspiracy theories. However, Igor Sarzynski, the creative director at the Polish studio behind the game, recently explained why they decided against expanding the first part of Cyberpunk 2077.

Someone at Bluesky directly asked Sarzynski why the male version of the main character, V, wasn’t featured as much in later advertising. The reason was straightforward: the male V was already prominently featured in marketing for the original game, and the female V was chosen to represent the expansion.

I always felt like Male V got all the attention in the original Cyberpunk 2077 marketing. But for Phantom Liberty, we wanted to do things differently. We decided to give both V’s – male and female – their own dedicated campaigns. It felt like the right way to go!

We don’t have exact numbers on which character players chose most often. However, CD Projekt Red shared in May 2021 that 67.53% of players romanced Panam, a character only available when playing as the male version of V. This suggests that most players chose to play as the male character, which is why people noticed when Panam wasn’t appearing as expected.

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2026-01-13 13:32