Cyberpsychos

Cyberpsychos are people driven mad by their cyberware: implants and software that slowly take over the mind until a person turns on everyone around them. When that happens, the NCPD sends MaxTac, who rarely bring anyone back alive. The fixer Regina Jones wants them brought in alive instead, and her cyberpsycho sightings send V after each one, from Lt. Mower in Kabuki to an Afterlife merc on the docks of Little China and others as far out as the Badlands. Every cyberpsycho was someone before: a merc, a soldier, a man who lost his home to the fine print of a Zetatech contract. Each one fights like a boss, and each one leaves behind a shard that tells how they went over the edge. The hunt starts with the side job Psycho Killer, offered by Regina after The Ride, and she pays once all of them are dealt with.

Cyberpsychos Map

The map shows where each cyberpsycho of the sightings can be found.

Cyberpsychos map location:

Map credit by Map Genie.

Enemy Categories

Cyberpsychosis

The in-game Database quotes the Trauma Team doctors. Cyberpsychosis is a collective term for every psychotic and anxiety disorder caused by hardware implanted in the body, and by behaviour mods and software. Everyone knows someone whose neighbour took the chrome a little too far, then walked out one day with a gun and opened fire on a crowd. Some call it a disease of social inequality. Others call it the price of an unhealthy love of technology. Still others think it is nonsense, until it is their own neighbour shooting up the block.

Not everyone copes with the first symptoms the same way. As one sighting's journal puts it, some jump off a bridge, others turn themselves in to the police, and most of the rest try to treat themselves with as many sedatives as they can get.

Regina's Way

Through Psycho Killer, Regina asks V to find every cyberpsycho before MaxTac does, and to take them down without killing them. Once all of them are dealt with, she explains why: she is getting them therapy, to understand their condition better. She pays even if some of them die, but she is much happier when they live.

How a Sighting Works

A sighting usually starts when V comes near the place and Regina calls with what she knows. On the way in, V finds signs of what happened: dead guards, wrecked rooms, or a warning that Militech has locked down the area. The cyberpsycho fights with heavy cyberware such as a Sandevistan or optical camo, and some fights hold traps of their own. Lt. Mower, for example, electrifies the water of her arena until the device is switched off. After the fight, V searches the area, reads the shard that tells the person's story, and sends what V found to Regina.

Where They Are

Most cyberpsychos are in Watson, from Lt. Mower and Demons of War in Kabuki to Bloody Ritual, Six Feet Under and Where the Bodies Hit the Floor in Northside, and Ticket to the Major Leagues on the docks of Little China. City Center has On Deaf Ears and Phantom of Night City. Heywood has Letter of the Law and Seaside Cafe, Santo Domingo has Discount Doc and Under the Bridge, and Pacifica has Lex Talionis and Smoke on the Water. Out in the Badlands wait House on a Hill, Second Chances and The Wasteland.

MaxTac

MaxTac is the elite division of the NCPD whose only aim is to stop cyberpsychos. Those it does not kill go to Los Padres, a prison built to hold them. Its officers get the best weapons, the best cyberware and a free hand, and when they arrive, there are always casualties. Rumour has it that the few cyberpsychos taken alive are quietly reprogrammed and taken into the division, and Melissa Rory, met in the side job Bullets, may be one of them.

Notes

Non lethal weapons and rounds, blunt melee weapons and knock out takedowns keep a cyberpsycho alive. Each fight is tough, so it pays to save before it. The Wasteland only appears after Life During Wartime.

All Cyberpsychos

Every cyberpsycho V can track down is listed below, with the job that leads to them.