NetWatch: the Net Police Who Guard the Blackwall in Cyberpunk
NetWatch is the Cyberpunk world's Net police, a European outfit that hunts rogue netrunners and keeps killer AIs behind the Blackwall. Here is how it went from cyber cops in 2020 to the agency V can betray the Voodoo Boys to in 2077.
NetWatch is the international police force of the Net in the Cyberpunk setting. It started as a European computer security company and grew into an agency backed by governments and corporations. Its agents chase illegal netrunners, guard corporate data and, by 2077, keep watch over the Blackwall, the barrier that holds dangerous AIs out of the Net everyone else uses. (Cyberpunk 2077)
NetWatch in the tabletop game#
Cyberpunk 2020 presents NetWatch as the police of the Net. It operates under an international agreement and takes money, equipment and staff from governments and corporations. Its netrunners patrol set areas of cyberspace, a city or a whole region, looking for intruders. (Cyberpunk 2020)
Arrest is the official goal, but the rulebook makes clear that NetWatch agents carry black ICE, programs that can hurt or kill a netrunner through their own neural link. For a player netrunner, a NetWatch agent turning up on a run is very bad news. (Cyberpunk 2020)
The DataKrash and the Blackwall#
NetWatch's world ended in 2022. The legendary netrunner Rache Bartmoss released a set of viruses that tore the global Net apart, an event remembered as the DataKrash. Cyberpunk 2077's shards still pick over it: one reprints a letter Bartmoss supposedly wrote just before releasing his viruses, and notes that NetWatch branded him a criminal. (Cyberpunk 2077; Cyberpunk RED)
Cyberpunk RED, set in 2045, shows what came next. The old Net was left full of rogue AIs and wild programs, and NetWatch had to give up on it. Instead it helped cities build small local networks that were cut off from the dangerous old one, and it kept working, in secret, on ways to fence the old Net in. (Cyberpunk RED)
By 2077 that work has produced the Blackwall, a wall of ICE that NetWatch maintains between the usable Net and the AIs beyond it. The game's database says NetWatch looks after it alongside its usual work of hunting unlicensed AIs and removing software threats. (Cyberpunk 2077; The World of Cyberpunk 2077)
What NetWatch does in 2077#
The 2077 database entry calls NetWatch the "Net Police" and is blunt about how it works. Corporate publicity presents its agents as the only thing stopping the Net's collapse, but it does not take much to land on their list. (Cyberpunk 2077)
NetWatch's best-known enemies in Night City are the Voodoo Boys, the netrunner gang of Pacifica. The gang's whole faith rests on reaching the AIs beyond the Blackwall, the exact thing NetWatch exists to stop, and NetWatch has tried for years to bring them down. (Cyberpunk 2077; The World of Cyberpunk 2077)
NetWatch and the Voodoo Boys quest#
NetWatch enters the 2077 story in the quest I Walk the Line. The Voodoo Boys send V into the Grand Imperial Mall to find a netrunner who has been spying on them. He turns out to be Bryce Mosley, a NetWatch agent, and he offers V a deal. (Cyberpunk 2077)
What happens next is the player's choice:
- V takes Mosley's deal. He removes the Voodoo Boys' virus from V's head and plants a tracker instead. Later, when V helps the gang reach Alt Cunningham beyond the Blackwall, Alt spots the NetWatch trace and flatlines Brigitte and her netrunners, and V has to fight out past Placide. (Cyberpunk 2077)
- V knocks Mosley out. Placide's virus goes off against NetWatch's systems instead, the gang keeps its trust in V, and with Alt's help their netrunners cross the Blackwall. (Cyberpunk 2077)
The Voodoo Boys page covers the rest of that storyline. (Cyberpunk 2077)
NetWatch and Phantom Liberty#
Phantom Liberty shows why NetWatch's job matters. Its story turns on a Blackwall AI captured and kept outside the wall, and on Songbird, a netrunner who has been reaching through the Blackwall and is paying for it. NetWatch itself stays in the background, but the expansion makes its worst fear concrete: what crosses the wall does not want to stay put. The Phantom Liberty story page has the details. (Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty)
Frequently asked questions
- What is NetWatch in Cyberpunk 2077?
- NetWatch is the international Net police. It hunts illegal netrunners and rogue AIs, protects corporate data fortresses and maintains the Blackwall.
- Should you side with NetWatch in I Walk the Line?
- It is a choice in the quest. Helping NetWatch agent Bryce Mosley gets the Voodoo Boys netrunners killed later on, while refusing him keeps faith with the gang. The main story carries on either way.
- Who made the Blackwall?
- NetWatch. After the DataKrash wrecked the old Net, it walled off the rogue AIs left running there, and the Blackwall is the barrier that keeps them out of the Net people use.
- Is NetWatch a corporation?
- It began as a private European security company and became an international agency funded by governments and corporations. It acts like a police force but answers largely to its corporate backers.
Sources
- GameCyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red, 2020
- GameCyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, CD Projekt Red, 2023
- BookCyberpunk 2020, Mike Pondsmith, R. Talsorian Games, 1990
- BookCyberpunk RED, Mike Pondsmith and others, R. Talsorian Games, 2020
- BookThe World of Cyberpunk 2077, Marcin Batylda, Dark Horse Books, 2020
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
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