The Relic: the Arasaka Biochip Killing V in Cyberpunk 2077
The Relic is the Arasaka biochip that puts Johnny Silverhand in V's head. Here is what it was built for, why the 2.0 prototype is killing V, and what Phantom Liberty added to it.
The Relic is a line of Arasaka biochips that store engrams, digital copies of a person's mind, and play them back. The prototype V steals in Cyberpunk 2077 carries the engram of Johnny Silverhand, and it's slowly overwriting V's brain with his. (Cyberpunk 2077)
What the Relic was built for#
The Relic is part of Secure Your Soul, Arasaka's programme for digitising minds. Arasaka copies a client's mind with Soulkiller, stores the engram, and the Relic chip lets the people left behind talk to it. The game's database calls this the end of death as the final barrier, for anyone rich enough to pay. (Cyberpunk 2077)
Relic 1.0 is that commercial product. Its engrams can talk to loved ones, but they're limited by design and have no real self-awareness. Arasaka's own logs show a less sentimental aim as well: copying celebrities, artists and cultural figures so their engrams could be sold. (Cyberpunk 2077)
Relic 2.0 was something else. Saburo Arasaka commissioned it himself, for use inside the company and never for sale. Once a host's brain and heart had stopped, the chip was meant to spread through the brain with nanotech and install the stored engram there. A man who died could wake up in a new body. (Cyberpunk 2077)
It didn't work. Anders Hellman, who ran the project, reports that every trial failed and that the engrams kept turning emotionally unstable after implantation. The chip also wasn't meant to start in a living person. (Cyberpunk 2077)
How the Relic ended up in V's head#
The 2.0 prototype was in the hands of Yorinobu Arasaka at Konpeki Plaza when V and Jackie Welles stole it in 2077, packed in a case built to keep it cold. Hellman had loaded it with Johnny Silverhand's engram, taken from Arasaka's store of soulkilled minds, on the bet that the trial would fail and destroy an engram nobody at Arasaka would miss. (Cyberpunk 2077)
The heist goes wrong. The case is damaged, so Jackie slots the chip into his own head to keep it alive; dying, he passes it to V, who slots it in, and the fixer Dexter DeShawn later shoots V. V should be dead. The Relic does what it was designed to do, rebuilds V, and starts installing Johnny. The 2077 story guide follows it from there. (Cyberpunk 2077)
Why the Relic is killing V#
The Relic is killing V because V's mind is still there. The chip was meant for an empty body. In a living host it keeps spreading, taking over motor and mental functions and rewriting V's neurons to match Johnny's engram. Arasaka's notes say a live host was never part of the plan. (Cyberpunk 2077)
That's why the game gives V weeks to live. Viktor Vektor sees it on the scans and V spends the story trying to stop it, chasing Hellman, Alt and Arasaka for help. Johnny's personality bleeds into V's and the two slowly come to share a body. (Cyberpunk 2077)
At the end, Alt Cunningham tells V the hard truth in Mikoshi. The damage has gone too far, and V has about six months left in any outcome that keeps their mind in their body. The endings guide covers what each choice means. (Cyberpunk 2077)
Is the person on the Relic real?#
The game keeps asking whether an engram is a person. Hanako Arasaka treats her father's engram as Saburo himself. Hellman never believed the chip holds a consciousness. Alt tells V that an engram is data acting like a person, and that the real Alt died when Johnny pulled her body away from the machines in 2013. (Cyberpunk 2077)
Johnny comes to agree. In some endings his engram says he thinks Soulkiller really did kill him, and that what's left is an echo carrying on his fight. (Cyberpunk 2077)
The Relic in Phantom Liberty#
Phantom Liberty adds a sixth skill tree, Relic. Songbird sends V new Militech combat software during Dog Eat Dog, which lets V use the chip's hidden capabilities for cyberware. Relic points come from Songbird and from nine data terminals around Dogtown, 15 in all. (Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty)
Songbird also talks to V through the Relic, appearing as she looked before the Blackwall broke her body. The cure she dangles is the reason V helps her. It turns out it can be used once, and she wants it for herself. (Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty)
The expansion adds The Tower ending. It's only offered if V handed Songbird over to Solomon Reed and the NUSA, and V then chooses to take Reed's deal at the end of the main story. NUSA doctors remove the Relic and V survives, but wakes from a two-year coma with a brain that can no longer handle cyberware. (Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty)
Frequently asked questions
- What is the Relic in Cyberpunk 2077?
- An Arasaka biochip that stores an engram, a digital copy of a person's mind. The prototype V steals holds Johnny Silverhand's engram, and it is slowly overwriting V.
- Why is the Relic killing V?
- Relic 2.0 was built to load an engram into a body after the original mind was gone. Damaged and running in a living host, it keeps rewriting V's brain to fit Johnny's engram, and V's own mind loses.
- Can the Relic be removed?
- Not safely in the main endings. Arasaka removes it in The Devil but cannot undo the damage. Phantom Liberty adds The Tower ending, open only if V handed Songbird to the NUSA, where V survives the operation but can no longer use cyberware.
- What is Relic 1.0?
- The commercial version, sold through Arasaka's Secure Your Soul program so the rich could store a copy of their mind for their families to talk to after death.
- How do you get Relic points in Phantom Liberty?
- Songbird gives you the first three in Dog Eat Dog and three more later. The other nine come from data terminals around Dogtown, for 15 in total.
Sources
- GameCyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red, 2020
- GameCyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, CD Projekt Red, 2023
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
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