Cyberpunk 2077 PSA: you can't change appearance or hide helmet

There's a lot of things about Cyberpunk 2077 that are great, high-quality, and well thought out. Then there's a lot of things that seem a little lacking - perhaps betraying the fact that the game clearly spent its last year of development in a hurry. One of those weird details? Well, you can't change your character appearance once you settle on one in the opening.

We thought we'd put together this PSA as we've already heard a lot of people asking about this. Given that people are swapping out body parts at will in the world of Cyberpunk 2077, you'd think Night City would be full of cosmetic surgeons and the like who you can return to in order to edit your V's appearance any time you like. Not so, though.

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That's right: once you proceed out of character creation into Cyberpunk 2077 proper, it's impossible to change appearance.

There aren't even any hairdressers dotted around Night City, so make sure you pick a haircut you like. This seems like a particularly silly oversight, if we're being honest, and so we wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being added to the game at a later date.

But for now, you can't change your appearance once the game begins - so make sure you get your version of V just right before starting the game. Otherwise, the only way to change anything, even something as small as eye color or make-up, is to start over. Luckily for you, the game is first-person anyway - so if you do go a bit wrong, you won't see that much of your V anyway. 

Can you Hide Helmet in Cyberpunk 2077, and other cosmetic questions

You can, of course, change the appearance of your V a little. The Cyberware you install will change some of how they look - so install Gorilla Arms or Cyberware and your body will reflect that change. There's also clothes, which functions as V's armor. However, clothes raises an inevitable question that always comes up when you have cosmetic items that also have stats: can you hide them for a cosmetic look?

The answer: yes and no. So, there's a bunch of clothing slots, and whatever you equip there will impact V's appearance. However, you can also a equip an all-in-one outfit to the 'Special' slot, and this sits atop your regular clothes, covering them. That means you get the armor from your main clothes, but the look of your Special outfit. The special slot is mostly used for specific outfits you need to wear for story mission purposes. 

Beyond this, however, there's no way to hide an item you're wearing. This means that if there's a face mask, pair of glasses, hat or helmet that gives you really good armor, you're faced with a choice: wear it for the bonus, or skip it and lose that armor. There is no hide helmet option or similar. 

Our suggestion? Wear what makes you happy. While armor is important, there are plenty of great perks you can buy to increase your armor. You can also equip dumb-looking clothes that don't match for one hard mission, then switch back.