Highlights
- Inventory management is crucial in Cyberpunk 2077, as players will constantly come across new weapons and must make choices about which ones to keep, sell, or break into parts.
- Upgrading iconic weapons can make them incredibly powerful and valuable in the game, while others may not live up to their legendary status and should be avoided.
- Some iconic weapons have unique features that can enhance gameplay, such as the Overwatch sniper rifle's built-in silencer and the Skippy smart weapon's setting that guarantees headshots. However, other weapons like Plan B and Laika may not be worth the investment.
It might not be registered as a looter-shooter but Cyberpunk 2077 will get to feeling like Borderlands quickly without the proper inventory management. Characters in the game will give V a weapon to help complete a mission, then V will do the mission and get a whole bunch more weapons off of the enemies, and then the reward for the mission will be another weapon. In Night City, a seemingly endless metropolis of weapons, players are going to have to make thousands of choices about which ones deserve a spot in their equipment slot and which ones to sell or break into parts.
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Iconic weapons can be upgraded to keep them relevant. Some will be found as a blue rare or even a green uncommon but they are worth every bit of effort to make them legendary guns that will never leave a player's holster again. Others might say "iconic" or "legendary" but they are complete trash — in fact, some are worse than the standard guns they are based on. By doing research and making wise choices in Cyberpunk 2077, V can save some eddies and have maximum firepower at all times.
Updated on September 27th, 2023 by Hodey Johns: After the Phantom Liberty expansion and the new 2.0 patch, it was time to review the complete list of iconic weapons and reassess. There are a ton of new melee and ranged weapons for players to get their hands on. Besides the new additions, there has also been an update to the existing iconic weapons, so some of the previous entries were brought down to earth. On the positive side, some of the more lacking iconic weapons got buffed and deserved special consideration. In the end, the entire list had to be revisited and brought up to date so now it should be current for the 2.0 patch.
Some of these guns are obtained as a result of major plot points; some big spoilers are in this article.
10 Upgrade: Overwatch
The Overwatch is the best sniper rifle in the game without debate. As a sniper rifle, reload speed is always useful when the window of opportunity for multiple targets is only so long. The built-in legendary silencer is incredible to help with those shots so enemies don't scatter. If V puts a silencer on a gun, the damage gets reduced, even when using a legendary silencer, but this built-in variety keeps the damage full.
What makes the Overwatch absurdly overpowered is the raw damage. V can go through the entire game without seeing a four-digit damage number. This gun regularly hits for five digits with headshots. Perhaps somebody misplaced a decimal because even 10% of the damage from this gun would have been more than enough to one-shot most enemies.
9 Skip: Plan B
Players who complete every single side quest, gig, quest chain, and NCPD mission in the game will be surprised to learn they still don't have enough money to buy a high-end car or another pricey piece of equipment. Even the most frugal of players will have to tighten their belts to stay afloat in Night City.
This means that a gun with average DPS that costs eddies every time it is fired must be ruled out. Under no circ*mstances should it be fired or placed on the upgrading table unless the goal is to play through the game without spending money.
8 Upgrade: Skippy
Skippy is often regarded as the best gun in the game and there are plenty of factors to back that up. As a smart weapon, bullets don't miss already, and Skippy has a setting that makes it so all shots hit in the head, effectively doubling or tripling the listed damage (which is already absurd). It automatically scales to player level, too, so it needs no effort to upgrade Skippy in Cyberpunk 2077.
There are two major amateur mistakes to make with Skippy. The first is to program it for headshots right away. For whatever reason, after fifty kills, it will automatically change back to the opposite. So start with non-lethal shots, then, when it switches back, have V respond with "I don't know," and this will enable permanent headshots. The next trap is that a quest exists to give Skippy back to its original owner. The eddies aren't even good and no amount of eddies would be enough to replace Skippy anyway.
7 Skip: Laika
The Laika is a gun that works against itself. On the surface, it's not too shabby as it's a pretty standard tech revolver that has a high chance of bursting enemies into flames. Like all tech revolvers, a fully charged shot is lethal against virtually all non-bosses.
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The downside is that the gun's iconic feature increases crit damage done while decreasing enemies depending on how many enemies the Laika has set ablaze. The issue with that is that charging up shots and releasing them, as should be done, won't keep enemies on fire. Either they outright die or stop burning by the time another enemy is fired upon. The Phantom Liberty expansion is long enough without the Laika taking up so much time.
6 Upgrade: Gwynbleidd
Fans of CD Projekt Red will find that it's no surprise to see Cyberpunk 2077 rocketing up the sales charts. Those who get this game in addition to Gwent and The Witcher 3 and connect them all to the same GOG account will get Geralt's legendary blade, the Gwynbleidd, in Cyberpunk 2077.
The cost of all three games is steep but the payoff is immense. The melee weapon deals additional damage against bosses. It also guarantees critical hits when on a killing spree or when low on health. Melee builds often struggle against bosses but the Gwynbleidd does just fine.
5 Skip: Chaos
The Chaos sounds like fun to use, and in many ways it is. After emptying a clip, when the player decides to reload, the gun will change crit chance, damage type, and effect chance. In one clip, bullets can be thermal and in the next, the bullets can be electrical. The name "Chaos" is very appropriate.
However, as a tech weapon, the way to maximize the damage is to charge up each shot and shoot slowly. This means clips are few and far between and it's easy to get stuck on an ineffective effect for the given enemy. The DPS is poor, even worse than other common pistols at the same level, making the gun nothing more than a burden to carry around. The complete mission list of the Phantom Liberty expansion is easier to knock out with a better pistol.
4 Upgrade: The Headsman
There are three penalties tied to this shotgun and it's fair to be completely turned away by those warnings before ever giving it a chance. Players who overcome their fears about it will find that the reason these penalties are applied is to try and balance The Headsman out, but it's still overpowered.
By doubling the number of pellets, the damage is doubled right away. Then factor in that this is a power weapon and any missed projectiles will ricochet back. Top this off with bleed and dismemberment effects. This all adds up to shredding anything within a few meters. In close-quarter rooms, there isn't a better choice in the game.
3 Skip: Carmen
The Carmen is a gun about contradictions. It gives a pretty standard extra 100% damage to headshots but also gives players an increase in critical strike chances on shots to the limbs. It encourages aiming anywhere except for the torso which is the one place assault rifles usually want to aim for.
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With a division in focus between the limbs and the head, this is also a power assault rifle that has increased weapon and bleed damage when fired while running, jumping, and sliding. That makes sense for an SMG or a smart weapon but even with the best perks for any build it's hard to hit anything with the Carmen while rapidly dashing around.
2 Upgrade: Rosco
Those who are already enjoying the best parts of the 2.0 patch have another reason to celebrate when they get the Rosco. This is a unique power revolver that guarantees critical damage when headshotting an opponent on the ground.
This is usually a rare instance but a shot to the leg and then a shot to the head will instantly incapacitate enemies. Against bosses or cyberpsychos, having a guaranteed disable and then a guaranteed way to finish them off is invaluable. Builds that specialize in gunslinging will love this gun but V can get use out of the knockdown with just about any build.
1 Skip: co*cktail Stick
The description states that the co*cktail Stick "looks like a toy, cuts like a laser," but if that's true, it's being compared to a very weak laser. There is a hidden modifier that increases this weapon's chance to dismember by 300%, which, while interesting, won't work against bosses, and most enemies get easily dismembered already. Bleeds last longer while using Optical Camo but, once again, once hits while invisible should be fatal bursts, negating the need for a longer bleed duration.
Iconic weapons are derived from base weapons and the stats are modified from there. The game does not explicitly say it, but there are two kinds of katanas. One has the second-highest melee DPS in the game. The other has the lowest. Sadly, this one is based on the lowest DPS model.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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