In addition to a traditional leveling system, Cyberpunk 2077 characters have another stat known as Street Cred.
Your base-level is self explanatory — you earn XP for doing certain actions like taking down enemies, completing quests, etc., allowing you to unlock new skills and abilities. On the other hand, Street Cred is all about how you are seen in the eyes of the citizens of Night City. There are some things that you just can’t do without a high enough Street Cred. If you focus only on raising your primary level with XP, you’ll end up running into some annoying barriers and obstacles you’d much rather avoid. Here’s everything you need to know about Street Cred and how to increase it in Cyberpunk 2077.
Further reading
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What is Street Cred, and why do you need it?
Street Cred primarily functions as your reputation level. Leveling it up will do nothing for you character’s actual base stats or abilities directly, but if it lags too far behind, you’ll start to suffer for it. Thankfully, it’s not hard to earn some Street Cred as you play naturally, but you will need to go out of your way if you want to boost it for a specific purpose.
There are several elements to the game that are unlocked as your Street Cred goes up. Some vendors won’t give you the time of day — or night — if your reputation isn’t high enough. Others will allow you to shop but hold certain items back until you get that cred up. The same can be said for side missions. The higher your Street Cred, the more side jobs like gigs you’ll get access to. These missions are generally higher-level, with better rewards to match. But the most important reason to make sure you’re known all across Night City is for gear requirements. Certain gear has a Street Cred minimum instead of a level restriction. No one wants to come across an awesome piece of loot only to be told they’re not cool enough to use it, so don’t slack on keeping your Street Cred up to par.
Ways to increase Street Cred
Street Cred, XP, and money all go hand in hand in Cyberpunk 2077. There’s hardly anything you can do in the game that doesn’t net you at least two, if not all three, of those at once. Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t certain tasks you should prioritize when trying to beef up your reputation.
Do your gigs and side missions
Main and side missions all give you Street Cred as you complete them. Just following the critical path will get you enough Street Cred to get by but not enough to access the best stuff in the game. Gigs are going to be your best and fastest source for Street Cred in Night City. Gigs are just what they sound like — a task given to you by a specific character known as a Fixer to do a job. You should start doing these gigs as early as you can, and do them often. They are mostly simple — taking out an NPC, placing a tracker, escort missions — but pay out in plenty of Street Cred for your time (plus some cash as well). The more you do and increase your Street Cred, the higher-level ones you can take on for even higher amounts of rewards.
Side missions are a bit more involved. They can be multi-part stories of their own that stack up to the quality of the main quest in terms of writing and overall quality. That alone should be incentive enough for you to take them on and get fully immersed in Night City, but the extra Street Cred you earn is a nice bonus as well. One thing to keep in mind for both gigs and traditional side quests is that you can fail them. If you aren’t able to do whatever task is presented to you — or, in some cases, even choose a wrong dialogue option — you can fail the gig or side quest and end up empty handed.
Join the NCPD
Less taxing than side missions or even gigs, there are the numerous NCPD tasks available for you to tackle all over the city. These are typically quick and simple objectives with no real story to them. Assault in Progress, for example, is a common one that just has you go to a location, take down a group of enemies, and maybe collect some evidence. A few have multiple parts, but even those only take an extra minute or two. Just make sure you fully complete the mission to get the rewards. No sense in doing all the dirty work only to not get paid for failing to grab the evidence once you’re done.
Dress for success
Let’s be honest, Street Cred is half about how you look as it is about how you act. While it doesn’t quite work out to be equal in Cyberpunk 2077, how you present yourself can give you a nice little bonus to your reputation. Most of the cosmetic clothing options you can find, buy, and loot in the game comes with some passive stats, including Street Cred. For example, you might get a bonus to how much Street Cred you earn for every kill if you’re wearing the right outfit. If you’re a more ruthless murdering-type player, this can add up to a ton of extra Street Cred real quick.
